Is online Free Speech real?

[fluffy]

With all the emphasis on big corporations being partisan and the fact they can stop you saying anything they disagree with on their platform.

What does Free Speech mean if you can get cancelled at any time by big companies?

This is in the philosophy section of the forum.

What do you think @Puffy

 

[Puffy]

With all the emphasis on big corporations being partisan and the fact they can stop you saying anything they disagree with on their platform.

What does Free Speech mean if you can get cancelled at any time by big companies?

This is in the philosophy section of the forum.

What do you think @Puffy

You’re only as free as Ragnar allows you to be.

Spoiler

p.s. the cake is a lie

 

[LOGICZOMBIE]

With all the emphasis on big corporations being partisan and the fact they can stop you saying anything they disagree with on their platform.

What does Free Speech mean if you can get cancelled at any time by big companies?

This is in the philosophy section of the forum.

What do you think @Puffy

freespeech means you are free to create your own website and make up your own rules

otherwise owner rules

you can put up a sign in your own yard

but you can't put up a sign in my yard

and if you rent

the owner gets to tell you what you're allowed to do to the yard

 

[dr froyd]

is it better to have online forums (like twitter) with partisan owners than all discourse being a one-way channel from a handful of partisan newschannels? Yes

is it better than these forums have partisan private interests than having government dictate what they are allowed to publish? Yes (by a mile)

because at the end of the day, private interests are just aimed at making money. They are usually not interested in political machinations just for the sake of influencing politics. In the social-media sphere making money means having as many users as possible, so in principle they don't actually have any incentive to censor people. That was even the case when twitter and facebook engaged in censorship on behalf of the government; they did so out of business interests, e.g. maintaining support of the US state department in their regulatory battles abroad (especially EU), maintaining advertiser revenue etc

so.. is it ideal that online discourse is concentrated on platforms owned of a small group of private actors? No, it's not ideal, but it sure as hell is better than all the alternatives we have been dealing with until now. And as long as you keep those more serious problems (like government control) at bay, there will always be a solution; just jump to a different website if you don't like your current one

 

[fluffy]

You’re only as free as Ragnar allows you to be.

Spoiler

p.s. the cake is a lie

Just now I went to the store and got a yogurt.

I was eating it in the back lot of the restaurant near the store complex.

Someone told me to leave.

This has not happened in a long time and never in that area. Made me very irritated but I understand why it happened. The city is getting bigger and that makes people less friendly. There is a new ordinance that makes homelessness illegal and they left tent City and they hang out all over the place in town.

I get that we are restricted by where we can go and do. In real life and online. There is no place to go outside a controlled area. Even in space aliens might not want us there.

So it depends on the density.

And what authority is in place.

There are large areas in the Western USA open and in the wild but they have rules just the same. If people there don't like you they can get the sheriff to deal with you. All places in the country have sheriff's. Which you cannot appeal to higher authority in the Open spaces. You do what they say or else.

Online is higher density so the robots can scan anything you do. And then that is more about what people like or dislike about you whether you can be accepted or not.

 

[scorpiomover]

With all the emphasis on big corporations being partisan and the fact they can stop you saying anything they disagree with on their platform.

What does Free Speech mean if you can get cancelled at any time by big companies?

It means that Free Speech is in name only. It's not enforced, except to protect corporate interests.

 

[scorpiomover]

is it better to have online forums (like twitter) with partisan owners than all discourse being a one-way channel from a handful of partisan newschannels? Yes

Both are owned and controlled by partisan owners. So there's no difference in the partisanship.

However, according to the Law of Large Numbers, when you have a lot of news channels, randomly, for every moderate right-wing channel, there will be a moderate left-wing channel, and for every extreme right-wing channel, there will be an extreme left-wing channel. So the total effect of all that partisanship cancels each other out.

