Posted on 04/07/2018 6:27:26 AM PDT by dangus
Why are conservatives so passive about YouTube and Facebook deleting people's accounts? It's actually NOT Facebook's freedom of speech or freedom of association.
Your videos, photos or commentary are NOT Facebook's or YouTube's speech. If they were, God only knows how many life sentences Zuckerberg would be serving. They have both legally disavowed by default any responsibility for anything expressed on their services. They are YOUR speech. Facebook and Alphabet LICENSED to use your speech, under whatever terms you agree to. But ownership includes responsibility, and they do not have ownership of them.
Deleting an account is like a landlord burning your journals and manuscripts because you've been evicted. Just because they provided a tool which was used to create your intellectual property doesn't mean they can destroy your property. They may even be able to seize it, but they can't destroy it. Cancellation of an account is an act of destruction.
It WOULD be reasonable of Facebook or YouTube to reject a submission, or even under clearly defined rules, to restrict a post or video so most people can't see it.
But this has to be done by rules, and for a legitimate business purpose.
So let's be clear about the freedom of association:
If you don't want to let someone into your place of business, that's your right. If you think your cousin Irene is about to marry a louse, you're of no obligation to rent your restaurant to them for their reception.
But restraint of trade is NOT someone's right. It's not intuitive to some conservative's thinking that restraint of trade can involve a single provider. But we've been down this road before. A railroad denying access to a farmer puts that farmer out of business. Facebook denying access to a content provider puts that content provider out of business.
Facebook and YouTube are part of integral parts of others' business plans, and not because the people who use them "are stupid," but because they provide something of significant value to many businesses. And both services are directly involved in people monetizing their accounts.
Lots of conservatives seem to think that Facebook and YouTube can do what they want because users sign a contract. But contracts merely allow people to allow the law to be applied to areas where statutes don't already apply it. A contract which is not lawful is not valid. A contract which demands the right to arbitrarily restrain trade is not valid.
If social media providers sold their services for cash, this would be obvious to more people. But they sell their services for information.
And yes, they do SELL their services, even if you THINK you're getting it for free. You may GIVE them lots of valuable information about yourself for free. But you HAVE to pay YouTube, for instance, with your name, birthday, gender, phone number and nation of residence... so they can sell this information. (The fact that you may use fake data doesn't mean that they aren't requiring data.) Anything you have to provide in exchange for the service is commerce.
(This would be difference if Facebook or YouTube took responsibility for their content. Then, for instance,if you published a threat, YouTube could argue that it collected such information to respond to that threat. Or if you were continually harrassing someone, and YouTube used this information to prevent you from signing up again with a different account to continue the harrassment. This is plainly NOT the case.)
In many cases, statutes may NOT provide conservatives what they need to win lawsuits. But why aren't conservatives demanding that those statutes be created? And why aren't we testing out those statutes that already exist? Like racketeering?
The idea of free speech is to allow a marketplace of ideas. When big, multi-national, anti-Democratic corporations dominate that marketplace and control speech, that's not free speech; it's the death of free speech. Insisting on free-trade or free-speech policies that don't actually exist promote free speech are as dangerous to free speech as disarmament before genocidal tyrants is to peace.
GRRR. “Anti-democratic,” not “anti-Democratic.” I blame Android.
I see the problem here as monopolies. These social media have built up monopolies and are not only using them to enhance their profits, but to try to eliminate proponents of freedom.
The monopolies need to be broken.
Weren’t monopolies illegal in the past? What happened?
Another form of censorship is all the Left-wing sites that have simply eliminated their comment sections to articles because the comments never went their way. NPR comes to mind.
Don’t have to worry about free speech if you don’t allow speech at all.
How is this different from FreeRepublic?
(1) FreeRepublic doesn’t monetize your data. That makes it freedom of association, not restraint of trade.
(2) FreeRepublic made it clear continually from the start that it’s purpose is to promote its ideology. YouTube and Facebook provide OTHER reasons for their censorship. This would violate the terms of agreement if they censor for OTHER reasons.
How is this different than any of us whining about how Jimrob runs this site? I have zero sympathy for anyone whose data has been compromised by facebook. You signed up, you checked the box beside multiple paragraphs you didn’t read. Consider this a learning opportunity.
