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by slg 1855 days ago
How would you feel if we swapped out "social media sites" and "algorithmic" for "newspapers" and "editorial" in that first paragraph? There are a limited number of slots in the newspaper. Should the government step in a guarantee that the New York Times needs to publish any crackpot theory I come up with?
1 comments
caddemon 1855 days ago
NYT can also be held liable for things like slander though, right? If social media sites try to claim they are not responsible for any content posted, that does feel a bit like trying to have their cake and eat it too.
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slg 1855 days ago
I'm not sure the goal here. Do you want increased or decreased moderation? Repealing 230 and making social media companies liable will lead to more moderation and bans not less.
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lmm 1855 days ago
The goal is clear lines of responsibility. If Facebook is responsible for every post, that's ok. If every individual is responsible for their posts, that's also ok. It's when it's blurry that there's a problem.
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caddemon 1855 days ago
I'm not the one that was originally asking for regulation on the social media companies, I just think there are too many fundamental differences between current social media sites and newspaper editorials for that analogy to work.

Personally I feel social media sites have taken some of the moderation too far. I don't have a problem (in a legal sense) with the algorithmic feed downweighting various topics or adding links to countering sources or whatever, but I think if these sites don't want to be held liable for content they should error way on the side of allowing individual user pages to be uncensored.

What was even crazier to me was when Twitter blocked DMs containing that Hunter Biden story. The story was suspect obviously, but to moderate private messages like that is a huge overreach IMO.

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ed25519FUUU 1855 days ago
The Hunter Biden story deserves so much more investigation. It’s a huge story that nobody wanted to touch because it might mean Trump wins again. They went as far as banning even discussion of it. A massive editorial failure that’s going to hurt media’s credibility for a long time.
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