When you only have a few channels, then the effect of that partisanship is dependent on the few owners' partisanship, and then you have a BIG shift due to the partisanship. So those who are on the side of the partisan owners, get a lot more than they are entitled to, and the rest get a lot less than they should.

is it better than these forums have partisan private interests than having government dictate what they are allowed to publish? Yes (by a mile)

That depends on if you think if having things run by big business is better than having things run by government. Lots of people complain about corruption and incompetency in the private sector. Lots of people complain about corruption and incompetency in the public sector. So doesn't seem like either is that much better or worse at this point.

because at the end of the day, private interests are just aimed at making money.

Guys who sell crack to 9-year-olds and turn them into crack whores, are also just aimed at making money.

They could open a sweet shop and sell sweets to 9-year-olds instead. But they'd make a lot less money.

The purpose of business, is to make money while NOT doing that sort of thing, i.e. choosing ethical ways of making money, even though that's bound to lower your yearly projections and yearly profits.

So you can't have ethical business, until businesses acknowledge that the goal of businesses is NOT to "just aim at making money".

In the social-media sphere making money means having as many users as possible, so in principle they don't actually have any incentive to censor people.

The social media companies know that the current way they run their platforms, a lot of online bullying goes on, and that it causes some teens to kill themselves.

They could run their platforms differently. But then they would be more peaceful, and so people would not notice them as much. They would expect to get less traffic and less sales. So they have no choice, but to choose between less profits and less human suffering, or more profits and more human suffering.

Same as choosing to sell crack to 9-year-olds, instead of selling them sweets. Make a lot less money selling sweets, even though it's not nearly as harmful as selling crack.

 

[Old Things]

is it better to have online forums (like twitter) with partisan owners than all discourse being a one-way channel from a handful of partisan newschannels? Yes

Both are owned and controlled by partisan owners. So there's no difference in the partisanship.

However, according to the Law of Large Numbers, when you have a lot of news channels, randomly, for every moderate right-wing channel, there will be a moderate left-wing channel, and for every extreme right-wing channel, there will be an extreme left-wing channel. So the total effect of all that partisanship cancels each other out.

When you only have a few channels, then the effect of that partisanship is dependent on the few owners' partisanship, and then you have a BIG shift due to the partisanship. So those who are on the side of the partisan owners, get a lot more than they are entitled to, and the rest get a lot less than they should.

is it better than these forums have partisan private interests than having government dictate what they are allowed to publish? Yes (by a mile)

That depends on if you think if having things run by big business is better than having things run by government. Lots of people complain about corruption and incompetency in the private sector. Lots of people complain about corruption and incompetency in the public sector. So doesn't seem like either is that much better or worse at this point.

because at the end of the day, private interests are just aimed at making money.

Guys who sell crack to 9-year-olds and turn them into crack whores, are also just aimed at making money.

They could open a sweet shop and sell sweets to 9-year-olds instead. But they'd make a lot less money.

The purpose of business, is to make money while NOT doing that sort of thing, i.e. choosing ethical ways of making money, even though that's bound to lower your yearly projections and yearly profits.

So you can't have ethical business, until businesses acknowledge that the goal of businesses is NOT to "just aim at making money".

In the social-media sphere making money means having as many users as possible, so in principle they don't actually have any incentive to censor people.

The social media companies know that the current way they run their platforms, a lot of online bullying goes on, and that it causes some teens to kill themselves.

They could run their platforms differently. But then they would be more peaceful, and so people would not notice them as much. They would expect to get less traffic and less sales. So they have no choice, but to choose between less profits and less human suffering, or more profits and more human suffering.

Same as choosing to sell crack to 9-year-olds, instead of selling them sweets. Make a lot less money selling sweets, even though it's not nearly as harmful as selling crack.

Make of this what you will...

