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[EnigmaticHat]

The modern internet definition of free speech isn't the right to speak, its the right to an audience.  That's the ultimate issue with people getting banned from this forum or that forum.  Sure you could go make your own with blackjack and hookers, but no one would be on that forum.  Remember, at no point through all the controversies has Brietbart ceased to have their own website, its just that no one who doesn't already agree with them goes to that website.

Of course no one has the right to an audience of private citizens.  We can all ignore whoever we choose.  I'm reminded of the general internet argument from 2016 that universities should invite both liberal and conservative speakers to their campuses.  Then Milo Yiannopoulos said something awkward about young boys and the argument kinda died down.  "Oh he's (sort of) a pedophile, guess we can't tie you down to a chair in front of him and tape your eyelids open."

[Baffler]

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The fact she was using the thing they paid for and continue to pay for, the town's streets, to ends they don't support was the essence of the argument against her. She certainly wouldn't have had trespassing charges levied against her if she hadn't been proselytizing. It costs marginally more to store a piece of user-generated content but the principle is the same - both people are making use of resources a company owns but has made available to the public to do something that is not only legal but a constitutionally guaranteed right.

[Max™]

The hell is an ad? Those things ublock or umatrix prevent?

They will do nothing to block adverts embedded in content, or content commissioned for the purpose of advertising

Eventually our AI overlords will notice that the best way to get me to boycot a product or service entirely is advertise it to me and stop trying or schedule me to be sent off to the food vats, forcing me to initiate my third uprising attempt.

[Frumple]

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The fact she was using the thing they paid for and continue to pay for, the town's streets, to ends they don't support was the essence of the argument against her. She certainly wouldn't have had trespassing charges levied against her if she hadn't been proselytizing. It costs marginally more to store a piece of user-generated content but the principle is the same - both people are making use of resources a company owns but has made available to the public to do something that is not only legal but a constitutionally guaranteed right.

I'unno, there's probably more wiggle room involved in these cases, as you don't generally enter explicit contract to use a street or whatev'. Pointedly, you do with stuff like facebook. The companies in question very much have limits -- and up front ones, for that matter, even if bloody no one reads them -- on what sort of access they allow and how you're allowed to use that access. You're going to be fucking with contract law as much or more than civil/speech law if you're going to override how they host material. Probably a host of freedom of association issues, too, since however open the gates are on these websites they're still much closer to a gated community than a public facing street (well, the parts that aren't actually public facing, anyway).

Even then there totally are realistic ways to express your 1st et al without them... just not to as wide an audience.

... still, part of me finds turning stuff like facebook public to be sorta' hilarious. Can anyone here imagine how things would change with a legislative mandate to enforce stuff like hate speech protections and copyright versus functionally lackadaisical private administration? I'd imagine shit like safe harbor stops applying for something government ran, and the clusterfuck that would ensue from stuff like that would probably be tumblr nipple-ban tier.

As someone that doesn't really use the stuff the shitshow would be incredible to watch from the sidelines.

E: Honestly, now that I'm thinking about it why the hell do we seem to think making these services public would entail a better end result to begin with? Public utilities cut people off for misuse all the time and are under threat of much bigger sticks when it comes to policy enforcement, and then there's the cash et al side of things. Wouldn't it be some fuckhuge massive problem to be running a public utility that's funding itself off ads and whatnot? Would you be running this stuff with taxpayer money instead?

E2: christ on a pogo stick all I can think of when I think public facebook now is commercialized NSA data mining operation

E3: which, I mean. At least then it'd be paying for itself? Maybe it would actually be an improvement...

E4: Alright, okay. That's our plan. We give social media over to the NSA. There's no way this can end horribly.

[Baffler]

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The fact she was using the thing they paid for and continue to pay for, the town's streets, to ends they don't support was the essence of the argument against her. She certainly wouldn't have had trespassing charges levied against her if she hadn't been proselytizing. It costs marginally more to store a piece of user-generated content but the principle is the same - both people are making use of resources a company owns but has made available to the public to do something that is not only legal but a constitutionally guaranteed right.

I'unno, there's probably more wiggle room involved in these cases, as you don't generally enter explicit contract to use a street or whatev'. Pointedly, you do with stuff like facebook. The companies in question very much have limits -- and up front ones, for that matter, even if bloody no one reads them -- on what sort of access they allow and how you're allowed to use that access. You're going to be fucking with contract law as much or more than civil/speech law if you're going to override how they host material. Probably a host of freedom of association issues, too, since however open the gates are on these websites they're still much closer to a gated community than a public facing street (well, the parts that aren't actually public facing, anyway).

