This is a sticky issue.
First of all, the old phrase “no shirt, no shoes, no service” comes to mind here. Can’t Instagram and Facebook and Twitter simply refuse service to someone? I don’t think a person has a right to access these platforms. Those that do, do so under their rules.
Now, you have freedom of speech on the internet, but not freedom from consequence. Want to be unchecked? Start your own website or blog. You’re guaranteed the right to be able to do that. You’re not guaranteed that right on someone else’s brand.
Will be interesting to see it develop.
It’s a free service not sure why they can’t do what they want. Don’t like the product leave. It’s strange that people get upset at companies that offer their product for free.
“...Facebook and Twitter simply refuse service to someone? “
Hmmm. But cake decorators can’t?
They can deny service. True.
But they have special statutory protection from being sued based on what customers post. However, once they engage in the substance (unless violent, plus a couple of specific exclusions), they become a publisher and liable for content (defamation, etc.)
Section 230 protections is a very big deal. They do not want to lose.
<><><>Can Instagram and Facebook and Twitter simply refuse service to someone?
<><><>I don’t think a person has a right to access these platforms.
<><><> Those that do, do so under their rules.
NOTE These social media platforms are not private businesses——these are publicly-held companies subject to SEC laws.
They raise money from the public and are traded on the stock exchange,
They “say” they are common carriers-—like planes, trains, cabs, buses........
Twitter is not a common carrier-——it is a publicly-held company subject to the laws of the SEC.
TWITTERS IPO-——2013 PROSPECTUS filed with the SEC
LINK-—https://wwwsec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1418091/000119312513390321/d564001ds1.htm
To report your concerns about Twitter censoring Trump:
email .... enforcement@SEC.gov
If YouTube allows everything shy of calls for violence, then YouTube can't be sued for allowing that video on its platform. However, if YouTube picks and chooses what videos it will allow, then it becomes a publisher. Then if some kid followed the advice and died, his parents can sue YouTube.
YouTube and Facebook want to have their cake and eat it to. They want to be able to control their content (i.e. be publishers) but be free of lawsuits like common carriers (i.e. the phone companies).
YouTube and Facebook have to make a choice. They can either behave like a common carrier and allow a wealth of content and be free of lawsuits, or they can limit content to politically correct leftism and risk being sued when someone dies from eating Tide Pods, mimicking a bad prank, etc.
The problem is that standard services such as payment, hosting, and connectivity have been withdrawn to stop alternatives. Second, such competition has been prevented from appearing on application stores under the dubious claims of “hate speech”.
In short, they’re restraining competition from forming or growing.
Your logic is sound and correct.
Nope I think you don’t fully understand the situation.
Twitter has always claimed innocent and not liable for the content posted by its users. ......because it simply provides the platform to post. ...however now by Twitter hiring CNN to fact check Trump, Twitter now becomes a active publisher and lose their status as a innocent provider.
Further, just hours ago, prior to Trump EO, Twitter announced that they will stop the fact checking and return to their original, non participatory status. ....Twitter backed down. Trump won.
It is not as simple as you think.
“First of all, the old phrase “no shirt, no shoes, no service” comes to mind here. Can’t Instagram and Facebook and Twitter simply refuse service to someone?”
It depends, would you support AT&T shutting off phone service to Ronald Reagan’s campaign because he used the term “Welfare Queens”. Pretty much the same degree of monopoly now with tech companies.
The issue is that they are indemnified by law because they are not responsible for content. But, when they edit content (including warning tags) they become responsible for the content, where they are no longer protected.
They should be considered utilities.
“First of all, the old phrase “no shirt, no shoes, no service” comes to mind here. Can’t Instagram and Facebook and Twitter simply refuse service to someone?”
If a baker cannot refuse to bake a cake for a couple of queers then SM platforms should not be able to refuse service to anyone either.
What Twitter did is tantamount to editorializing personal content posted by one of their members. In this instance I think Trump is correct and if we get the House back this should be on the agenda day 1. Eliminate the immunity clause for these organizations.
Now, you have freedom of speech on the internet, but not freedom from consequence. Want to be unchecked? Start your own website or blog. You’re guaranteed the right to be able to do that. You’re not guaranteed that right on someone else’s brand.
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I don’t agree. From what I read on FR this morning, Mike Huckabee compared the social media giants to the phone company. What if the phone company monitored your calls, and the minute you said something they didn’t approve of, they cut off your call and closed your account? Would you say: “Yeah, well, Joe Blow can start his OWN phone company!”. It’s just not going to happen. Something things are too big and too ingrained now, and Twitter / YouTube / Facebook are three of ‘em.
I think it’s a platform vs publisher issue, in that conservative voices are silenced while liberal ones aren’t. Clear bias with that.
Presently, social media platforms are protected from liability on the condition that they are simply platforms for others and exert no editorial control over content. They have quickly lost that special protection and the executive order starts with that. It changes a lot.
You are partly correct in that it is a private platform (Twitter, I mean) with its own set of rules. Users agree to abide by those rules, but platform providers must conspicuously post those policies and apply them uniformly to comply with Sec 230. Clearly, Twitter surrenders its Sec 230 status by cherry-picking which tweets it edits and which it doesn’t, and offers no clarifying data on how its terms of service have been violated by users it censors. Being a private company does not exempt private companies from discrimination. There’s a word the lefties love to use, and Trump essentially is using it as an object lesson against them