2. How X users view, experience the platform

Politics is part of life on X: Majorities see political content on X and say people feel free to share their political views there.

www.pewresearch.org

 

[dr froyd]

That depends on if you think if having things run by big business is better than having things run by government.

to me that's a question that fails to see some important distinctions

e.g. in EU you have the "digital services act" that has stipulations aimed holding social-media sites liable for "disinformation" posted by their users. Meaning, you have some nameless, faceless groups deep inside the EU bureaucracy deciding what should be censored. Not just on twitter, but anywhere.

business cannot have such sweeping control over all information. Look at the current situation, for example; yes, twitter is big but there's thousands other sites you can go if musk decides to ban you. And if he bans enough people there's gonna pop up a competitor that will gladly accommodate them. That is not a luxury you will have if government - especially a transnational one like EU - decides they don't like your opinions.

 

[fluffy]

The Overton window is effected by the culture you are in. So like Google was banned in China because of free speech information they allowed in the search terms. Yet Google also manipulated the elections of the USA to favor certain groups.

This is why I don't think you can have any corporation free of bias. They can only allow a culture to develop with a bias. Or it will move people of the bias away by infighting.

When a culture has developed an in-group is formed. This will make any disagreement pushed out.

The problem is not that people would not be able to say what they want, you can find a place to do that. It is that when you do that place is a bubble, an echo chamber. And there is no way around the Internet becoming this.

The cluster of people who are like you is small but I can see why an in-group has benefits. As long as you are in agreement you have less bullying but that makes it hard to change your opinion and to leave the group. Hopefully because it is online you can leave.

But if the government gets involved they can force everyone to agree by their terms. Which makes people leave the Internet and into the streets. The organization of people has made flash mobs on Facebook and this is another issue all together.

 

[ZenRaiden]

One needs to first recognize that they are a slave... in order to free the mind.

 

[Old Things]

Might as well ask, "Does Free Speech Exist?"

 

[fluffy]

It might be about where people can get published. I published a book but the editor changed some of the best parts. I have the original yet I made no money partially because I didn't pay for advertising.

If you own a platform figurative and literally then people hear you if that space is big and goes to the right audience. Not everyone cares about published works or producing them but it makes sense that not everyone is in the lime light. People just get 15 minutes of fame before the public looks in another direction. Fame and a social group are not the same. As an instance people who soe yarn will be a different interest than most book readers.

On the Internet it is faster and people interact hastily. This is different from the slow way people operated in the past. Before people just got together or wrote letters. The Internet is big and not well established for the rules we would all agree matters.

 

[LOGICZOMBIE]

Might as well ask, "Does Free Speech Exist?"

FREESPEECH NOW ONLY $9.99 A MONTH !!!!!!

 

[BurnedOut]

As long as i am allowed to cuss like a sailor

 

[EndogenousRebel]

Well if history echos, eventually people will begin to be held accountable.

Yellow Journalism when mass media got it's start, was coop-ted and the consensus if I am correct was that it was bad universally.

HOWEVER- this was when only business moguls could produce such materials to print this content on in mass. Now, technically anyone can have a viral campaign to spread specific target messaging. As soon as that happens there is this invocation of what is the "Right" thing to do.

To this day we have paparazi in America who can treat celebrities (subjects) like they are objects without their own freedom of privacy and safety. Because anyone could be a paparazi? You have to prove they are harrasing you and violating the law to the standard of "unreasonable" doubt.

I believe I saw a video covering riots in the UK. I will post it it guess, I think it's the someordinaryguy video for UK 2024? something like that.

Basically, it wasn't mainly the people rioters that got in trouble, it was people on social media that were arrested and made into martyrs because they incited the violence online.

If we realized that Tabloid nonsense and Sensationalism emerge from everyone saying whatever the hell they want, why would we allow it?

It's going to boil down to the First Admendment Argument somehow, I just know it.

edit: this is the video I talked about, I was kinda off, maybe the title was changed though.

 

[Haim]

That depends on if you think if having things run by big business is better than having things run by government.

to me that's a question that fails to see some important distinctions

e.g. in EU you have the "digital services act" that has stipulations aimed holding social-media sites liable for "disinformation" posted by their users. Meaning, you have some nameless, faceless groups deep inside the EU bureaucracy deciding what should be censored. Not just on twitter, but anywhere.

business cannot have such sweeping control over all information. Look at the current situation, for example; yes, twitter is big but there's thousands other sites you can go if musk decides to ban you. And if he bans enough people there's gonna pop up a competitor that will gladly accommodate them. That is not a luxury you will have if government - especially a transnational one like EU - decides they don't like your opinions.