Even then there totally are realistic ways to express your 1st et al without them... just not to as wide an audience.

... still, part of me finds turning stuff like facebook public to be sorta' hilarious. Can anyone here imagine how things would change with a legislative mandate to enforce stuff like hate speech protections and copyright versus functionally lackadaisical private administration? I'd imagine shit like safe harbor stops applying for something government ran, and the clusterfuck that would ensue from stuff like that would probably be tumblr nipple-ban tier.

As someone that doesn't really use the stuff the shitshow would be incredible to watch from the sidelines.

Public here doesn't mean government run, it means open to the public. Contrary to what you seem to be saying there is no such thing as hate speech in US law. There needs to be a specific and credible threat either of direct (and illegal) action by the speaker or incitement of such action by others, and even in those cases this is not referred to as hate speech. And even if content like that did appear on a platform, that actually WAS illegal, the safe harbor provisions you're talking about protect the company from legal consequences for users' actions just as they protect them from users illegally sharing copyrighted materials. They might say "do not put political content here," but they certainly can't allow it but then go on to collude with each other in the name of playing favorites as long as they monopolize the medium.

[Egan_BW]

The modern internet definition of free speech isn't the right to speak, its the right to an audience.  That's the ultimate issue with people getting banned from this forum or that forum.  Sure you could go make your own with blackjack and hookers, but no one would be on that forum.  Remember, at no point through all the controversies has Brietbart ceased to have their own website, its just that no one who doesn't already agree with them goes to that website.

"You have the right to criticize the government, provided that you always do it in an empty room with nobody listening."

Putting any of these things in the context of the government doing them makes them seem less okay. I notice that a lot of people are equating corporations with individual people, comparing massive public websites to someone's house or business. So: is a corporation really closer to being an individual person than to being a government?

[Frumple]

Public here doesn't mean government run, it means open to the public. Contrary to what you seem to be saying there is no such thing as hate speech in US law. There needs to be a specific and credible threat either of direct (and illegal) action by the speaker or incitement of such action by others, and even in those cases this is not referred to as hate speech. And even if content like that did appear on a platform, that actually WAS illegal, the safe harbor provisions you're talking about protect the company from legal consequences for users' actions just as they protect them from users illegally sharing copyrighted materials. They might say "do not put political content here," but they certainly can't allow it but then go on to collude with each other in the name of playing favorites as long as they monopolize the medium.

Fiddly bits aside, point I'm fumbling across is that public utilities don't function like normal companies in a lot of ways, if that's the direction you're going, last I noticed. So you'd expect some changes on that front, probably of farcical train-wreck manifestation.

If you're talking open to the public stuff, well... even when these companies do something like kick Jones off, they're not preventing him access to their entirely open aspect, far as I'm aware. That's everything right up until the log-in prompt. They're just not letting him inside the door and access to their loudspeakers, or letting him plaster shit to their storefront. If you're going to push for that you're in for a legal mess and a half.

... I'unno, maybe the ease of access obfuscates some of this stuff? Even an automatic door is more obviously a door, so to speak. It's easier to tell the line with a storefront than user authentication.

[da_nang]

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I don't see why it's so difficult to simply regulate that user-generated content hosting services (or whatever) must be content-blind. We regulate companies all the time. If you want editorial control, become a publisher and accept all the liabilities thereof.

You can probably even come up with a reasonable test to determine which is which. A publisher would be a much more gated and curated community than YouTube's free-for-all (except when you piss X, Y or Z off).

And do the payment processors in a similar fashion as ISPs.

"You have the right to criticize the government, provided that you always do it in an empty room with nobody listening."

Putting any of these things in the context of the government doing them makes them seem less okay. I notice that a lot of people are equating corporations with individual people, comparing massive public websites to someone's house or business. So: is a corporation really closer to being an individual person than to being a government?

AKA the right to be heard. Without it, freedom of speech is pointless.

And considering today's oligarchies, I think corporations are trending towards the latter.

[Frumple]

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I don't see why it's so difficult to simply regulate that user-generated content hosting services (or whatever) must be content-blind. We regulate companies all the time. If you want editorial control, become a publisher and accept all the liabilities thereof.

Like, they can't be content blind simply because some content is straight up illegal?

Beyond that, you could, but again, shit would change and probably pretty drastically. We have little experiments at full on content-blind hosting services all the time and they pretty invariably run themselves to shit, usually in impressively short order.

