1. Not in the sense we normally understand it. They’re interfering with a massive tactical misinformation campaign that’s attempting to weaponize their platform. It’s in the same bucket as banning ISIS from using their platform as a recruiting tool.

2. Yes, but it’s a real problem that they’ve created a platform where it’s necessary for them to do this.

3. Oh, absolutely. This is not a situation we want to be in.

4. No.

The harder question is how do we get out of this situation, and if its possible at all without shutting down all the social networks.

I'm still not understanding why we are questioning their right to do this? Back in the old days, you paid for an advertisement in the newspaper. Your right to post that ad was completely controlled by that paper. If you posted an ad with inflammatory or blatantly false information, the newspaper would refuse to run your ad. Imagine if I was Nixon running against JFK, and I attempted to buy an ad in the Times on the second page, immediately after the election, indicating that the election was fraudulent, and that I had actually won. Would anybody have run that ad? Absolutely not. What's incredible is that Twitter does actually allow these tweets but simply indicates the facts may not be accurate.

But we all understand that an old newspaper is quite different, right? Now 'news' is instantaneous, simultaneously 'published' everywhere, unedited, capable of rousing the rabble like a lightening rod...

We'll need different rules for this new media.

Don't buy that for argument for a second.

The letter of the law might need to adapt, the spirit does not.

We don't need to allow the media to be weaponized with abject lies that are killing Americans are damaging our country.

Wanting something, and it being practical, are entirely different things. That's the trouble with slogans. They don't get us anywhere.

Yes, and obviously I understand the legal difference between these two models as well. Section 230 is still an experiment, one that was put in place primarily to protect intermediaries, like ISPs. It allows for a free and open Internet, and without it, the Internet as we know it is dead. How do we square this against the control and restrictions a publisher has? Because that is what keeps publishers in check, and prevents them from printing lies, or publishing things that are too radical. And how do we pragmatically solve this issue, in a way that can be as fast as the Internet? One way to look at it might be, how bad would this dystopia look, you know, the one where a 'publisher' is redefined a bit. Section 230 should continue to protect ISPs, and Proxies, and anything that supports complete and total net neutrality. But any service that 'filters' what I see, in any way whatsoever, should automatically fall under old school publisher libel laws. That's the issue. It's not that Facebook or Twitter are broadcasting freely, it's that they are modifying and adjusting what user's see, using unknown algorithms. Much like the FCC regulates the RF spectrum, and approves devices, the FCC needs to approve algorithms, and determine if they qualify for Section 230. Fixed it. Discuss.

Do they ban ISIS? Because it looks like they've spent more time going after Trump and his base than they've done actually fighting the spread of Islamic extremism on it's platform. You can find old accounts with horrific stuff said about the very society we live in, about LGBTQ rights, about women's rights, etc. I think Twitter is taking the easy way out.

When I grew up, before the internet, all media was owned by big corporations. They 100% controlled what was distributed.

Now people are complaining that corporations decide that they allow comments on their platforms. Big deal.

I already know what you are thinking: but these corporations are monopolies! Well, it's corporationS, so probably not. We have Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, TikTok, various news sites, etc. Plus we still have all traditional things like TV, radio and newspapers.

If democracy didn't fall in the past 50 years, it's probably not because big corporations decide which information to spread.

All the misinformation that is now out there, spread by lunatics, is probably a bigger threat.

As a general rule, when engaging with thoughtful people, if your presumption is that it's obvious you are correct and a phrase like "big deal" enters ones repertoire, it's probably a sign you are not arguing the same point, since if it was so obvious then thoughtful people would have come to the same conclusion.

One reason this issue is worthy of debate is because it is novel - we have not been a position before where there are a few global scale 'public squares' under centralized corporate control, through which it seems inevitable the whole world's discourse will flow through in some form or another. Nevermind the fact that these corporations' business models are directly tied to influencing human behavior on those platforms - the incentives align in a direction that seems incredibly harmful both in theory and practice.

As society evolves and advances, particularly an advanced society like ours with many exponentially advancing elements, new emergent phenomenona appear. We ought to not appeal to tradition to guide us in all cases: we could be dealing with something genuinely new that our generation needs to address directly, because our ancestors could not foresee it, even though they tried to create generalized systems. I would argue that is the case now, much like it was the case in the response to large changes in society like the industrial revolution and the creation of nuclear weapons. In fact, your mention of monopolies is an exact example of this: we created this concept in a legal sense, in response to unexpected damages that come from having monopolistic actors. If anything, leveraging the argument of monopolies existing or not in your argument is a tacit concession that such structures can be created and have moral weight in determining how we should act.

In our era, arguing society needs to create new legal and policy structures to ensure social media and these global public squares best serve us all seems reasonable to propose. We seem less likely to do that insofar as people reject the idea that such a discussion is ridiculous, because we already have all the existing mental models and tools we need to address the problems they bring.

Really well said, thank you for your comment.

I'm sympathetic to the "we survived worse we'll survive this too" but it certainly is quite novel in many ways. I don't want to be cliche at this point but I'm sure the Roman Empire thought they'd survived worse too.

I don't consider myself one of the "scared of AI" people but I do approach it with caution. Even if "AI" doesn't gain some power, there's no doubt that using technology some _humans_ have gained _enormous_ power over others that hasn't historically been possible, even for the most vicious of tyrants. History has also demonstrated that some people can be really nasty when controlling others.

