[smcl]

I think you've incorrectly invoked "free speech" here, IMO this isn't a free speech issue. It may be a TOS issue and it does sound like Google are being a bit unreasonable but "free speech" isn't really something Google ever promised to permit on their platforms

[jchw]

Free speech isn’t just something that can be encoded into law, it’s an ideology. A great ideology, imo.

That said, with COVID-19 it really became apparent that these platforms have basically become a new public square, putting everyone in an awkward position. You can basically be ousted from the internet by just a couple entities like Facebook or Twitter and have your entire online presence torpedoed. IRL I can just go to a different bar, gym, whatever. On the internet, everything consolidates rapidly. It’s hard to argue that companies should be forced to allow things they don’t want on their platforms, but it’s clear that something has to be done here if platforms are going to consolidate this badly.

[smcl]

My point is not that "free speech" as a concept is bad (though I do mention in another comment here that it does raise thorny issues). My point is that tying this complaint and "free speech" together is pointless because it directs attention at the wrong thing.

It's the difference between saying "$person got kicked off Google in a violation of their free speech" and "$person got kicked off Google for a totally specious reason that doesn't even violate Google's TOS".

The first one gets immediately shut down because they didn't violate anyone's free speech. If you try to make that argument it's a total non-starter. We can have a big fun discussion about free speech online some time - and that does happen here on HN - but that's not the issue here.

The second one gets at the actual issue - Google have just booted someone even though they didn't apparently violate their TOS. They just arbitrarily did so to appease a paying client.

I hope this is clear.

[jchw]

It's not that I didn't understand the point you were making, I just think it was not really relevant. It would be incorrect to say that they violated the user's first amendment rights. But the comment you responded to says:

> at least pretend that you allow free speech

Which is different than that, and I'd argue most platforms do at least pretend to espouse the ideals of 'free speech' even if that notion has been weaker lately.

> The second one gets at the actual issue - Google have just booted someone even though they didn't apparently violate their TOS. They just arbitrarily did so to appease a paying client.

It is a speech issue, even if not a legal issue, if you can pay Google to shut down random accounts that say things you don't like. The ToS violation is a red herring.

[derefr]

> It is a speech issue, even if not a legal issue, if you can pay Google to shut down random accounts that say things you don't like. The ToS violation is a red herring.

I think we here all presume that interested parties can pay corporations to do anything that is both legal, and which remains within the letter of the contracts (e.g. Terms of Service) that the corporation has entered into; and that the only thing stopping corporations from not being actively malicious/malfeasant (though not illegal) in their interactions with customers/users, is that they don't want to be perceived as breaking the terms of contracts they themselves offer.

Voluntary self-bindings in a contract like a ToS are effectively precommitments about a corporation's own ethical behavior; with negative PR as a punishment for breaking said precommitment. Corporations offer these because they want people to have faith that they won't do certain things, even when interested parties offer to pay them to do those things.

So it's not interesting to me that Grammarly can pay YouTube to terminate creators that were already violating the ToS in some way, but where YouTube previously hadn't much cared. Of course they can. Selective enforcement is an omnipresent fact of how corporate social-network moderation works, because corporations have no legal mandate of 100% enforcement, and costs can be cut by doing as little as it takes to make users not complain. So there are always going to be cases where a corporation didn't notice a violation. And why shouldn't a paying customer (one of their advertisers) be able to prioritize YouTube's attention on a previously un-noticed violation? If YouTube wanted to promise us that they wouldn't do that, they'd put a self-binding to that effect in the ToS. YouTube, like all corporations, is an evil genie that starts off by telling you a bounded list of ways in which it won't screw you. You still have to assume it'll screw you in every way not mentioned in the list.

But it is interesting to me that Grammarly can pay YouTube to terminate creators that weren't already violating the ToS in some way. Because that sets a precedent for the ToS not limiting YouTube's behavior — of YouTube not abiding by the precommitments they have made, of not caring about the negative PR consequences of doing so. Which really means that — to the degree that this is a structural issue rather than a "renegade" actor — there is no reason to believe that YouTube will hold to any of its own precommitments in the future. Like, say, its precommitment to pay content creators.

[maxltv]

Grammarly is not paying for this. Grammarly is not involved or even concerned in any way. This is not even a "hack" but rather trying to use Grammarly for something it was not designed for, and showing it does not work for that. "Ok, duh, and thank you for your interest in Grammarly..."

