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Trump threatens to 'close' down social media platforms

(techcrunch.com)
707 points patd | 7 comments | 27 May 20 12:21 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source | bottom
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standardUser ◴[27 May 20 19:46 UTC] No.23328914[source]▶
There seem to be some upside down priorities here. Many folks seem to be arguing that its an unacceptable form of censorship for a private platform to annotate content it allows others to post. Meanwhile, I'm seeing barely a mention of the fact that the President of the United States has threatened to use government power to shut down an entire sector of the economy devoted to communication. The latter is almost certainly a violation of the Constitution. The former, almost certainly not.
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Thorentis ◴[28 May 20 03:00 UTC] No.23332920[source]▶
> its an unacceptable form of censorship for a private platform to annotate content it allows others to post

It is an unacceptable form of censorship to hand over our modern day equivalent of the public square to private companies, and then allow them to police what people say in it.

Freedom of speech was always intended to be protected in public. The Internet is now our equivalent of the public space. It is time this problem is solved once and for all, and the Internet is now reclassified as both a public utility and a public space.

Yes, those of us with technical know-how can argue that personal websites are that equivalent. But this is depriving those that see Twitter, Facebook, et. al. as a public platform, of the right to have their voice heard. A tweet is now the equivalent of a placard on the street. Do we really want to censor that because we messed up in how we allowed the Internet to be run?

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javagram ◴[28 May 20 03:03 UTC] No.23332933[source]▶
> Yes, those of us with technical know-how can argue that personal websites are that equivalent. But this is depriving those that see Twitter, Facebook, et. al. as a public platform, of the right to have their voice heard. A tweet is now the equivalent of a placard on the street. Do we really want to censor that because we messed up in how we allowed the Internet to be run?

Disagree, because street space is limited, whereas there are a multiplicity of websites you can go to. It isn’t just a matter of personal websites. There’s a Twitter-like, Gab, which can be used. The president and his multi-million dollar campaign apparatus could easily strike a deal with Gab to host some more Gab servers and get their message out via Gab to anyone of their twitter followers who wants to sign up.

Never mind that Trump is not actually being censored on twitter in any way - his message still went out to all his followers, simply with an appended notice that Twitter itself considers the message to be factually wrong.

EDIT: this is like saying that the President has the right to publish whatever content he wants in a specific newspaper. Back in the day, a city might have a dozen newspapers - they could each print what they liked and if they decided not to print a person’s letter to the editor, that was no violation of free speech. Or if they print the letter to the editor with a note explaining they disagree with it, that certainly doesn’t violate free speech either.

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1. Thorentis ◴[28 May 20 03:07 UTC] No.23332956{3}[source]▶
This issue goes beyond Trump. People have been de-platformed on various social media sites. Twitter has taken on the role of the virtual public space. Twitter is performing a public service in their publishing of tweets. People that don't see it that way are still living in the dot-com bubble. The Internet has grown beyond what anybody had imagined. People don't go out and protest anymore because they do it online.

We will never see protests of the 60s and 70s scale today in person. People do what they did back then online. And they don't go out and protest because they feel like their voice is being broadcast enough through social media. And yet to have that censored by private companies is unacceptable when that in the modern day use case.

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2. javagram ◴[28 May 20 03:18 UTC] No.23333026[source]▶
> This issue goes beyond Trump. People have been de-platformed on various social media sites. Twitter has taken on the role of the virtual public space. Twitter is performing a public service in their publishing of tweets

People who have been de-platformed can always go to Gab (I know they had issues being dropped a few times but my understanding is they have adopted a decentralized approach and resolved it). It is freely available on the internet. The only reason people are using Twitter instead of Gab is that the marketplace prefers the lightly-moderated Twitter to the complete free-for-all of Gab. Edit: again, Trump is a billionaire, he could easily fund more Gab servers and blast it out to his followers and get his message out.

> People don't go out and protest anymore because they do it online.

I invite you to visit Washington DC whenever the virus is over and see the large in-person protests that regularly happen in the nation’s capital.

Never mind that there’s a physical riot / protest going on yesterday and today over police brutality, today, in Minneapolis.

> And they don't go out and protest because they feel like their voice is being broadcast enough through social media. And yet to have that censored by private companies is unacceptable when that in the modern day use case.

So the reason they aren’t going out in person is because they aren’t being censored. Look at what is going on in Hong Kong over the past year if you want to see what happens when people in the modern internet-connected world are actually angry. You get millions on the street, not just posting online.

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3. Thorentis ◴[28 May 20 03:21 UTC] No.23333041[source]▶
> The only reason people are using Twitter instead of Gab is that the marketplace prefers the lightly-moderated Twitter to the complete free-for-all of Gab.

No. The reason people are using Twitter is because most other people are using Twitter. The network effect is very real and very strong on social media.

If you wanted to protest something, would you go to the least populated public space that people are gathering, or the most populated?

We have allowed the most highly populated places where people share ideas, to be controlled by a private company. That is not in the spirit of freedom of speech in the slightest.

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4. javagram ◴[28 May 20 03:24 UTC] No.23333060{3}[source]▶
> No. The reason people are using Twitter is because most other people are using Twitter. The network effect is very real and very strong on social media.

Trump has millions of followers on his email lists. He could send out an email or SMS tomorrow inviting his followers to begin posting on a new Donald Trump Gab or Mastodon server. Edit: heck, he could even post it on his twitter!

He chooses to post on twitter instead. He doesn’t even try to use an alternative website.

This is not about restricting his free speech, this is about him trying to drum up controversy.

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5. Thorentis ◴[28 May 20 04:04 UTC] No.23333273{4}[source]▶
I already said this goes beyond Trump. Others have been censored before, and they won't be the last. Trump is the only person in a position to actually do something about it.
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6. javagram ◴[28 May 20 04:14 UTC] No.23333325{5}[source]▶
Trump could set up an alternative to twitter tomorrow using his billion dollar fortune as seed capital. The technology is already out there - GNUSocial, Gab, and Mastodon.

Look at theDonald.win as an example. Reddit banned their forum, so they created a new website where they can post.

Trump has the audience of millions to create a right-wing only website where his followers can chat together if they wish, or he could encourage his followers to join Gab.

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7. Thorentis ◴[28 May 20 05:08 UTC] No.23333582{6}[source]▶
Obviously you can't see beyond Trump. I'm trying to make a point about freedom of speech on the Internet, and you can't see beyond "orange man has money". There are broader issues at stake here than partisan politics. The next decade could shape the rest of the century. I certainly don't want that century to be dictated to by private companies whose only guiding principle is profit.