Comment by tracer4201 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by tracer4201 | Hacker News Reader

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The liberal wing was upset that state and non state actors influenced the 2016 election by manipulating social media.

Now, Twitter is working to suppress some content that they believe is a repeat attempt — the October surprise if you will.

I don’t have strong opinions on whether it’s right or wrong, but I don’t think this is a scandal.

Twitter is a private company. You don’t have a constitutional right to write whatever you want on Twitter. If Americans believe otherwise, then they’d have to nationalize Twitter or at least pass legislation that mandates what content Twitter can or cannot moderate.

I do find it surprising that social media companies are being held to a very different standard than “news”. In the US, we have specific news organizations that are unashamedly biased and blasting the airwaves with dangerous propaganda.

I’m not trying to make a case of whataboutism, but it’s mind boggling that social media receives so much scrutiny when this other group of fairly openly nefarious actors get a free pass. As far as I can tell, this is because the media organizations have fairly established relationships with politicians from one party or the other, with political parties using them as propaganda loud speakers.

Should T Mobile or Verizon be able to censor your phone calls and text messages if they don't like the content? After all, they're private companies as well.

I would say yes. If they censor my calls, I would switch providers. But more importantly, if we as a country believe that’s wrong, we should pass legislation

There is legislation. It’s called common carrier. The argument is this existing legislation should be extended to social media as well.

We can’t even get it applied to ISP’s, I don’t know how we could stretch it to social media.

My guess is that any legislation attempting to make social media common carriers would eventually be found to unconstitutionally abridge the first amendment.

The difference is that social media aren't neutral communication channels when the visibility of a communication is altered by likes and algorithms.

DMs don't have their visibility modulated in the same way as the main feed.

They're common carriers, a different set of rules apply.

ISPs are private companies, too. Should they be suppressing political information as well?

For one, ISPs aren’t social media companies. If my ISP censors information, then effectively I have no way to access that information, particularly in cases when there’s no other ISP in my area.

A social media platform banning certain content is different. Just as we have alt right media sources such as Breitbart, nothing is preventing you from starting your own social media platform, with whatever content you want or don’t want.

At the end of the day, you still have a variety of content sources on the internet to consume that same content. Twitter is not the only source of information, and if you believe it is, then we have more serious problems.

I was literally banned from r/conservative for posting a question that folks found very inconvenient. Should they be forced to reverse the ban? How far do you believe is too far?

In my opinion, this is pretty clear cut. If you don’t like Twitter’s policies, don’t use their website.

I’m surprised the free enterprise conservatives are actually the ones so against this. “We want government to get out of the way... unless it furthers our agenda and helps us stay in power, in which case, let’s threaten to regulate or break up private companies.”

> In my opinion, this is pretty clear cut. If you don’t like Twitter’s policies, don’t use their website.

On one hand yes, but on the other, does that also apply to other services? Can I open a shop only for <insert skin color> people only and claim that if you don't like it, go somewhere else? How about other categories, protected or otherwise? As a society, we already agree that there are some freedoms that private businesses are denied, and for good reasons, because when taken to the extremes, you end up with this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nur_f%C3%BCr_Deutsche.

> A social media platform banning certain content is different. Just as we have alt right media sources such as Breitbart, nothing is preventing you from starting your own social media platform, with whatever content you want or don’t want.

Not really - you can start your own media outlet and selectively run the stories you want, that's fine. But if you just regurgitate user-generated content, IMO you better be really careful about applying your own rules consistently and in a transparent manner.

> Can I open a shop only for <insert skin color> people only and claim that if you don't like it, go somewhere else? How about other categories, protected or otherwise?

You're missing the fine distinction between protected and non-protected categories. Discrimination based on what you are is banned - those constitute the protected categories. Sex, gender, national origin, race, family status, veteran status, religion, and sexual orientation all fall under things you are.

Business and private organizations however, are allowed to discriminate against their customers based on their actions. It gets fuzzier if those actions intersect with a protected category (e.g. a supermarket probably (IANAL) can't throw out a gay couple for family-friendly PDA if a hetero couple would be allowed to stay). But by and large, if you do or say something on my premises that I dislike, I can kick you out.

Imagine if weren't so. Anyone could disrupt religious services by shouting obscenities. You couldn't have a peaceful shopping trip or grocery run. It would be total chaos.

So can I be banned from a social media platform if it so happens that I am a member of a church that forbids something and it so happens that I am vocal about it?

> But by and large, if you do or say something on my premises that I dislike, I can kick you out.

It cannot be a fuzzy "I dislike what you do", as it is prone to selective enforcement (and I can still discriminate based on what you are, but maintaining plausible deniability).

I have no idea, legally speaking, what they would be permitted to do.

In reality what they would actually do would depend on what that "something" is. If it's something like "don't eat meat on odd-numbered dates", you're probably fine. On the other hand, you say something harmful or distasteful to other protected categories, you'd be lucky to keep your account. They'd weigh the harm to you of kicking you off versus the harm to others by letting you stay and (of course) the PR liability incurred by doing either.

If the discrimination criteria are broadly found to match up with a protected class you're in legal hot water. IOW using proxies for "plausible deniability" is a risky strategy and businesses have been punished in the past for doing it.

> It cannot be a fuzzy "I dislike what you do", as it is prone to selective enforcement

You're right it can be. But again, consider the alternative on online forums. Anyone could post porn or vulgarity on religious forums, or socialist propaganda on business forums. It would be very disruptive if selective enforcement weren't allowed.

ISPs are not common carriers and legally they can suppress political information. Guess under whose administration they stopped being common carriers?

You make valid points and I don't know why are you downvoted. But Twitter is not a journalism play, it is a platform play and purported to be neutral. If there is blatant supression then they will antagonize atleast 50% of Americans which would be terrible for their bottom line.

"Platforms" and "publishers" are not actually legal categories, not mutually exclusive, and any sorting of Twitter into one of those categories happened entirely in your head. Twitter also doesn't specifically call itself "neutral" (some "publisher" comes to mind doing that far more).

1. Twitter is absolutely a journalism play. Look at the front page.

2. Neutral doesn't mean "whoever can game the algorithm wins"

3. Less than 50% of Americans are opposed to suppressing sharing of articles like the one suppressed.

YSK there's no requirement for a "platform" to be "neutral". By law platforms can do whatever the heck they like with regards to content moderation. Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying or misinformed.

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