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 1st Amendment protects the right to peacefully assemble. One of the ways The People assemble is for the exchange of goods and services. And just as one has the right to NOT participate in a particular speech, one also has the right to NOT participate in a particular exchange of goods and services.
If I dont want to sell to you FOR ANY REASON, the 1st amendment protects that right. Public accommodation laws in direct contradiction to this right.
If HATE were censored, President Trump’s critics would not be allowed to say anything.
Only in the warped mind of a liberal would government oppression be considered a civil right
What about my civil rights as a conservative? Where is my civil right to embrace the 1st and 2nd amendments? To not be banned, to not have my commerce be blocked, to not be denied service at a store, shop, or restaurant?
Paging Dr. Goebbels.
I don’t believe that these clowns are in a position to do it. However doing it isn’t the point. It’s getting the meme going as widely as possible that it would be a desirable thing to do it. This in turn will drive political evolution.
Liberals have already claimed the words love, smart, educated, tolerant.
By their OWN definitions already reinforced in media and academia, they’re the only ones who act out of love.
By their own standards, everyone else is guilty of hate speech and so could be shut down under a “hate speech” law.
I had a liberal bully tell me FBI crime stats by race were hate facts. Government data that didn’t fit their narrative was equated to a hate crime, assault.
Even when the discourse is civil, liberal bullies discriminate against it as poor quality content (Twitter’s quality filters), stupid and irrational (fake news filters that censor any conservative source).
It is fascism in the name of feelings. It is warm and fuzzy branding that seeks totalitarian control. But Big Brother is Big Nanny, an overbearing mother who at first seems comforting and caring but is just as oppressive.
Twitter didn’t have a problem with liberal bullies’ hash tags kill all whites, kill all men, various kill all Jew hash tags used by the left.
Twitter has censored conservatives after a civil debate or after reams of actual threatened violence by the left, because they define conservative viewpoints themselves as evil.
Sarah Jeong of NYTIMES first
Censorship is the tool of tyrants.
Time to boycott the left’s attempted takeover of the social media platforms.
This is America, and substitutions via competition are the American Way of doing things.
Freedom.
Bitches can’t take it.
The white supremacists and neo-Nazis are also socialists.
Yet the old saying about freedom of speech still rings true.
“I may not agree with what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it”
Freedom of speech, you either have it or you don’t.
This is fascism: Business colluding with bureaucracy to control markets and competitors.
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