[BuildTheRobots]

What are platforms supposed to do when the speech is illegal, or inciting violence or just against their terms of service or code of conduct?

You seem to be saying no online platform can have any sort of moderation of posted messages unless it's backed up by a court order, which seems crazy.

[adnzzzzZ]

It's not any more crazy than people committing actual violence in real life, like murdering someone, and only getting properly arrested months later after an investigation has taken place.

Somehow we've managed to survive with that system for hundreds of years, why is it any different for online posts?

[blackoil]

In real world, privately owned public places like mall have their own rules and security (often with lethal weapons). They reserve the right to kick you out, use force if believe you are a present threat, and may block you from coming back in future.

[pjc50]

Spam.

Edit: here is Russ Allbery's legendary rant from 22 years ago on the subject. He is effectively arguing with himself in the preface, saying he doesn't want anyone banned from USENET, but I agree with the ranting Russ in the body.

[syshum]

Due process is not a concept internet communities have really ever understood, outrage and reaction rules the internet, not calm, dispassionate logic or process

[shripadk]

If the speech is illegal then they can moderate it. Who defined it as illegal? The elected Government of the people right? No one voted for Jack Dorsey or Mark Zuckerberg. People voted for their own elected representatives who make the laws.

Private companies must follow what is in the law. If hate speech doesn't exist in the law people should lobby their elected representatives to enact laws governing hate speech which is then enforced by private companies. If private companies start making their own rules and regulations that go against freedom of speech (again don't bring in the first amendment as it applies only to US Citizens. Free speech in my country is not the same as Free speech as defined in first amendment) then it becomes problematic. Who is the final arbiter of free speech? It is the Government, the Court or the private company? If private companies start deciding what is illegal and what is not illegal then why the heck should I elect a Government? Just let private companies handle everything and let's dissolve the Government.

At the end of the day it should be the law of the land which decides what/which content is illegal and which is not. It should never be in the hands of private companies to decide. They have Section 230 precisely for that reason. They aren't liable for anything that happens on their platform except for what is defined as illegal in the Constitution. If there is something that is unsavoury and there isn't a law for it yet, the companies aren't held liable for it. When a law is passed deeming that unsavoury thing illegal then and only then will private companies be liable if they do not censor it. You get what I am trying to say? Laws should be implemented by the legislature. Period. Private companies can decide whatever rules they want to set for their employees. I am a user of the public platform they provide. Not their employee. They cannot regulate my speech unless it is required by law to censor anything illegal I say.

[robin21]

> illegal, incites violence

Who decides what these terms mean? At present its a small group of left-leaning corporate executives.

At the moment it just seems like people doing their own interpretation of what someone's inner motives are, because I really can't see a clear cut example of incitement of violence from any of this. This to me is a perfect example of the term "thought police" - we are guessing what your thinking.

E.g. Steve Bannon putting "heads on pikes" is clearly a common figure of speech and simply an emotive expression of anger. I'm sure you can find many politicians expressing similar things..."let's punch nazis" etc. Sounds like it can't cause harm...but what if you are called a Nazi and you are not? Every single atrocity in history comes from a group of people being portrayed as something they are not and then dehumanized because of it.

"Trump supporters" are incredibly dehumanized at present. They are nazis, racists, etc. It's okay to mistreat them because they are really bad people.

70mm people voted for Trump, and would probably disagree with the interpretations of the free speech violations. Do we actually believe a democratic process would result in a decision to permanently censor? No way.

All you have to do is imagine the reverse situation by swapping the two sides and imagining how you would feel.

Would you ever be okay having your speech taken away from you from a side that you disagree with? You might say "but I would never incite hatred", but what if they say you do?