The plagiarism check is for self-checking, as in users making sure they did not miss any quotations and references in their work, and thus it does not even attempt to defeat any plagiarism enforcement counter-measures. It's not an enforcement tool.

[evilksandr]

We continued our discussion in this thread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29933516#29947146

[jcranmer]

It is refreshing to see someone who diagnoses the issue here correctly.

The root problem people are complaining about is the moderation policies, and the truth is that services like Facebook et al are simply too large to be effectively moderated. Appealing to (US ideas of) free speech would propose that the solution to bad moderation is no moderation whatsoever (speech restrictions must be content-neutral, and moderation by definition is not content-neutral)--and I think most people would rapidly find that no moderation is worse than bad moderation.

The most effective solution is to do what ought to have been done a decade ago and prevent further social media consolidation and consider breaking up the current oligopoly of social media.

[ipaddr]

I favour no moderation but with spam detection.

Less moderation might be a good middle ground

[brigandish]

That's one route - that I also favour - but my favourite idea would be to give everyone access to the tools that FB et al use for moderation. If I don't want to see porn/politics/bots/cussing/sport/K-pop… then I want to be able to choose that, not the platform. They have all this data and the ability to shape the feed, give me that power. No need to stomp on free speech, no need to clumsily moderate.

Of course, people with power rarely like to share it, and they certainly don't want a free flow of information that they don't control. There's the rub.

[AnthonyMouse]

> If I don't want to see porn/politics/bots/cussing/sport/K-pop… then I want to be able to choose that, not the platform.

This would certainly be a welcome feature, but it doesn't really solve the problem.

Suppose you want to see adult content, politics and cussing but you don't want to see bots. Nobody wants to see bots. Then their broken algorithm calls someone a bot who is not. Well, they're blocked from everyone, because nobody wants to see bots. That's the same as the status quo.

The problem is that there is a trade off between false positives and false negatives. If they tune the thing to get rid of 100% of actual bots, it's going to false positive 98% of real humans. But if they do anything less than this, there will be actual bots and people will give them a hard time about it.

And not just people, the government. The current government has explicitly stated that they want them to censor more stuff. And the current government is pursuing an antitrust case against them. So their incentive is to turn up the false positives and screw over whoever that happens to screw over in order to appease them.

The argument has been made that this is actually a First Amendment violation because of the state action: https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1363175977531150338

[jcranmer]

> The argument has been made that this is actually a First Amendment violation because of the state action: https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1363175977531150338

The argument has been made, but not successfully. The thing is, threatening to pass a (flagrantly unconstitutional) law if companies don't do something isn't enough of a direct tie by itself to make someone a state actor. Especially when those countries from time to time ask Congress to pass such a law.

[Karunamon]

What would likely pass constitutional muster and get these companies to pay attention is the threat to either revoke Section 230 or modify it so that its protections are conditional rather than absolute.

The constitution has nothing to say on the matter of holding them responsible for the libelous, defamatory, harassing, terrorist, etc. content they fail to moderate away every day.

[brigandish]

> Nobody wants to see bots. Then their broken algorithm calls someone a bot who is not. Well, they're blocked from everyone, because nobody wants to see bots. That's the same as the status quo.

I want to see some bots but not others, but still, I want the choice to be mine. That's the most important thing to me, choice, because it leads to control.

Aside from that, I don't mind their broken algorithm because:

a) The perfect is the enemy of the good

b) We agreed that I get to choose (whether I see bots and which bots/kind-of-bots I see)

For instance, why can I not given some kind of confidence level? Surely their algorithm gives a score, so then I could say "If you think someone is >= 75% likely to be a bot, don't show me them, otherwise, do".

[rosmax_1337]

Far to often nowadays I'll hear people defend communications-companies based on the idea that they can censor whatever they want because they're private entities. Mostly though, that idea is only true for them when they feel that their ideological opponents are being censored. Framing companies like google as new public squares is spot on.

And as you say, free speech is an ideology, and in my opinion this should be repeated. It is a culture and a mindset, not just laws, laws being downstreams from culture anyway. If you do not wish for it to apply in all those areas, in my opinion, you do not defend it at all.

