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Aug. 21, 2018 - Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin
05:32
A Case for Social Media Regulation
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Looks like Donald Trump's joining the free speech movement.
Exclusive Reuters.
Trump says it's dangerous for Twitter and Facebook to ban accounts.
This comes after him putting out the three tweets two days ago now, I think, where he condemned social media censorship, saying that these companies were totally discriminating against Republican and conservative voices.
Too many voices being destroyed, some good and some bad, as Reuters say here.
Naturally, this is a consequence of Alex Jones being de-platformed everywhere, almost, as well as various other conservative and progressive voices who've been just taken down out of the blue for reasons they're not previously aware of for conduct that wasn't previously being punished.
I mean, if social media giants decide that they have to bring in a bunch of new rules, don't apply them retroactively.
That's not fair.
What I believe would be called an ex post facto conviction.
The law has been created after the crime has been committed.
But anyway, Trump said, I won't mention names, but they take off certain people of Twitter or Facebook, and they're making that decision.
That is a really dangerous thing because that could be you tomorrow.
And as the left-wing outlets who have been mass censored themselves have found out, it indeed was you tomorrow.
So we can all agree that social media platforms shouldn't be allowed to just terminate accounts because they don't fucking like them.
Even if you can give a legalistic reading saying, well, I mean, they've given themselves enough wiggle room because these things were broadly defined in the first place.
Well, sure.
I mean, we did complain that these things were so broadly defined in the first place.
There have been a lot of libertarians complaining that I'm advocating for regulating social media.
I'm sorry, I think it's become necessary.
I think Silicon Valley has become predatory, active, a fifth estate that is exerting its influence over society, and we have to do something about it.
For example, one thing that Trump I think probably could do about it is force these companies to have particularly specific guidelines for when and how they will terminate your account.
No skin off your nose, no skin off anyone else's nose.
I don't really think it's too much of a trouble to make small businesses do the same.
But the thing is, we know that these social media companies made their terms of service as vague as they are to give themselves this kind of freedom.
And now they're fucking using it.
At the expense of Alex Jones, Occupy London and various other people in between.
These social media companies need us as well.
We are their product.
We are what they are selling.
And what Silicon Valley has just realized is that they have almost exclusive power of arbitration.
That's way too much power for a bunch of private companies to have.
I'm sorry.
It's just too much.
I'm sure one day there will be something akin to like a standard messaging service where anyone can be able to program a simple plugin that goes into a browser and then accesses in sort of BitTorrent fashion just information like Facebook posts or whatever on people's computers.
I'm absolutely certain that one day social media will be totally, totally decentralized.
We won't need people like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc.
But in the meantime, while we still do need them, I think they should be regulated to reduce their overall power over society.
Because I don't think these people deserve as much power as they have.
And I don't think anyone knew they were going to have this much power.
Millions of people are now being censored from hearing what Alex Jones had to say.
Millions of them.
I don't think Jack Dorsey or Susan Wojiki or Mark Zuckerberg should be able to deafen millions of people at the touch of a button.
That's what this comes down to.
There are such things as privately owned public spaces already and they are already regulated.
They have already judged that Donald Trump's Twitter feed is a public space.
So let's just follow that through to its logical conclusion.
Because it's already been done and right now we're just standing here with our dicks in our hands going, well, I mean, I know you're already doing this, but you're not doing it for us and we like it that way.
No, I'm sorry, this is already being done.
Let's actually make it benefit us for once.
If Donald Trump needs advice, then I would advise people to tell him that, look, just say to them, I'm going to take away your ability to censor people because of hate speech.
There are regulations that can be applied to these companies that will limit their power, but will not also act as a barrier to entry for smaller social media companies that want to be up-and-comers and compete in the markets.
A lot of these regulations won't require any money.
They'll just not allow them to make certain decisions against the users of the platforms upon which these people are relying.
And I think that we can refer to John Mill on this one saying, when he says, well, an economic interaction is actually a social interaction.
It's not just one way.
It's two ways.
So it does come under the purview of society like many other things that we regulate.
This is not illegitimate.
I'm sorry, libertarians, I know that you're like, but I don't want the government doing anything.
Well, there are times when I think the government should do something.
And protecting your rights is one of those times.
And these companies are currently silencing you because they don't fucking like you.
That's why.
It's political.
It's not that you've really done anything wrong, especially legally under your in your country.
You can say what the fuck you like.
And yet they're still silencing people.
Something needs to be done.
And Donald Trump is the president and he seems to be sympathetic to the free speech movement.
So why shouldn't we request that he does something?
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