Like that competitor that was banned from the Play Store?
If you let people do whatever they want you get situations like business that ban black people. The distinction between government and private business is artificial, in the end of the day both are systems run by a bunch of people, sometimes you need to punish people to have a functioning system,

 

[fluffy]

Government has been a regulation force in history like a metabolism in the human body's system. This analogy should be expanded to corporate systems that decide your living conditions also. The USA is infact a corporation under the laws. Then they are interchangeable.

 

[Old Things]

That depends on if you think if having things run by big business is better than having things run by government.

to me that's a question that fails to see some important distinctions

e.g. in EU you have the "digital services act" that has stipulations aimed holding social-media sites liable for "disinformation" posted by their users. Meaning, you have some nameless, faceless groups deep inside the EU bureaucracy deciding what should be censored. Not just on twitter, but anywhere.

business cannot have such sweeping control over all information. Look at the current situation, for example; yes, twitter is big but there's thousands other sites you can go if musk decides to ban you. And if he bans enough people there's gonna pop up a competitor that will gladly accommodate them. That is not a luxury you will have if government - especially a transnational one like EU - decides they don't like your opinions.

Like that competitor that was banned from the Play Store?
If you let people do whatever they want you get situations like business that ban black people. The distinction between government and private business is artificial, in the end of the day both are systems run by a bunch of people, sometimes you need to punish people to have a functioning system,

Plenty of places in Japan that only serve Japanese people.

 

[fluffy]

Japan functions differently than the USA

 

[Old Things]

Japan functions differently than the USA

And your point is what?

 

[fluffy]

Japan functions differently than the USA

And your point is what?

Their society is more homogenous thus their customs are different.

Is there a point you were specifically making?

 

[fluffy]

The government is formed by the makeup and history of the people within a territory.

Laws accommodate the culture of groups as the group changes. The religions, ethnicities, foods and traditions all play a part in how people interact.

So just because in Japan some places only serves Japanese persons that's not a big deal as it would be in a diverse country such as the USA where most of the history is based on preservation of individuals rights. Japan rather preserves its traditional ways mixed with modern technology as about 99% of the culture is of the same ethnicity that in the USA it is not and in the USA if we had places of exclusion for major groups that would be economically unviable for corporations to do.

 

[fractalwalrus]

With all the emphasis on big corporations being partisan and the fact they can stop you saying anything they disagree with on their platform.

What does Free Speech mean if you can get cancelled at any time by big companies?

This is in the philosophy section of the forum.

What do you think @Puffy

Here's what I bet is going on. Corporations would normally want to allow everything on their platforms, as that would maximize profit so much as the herd does not care. Social media platforms were way more hands-off at the beginning (even pre-Google and slightly post-Google, YouTube). What I think happens (as I have observed before), is that there is some public outcry against certain things being published on a platform. If this outcry is enough to threaten the bottom line, it gets responded to. Also, if governments look to crackdown, the company will restrict speech as well.

There are rare occasions where the leadership at a given corporation actually harbor ideology, but I'll put it this way, that is not how you succeed in business. Profit must prevail to dominate competitors. So, there is backlash against your platform by some parties, and the companies do what they can to adjust, but they suffer a slight loss anyways when they have to drop people. The optimum outcome: make people not have outcries or care about other people's speech so you can have as many people on your platform as possible. The strategy: anti-woke.

If you can use the term "woke" to cover any issue that could be considered an issue of public outcry, then you can rile up the public to be against whatever is deemed to be "woke." Watch how things which are considered "woke" have shifted, and alt-media (which is also funded by billionaires while pretending to be the voice of rebellion), has been quite aggressive with their rhetoric. I would not deny that some of these "woke" things exist, but I believe their impact was fundamentally overblown in order to stir up public outcry and allow platforms to not have to worry about censorship as much to stymie outcry and lose some engagement.