Since I thought the differences might not be obvious, I already explained them in point #5.
Post #5, I mean.
There was a comment this week by the number two at Facebook....that the only way to resolve this...was to offer private data opportunities, where you’d pay some monthly fee to be a private member of Facebook. The thing though about this statement....she never suggested how much this would cost. I would imagine you’d have to pay 3.99 or 4.99 service charge to get this private deal to Facebook.
The question is...would people pay this amount? And if a lot of people paid it....would it lessen the value of the remaining public data....so that Facebook faces financial difficulties?
Although the internet existed for decades before, it became commercially-viable in 1995. For the first 10 years, it was a great thing as individuals and corporations found new ways to use this great new playground at the same time. Eventually, the corporations grew up that could find ways to monetize what the people were doing on their own. That symbiotic relationship continued for a decade. Now, we’re into the third decade of the commercial internet and it is becoming like the old media after cable TV expanded—it you want to play, you gotta pay. And if you insist on “freedom” in a corporation-controlled market, you have can some crappy Public Access channel at the end of the dial.
Basically, the corporations that control the parts of the internet that people want (or maybe even “need” by now) will do what they want. Most people won’t walk away from it. Any “alternative media” that pops up can be bought by the big boys for chump change. Any attempts at government regulation will screw up the good parts, while the unethical corporations will find workarounds and move on, possibly more powerful than before.
Face it folks, the internet has gone from being a useful slave to being a harsh taskmaster and the Millennial generation’s addiction only fuels its power.
Fakebook doesn't know how many accounts were scraped and they don't know how much information was actually collected.
Why in the hell would ANYONE pay Fakebook to keep their information "private" going forward? They clearly have no clue how to secure their data in the first place.
IMO, Fakebook needs to be burned to the ground. It needs to be MySpace'd.
FB, google, instagram, twatter are all censoring or suppressing normal people’s opinions and promoting leftist hate-America crap. They are all doing it, and are 100% aware of what they are doing.
They allow jihadis to post whatever they want, but suppress normal people who complain about being raped and murdered.
Not passive. Took care of that myself. No longer on Facebook.
OH B.S.
FB is Zuckerberg’s, just as Free Republic is Jim Robinson’s.
Don’t like it, don’t use it.
Freedom of the press is limited to those that own one.
Censorship is a term that only applies to a government, not to a private entity, no matter what some nerd blurbs and blubs about.
If you CHOSE to use someone else’s stuff, then you enter into an agreement to do so, thus being bound by whatever terms agreed.
If that someone else says you are violating the terms and removes your content that is NOT censorship. That is YOU having violated an agreement, and so suffering the consequences.
It’s still censorship, it’s just not a form of censorship that 1A rights bear upon.
When the paydays stop and there is no fall back everyone knows there is no money for the lights, no more food, no water, no toilet, no parties and extravagance. It's Maslow's lowest needs triangle. And then cuffing their mouths at the same time is forcing the "problem" to go away quietly and die....no voice...no hope.
Years ago those people with computer shows would tell you to never use your real name and have a throwaway email account ,LOL
Newspapers have long censored which letters to the editor and hotlines they published. Based on editor’s choice.
Conservatives need to get in the game, create our sites with current formats, styles and tools. And we (all) need to engage our communities and society more.
No. The constitution limits government powers (among those powers limited is the power to ban PUBLIC speech), not private companies (private speech is on you), nor does it protect people from themselves. Else you have totally misconstrued the meaning of the 1st Amendment, and allowed a company to assume power over you as well as where and when you chose to speak.
Just go somewhere else: start your own company or blog, write a book, whatever. Why do you imagine this forum has moderators/admins? They strike posts that are out of line or break some rule posters have previously agreed to - that is not censorship; it is YOU receiving a consequence for breaking the agreement with this site. If you get banned that is not cause to sue ... same for faceless book and the rest.
This site does not collect or sell our info, but if it did and we signed up, then we signed up for whatever they decide to do with it. Should they say you cannot say such and such (whether you fervently believe your speech or not), they can ban it according to the terms you agreed on, and not likening them or the actions as a result are free to go elsewhere.
This is not a Constitutional issue, no mater how much you wish it. It a personal choice issue.
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