Posted on 08/03/2018 1:26:36 PM PDT by yesthatjallen
Today’s white supremacist and neo-Nazi social media trolls have much in common with the angry mobs that beat civil rights activists at lunch counters, defaced houses of worship, and stood in the schoolhouse door. Both then and now, these hateful forces sought to disenfranchise and exclude minorities and women from modern society. The tech industry has catalyzed a new generation of hate groups looking to provoke tensions and precipitate violence online. The time has come to deploy civil rights laws to the digital economy.
Hateful activities on social media platforms aimed at racial, ethnic, and religious minorities, women, and the LGBTQ community are not harmless; they terrorize and interfere with a person’s engagement with the digital public square in a manner that chills speech and stifles the civic participation of entire targeted communities. Hateful trolls promote and incite real-world hate crimes as well, causing their targets to live in fear for their safety.
It has become clear that major online platforms are either unable or unwilling to fix the problem of online abuse.
Fifty years ago, the civil rights movement ushered in legislation that helped integrate brick-and-mortar commerce nationwide, through public accommodations laws and the sacrifice and dedication of countless men and women committed to combating racism and other forms of discrimination.
A public accommodation is a private business that offers its services to the public at large. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 created a means to combat unjust discrimination and segregation in many areas of the 20th century’s economy, transforming our nation for the better. Many of our civil rights milestones of the last fifty years would not be possible without the equal right to use public accommodations.
But because these laws were written decades ago, they did not anticipate the Internet. While public accommodations laws apply to online businesses in several states, like California and New York, some other state and federal laws have not yet addressed the issue. We can close these gaps by clarifying the definition of what counts as a public accommodation. While this proposal requires only brief legislation, the civil rights impact would be monumental. In the meantime, civil rights advocates should assertively use the state laws that clearly apply to online commerce.
Online public accommodations laws should protect civil rights in two key ways.
First, it is illegal to interfere with, threaten, coerce, or otherwise impede a person’s use of a public accommodation because of their immutable characteristics, such as race or religion. Public accommodations laws, applied to large Internet platforms, should provide a direct recourse against some of the endemic harassment and intimidation of racial and religious minorities, women, and members of the LGBTQ community on many platforms. In addition to being able to bring civil lawsuits, there are criminal laws to punish those who use violence or threats of violence to interfere with public accommodations.
Second, it is illegal for a public accommodation to directly discriminate against individuals because of their immutable characteristics. If a business opens its doors to the general public, then it should not arbitrarily or unfairly deny service to anyone. Large Internet-enabled services should be no different. If a social media platform chooses to design their system in a way that is discriminatory, the company should be held legally accountable for that choice.
Public accommodations protections for large online platforms would not be burdensome to the Internet economy. Making websites safer for disenfranchised and targeted communities will increase their engagement, and the profits derived from that engagement. Brick-and-mortar businesses have thrived under these laws for over fifty years; this would simply level the playing field between online and offline businesses to ensure equal expectations across all streams of commerce.
At the same time, we can protect online innovation and competition with reasonable size thresholds that exempt small Internet startups while holding large incumbents accountable. Extending public accommodations protections also does not require any changes to the Internet laws that built our modern online world, such as the Communications Decency Act. This proposal will not break the Internet.
Public accommodations laws are strong, established, tested, well-understood, and balanced civil rights protections. They defend the dignity and equal opportunity of all individuals to participate fully in our society. Decades of experience have demonstrated their success in integrating many aspects of offline commerce. As hate and discrimination surge to threaten online communities, it is time to update our civil rights toolkit.
Kristen Clarke is the president and executive director of the National Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. David Brody is an associate counsel and fellow for privacy and technology at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil rights Under Law.
The radical left agrees with you but for different reasons.
I was hoping we could get ahead of this before liberals took control of the narrative but the window appears to be closing.
I was never demanding government intervention. Frankly, I really don't know how to balance the rights of private social media companies and the demands of the left to take control of them and run them by their standards.
What I do know is if we as Republicans and Conservatives keep insisting these social media companies can run their businesses as they see fit the radical left will be sure these businesses run them according to their rules.
Again, I'm not asking for government control but if we don't speak up the radical left will and we will be shut out.
imho.
The only online harassment I hear about these days is against conservatives. Until just being human means harassment is wrong, these two idiot authors can stick it.
Let me fix that.
Kristen Clarke and David Brody are virulent anti-conservative, anti-white-male bigots who celebrate their own intolerance and bigotry.
