But I also think the rights of the services providers have to considered as well. Should Nintendo be forced to publish porn apps in their Switch online store for example? Should HN be prevented from moderating comments here? Should thedonald.win be prevented from deleting anti-Trump comments? No is my answer to those rhetorical questions.
At the same time I don't think that electricity, water, and internet service providers should be allowed to cut off Westboro Baptist Church either. Likewise for their domain name provider.
I think things like AWS and payment services are more like electric and water suppliers then they are like app stores and web forums. So I suppose that I'm in favour of drawing a line in a reasonable place, it's just not clear to me yet exactly where that line should be.
What would help is what we should have done a long time ago: Apple should either allow users to install different app stores or submit to regulation as a platform.
It doesn't mean private individuals have to humor you. It doesn't even mean they have to listen to you.
The 3 biggest technology companies in the world united in the last two days to shut down an upstart competitor who was, at the time, literally the #1 app on iPhone and Android.
So the issue is primarily one of anti-trust laws. Monopolies do not get to arbitrarily and selectively enforce their ToS against competitors; that is an illegal abuse of market power.
The tech giants this week seem to have demonstrated that they do in fact hold monopoly power in the market, and are willing to use it to crush a potential competitor. This seems to me to be an unprecedented situation, a likely anti-trust violation, and potentially to the extent that it was a coordinated action by these companies, a violation of RICO statutes.
I think it is fair to say that Parler, like every social network, could be used to post hateful messages, or messages advocating violence. GP stated that Parler was a “hate site” but I think it’s more accurate to say that Parler was a site that carried some hateful messages. It was by no means a site formed or designed specifically to carry hate.
A corollary that I would raise is a similar standard in copyright infringement. Sites which are designed specifically with the intent of committing copyright infringement are now criminally liable — it has recently become a serious felony to make these kinds of sites. However, site that show a significant non-infringement purpose are not illegal, even if some infringement takes place on their platform. You might recall that YouTube was a site that got its start with rampant copyright infringement, and to this day has a significant amount of infringing material on its servers, but it is not criminally liable, or even civilly liable for that content due to the fact that the site has a significant non-infringement purpose. I think that’s a fair analogy with Parler.
If there’s a copyright or public safety issue with a piece of content posted on a social media platform, the law should provide for a takedown procedure against the content, not against the whole platform. The cause of action should be against the poster, not against the entire platform. Nuking the entire platform from orbit is not an appropriate remedy, and in any case should be done through a court of law, not through the actions of a monopolistic cartel.
Remember Parler was asked by the tech co's to moderate such content, and it refused.
I also don't see how Parler competed with AWS.
For many kinds of criminal content posing an acute public safety hazard, it does, and it's very simple: if you have knowledge of the existence of the material, you must take it down or become yourself criminally liable for it, in addition to anyone who is already criminally liable. (For copyright, there's the DMCA takedown process, which is more generous because people don't tend to get killed as a forseeable consequence of civil copyright violations.)
Of course, if you are a second level host and don't have item-by-item control (such as AWS for a site hosted there by another firm), the only efficient way to acheived that may be to drop the entire account.
I'd be quite surprised if this is true in the USA. If you could provide an example of such a case I'd be very interested. The only time I'm aware of the Supreme Court ruling on online hate speech was to overturn the conviction of a Anthony Elois, who posted some truly disgusting things online. [1]
I'm not aware of any case where an internet platform was held crminally liable for content posted on their platform, in fact Section 230 provides "wide immunity" for both criminal and civil liability for the content that users post. [2]
For example, from [2];
> A recent case [3] out of the 2nd Circuit illustrates the types of issues courts are facing in our era of social media predominance and terrorist attacks.
> The 2nd Circuit case arose after Hamas posted content on Facebook that both directly and indirectly led to the attack and death of several Israeli nationals, including a 10 year-old girl. The victims subsequently sued Facebook for allowing the posts to exist, and to “match” terrorist sympathizers with terrorist organizations.
> While the content at issue violated Facebook’s terms of service and Community Standards, Facebook did not remove the content prior to the attacks.
[1] - https://gizmodo.com/supreme-court-online-threats-legal-as-lo...
[2] - https://blogs.findlaw.com/second_circuit/2019/08/what-legal-...
[3] - https://caselaw.findlaw.com/summary/opinion/us-2nd-circuit/2...
> I'd be quite surprised if this is true in the USA. If you could provide an example of such a case I'd be very interested. The only time I'm aware of the Supreme Court ruling on online hate speech
This isn't about hate speech, which is protected speech. It's about a subset of content which is itself criminal (that is, for which the source would be criminally liable), where a service provider knows of the content and the facts which make it criminal (whether or not they understand the criminal prohibition itself)
And it's not about civil liability (things some private party can sue you for damages, and where therefore the Section 230 protection is likely to apply) but criminal liability, that is, things where the government can take action leading to criminal fines and/or imprisonment.
Examples of laws creating this kind of knowledge-based obligation are 18 USC Sec 2339A regarding material sorry to terrorists and 18 USC Sec 1466A with regard to obscene visual representation of the sexual abuse of children.
> ...it is necessary that a defendant in some sort associate himself with the venture, that he participate in it as in something that he wishes to bring about, [and] that he seek by his action to make it succeed.”
The example of Sec 1466a is an excellent one. Facebook is the world’s largest platform for sharing exactly those types images, and they have not been charged under 1466a, because they are not liable under it.
What would be pertinent is 18 USC 2258A [2] which requires service providers to report any such content that that are made aware of to the tip line, but by now we are far afield of the topic at hand.
A simple introduction on hosting and platform liability, for example [1].
[1] - https://scholarship.shu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&htt...
Coordinated? Competitor? Where do you find evidence of coordination? Why do you think parler is a competitor?
> it’s more accurate to say that Parler was a site that carried some hateful messages
Not accurate at all. Why do you think people used parler instead of twitter.
> Nuking the entire platform from orbit is not an appropriate remedy
When the entire platform resists and refuses to moderate, nuking from orbit is a fine remedy. Parler was too stupid to build alternatives into their risk profile. I think they believed their own hype.
Maybe Facebook, but...
How did Parler compete with Apple? What market were they competing in?
How did Parler compete with AWS? Did they share the same sort of clients?
How did Parler compete with Google?
Are you supposed to rebuild the entire tech ecosystem that the entire world runs on? Fight through every damn moat along the way? Is this the bar we set here?
Its easy to talk free speech for popular speech. It's how people react to unpopular speech that shows their true colours.