That is amusing, but this type of action from service providers is also bullshit. This censorship is untenable. There are two choices. We either fight for freedom now and fight back against this authoritarian thought policing or we lose all freedom and free thought and expression.
Take your money where your values are, and only patronize businesses that support freedom of expression. Contact your lawmakers and lobby them to force big tech like Facebook, Google, Twitter, etc to abide by the rules of publisher vs platform or face losing their section 230 protections.
Get tools from eff.org and other places to learn how to protect your privacy online.
Vocally proselytize about digital freedom and privacy to your friends and family and work on getting them to switch from restrictive censorious services (Facebook et al) to privacy and free speech respecting ones.
But isn't it a little extreme to expect a website to be held legally accountable for someone posting something illegal that they forgot or failed to censor? It seems like that is a slippery slope into unreasonable expectations and bad precedents, even if the alternative also sucks.
Maybe we should just try to spread the word for people to use alternatives, rather than involving the govt?
It isn't extreme when that website is taking an active role in moderating the content that is placed on their platform. If they want to step back and allow content and speech (as long as it doesn't contravene current law) without comment or moderation, then yes, they should have protection in the case something is posted that shouldn't be. That is what being a platform is.
However, these big tech firms are stepping beyond that role and actively curating content. Not only content that is illegal, but any content that they deem undesirable, which is pretty much anything leaning slightly right these days. At that point they are acting as a publisher, and as such should NOT be protected when they allow content that is illegal or unacceptable. In the same way that newspapers can be held liable for libel, etc, these platforms should be held liable since they are acting as publishers, not platforms.
They are currently abusing a legal loophole to act as a published and retain the protections of a platform. It's bullshit.
I agree it's bullshit, but isn't there some grey area here? For example, if they weed out some undesirable content, what right do we have to demand they weed out ALL undesirable content or be held accountable for it? And how feasible of a demand is that really?
A newspaper has much less content to manage, so it's reasonable to expect them to be held accountable. But with something like Facebook, with BILLIONS of users posting content, just because they weed out some undesirable content, don't you think it's still unfair that they as a result be held accountable for BILLIONS of individuals posting things? It just seems like an unreasonable expectation for any social media to have to either weed out 0% or 100% of the undesirable content.
What's unreasonable is that they "weed out" only content that goes against the current message or stance they stand for. If they applied their policies even evenhandedly across the political spectrum I probably wouldn't be as bothered about it. But they don't. They're picking winners and trying to force public discourse and opinion into one single mold. That is dangerous to democracy and freedom and needs to stop.
Again I agree wholeheartedly, but the question is how do we stop it without causing more damage. Because corps aren't the only evil, govt is too. So we need to be very careful when asking it to "help" us.
I believe quality of life always mirrors quality of consciousness, so maybe *we* are the problem. *We* the people need to stop choosing monolithic corps and start choosing alternatives. That's the only sustainable solution I can see, and it starts by each of us forming strong communities by loving our neighbors as ourselves and helping others do the same.
11 comments
20 u/lordnazgul 13 Nov 2020 12:45
6 u/KentAllard 13 Nov 2020 14:59
3 u/Sheeplebane 13 Nov 2020 15:57
4 u/KentAllard 13 Nov 2020 17:28
2 u/Sheeplebane 13 Nov 2020 18:05
1 u/KentAllard 14 Nov 2020 00:22
1 u/Sheeplebane 14 Nov 2020 17:05
1 u/KentAllard 15 Nov 2020 15:50
1 u/Sheeplebane 15 Nov 2020 18:28
7 u/JadeMonkey 13 Nov 2020 16:20
1 u/Topcode 14 Nov 2020 06:48