Any case, you could try to run an ISP style payment method (i.e. subscription based), but... it's not going to work at all, heh. Near as I can recall people have tried it, and unless you're making stuff like current!facebook actively illegal there's no chance in hell anything happens to a new incarnation that's different from older ones (i.e. you've never heard of them and probably never will ). Even if it's pennies per month or year or whatever you're not going to generate nearly the same user base unless there's massive barriers to alternative setups. Which, I mean. There could be some put up. But you're getting into all sorts of weird who-the-hell-knows-what-will-happen territory.

[Dunamisdeos]

If nobody is listening, it means that either:

1) You are not taking steps to acquire an audience. Noone is listening, because you aren't looking for people to talk to.
2) Your ideas are ass. Noone is listening because they don't want to.

Additionally, a federal government has the publicly-funded means, manpower, military and infrastructure to enforce a public censorship if it is allowed to do so. Google is not coming into your home and confiscating your ideas, or China-censoring your stuff. They are not making it inaccessible. If your content is so great and essential to society then someone else will host it of their own volition. If an audience exists, it will seek it out, and if not, then it wasn't that important, I'm sorry. Society isn't honor-bound to put your stuff up on it's fridge.

Someone earlier provided multiple existing alternatives to Youtube, and the response was basically "I haven't heard of those before, so they don't matter". So, what, I guess your stuff isn't important enough to deign using uncool distribution? Post it up there, and if people want it, they'll find it, and then it will attract more traffic, etc etc.

Beyond that, you could, but again, shit would change and probably pretty drastically. We have little experiments at full on content-blind hosting services all the time and they pretty invariably run themselves to shit, usually in impressively short order.

Example: Vine caught flak for surprise adult content within like, a month.

[da_nang]

If only there was some way for users to filter away content they're not interested in on their browser...   

[Frumple]

Options include, among others: Use another website.
Harangue the website owner until they get rid of stuff annoying them

... it's low sophistication methods, but sometimes-annoyingly effective.

E: Somewhat less tongue in cheek, I've actually been doing some sorta' public facing IT related stuff lately, intermittently covering for the folks overseeing the local library's adult computer lab. What exactly are the methods you're thinking of, and do you seriously expect the average user to be able and willing to utilize them?

E2: Mind, to make it clear, I'm asking that last bit because if the answer is no to the latter, and you're going to force your user base to rely on them for content filtering, you're pretty much guaranteed to have strangled said base before you even started. A Facebook competitor you're not going to build unless you have someone with a very strong hand strangling everything else in the cradle.

[da_nang]

I was thinking a client-side content recognition plugin, with a soft approach to data it is not sure about (think minimizing posts but leave them expandable, and boilerplate thumbnail hiding images or other media until you click on them). The user can choose to generate his own data for the plugin or he can subscribe to someone else's data. Websites can opt-in to provide relevant data (tags, user feedback, etc.) to aid it and users can opt-in to make use of it. And of course, users can also block other users on their end.

But the filtering is all client-side, in the browser.

[Grim Portent]

There is the matter that the companies in question, Google and Facebook, have taken explicit political stances on many issues. A homophobic content creator or person shouldn't have any expectations of being allowed to host such content on sites that belong to companies that are openly pro LGBT for example. They don't pretend to be some kind of neutral party that allows all viewpoints as if they're equal, they've publicly picked their side already. Expecting them to host views contrary to their own rather violates their freedom not to support or voice viewpoints they disagree with.

Same way Toady bans anyone who uses bigoted speech on here really, they're just bigger so people who complain about them get more attention than people who complain about the moderation here do.

[Frumple]

I was thinking a client-side content recognition plugin, with a soft approach to data it is not sure about (think minimizing posts but leave them expandable, and boilerplate thumbnail hiding images or other media until you click on them). The user can choose to generate his own data for the plugin or he can subscribe to someone else's data. Websites can opt-in to provide relevant data (tags, user feedback, etc.) to aid it and users can opt-in to make use of it. And of course, users can also block other users on their end.

But the filtering is all client-side, in the browser.

... aren't you're talking something that would end up ubiquitously included in base browser configurations, if in some odd manner they ended up the only/primary means of content filtering. I.e. handing the keys to most people's filtering to Microsoft, Mozilla, etc. (If you shuddered a little on the inside at that though, I'm kinda' with you) Because they would unless, once more, you had someone suppressing the practice pretty hard. Most people ain't got the time, much less the interest, to fiddle with stuff like that to keep kiddie porn and goatse off their monitor, and the browser that fixed that problem would prooooobably come out ahead.

Like. Again, I'm not quite sure if I'd be comfortable guessing that would actually bring some kind of improvement on the subjects we're talking about, heh. It might, but your words make me pretty intensely skeptical it'd change much, especially in a way that could be called beneficial.