 

[fluffy]

@fractalwalrus

If what you're saying is true the woke as a term made it possible to segment the population. Of course then we have all those people who ban or unfollow you or you them. But this was amplified when people fought more. Thus outcry would be directed at less bans and less ability to unfollow?

 

[Haim]

That depends on if you think if having things run by big business is better than having things run by government.

to me that's a question that fails to see some important distinctions

e.g. in EU you have the "digital services act" that has stipulations aimed holding social-media sites liable for "disinformation" posted by their users. Meaning, you have some nameless, faceless groups deep inside the EU bureaucracy deciding what should be censored. Not just on twitter, but anywhere.

business cannot have such sweeping control over all information. Look at the current situation, for example; yes, twitter is big but there's thousands other sites you can go if musk decides to ban you. And if he bans enough people there's gonna pop up a competitor that will gladly accommodate them. That is not a luxury you will have if government - especially a transnational one like EU - decides they don't like your opinions.

Like that competitor that was banned from the Play Store?
If you let people do whatever they want you get situations like business that ban black people. The distinction between government and private business is artificial, in the end of the day both are systems run by a bunch of people, sometimes you need to punish people to have a functioning system,

Plenty of places in Japan that only serve Japanese people.

Those are not an issue are few and most people in Japan are Japanese people.
It become bad when it is at large scale such as "No Jews or dogs allowed" in Germany. The issue is systematic exclusion and exclusion from places of influence, if you ban me from this forum nothing will happen, but if you ban me from twitter it can be have influence at global level, such as when they banned Donald Trump, without Elon Musk buying twitter he might have been still banned and might have lost the election.

 

[Old Things]

That depends on if you think if having things run by big business is better than having things run by government.

to me that's a question that fails to see some important distinctions

e.g. in EU you have the "digital services act" that has stipulations aimed holding social-media sites liable for "disinformation" posted by their users. Meaning, you have some nameless, faceless groups deep inside the EU bureaucracy deciding what should be censored. Not just on twitter, but anywhere.

business cannot have such sweeping control over all information. Look at the current situation, for example; yes, twitter is big but there's thousands other sites you can go if musk decides to ban you. And if he bans enough people there's gonna pop up a competitor that will gladly accommodate them. That is not a luxury you will have if government - especially a transnational one like EU - decides they don't like your opinions.

Like that competitor that was banned from the Play Store?
If you let people do whatever they want you get situations like business that ban black people. The distinction between government and private business is artificial, in the end of the day both are systems run by a bunch of people, sometimes you need to punish people to have a functioning system,

Plenty of places in Japan that only serve Japanese people.

Those are not an issue are few and most people in Japan are Japanese people.
It become bad when it is at large scale such as "No Jews or dogs allowed" in Germany. The issue is systematic exclusion and exclusion from places of influence, if you ban me from this forum nothing will happen, but if you ban me from twitter it can be have influence at global level, such as when they banned Donald Trump, without Elon Musk buying twitter he might have been still banned and might have lost the election.

I am not saying that the Japanese are right. What I am saying is that if it is okay for the Japanese to do it, then it is okay for other people to do it. I did not make the argument that what the Japanese are doing is right; I simply stated a fact. I happen to believe that racism, in any way it is done, is wrong. I don't believe it is okay to be racist because it works for that society.

 

[dr froyd]

Like that competitor that was banned from the Play Store?
If you let people do whatever they want you get situations like business that ban black people. The distinction between government and private business is artificial, in the end of the day both are systems run by a bunch of people, sometimes you need to punish people to have a functioning system,

im not sure i understand your point

i don't know about japan but in most western countries it is illegal to discriminate clients based on gender, race, etc. So that's a separate issue, but it is clear that businesses don't simply get to "do whatever they want".

it's also the case that the government played a big role in censorship that was undertaken by social-media sites like twitter and facebook. Once again - businesses themselves usually have little incentive to reduce their clientele, and if they do, that simply means they become less competitive and lose market share.

if one could make laws against censorship and discrimination based on political opinion that would be great, but that's not exactly what governments have done for the past few years. The political establishment is interested in restricting free speech (at least until trump won).

so once again - people are barking up the wrong tree if they think private sector is the big threat to free speech

 

[LOGICZOMBIE]

With all the emphasis on big corporations being partisan and the fact they can stop you saying anything they disagree with on their platform.

