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DISCUSSION[Discussion] Should the limits of speech on the internet be decided by a handful of CEOs? (self.KotakuInAction)

Namrok が 投稿

More and more lately, I see this same argument.

"Reddit/Twitter/Facebook is a privately owned company. You are using it for free. They can permit or disallow whatever they want."

It's hard to argue against such a myopic view. It's technically true.

But let me ask you this. In the 21st century, do we want the limits of speech decided by a handful of CEOs? Do we want to surrender truly free speech to platform holders only?

We haven't just seen FatPeopleHate and other distasteful subreddits vanish. We've seen a lot of legitimate research, critique and news vanish down the memory hole too. Individual subreddits have their unequally applied sort of true from a certain point of view reasons for vanishing articles their community clearly wants to discuss. But when they appear on other subreddits, they still vanish off r/all once the admins in San Francisco wake up in the morning. And using their media connections, I've seen almost every tech page I read cover this negatively.

I have never in my life seen the news defend a CEO which takes over a company, horribly misunderstands it's customers and culture, and runs it into the ground. Ever. It's entirely unprecedented. But they are defending Ellen Pao on blatantly ideological grounds, and it disgust me.

I can't believe my generation, the one that grew up with unfettered free speech on the wild west of the internet, grew up and went "We've outgrown offensive speech, now nobody else should get to enjoy it either."

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[–]SSCat 8ポイント9ポイント  (0子コメント)

Fuck no!

The news media is the old guard, they want the internet destroyed so you come crawling back to them to watch/read their stuff. They want the internet dead and gone forever.

[–]Whenindoubtdo 8ポイント9ポイント  (0子コメント)

You start accepting these sorts of restrictions, it becomes a bottomless pit.

Sooner or later you'll have companies banning political speech and have a silofication of news based on which online site it is. Reddit blocking libertarian or conservative views (or even views that aren't considered liberal enough) could be a possible future. It's incredibly destructive. And I'm saying this as someone who has mostly liberal views.

[–]EnigmaMachinen 4ポイント5ポイント  (0子コメント)

These are the times where the ability to make something new and change the landscape is needed. Though there is a distinct cycle- attract users, building a community, monetize, censor, attempt to sell more. But I would be willing to make something better- something more open. I don't know what Voat is like but I'm sure the people here would like to be a part of something less repressive.

[–]Lord_Spoot 3ポイント4ポイント  (0子コメント)

A wise man once said, "The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it".

They can try their hardest, but it's entirely impossible to censor the internet.

[–]Binturung 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

More and more lately, I see this same argument.

"Reddit/Twitter/Facebook is a privately owned company. You are using it for free. They can permit or disallow whatever they want."

It's hard to argue against such a myopic view. It's technically true.

There's a larger truth here, however. People are not forced into go to Reddit, Twitter, and Facebook.

The more they squeeze, the more people feel threatened if they post something that they feel is harmless, the more likely people will seek out alternatives.

For example, a LOT of people are talking about Voat. Maybe once it's server issues are resolved, and it's capable of handling a large influx of users, it can be an alternative to Reddit, and people will start switching.

These transitions won't be fast, as people are addicted to karma, followers, and what not. But everyone has their limit, and these sites, if they continue on the path they're going, will eventually drive even the most loyal users away.

[–]Inuma 1ポイント2ポイント  (1子コメント)

I have never in my life seen the news defend a CEO which takes over a company, horribly misunderstands it's customers and culture, and runs it into the ground. Ever. It's entirely unprecedented.

Uhmmmm... Thomas Jefferson had his own propagandist to make sure he got good news.

Woodrow Wilson decimated "Reason to Appeal" for being a Socialist paper and the 4th circulating publication of the time.

Mumia Abu Jamal is still locked up in prison for his affiliation to the Black Panthers as well as reporting on things that have coalesced into the Black Lives Matter movement.

And don't get me started on the Gilded Age which was followed by the uprisings of the Progressive Era to curtail the power of the private to give way to the power of the public.

Hell, Jack Anderson was the thorn in the side of J Edgar Hoover for a LOOOOONG time.

And right now, you have Comcast and Time Warner doing everything in their power to get larger and destroy what people can do on the internet so they can make more money through monopoly.

I could go on and on about corporate malfeasance or even governmental malfeasance.

This really isn't about free speech. That's a small part of a much larger issue of how corporate values are being forcefully instilled into communities without their say so. I guess you could call it corporate colonization, but I'm not even sure if that's accurate...

[–]Nomenimion 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

Absolutely not, and the issue doesn't go away due to "It's a private company!"

