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I've posted before about concerns about the social media issue. That we have not really figured out what to do.
On the one hand, we think we support 'free speech' outside of extreme cases, like calling for a march on the capitol to violently halt the peaceful transfer of power in an election. If someone wants to say 'the moon landing was faked' or 'the election was stolen', so be it, the response is for others to say that's wrong.
But as the lies have fooled tens of millions, as they have been deadly, creating a hostility to masks, a refusal to get vaccinated, the public has looked to social media companies to go from being 'just a platform' that isn't in the role of policing content, like a telephone company doesn't police what people say in phone calls, to not allowing especially bad lies.
But it's not clear where that line is drawn or why. In theory, if you post an incorrect capitol for California or a wrong year it became a state, that's false information or a 'lie'; should the company be responsible for determining it's false and taking corrective action?
They write policies about where they draw the line, but they're going to be inherently somewhat arbitrary and subjective, trying to have it both ways between being 'just a platform' except when they aren't and acting as censor at other times; and the risk exists of their censoring simply speech they want to for some reason.
trump is pretty unpopular outside the Republican Party, making his ban go down easier, but is that how it should work, that the popularity of a poster or viewpoint has a role in whether it's banned?
These are hard questions, and this sort of reactive taking action when there's a public outcry doesn't answer them.
Bad policies tend to happen when made in reaction to exceptional events. They're often designed that way - use public outrage over an outlier to get a broad policy passed that overreaches. So if general social media policies are set from the worst item they can find, that isn't likely to be a good overall policy.
These precedents of censoring and banning are onerous as they are more broadly applies. What happens when the social media companies want to silence talk of regulating them? When they want to ban politicians who support policies they don't like?
Interestingly, just today I saw that Bernie has spoken out on this, and seems to have a similar opinion, saying that trump is horrible but he's not really comfortable with the ban.
This is becoming clearer as trump's ban led first to the explosion of Parler, and now it's reported there is a new pro-trump platform coming, which of course will have none of the policing of right-wing lies, showing further how we have not figured these issues out.
Do 'normal' social media sites become sites for non-Republicans, as Republicans flock to alternative platforms? What do we do about harmful lies on alternative platforms? Does profit incentive push mainstream companies to try to keep the Republican posters? It's a mess.
A basic idea on all this is the idea that the idea of 'free, rational discussion by informed citizens' is greatly corrupted by 'big money interests' and other interests (like Russia) who spend large sums to lie to the public on these systems - see Cambridge Analytica and their '5000 data points on every voter'.
Anyway, here's Bernie's interview.
Sanders: 'I don't feel comfortable' about Trump's Twitter ban (cnn.com)
On the one hand, we think we support 'free speech' outside of extreme cases, like calling for a march on the capitol to violently halt the peaceful transfer of power in an election. If someone wants to say 'the moon landing was faked' or 'the election was stolen', so be it, the response is for others to say that's wrong.
But as the lies have fooled tens of millions, as they have been deadly, creating a hostility to masks, a refusal to get vaccinated, the public has looked to social media companies to go from being 'just a platform' that isn't in the role of policing content, like a telephone company doesn't police what people say in phone calls, to not allowing especially bad lies.
But it's not clear where that line is drawn or why. In theory, if you post an incorrect capitol for California or a wrong year it became a state, that's false information or a 'lie'; should the company be responsible for determining it's false and taking corrective action?
They write policies about where they draw the line, but they're going to be inherently somewhat arbitrary and subjective, trying to have it both ways between being 'just a platform' except when they aren't and acting as censor at other times; and the risk exists of their censoring simply speech they want to for some reason.
trump is pretty unpopular outside the Republican Party, making his ban go down easier, but is that how it should work, that the popularity of a poster or viewpoint has a role in whether it's banned?
These are hard questions, and this sort of reactive taking action when there's a public outcry doesn't answer them.
Bad policies tend to happen when made in reaction to exceptional events. They're often designed that way - use public outrage over an outlier to get a broad policy passed that overreaches. So if general social media policies are set from the worst item they can find, that isn't likely to be a good overall policy.
These precedents of censoring and banning are onerous as they are more broadly applies. What happens when the social media companies want to silence talk of regulating them? When they want to ban politicians who support policies they don't like?
Interestingly, just today I saw that Bernie has spoken out on this, and seems to have a similar opinion, saying that trump is horrible but he's not really comfortable with the ban.
This is becoming clearer as trump's ban led first to the explosion of Parler, and now it's reported there is a new pro-trump platform coming, which of course will have none of the policing of right-wing lies, showing further how we have not figured these issues out.
Do 'normal' social media sites become sites for non-Republicans, as Republicans flock to alternative platforms? What do we do about harmful lies on alternative platforms? Does profit incentive push mainstream companies to try to keep the Republican posters? It's a mess.
A basic idea on all this is the idea that the idea of 'free, rational discussion by informed citizens' is greatly corrupted by 'big money interests' and other interests (like Russia) who spend large sums to lie to the public on these systems - see Cambridge Analytica and their '5000 data points on every voter'.
Anyway, here's Bernie's interview.
Sanders: 'I don't feel comfortable' about Trump's Twitter ban (cnn.com)