Social media posts inciting hate and division have “real world consequences” and there is a responsibility to regulate content, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, insisted on Friday, following Meta’s decision to end its fact-checking programme in the United States.
That doesn’t make them Nazis. It makes them defenders of free speech.
Free speech protects unpopular speech. Popular speech doesn’t need to be protected.
This isn’t about free speech. This is about amplification and publication of speech.
You can say whatever you want, but we shouldn’t guarantee you a megaphone to say it.
A social media site is not a publisher.
Why not?
They do not curate the content that’s posted there. Just because someone wrote something on Facebook does not mean Facebook endorses their opinion, just like sending someone an e-mail does not mean that your e-mail host endorses whatever you sent.
So they’re an Amazon level publisher. No curation. Just publish.
The platform isn’t the megaphone. That’s the algorithm.
If you’re wanting their access to platforms limited, I’d like the know where you draw the line. Are they allowed to text hate speech to each other? Publish their own email or print newsletters? Should we ban them from access to printers (or printing press while we’re at it)? Should they be allowed to have hateful conversations with large groups of each other?
That’s up to the owner of the megaphone.
If the megaphone owner doesn’t want you to use it, create your own.
Barriers to entry and the first-mover advantage make that impossible.
no it makes them defenders of nazis. if youre at a table with ten nazis, youre at a table of eleven nazis
So you’re an authoritarian bootlicker who can’t tell the difference between defending free speech vs spouting hateful speech.
I’ll defend a Nazi’s right to say their hateful shit. I’ll also gladly plead guilty to an assault charge over beating their ass for it.
They shouldn’t fear the government for their speech. They should fear physical retaliation from their community.
That’s the problem with the internet, really. You can’t punch these a-holes through your monitor or keyboard. The consequence here is moderation instead of physical violence. Removing these people from their platform is the punch in the nuts that they deserve. It’s still free speech because these are non-government websites.
Edit to make it less mean sounding.
Exactly, which is why this should be handled by the platforms as they choose instead of by government requirement. If you don’t like how a platform moderates content, don’t use that platform.
Considering this moderation is often done in cooperation with government censors, and the executives working at these platforms are often former government, the lines are blurred enough that I don’t support it.
We need more legal blocks to prevent the government from getting around the constitutional protections by coordinating with corporate third parties.
Like so many others, you’ve mixed up general society with law enforcement. We defend the right for the Nazis to say their piece without being imprisoned. Running a business profiting from letting Nazis publish their speech is a choice, and not a necessary one. Using and supporting the social relevance of a social network that voluntarily publishes hate speech for profit is a choice, and not a necessary one.
Sounds like you’re the one mixing it up.
And that’s exactly what the user you’re replying to has been saying all along.
This post is about the UN, as in, a governmental authority. The whole discussion here is that moderation isn’t something for the government to do (outside of prosecutable crimes), it’s for private entities to do. Meta can moderate its platforms however it chooses, and users can similarly choose to stop using the platform. Governments shouldn’t force Meta to moderate or not moderate, that’s completely outside its bailiwick.
Meta pushes opinions, advertisements, and engagement. The government can and should regulate their bullshittery. Our privacy has been violated along with our rights.
Your view of these platforms and what they do is completely disconnected from reality. They are advertising platforms that are used to influence elections not a “platform for speech”.
You can’t ignore the reality of what they have already done and we are past pretending it is in any way altruistic.
There is no moving onto other platforms when they they use their profits to buy up all their competitors. You can look at the current dating site situation to see how without government regulations monopolies have formed.
Your hands off approach is unetainable and also ignores that other free countries have things like anti-hate laws and they are doing way better than we are.
The solution is to fix the government and then regulate the hell out of these fuckers. This is the way.
And we should have laws protecting that. Ideas:
Why would we pretend that? They’re a business and they exist to make money, and it turns out it’s profitable to impact elections.
I think this is a symptom rather than the problem. The root is that elections are largely determined by the candidate with the most funding and media exposure, not the candidate with the most attractive ideas. There are a lot of ways to address that, and giving government power (and platforms justification) to silence critics ain’t it.
To solve the problem of election interference, we need to get money out of politics. That’s hard, but it’ll be a lot more effective than regulating something as nebulous and abusable as “hate speech.” I say we ban all advertising for candidates and issues within 6 months of an election and force candidates to rely on debates (which would be fact checked; each candidate would select a group). We should also have public funding for debates, where the top 5 candidates who are registered in enough states to win are allowed to debate.
Depending on your definition of “fix,” you’ll probably just give ammunition to the next opposition administration. Be very careful about this.
A social site doesn’t publish anything, it’s just a medium for users to communicate.