Social Media and Free Speech?

[Martinus]

I think it is a bit different as newspapers are by definition about publishing edited content. Facebook is not about own content but about providing platform for people to publish theirs. It is a new social phenomenon hence most analogies don't really work.

[Martinus]

Combine this with stuff like Elon Musk cancelling a Tesla delivery to someone who was critical of him - and you get a potentially problematic picture as celed puts it.

[celedhring]

I think it is a bit different as newspapers are by definition about publishing edited content. Facebook is not about own content but about providing platform for people to publish theirs. It is a new social phenomenon hence most analogies don't really work.

It's like the state deciding which newspapers can be carried at newsstands. And while I understand that freedom of speech is about the state not limiting it, not private actors, I portend that Facebook has control over more speech than most states on Earth.

Again, I'm still not sure it's something to be alarmed about. One can pack up and go elsewhere and publish their stuff, but the immense audience FB has gives it undeniable power.

[garbon]

I think it is a bit different as newspapers are by definition about publishing edited content. Facebook is not about own content but about providing platform for people to publish theirs. It is a new social phenomenon hence most analogies don't really work.

It's like the state deciding which newspapers can be carried at newsstands. And while I understand that freedom of speech is about the state not limiting it, not private actors, I portend that Facebook has control over more speech than most states on Earth.

No, that would be a bad Martiesque analogy. It isn't really like that at all.

[DGuller]

I generally recoil at all such efforts to control speech, for the slipper slope reasons.  That said, without opining on this particular issue, you have to agree that there is an issue with online forums becoming incubators of hateful ideas that would otherwise not have much legitimacy.  I'm not a believer in following ideologies to the utmost purity without regard to where they lead.  If "free speech" online leads to a very ugly place, then maybe some control on free speech online is called for.  After all, online speech is missing safeguards against abuse of free speech that are present in face-to-face conversations, such as desire to not be seen as neanderthal.

[The Brain]

So, as many people probably have heard Marc Zuckerberg announced a zero-tolerance-policy for anti-refugee/anti-immigrant hate speech on Facebook. This comes after several smaller controversies of Facebook, Twitter, Youtube etc. banning "offensive speech" and suspending accounts of "medium profile" people thought to engaged in such.

While the obvious response is that these are, obviously, all privately owned platforms, so their owners are free to set up any rules they like, do you see this having a potentially chilling effect on free speech in future? I mean, for many businesses, politicians and public figures, these social media are becoming more and more the main way to reach their base, and this will become more and more so in future. Would it be a concern then if all of them (there are not that many) decided to, for example, boycott a specific politician or a message, effectively distorting the democratic debate? Or, if this happened, would people simply move on to another, more free speech friendly platform?

I don't see what FB does or does not do as a threat to free speech.

[Berkut]

I guess Berkut is right and hardly anyone believes in freedom of speech.

Wait, what?

[Berkut]

I think it is a bit different as newspapers are by definition about publishing edited content. Facebook is not about own content but about providing platform for people to publish theirs. It is a new social phenomenon hence most analogies don't really work.

So what are you advocating then?

[Razgovory]

Presumably, the owners of facebook have a right to free speech as well, and could exercise it by banning people they aren't so keen on .

[Zanza]

I don't see why Facebook as a private company would have an obligation to offer a platform for any kind of content. If they exclude certain content because of their own views or because they think that furthers their business interests that's fine with me. Just because a network has been very successful in market penetration doesn't mean it all of a sudden has other obligations than any other privately owned platform.

[grumbler]

I don't see why Facebook as a private company would have an obligation to offer a platform for any kind of content. If they exclude certain content because of their own views or because they think that furthers their business interests that's fine with me. Just because a network has been very successful in market penetration doesn't mean it all of a sudden has other obligations than any other privately owned platform.

This.  The market will decide how wise and tolerable their policies (on this and many other things) are. Facebook isn't the first social media giant on the block, and it won't be the last.

[Martinus]

Just because a network has been very successful in market penetration doesn't mean it all of a sudden has other obligations than any other privately owned platform.

Actually, that's not true. A company with market dominance does have other obligations that other privately owned companies do not have. This is a core principle of antitrust law - at least in Germany or the EU at large.

[garbon]

As an aside, one of the reasons for this change was that Merkel had taken facebook to task for not having more stringent anti-hate measures in place - or so the news media told me.

[Admiral Yi]

At least in the US, antitrust regulation is about the prevention of monopoly pricing.  Don't see how that applies to a free service.

[Martinus]

I think it is a bit different as newspapers are by definition about publishing edited content. Facebook is not about own content but about providing platform for people to publish theirs. It is a new social phenomenon hence most analogies don't really work.

So what are you advocating then?

Well, I am not sure - I just wanted to start a discussion. But as I pointed out to Zanza, there is extensive precedent of imposing additional obligations (including obligation to supply good or service on equal terms to every customer, unless it has an objective justification - such as scarcity) on dominant companies.