Social media and the First Amendment.
There is no way to apply state-actor First Amendment standards to social media platforms that wouldn’t amount to either destroying the platforms or eviscerating the protections of the First Amendment against state action.
If you’re going to conflate Facebook and the federal government, then you have a Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc. that can’t ban porn, that can’t ban snuff films, that can’t ban animal torture videos, that can’t ban commercial spam, and that can’t ban any targeted harassment short of credible true threats of violence. It’s not just about the Alt-Lite Podbros screaming their favourite slurs. It’s about applying the entire body of First Amendment jurisprudence in all its sweeping breadth.
Either you wind up with a legal mandate that the entire Internet must be a 4chan dumpster fire that most people wouldn’t want to use, or you water down First Amendment standards to create arbitrary special protections for Alex Jones Pizzagate videos while excluding Ron Jeremy’s greatest hits.
Outsource content moderation decisions for these companies to the government and it really does become censorship. Not some tenuous cultural-norm analogy to censorship, but actual state censorship imposed by government agents and backed up by real force.
I think that is something people have a tendency to over look. If I want to censor(tell some one to shut up), in my own house I have that right. I am not the government. The constitution is the rules the United States Government needs to live by. The ten amendments( so called bill of rights) are the protection clauses for the people, not the governing clauses for the people.
To listen to the audio version of this article click on the play image.
Brought to you by @tts. If you find it useful please consider upvoting this reply.
The more platforms become integral to living a 'normal' life then I think the more justification there is for regulating what social media can and cannot ban. This isn't and either or argument: social media sites can still vendor content that is illegal and they can also respect somebody's preferences to not see certain types of content.
Posted using Partiko Android
I completely agree, and also would point out that any legislation that applied to a specific platform risks making of it 'The' platform. Since I reckon the best solution to the problem is the free market, and folks with brains using platforms that let them use them, while retards can wear their helmets in their safe spaces, that would be the worst possible outcome.
Want to speak freely? Speak where it's allowed, such as here or 4chan.
Thanks!