I understand your fears. But ANY infringements, for any stated reason, regardless of wording, would be turned against freedom. History is littered with “legislated fairness” that leads to evil.
Like it or not, anything legislated that requires fairness or gets to rule on what is hate or fact or fake will ultimately boil down to who has the power to interpret what is acceptable and what is not.
You want government to control Facebook and Google and whether they can pick and choose acceptable content? Then the government needs to take them over and make it part of the Public Broadcast System. Is that the direction we want to go? It’s all about precedence.
Remember the days before Fox Television and Conservative Talk Radio? A new market and competition sprung up. Let freedom fix the problem. Now, where are the alternatives to Facebook and Google?
Leftards - creating problems in search of solutions.
Frankly, I really don’t know how to balance the rights of private social media companies and the demands of the left to take control of them and run them by their standards.
________________________________________________________
I do...look to the 1st Amendment. Can the Left censor POLITICAL speech simply because it might lead to someone getting hurt in any way?
The classification of political speech as HATE speech is a tactic used by Leftists to crush their opponents. People on the political Right have moments of weakness where they by into the whole hate speech censorship movement. Just ask yourself a simple question: Does the prosecution of so-called hate speech cause more injustice than it prevents? Unless you are a complete and hopeless Leftard, you will answer “Yes!”.
The Founding Fathers took steps to ensure that the Postal Service would be content-neutral and remain available to all, because it was the vehicle through which political information was disseminated and debates were conducted at the time.
These internet companies are the 21st. Century equivalent.
The same rules should apply.
“Today’s white supremacist and neo-Nazi social media trolls have much in common with the angry mobs that beat civil rights activists at lunch counters, defaced houses of worship, and stood in the schoolhouse door. Both then and now, these hateful forces sought to disenfranchise and exclude minorities and women from modern society.”
They have so much in common because they were and are just extensions of the Democratic party.
Obviously they have no intention of suppressing hate against WHITES/Christians, but plan to encourage it. Also, anything a White/Christian says or does, or doesn’t say or doesn’t do will be called hate speech.
>>social media trolls have much in common with the angry mobs that beat civil rights activists at lunch counters, defaced houses of worship,...
How queer, it was the BLM types who were harassing diners in NYC a year or two ago and these days are harassing or evicting Trump administration staffers and supporters.
There have been genuine attacks on churches by ‘satanists’ and antichristian dnc brownshirts. The antisemtic cases we heard about last year were by a guy online in Israel and many of the mosque attacks have be selfinflicted acts of vandalism by muslims.
Sexual deviances are not immutable characteristics.
The rule should align with the law. Legal or illegal.
Legal-do nothing
Illegal-report to the police
That would be free speech
If they were honest about banning offensive speech, the internet would shrink to nothing.
But only conservatives get banned, the LEFT does not.
I don't know if there is or if anyone would want legislation to address this.
My concern is that because we on the right want to uphold the rights of private companies to do business as they see fit we are shutting ourselves out of this discussion.
I don't want more laws controlling people or businesses but we have to be aware of how the left operates and what their plans are.
The fact is they have no intention of 'playing fair'. They will not seek a compromise. They will simply by-pass us and tell companies what to do.
This is an issue we have to watch and be engaged in or we will be shut out.
NYT opinion writers should be allowed to post whatever they want, no matter how hateful I think it is. I’d rather know what they think than just see those polished DNC talking points the paper publishes.
If a few neo-Nazis also post hatred, so what? If anyone hires those neo-Nazis I’ll lose respect for them just like I do for the NYT. If some idiots think I’m a neo-Nazi because I voted for Trump and so did a neo-Nazi, that’s evidence we need to improve our schools, not that we need to “fix” the internet.
People with specific disorders (i.e. Jim Acosta) should be advised by their doctor to stay off the internet. But it’s not the government’s business to protect them from butthurt which is a well-known problem for people with those mental disorders.
It appears authors Clarke and Brody disapprove of the New York Times recently hiring the Internet hatemonger.
Or is there something more here?
I didn’t have to read the bylines to know that this crap was written by two lawyers. Nobody else could possibly put together such a pile of illogical, disconnected slop.
Hateful trolls promote and incite real-world hate crimes as well, causing their targets to live in fear for their safety. .......................................... Sound like Mad Maxine to me. ????
Unless they all want to conclude that private businesses and private people can discriminate for any reason they choose; the only rule is that there can be no rules. The left created this catch 22 and is about to experience it. The road to Hell has always been paved with “good intentions”...
The Left continues its push for “Thought Crime” laws.
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