What does Free Speech mean if you can get cancelled at any time by big companies?

This is in the philosophy section of the forum.

What do you think @Puffy

Here's what I bet is going on. Corporations would normally want to allow everything on their platforms, as that would maximize profit so much as the herd does not care. Social media platforms were way more hands-off at the beginning (even pre-Google and slightly post-Google, YouTube). What I think happens (as I have observed before), is that there is some public outcry against certain things being published on a platform. If this outcry is enough to threaten the bottom line, it gets responded to. Also, if governments look to crackdown, the company will restrict speech as well.

There are rare occasions where the leadership at a given corporation actually harbor ideology, but I'll put it this way, that is not how you succeed in business. Profit must prevail to dominate competitors. So, there is backlash against your platform by some parties, and the companies do what they can to adjust, but they suffer a slight loss anyways when they have to drop people. The optimum outcome: make people not have outcries or care about other people's speech so you can have as many people on your platform as possible. The strategy: anti-woke.

If you can use the term "woke" to cover any issue that could be considered an issue of public outcry, then you can rile up the public to be against whatever is deemed to be "woke." Watch how things which are considered "woke" have shifted, and alt-media (which is also funded by billionaires while pretending to be the voice of rebellion), has been quite aggressive with their rhetoric. I would not deny that some of these "woke" things exist, but I believe their impact was fundamentally overblown in order to stir up public outcry and allow platforms to not have to worry about censorship as much to stymie outcry and lose some engagement.

Why YouTube demonetization is actually a good thing

YouTube's demonetization policy is a step in the right direction, but there's room for significant improvement.

www.dailydot.com

Exclusive: YouTube ran ads from hundreds of brands on extremist channels

Ads from over 300 companies and organizations ran on YouTube channels promoting white nationalists, Nazis, pedophilia, conspiracy theories and North Korean propaganda, a CNN investigation has found.

money.cnn.com

2012

old media attacks new media

 

[fluffy]

@dr froyd

Something I heard was that before Elon took over people could use Twitter as a reliable news source but not anymore. The fake news took over the whole system when the gatekeepers left.

That is what the debate was about. Twitter was news and not a social place. Now that it is social with memes it cannot be a good news source.

 

[LOGICZOMBIE]

 

[LOGICZOMBIE]

@dr froyd

Something I heard was that before Elon took over people could use Twitter as a reliable news source but not anymore. The fake news took over the whole system when the gatekeepers left.

That is what the debate was about. Twitter was news and not a social place. Now that it is social with memes it cannot be a good news source.

Before Elon Musk acquired Twitter in 2022, Twitter was not considered a reliable source of news and facts. Numerous studies and reports highlighted the platform's consistent problems with misinformation, fake accounts, and the spread of false information. There were even congressional hearings discussing the role of Big Tech in spreading misinformation.

A year before Musk's acquisition, in October 2021, the Reuters Institute's annual Digital News Report summarized a report stating "Social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook are repeatedly criticized for the spread of misleading information and fake news."

In June 2021, a Harvard Kennedy School report published jointly with the Stanford Digital Democracy Program found that "Twitter has been criticized for the spread of misleading information and fake news."

In May 2021, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute's Analysis & Analysis report stated "Twitter is rife with fake accounts and propaganda."

 

[fluffy]

A couple of things:

I think those reports we're during covid.

Most big new orgs had official presence on Twitter before covid and less toxic interactions existed because of moderation that was gutted when musk took over and those news sources left. Thus fake accounts exist now more than ever.