By no means am I saying FB, Twitter, etc are controlling tyrants. The idea that people don't do well with power seems relevant though.

> In our era, arguing society needs to create new legal and policy structures to ensure social media and these global public squares best serve us all seems reasonable to propose.

I fully agree with that. But I think the point that I'm trying to make is different.

> we have not been a position before where there are a few global scale 'public squares' under centralized corporate control

I think that we differ in opinion here. The novelty from my point of view is not 'centralized corporate control', because we always had that. The novelty is 'global scale public squares', because we never had that at this scale.

So the real novelty and concern in my opinion is not that corporations try to control those squares, but more that those squares are opened up to everyone to say any crazy thing they want.

I'm not arguing for or against it, because I think it's a very complex topic. I dislike censorship just like anyone else, but I also dislike spreading disinformation to large groups of people.

Specifically: what happens when the social media companies start abusing this once it is accepted? What if they start discrediting those calling for antitrust, demergers, and breakups?

“This claim about big tech’s power is disputed.”

1. No, the post is still available for viewing. They're just stopping it from spreading. I'm free to write an article. A media company like NY Times or Fox has no obligation to spread that article to their viewers.

2. Yes - you should be free to use the platform but there is no right to have your thoughts shared automatically to others.

3. No. People are extrapolating this into wild future scenarios.

4. This isn't power, it's responsibility. I think it's a good thing that Twitter is taking an effort to deal with this.

> Can we please just talk about the philosophy and principles here?

Not everything fits into incredibly simple one-sentence principles. There seems to be a bias in some communities towards trying to make absolute approaches to complex problems and the false conclusion that if we don't have an absolute principle that we have failed.

1. I don't think so. Not in the "free speech" sense. Twitter owns itself and should be permitted to do as it pleases with its property.

2. I don't think it's okay, but I think a proper response to it lies in the social sphere, not at the end of the government gun.

3. I think this is probably an inevitable outcome for humanity's first swing at social media. It's centralized and so will come under the control of some partisan group or another. I think the behavior will push us inevitably towards more decentralized platforms.

4. I'm not convinced they have power - not power that can't be removed from them by society, anyway. If they misbehave or underperform enough, society will move on. See MySpace.

If a sitting POTUS tweeted that it would be legal to go murder people of minority groups, should Twitter let that sit there unencumbered?

Ideals are great until they are not beneficial.

Abstraction without reference to concrete available examples is likely to result in beautiful theories unmoored from reality.

I personally prefer a maximalist position of no censorship of any kind ever. I would also like to live in a world populated solely by philosopher-scholars in which reach is based solely on the intellectual content of one's ideas, and phenomena like spam and marketing did not exist. Alas, I do not.

If twitter and facebook disappeared tomorrow, along with parler, gab, mastodon and all other similar social feeds; would your life be better, or worse?

1. No 3. No 4. Yes, because the future is decentralization. They are just helping accelerate it.

You really think the future is decentralization? I sure hope you're right but it seems to me like everything is getting more centralized.

Maybe Parler sticks for a while, IDK. Two is better than one. But that network effect is a pretty tough nut to crack.

But if Twitter allows radicals, the moderates will leave.

Any shareholder would agree that the choice is clear - ban the radicals.

This is a private company and they are exercising their free market rights.

Maybe you think this is wrong, and the government should interfere by forcing Twitter to publish all content.

Well, good luck with that.

I don't necessarily think that's wrong, but I do think (in general) that government has a role in protecting people from "private compan[ies] exercising their free market rights" when it crosses a line (i.e. regulation, etc). I couldn't tell you where that line is or where it should be, and I'm not even saying Twitter has crossed it (I increasingly wonder if they have but it's so hard to know with the limited information and visibility I have).

But I do think we're running out of time to do anything about it should action be appropriate. If Twitter is stepping over the line in taking down people that speak against the incoming administration, that said administration is going to protect them? I highly doubt it. (I wouldn't expect Conservatives would either were the tables turned for the record. In fact they have a history of jailing people protesting wars and what not, so I know they wouldn't).

I just fundamentally disagree that this can be reduced to the philosophy and principles. I've consistently objected to Twitter doing this kind of thing in the past, and I don't want them to continue doing it in the future, but this one situation is a very special case.

I don't think that you can stick to philosophical principles because those tend to be too simplistic and real life is messy. Twitter as a private entity should in theory have the right to do whatever they want. OTOH, their platform gives them influence over the democratic process. In theory people shouldn't be censored. OTOH it is easy to fool people with targeted propaganda.

Philosophizing is not going to get you anywhere, really. It's a technique of the past. There are many competing effects at play here. I think the more rational approach is to actually study the real world system to find a policy optimum that achieves a set goal. Philosophy should be relegated to figuring out that goal e.g. should it be democracy over all else or maybe individual rights or something else.

I don't think we can escape philosophy. For example you it sounds to me like you are arguing for the philosophy of pragmatic consequentialism :-D

Who's outcome is most important here then? Is it Twitter's, is it the users, or the public at large? And how do you determine which is what? Draw a line at 50% and say if it benefits (a subjective measure) more than 50% then it's a good outcome, otherwise bad?

Yeah, mud them those waters.