Posted on 10/17/2018 2:38:11 PM PDT by walford
An 85-page Google internal briefing, chillingly and perhaps oxymoronically titled “The Good Censor,” was just leaked. The big tech giants are moving away from supporting a free internet, it says. Instead, they move toward censoring their users. That’s inevitable. And possibly even “good.”
The briefing matter-of-factly notes that global internet freedoms have gone downhill for the past seven years. Users now question celebrating the openness of the internet. “People are no longer willing to see the platforms as neutral mediators of social life.”
“More people are asking, isn’t ‘big tech’ really ‘big media’ in disguise?”
“Is it possible to have an open and inclusive internet while simultaneously limiting political oppression and despotism, hate, violence and harassment?” asks Nathaniel Tkacz. He teaches in the Centre for Interdisciplinary Methodologies at the University of Warwick.
Several news sources are quoted calling for the big tech giants to be treated as media companies due to the increasing censorship. So far, big tech has rejected the label in order to retain their immunity from liability. Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act states that tech firms have legal immunity for the majority of the content posted on their platforms. This is unlike ‘traditional’ media outlets. But, the report notes, “more people are asking, isn’t ‘big tech’ really ‘big media’ in disguise?”
Google’s Principles for Determining the Right Amount of Censorship
Be more consistent.
Don’t take sides.
Police tone instead of content.
Be more transparent.
Enforce standards and policies clearly.
Justify global positions.
Explain the technology.
Be more responsive.
Improve communications.
Take problems seriously.
Be more empowering.
Positive guidelines.
Better signposts.
The briefing cites “breeding conspiracy theories” as one of the reasons for the censorship. What example does it offer? President Trump’s claim that “Google’s search engine was suppressing the bad news about Hillary Clinton.”
Isn’t this a conspiracy theory? No. Robert Epstein, a behavioral psychologist who supported Hillary Clinton, found it was true. His research determined that Google favored Clinton over Trump during the election.
The briefing notes the tech giants’ first partial steps to censorship. They hurt the target without actually removing particular statements. Twitter removes the verified blue check from those who violate its policies. Facebook, Twitter and YouTube briefly suspend accounts. YouTube demonetizes videos.
But they also indulge in full banning. Google banned ads about guns and ads from payday lenders. YouTube increased the number of people on the lookout to ban content to more than 10,000.
The briefing notes that tech firms are forming a balancing act between two incompatible positions. On the one hand, they are trying to create “unmediated ‘marketplaces of ideas’ in the American tradition.” On the other hand, they want to create “well-ordered spaces for safety and civility in the European tradition.”
The American tradition prioritizes free speech for democracy, not civility. It creates space to debate all values. Even civility norms can be debated. The European tradition favors dignity over liberty. It values civility over freedom. It censors racial and religious hatred — even where there is no threat of violence.
The document quotes Kalev Leetaru, an American internet entrepreneur who writes about data and society. He says that we no longer think of censorship in terms of government. Now, private companies control whether your speech stays up or goes down.
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The briefing goes over reasons why this shift is taking place. One is to appease users and stop bad behavior. Another is in response to government regulations. A third reason is to protect advertisers from content they may not like.
This new position as ‘moderator in chief’ has been coming for some time. Leetaru says the internet is evolving into a “corporate-controlled moderated medium.”
Franklin Foer, a staff writer at The Atlantic and , admits there is a problem. The former editor of the liberal flagship The New Republic says, “We do know that journalism, activism and public debate are being silenced in the effort to stamp out extremist speech.”
The briefing observes, “The balancing act between ‘free-for-all’ and ‘civil-for-most’ is proving difficult.” It ends with principles for finding the right amount of censorship. One is to justify global positions of agreeing to censorship in other countries. Another is to provide positive guidelines. The tech giants should give people positive guidance on how to behave on the platform — not only tell them how not to act.
It may sound reasonable. But it suffers a big problem. Who decides what is abuse, harassment and hate speech? What one person considers conservative speech, another person may think abusive or hateful. This has taken place all too many times already.
The tech giants are beginning to control who can say what. Who elected the tech giants to decide what free speech is allowed?
And vice-versa
The social media folks used the drug dealer ploy in order to get into position to control “groupthink”...they insinuated themselves into folks lives like giving away free samples until so many are hooked that they will likely never stop using them and will ignore the deterioration of their free-thinking abilities....doing what the commies said they would do... assimilate us....without firing a shot....via propaganda
Seth Rich discovered the problem with that approach...
The phone company isn’t a content publisher. A better analogy would be your television station refusing to have you on a show, or a radio network refusing to take your call, which of course they do every day despite being publicly regulated.
“The latter makes them subject to the same regulations that apply to Television/Radio etc.”
Actually, it just makes them subject to a different set of constraints in the regulations that cover the internet, since we have a specific set of laws for that which are separate from television and radio.
“You may not like it but it is coming because the tech masters of the universe need to be brought to heel.”
Well, excuse me if I’m not too enthused about conservatives talking about bringing private businesses “to heel” by granting more power to the federal government.
bfl
“Don’t be so certain of that. It depends on whether or not the internet and Google’s monopoly of it can be considered to be the “public square”.”
It’s only considered to be a public square if a court rules that it is, and no court has made that ruling yet, so legally, it is not. Perhaps that will change in the future, but for now they have no such obligation.
“Well, excuse me if I’m not too enthused about conservatives talking about bringing private businesses “to heel” by granting more power to the federal government.”
Correcting the censorship and bad behavior of the social media giants doesn’t require government handlers to running their businesses. All that needs to be done is to codify the rights of users and open legal avenues for victims of censorship or other abuses to seek restitution via lawsuits.