 

[Old Things]

@dr froyd

Something I heard was that before Elon took over people could use Twitter as a reliable news source but not anymore. The fake news took over the whole system when the gatekeepers left.

That is what the debate was about. Twitter was news and not a social place. Now that it is social with memes it cannot be a good news source.

That is plainly false since it has been proven that the Government was involved in censoring things on Twitter before Elon turned it into X. Not only that, but the community notes fact-checks things very accurately if a post goes viral that is not accurate.

 

[fluffy]

I don't know currently how Twitter is operated so that could be true. But that would only be the case after the moderators were let go and it took time to build a new system. Those that left Twitter said it had become to toxic at the time staff got fired.

 

[Old Things]

I don't know currently how Twitter is operated so that could be true. But that would only be the case after the moderators were let go and it took time to build a new system. Those that left Twitter said it had become to toxic at the time staff got fired.

Twitter (now X) used to be like 70% or more of liberals. It is now about 48% and 48% between liberal and conservative.

 

[dr froyd]

@dr froyd

Something I heard was that before Elon took over people could use Twitter as a reliable news source but not anymore. The fake news took over the whole system when the gatekeepers left.

the people saying that must be under the impression that twitter is a news agency. It's not; it's a social-media site. So if there such a thing as authoritative news sources of twitter, it's because there are specific accounts there that have a reputation of publishing reliable info. So if one believes that BBC, MSNBC and Daily Mail etc are of such quality, one can just subscribe to those.

on the other hand you can start interacting with a lot of content about UFOs for example, and then you get a feed full of UFOs and supernatual stuff. And that's great, because i can look at it and make up my own mind about it. I don't want some "factcheckers" sitting in twitter offices in california or EU offices in brussels deciding for me what i can and cannot see.

 

[fluffy]

I suppose the advertising that left got replaced with different advertizers?

 

[fluffy]

The UFO thing:

I posted many memes on Twitter (X) after musk took over. I just had seen that a history exists of the company that is where it changed. I think that if you did not see any changes you might have missed something?

 

[scorpiomover]

That depends on if you think if having things run by big business is better than having things run by government.

to me that's a question that fails to see some important distinctions

e.g. in EU you have the "digital services act" that has stipulations aimed holding social-media sites liable for "disinformation" posted by their users. Meaning, you have some nameless, faceless groups deep inside the EU bureaucracy deciding what should be censored. Not just on twitter, but anywhere.

Digital Services Act

The DSA proposal maintains the current rule according to which companies that host others' data become liable when informed that this data is illegal.[8] This so-called "conditional liability exemption" is fundamentally different[9][10] from the broad immunities given to intermediaries under the equivalent rule ("Section 230 CDA") in the United States.

All this means, is that as when the British police or British government tell Facebook that a certain post is Russian disinformation and needs to be removed, as long as they delete that post from their live system immediately (which takes a technie about 1 second), they cannot be held liable for any harm that was caused by that content.

If the post was written by Nikola Tesla's grandson, explaining how everyone can generate free energy, they have the power to delete it. Facebook's shareholders don't care if it gets deleted, as they're in the business of making money, not saving humanity.

If the post motivated a young man to become a school shooter and kill lots of kids, but as soon as Facebook were informed, they had their techs delete the post, then if the families try to sue Facebook, the case can be thrown out on a technicality, as technically Facebook followed the law and did everything they were supposed to do, and are given immunity on the rest by the DSA.

Even if the poster wrote that he was going to kill a whole load of people, and Facebook didn't even inform the police, and then he did, as long as Facebook delete the offending post once they were informed, then Facebook have immunity.

So this ruling is going to let Facebook off the hook for a whole lot of compensation cases for "death by Facebook", for almost zero work and zero costs.

Same for the rest of the big online companies affected by the DSA.

Ingenious piece of legislation. Sounds like it's making the online corporations suffer. But really, it's giving them immunity, which means they cannot be made to suffer for making innocent people suffer.

