It’s not just about facts: Democrats and Republicans have sharply different attitudes about removing misinformation from social media::One person’s content moderation is another’s censorship when it comes to Democrats’ and Republicans’ views on handling misinformation.
Part of the problem is who decides what is misinformation. As soon as the state gets to decide what is and isn’t true, and thus what can and cannot be said, you no longer have free speech.
You do not have free speech on social media today, private platforms decide what they want to have.
The state does not have to be the one to decide these things, nor is it a case of “deciding” what is true, we have a long history of using proofs to solidify something as fact, or propaganda, or somewhere in between. This is functionally what history studies are about.
That brings up another thing. At what point does it become a “public space”?
Theres an old supreme court case on a company town that claimed someone was trespassing on a sidewalk. The supreme court ruled it was a public space, and thus they could pass out leaflets.
https://firstamendment.mtsu.edu/article/marsh-v-alabama-1946/
Imo, a lot of big sites have gotten to that stage, and should be treated as such.
I think this is an underrated point. A lot of people are quick to say “private companies aren’t covered by free speech”, but I’m sure everyone agrees legal ≠ moral. We rely on these platforms so much that they’ve effectively become our public squares. Our government even uses them in official capacities, e.g. the president announcing things on Twitter.
When being censored on a private platform is effectively social and informational murder, I think it’s time for us to revisit our centuries-old definitions. Whether you agree or disagree that these instances should be covered by free speech laws, this is becoming an important discussion that I never see brought up, but instead I keep seeing the same bad faith argument that companies are allowed to do this because they’re allowed to do it.
This is an argument for a publicly-funded “digital public square”, not an argument for stripping private companies of their rights.
Why not both?
While I agree that punishing companies for success isn’t a good idea, we aren’t talking about small startups or local business ran by individual entrepreneurs or members of the community here. We’re talking about absurdly huge corporations with reach and influence the likes that few businesses ever reach. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to apply a different set of rules to them, as they are distinctly different situations.
I fully agree. Small groups have limited resources. But google and facebook have a ton of resources, they can handle more oversight.
Just make a nonprofit third party that is as not biased as possible that you can search through with article links that can break down misinformation. Kind of like reverse image search but for articles that pulls up the article score.
third party that is as not biased as possible
First of all, humans inherently have bias. It’s literally inevitable. What’s more important is what your biases are, how aware of them you are and how they affect your reasoning and openness to new information that might conflict.
Besides, not all biases are created equal and not all biases are completely unreasonable.
Some people are biased against minority groups while others are biased against authority figures. Some are biased in favor of billionaires, others against them. Some will not vote for a candidate that receives corporate PAC money, others will not cosponsor a bill unless the PACs are on board
What a third party needs is to be steeped in bias against corruption and demagoguery and in favor of transparency.
I don’t have any trust whatsoever for any company, or the government, to be the decider of what counts as “mis/disinformation”.
Sometimes there are easy layups, like “the Holocaust did not happen” and “Vaccines have 5G chips inside them” which are obviously just wrong and I think most of us would agree not to have…
But what about “The Holocaust was overblown and the jews should stop whining about it”? I and probably 99% of people would say that’s a stupid opinion, but is that “misinformation”? Should a company be allowed to ban you for saying it?
How about things like the 13/52 statistic? Should that be removed? What about “42% of all transgenders commit suicide”? That’s used to attack that group a lot, should that be banned as well?
And, to be honest with you, the Democratic Party is absolutely obsessed with using clinical terms like those mentioned to stifle all discussion and act like they are the only voice on the issue you’re allowed to believe. Republicans freak out about this for good reason.
It’s always the Democratic side that gets conservative opinions that they think are bad (whether lies or otherwise), boot them off the platform, and then decide to trample all over their new platforms and get them killed off too. It’s never just “pRiVaTe CoMpAnY tHeY cAn dO WhAt ThEy WaNt MaKe YoUr oWn WeBsiTE”, it’s “you are not allowed to have a place to speak this idea that I think is bad for society anywhere on the internet”. I really, really do not want to embolden that sect more than they already are.