Also the government, via antitrust laws, can have Twitter broken up into four or more companies and stipulate that all of their user’s Tweets appear in the same digital commons - that their apps and websites must show the other companies’s Tweets. That way they would have to compete for users based on value and customer service. When the Feds broke up Ma Bell in the 1980s they made them all support each other’s calls seamlessly and we were all the better for it.
Don’t try to tell me that you liked Ma Bell, The breakup of AT&T was the best thing ever happened to phone service. How would you like it if your phone calls were censored for language and content and you could be booted off of your carrier for having views they don’t like or for calling ‘the wrong people’ or does that not compute?
“Correcting the censorship and bad behavior of the social media giants doesn’t require government handlers to running their businesses.”
Sorry, but the only censorship I really care much about is government censorship. So-called censorship by private businesses is a pretty standard part of private property rights, not some actionable abuse against the citizenry.
“Also the government, via antitrust laws, can have Twitter broken up into four or more companies...”
Yeah, I doubt that’s going to happen since nothing they have done really seems to violate antitrust laws. Maybe you’d have a case with google/youtube installing their own apps on Android phones as that is similar to what Microsoft got dinged for but even then, the courts didn’t break up Micosoft for that, and they probably wouldn’t break up google either.
“...or does that not compute?”
No, I just don’t think there is any real comparison between a company like Twitter and Ma Bell. Ma Bell would be more akin to an ISP, except there is plenty of competition among ISPs already. Twitter is just one more private business among thousands offering services over the internet that those ISPs (the carriers) give you access to. They don’t control your access to the network, they only control your access to their own proprietary service. If you get booted off Twitter, there are still thousands and thousands of other ways for you to communicate on the internet.
Sorry, but your reasoning sounds like a religion and you refuse to acknowledge that the government might have a compelling interest in protecting the right of individual citizens to exercise free speech on the Internet’s public square. Twitter might be a private company but it is operating on our internet that is installed on rights-of-way granted by the public and over spectrums regulated by the government.
“It’s only considered to be a public square if a court rules that it is, and no court has made that ruling yet, so legally, it is not. Perhaps that will change in the future, but for now they have no such obligation.”
I think you forgot the concept of separate-but-equal branches of government. Congress writes and passes the laws ,sometimes with the Executive, and the the Courts enforce them or rule them unconstitutional. Congress has the absolute authority and ability to define by law what the public square is without any input from the courts until after the law is passed.
“I think you forgot the concept of separate-but-equal branches of government.”
I think not.
“Congress writes and passes the laws ,sometimes with the Executive, and the the Courts enforce them or rule them unconstitutional. Congress has the absolute authority and ability to define by law what the public square is without any input from the courts until after the law is passed.”
Sure, and Congress already wrote the laws and left it ambiguous and up to the courts to determine how to interpret that phrase in specific situations.
“AT&T used to be the only phone company and if social media sites can censor you then what is to stop all the individual telecommunications companies from doing the same for voice communications?”
You’re not making much sense here. What does AT&T have to do with social media sites? Social media sites are not service providers or carriers. They certainly do not have a monopoly on communication on the internet.
“What is to stop ISPs from blocking content from any site they dislike or from forbidding the routing of packets to any IP address, even the one for your mobile phone?”
Well, competition for one. An ISP that chose to do that would lose business to other ISPs that don’t.
“The Internet infrastructure in America is the public square now and social media sites run on it.”
Still not making much sense. If the infrastructure is the public square (and it hasn’t been legally defined as such yet) that still doesn’t make a social media site the public square.
“Sorry, but your reasoning sounds like a religion”
Huh? What have I said that is religious in nature?
“... you refuse to acknowledge that the government might have a compelling interest in protecting the right of individual citizens to exercise free speech on the Internet’s public square.”
Well, it’s not really up to me to acknowledge anything of the sort. It’s up to the courts to do that, and they haven’t.
“Twitter might be a private company but it is operating on our internet that is installed on rights-of-way granted by the public and over spectrums regulated by the government.”
So is FreeRepublic. You going to argue that they have to let every leftie troll that wants to post here do that too? Otherwise, your argument that operating on the internet somehow opens a private company up to government regulation of what they can and can’t censor really doesn’t seem to be consistent.
Social media deplatforming is no different than would be taking away you phone service because they didn't like what you say on a call. 
“Social media deplatforming is no different than would be taking away you phone service...”
Of course it is different, so that just makes your argument silly.
Genital warts isn’t the same as herpes but both are horrible and must be prevented. I think that you and everyone who holds the idea that the Internet can be controlled by the leftist tech tycoons are going to lose this argument.
PayPal just booted Gab as a customer and its hosting partner has told Gab that it has to find a new hosting provider - essentially deplatforming it. I suppose that is ok with you? If it is you are an ass posting in the wrong forum.
“I think that you and everyone who holds the idea that the Internet can be controlled by the leftist tech tycoons are going to lose this argument.”
Nice strawman you’re building there.
“I suppose that is ok with you?”
What is your solution? Do you want to give government a bunch more power to force private businesses to do what you want (and imagine that won’t backfire when the other side gets political power again)?
“If it is you are an ass posting in the wrong forum.”
Aww, too bad it isn’t your forum so you can’t “deplatform” me for disagreeing with you, eh?
First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out - because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out - because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out - because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out - because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me - and there was no one left to speak out for me.
What will you be posting when the hosting partner for Free Republic says they will no longer host this forum you stupid cuck?
“you stupid cuck”
Aww, that’s cute, you are still using the “cuck” insult in 2018 like it’s edgy or something.
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