 

[dr froyd]

if anything, i agree that when authorities say "disinformation" they are not talking in terms of the truthfulness of information, but rather the utility of information (utility for whom exactly is a separate yet relevant question).

it's like with the ivermectin episode during covid. Authorities could say that it was a drug unfit for humans - which was factually untrue - yet it was a useful lie for them. Anyone who disagreed was spreading "disinformation".

 

[Old Things]

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[LOGICZOMBIE]

That depends on if you think if having things run by big business is better than having things run by government.

to me that's a question that fails to see some important distinctions

e.g. in EU you have the "digital services act" that has stipulations aimed holding social-media sites liable for "disinformation" posted by their users. Meaning, you have some nameless, faceless groups deep inside the EU bureaucracy deciding what should be censored. Not just on twitter, but anywhere.

Digital Services Act

The DSA proposal maintains the current rule according to which companies that host others' data become liable when informed that this data is illegal.[8] This so-called "conditional liability exemption" is fundamentally different[9][10] from the broad immunities given to intermediaries under the equivalent rule ("Section 230 CDA") in the United States.

All this means, is that as when the British police or British government tell Facebook that a certain post is Russian disinformation and needs to be removed, as long as they delete that post from their live system immediately (which takes a technie about 1 second), they cannot be held liable for any harm that was caused by that content.

If the post was written by Nikola Tesla's grandson, explaining how everyone can generate free energy, they have the power to delete it. Facebook's shareholders don't care if it gets deleted, as they're in the business of making money, not saving humanity.

If the post motivated a young man to become a school shooter and kill lots of kids, but as soon as Facebook were informed, they had their techs delete the post, then if the families try to sue Facebook, the case can be thrown out on a technicality, as technically Facebook followed the law and did everything they were supposed to do, and are given immunity on the rest by the DSA.

Even if the poster wrote that he was going to kill a whole load of people, and Facebook didn't even inform the police, and then he did, as long as Facebook delete the offending post once they were informed, then Facebook have immunity.

So this ruling is going to let Facebook off the hook for a whole lot of compensation cases for "death by Facebook", for almost zero work and zero costs.

Same for the rest of the big online companies affected by the DSA.

Ingenious piece of legislation. Sounds like it's making the online corporations suffer. But really, it's giving them immunity, which means they cannot be made to suffer for making innocent people suffer.

100% THIS.

 

[LOGICZOMBIE]

if anything, i agree that when authorities say "disinformation" they are not talking in terms of the truthfulness of information, but rather the utility of information (utility for whom exactly is a separate yet relevant question).

it's like with the ivermectin episode during covid. Authorities could say that it was a drug unfit for humans - which was factually untrue - yet it was a useful lie for them. Anyone who disagreed was spreading "disinformation".

100% THIS.

 

[LOGICZOMBIE]

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what is your opinion on the subject ?

 

[fractalwalrus]

@fractalwalrus

If what you're saying is true the woke as a term made it possible to segment the population. Of course then we have all those people who ban or unfollow you or you them. But this was amplified when people fought more. Thus outcry would be directed at less bans and less ability to unfollow?

The backlash to woke is, in part, asking for an end to the deplatforming.

 

[LOGICZOMBIE]

The backlash to woke is, in part, asking for an end to the deplatforming.

the same "anti-woke" people want to ban bad books from schools and kick pro-gaza accounts out the window

 

[LOGICZOMBIE]

x.com

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it seems a little strange you don't have an actual opinion on this

 

[fractalwalrus]

The backlash to woke is, in part, asking for an end to the deplatforming.

the same "anti-woke" people want to ban bad books from schools and kick pro-gaza accounts out the window

Yes, this is true. Free speech for me and not for thee. So I should have been more accurate: they wanted for themselves to not be deplatformed. I imagine their fervor for this position has been stoked by what they have been perceiving as attacks.

 

[dr froyd]

the same "anti-woke" people want to ban bad books from schools and kick pro-gaza accounts out the window

yep.. a lot of masks were coming off