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Trump threatens to 'close' down social media platforms

(techcrunch.com)
707 points patd | 3 comments | 27 May 20 12:21 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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Traster ◴[27 May 20 13:09 UTC] No.23322571[source]▶
I think this is going to be a discussion thread that is almost inevitably going to be a shitshow, but anyway:

There are people who advocate the idea that private companies should be compelled to distribute hate speech, dangerously factually incorrect information and harassment under the concept that free speech is should be applied universally rather than just to government. I don't agree, I think it's a vast over-reach and almost unachievable to have both perfect free speech on these platforms and actually run them as a viable business.

But let's lay that aside, those people who make the argument claim to be adhering to an even stronger dedication to free speech. Surely, it's clear here that having the actual head of the US government threatening to shut down private companies for how they choose to manage their platforms is a far more disturbing and direct threat against free speech even in the narrowest sense.

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Mikeb85 ◴[27 May 20 20:07 UTC] No.23329237[source]▶
And on the flipside, these companies have grown to the point they could be considered a public utility or even monopoly. There certainly is precedent for governments compelling utility providers to not restrict their services arbitrarily.
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1. thephyber ◴[27 May 20 20:55 UTC] No.23329857[source]▶
You are playing word salad with lots of different concepts and it looks like you are making hypotheticals with what we could make companies do.

Companies growing does not make them into utilities. Utilities are providers of very specific commodity services which are specifically defined by statutory law.

Monopolies (as in anti-trust law) are companies which abuse their power to hurt the consumer. Traditional anti-trust law doesn't work against social media companies because consumers pay no cash for the transactions. We could change anti-trust law, but since there is no analog, it's not clear what we would change it to.

> There certainly is precedent for governments compelling utility providers to not restrict their services arbitrarily.

There is also precedent for governments to uphold a concept of "decency" (the same government that defines it as "I know it when I see it") which communities can judge for themselves, without a written definition. I, personally, don't see the judgements that social media companies make as "arbitrary" (they do have written ToS and they attempt to give their content moderators guidelines/baselines for judging decisions).

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2. Mikeb85 ◴[27 May 20 23:26 UTC] No.23331434[source]▶
The law is basically word salad. And the idea of Twitter and other social networks being utilities isn't something I invented.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media_as_a_public_uti...

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3. thephyber ◴[28 May 20 01:55 UTC] No.23332572[source]▶
> The law is basically word salad.

I don't disagree.

> the idea of Twitter and other social networks being utilities isn't something I invented

Fair enough. I don't blame you. I just don't think it's easy or reasonable to overload the word "utility" as applied to content, which is exactly why it's currently governed by Section 230 and not Common Carrier.