[–]Reliablesand 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

I find it weird how a ton of people keep bringing up the whole "Free speech protection is meant to protect you from GOVERNMENTS, not CORPORATIONS!" angle to minimize Reddit's actions this week without considering the discrepancy between what Reddit has said they stand for versus what they are actually doing. Yes, I do agree that Reddit is a company and thus they have full control over their platform and what they allow users to post on it, but the problem is that Reddit has always (and still does) advertised itself as a free speech platform, which sets the expectation that all law abiding content, even content disagreeable to some, can be hosted on the site. Then comes Pao and the gradual push to promote "safety and inclusiveness", along with double speak-esque blog posts that try to deal with the cognitive dissonance that arises from saying you are a free speech platform while your actions demonstrate otherwise, all of which culminated this week to the sanctioning of subreddit bans. Anyway you cut it the content that was banned broke no laws or established Reddit rules (even while SRS flagrantly does) which demonstrated the move to ban content was based entirely on specific ideologies, contrary to free speech. It would have been better if they just fully embraced this new direction and removed any self promotion as a free speech platform as they would have at least been honest with themselves and with their users, but of course if they did that then it would probably have caused a bigger shit storm and Voat would still be offline due all the new users.

Companies do not dictate law, governments formed by people do. In the US the first amendment serves to give protections to speech. Corporations that operate in that environment should either state their platform agrees and supports that law, or should clearly state otherwise if they want to exert control over what content users put on their platform (rather than say you suppoprt free speech while your actions demonstrate otherwise). At that point the free market can give rise to new platforms that give users what they want, as it has done in the past, and as it is doing again now.

[–]SkizzleMcRizzle 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

NO. Absolutely not as there are limits to the amount of control a CEO has on its company. Especially reddit, since it's atm guilty of Misadvertisement as is twitter for touting itself as a Free Speech platform. Additionally, it's already been decided in a court of law the limits of free speech.

[–]TheMindUnfetteredGrand Poobah of GamerGate 1ポイント2ポイント  (1子コメント)

But let me ask you this. In the 21st century, do we want the limits of speech decided by a handful of CEOs? Do we want to surrender truly free speech to platform holders only?

What alternative do you propose? The trend is for social interaction to concentrate on a few platforms, which means that the people who control those platforms are going to control social interaction. This is nothing new, really. Every time a platform becomes toxic, people just move onto a new one. Digg -> Reddit.

[–]lonewolfbro 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

this person speaks truth additionally so long as we have a free market and the barrier to entry is low competitors will rise and migrations of user bases will happen.

[–]nodeworx 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

You have the power like that of every consumer, you can choose not to give them you business and take it elsewhere.

Same thing with pre-orders, boycotts, etc. All it takes is a little backbone. Unfortunately that is something that seems to be in short supply.

You can't have it both ways depending on whether it's convenient or not, that's them not us! Either freedom of expression counts for something or not. The same thing is true for companies. Either they can set up a service according to their ideas and opinions or not.

The reddit situation is mainly shit, because it changed from being open for all to supporting a certain ideology. Now, we can fight this change and there is nothing wrong with that. We can say as users that these are changes we do not support and we can threaten to walk out, not buy gold, use adblocks etc.

What we can't do is say that they don't have the right to make these changes. There is a difference here, they have the right to make these changes, but we have the right to point out that these changes can have an adverse affect on their bottom line.

[edit] language and clarification

[–]reifenstag 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

wow, if only someone could think up an idea of a free market where people could choose to support or protest the companies they want to by using or boycotting them..

[–]TheFlyingBastard 0ポイント1ポイント  (1子コメント)

Should the limits of speech on the internet be decided by a handful of CEOs?

Ahhh. Oh shit, I have a 50/50 chance of getting this right. I'm gonna go for...Yes? ...No? Shit. Should've listened to Ian Betteridge.

But seriously.

I have a bit of a problem with the way you phrased the question. This handful of CEOs is not limiting speech on the Internet, just on reddit. It's one of those statements that is "technically true", but also a tad alarmist, so let me try and read between the lines and please do correct me if I misunderstand.

Going by the content of your post, what you're actually asking is: "Should these people be allowed to use their website and their connections to push their own social and political agenda while stifling the the other side?"

And to that I say: Yes, they should be allowed to do that. And so should we. We are also free to use our websites and our connections. We are also free to toss out people out of our digital homes.

Is silencing dissent part of our gameplan? No. Is it conductive? No. Should that happen? No, of course not. But should they be allowed to make it happen? Yes. There's nothing myopic about that. What's myopic is denying them the right to decide what is and is not welcome in their house when it's inconvenient to us.

[–]JoeBlind1 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

Very well said.

Nothing stops you from making your own Reddit, with BlackJack and hookers. Being pissed by the fact that the CEO of Reddit gets to decide the rules of conduct on Reddit is a bit nonsensical.