Re:The Westminster Declaration
by hn_acker on Tuesday October 31, 2023 @03:48PM
(#38090466)
Less that the material was fabricated (not true to my understanding), more that the material didn't say what readers think it said. Certain signatories like Matt Taibbi [1] misunderstood or deliberately misinterpreted the Twitter Files and believe that the US government is more involved in social media companies' moderation than in reality.
More importantly, the Westminster Declaration wants social media companies to host speech that the companies might not want on the platform.
> We call on tech corporations to undertake to protect the digital public square as defined in Article 19 of the UDHR and refrain from politically motivated censorship, the censorship of dissenting voices, and censorship of political opinion.
Suppose for the sake of example that moderation on Twitter has been politically motivated [2]. Then according to the Westminster Declaration, Twitter shouldn't ban conservative opinions, nor liberal opinions, nor anti-semitic opinions, nor support of the January 6th resurrection, even if some of the posts expressing those opinions might happen to break Twitter's current terms of service.
But what does it matter that a moderation decision was motivated by something or other, so long as the government isn't pressuring (not the same as merely suggesting) the company to make the decision? Users who aren't welcome on one social media platform for their opinions can join another social media platform, such as a Mastodon instance. Having freedom of speech doesn't require that a few platforms host all opinions, but that anyone who wants a social media platform to host certain opinions can join or make one without fear that the country's governments would restrict/punish such a platform.
More importantly, the Westminster Declaration wants social media companies to host speech that the companies might not want on the platform.
> We call on tech corporations to undertake to protect the digital public square as defined in Article 19 of the UDHR and refrain from politically motivated censorship, the censorship of dissenting voices, and censorship of political opinion.
Suppose for the sake of example that moderation on Twitter has been politically motivated [2]. Then according to the Westminster Declaration, Twitter shouldn't ban conservative opinions, nor liberal opinions, nor anti-semitic opinions, nor support of the January 6th resurrection, even if some of the posts expressing those opinions might happen to break Twitter's current terms of service.
But what does it matter that a moderation decision was motivated by something or other, so long as the government isn't pressuring (not the same as merely suggesting) the company to make the decision? Users who aren't welcome on one social media platform for their opinions can join another social media platform, such as a Mastodon instance. Having freedom of speech doesn't require that a few platforms host all opinions, but that anyone who wants a social media platform to host certain opinions can join or make one without fear that the country's governments would restrict/punish such a platform.
[1] https://www.techdirt.com/2023/04/07/mehdi-hasan-dismantles-t...
[2] https://www.techdirt.com/2023/06/29/internal-twitter-video-r...