[dfxm12]

It’s hard to argue that companies should be forced to allow things they don’t want on their platforms

Yes, because the concept of free speech has never implied that you're entitled to have other entities hear or repeat your speech nor is there any principle that compels someone else to listen to or repeat what you're saying. If you want that to be the case, that's certainly your prerogative, but that's a different concept from any mainstream definition of free speech I've come across.

[cloverich]

(tangent) kind of interesting how it resembles a small town in that way. Its a problem those of us in bigger suburbs or cities wouldn't recognize but, once you get stereotyped in some way -- any way -- it can become difficult or impossbile to escape. As the internet is even bigger than a large city -- its the whole world -- you'd naively think it would be even more proressive. In that sense these little fiefdom's provide a regression in addition to the features they provide.

[MereInterest]

I'd go one step further. It resembles a company town, not just a small town. You want email? Better go with one of the big providers, because those big providers flag self-hosting as spam. You want video hosting? Better go with youtube, because nothing else will have enough of an audience to make it worthwhile. Find something out about the boss's friend? (Or the Grammarly plagiarism checker?) Good luck walking to the next town, because the boss owns everything in town.

[raxxorrax]

Why is that not a free speech issue? It is not a legal issue of course, but removal of critical opinions very much qualifies to be a violation of the principle.

[smcl]

Because it's basically never been a thing there. Facebook, Twitter, Google - all of these platforms can and do remove things from their platforms for whatever reason they feel like. There's nothing we can do about it, there is no free speech there and acting indignant like they're eroding some right that you previously had is just pointless.

It'd be like complaining that you can't get sushi at McDonalds anymore. You couldn't ever do that, McDonalds haven't indicated that they would offer this and we all know it's not going to happen.

[wintermutestwin]

Maybe their network effect monopoly means that they are essentially a public service and maybe our basic concepts of free speech should apply to all public services.

I am obviously not talking about our current legal framework, but proposing the idea that the concepts and reason for free speech are meaningful enough to transcend that framework.

[foxfluff]

There's no "anymore" in these complaints though. There's just the complaint.

It's not "my parents started beating me while they in the past didn't", it's just "parents are beating me." Or "google is suppressing my speech."

Past actions of the involved entities do not invalidate the complaint. Likewise, "the grocery store next door doesn't sell sushi" is a legit complaint for the afflicted regardless of whether sushi was sold in the past or not. (Coincidentally, my go-to store just stopped selling sushi a week or two ago)

[smcl]

> But it's unfair to block a guy that talked about a real flaw in Grammarly's plagiarism checker, at least pretend that you allow free speech and take down that video for a random reason specified in your ToS.

See italicised section, it suggests there's a promise of free speech on Google that are somehow reneging on. I am just saying that this is a mistake, and now loads of people seem to be mad at the idea that I'm attacking "free speech". One of the reasons I thought it shouldn't be here is that it's fairly complex topic that IMO is orthogonal to the case in question because it raises all sorts of thorny side-issues that distract from the main thing: someone got booted from Google quite unfairly.

[denton-scratch]

The (US) constitutional protections on speech constrain the actions of US governments; those constraints don't extend to private companies and individuals.

And "principles" are things you can adopt and agree with as you see fit. They are not law. Not everyone takes an absolutist position that "free speech" is a principle we should all be defending to the last ditch.

[AnthonyMouse]

It's still fair to call this a violation of free speech -- even if the company has no legal obligation not to do it -- and therefore give them shit about it. As a customer. Who can take their business elsewhere.

And if the customer can't take their business elsewhere, it appears we have arrived at the underlying problem.

[denton-scratch]

> It's still fair to call this a violation of free speech

You can call it a violation of rock and roll, if you like. Normally, "violate" is something you do the law, or a contract, or an agreement. You can't normally "violate" a principle that you haven't declared your adherence to, just because someone else adheres to it.

[AnthonyMouse]

> Normally, "violate" is something you do the law, or a contract, or an agreement. You can't normally "violate" a principle that you haven't declared your adherence to, just because someone else adheres to it.

If you're a vegan libertarian who refuses to patronize agricultural conglomerates engaged in factory farming because it's a violation of the non-aggression principle, your argument for them not being in violation of it is that they never agreed to it?

It's not the company's principle, it's the customer's. The company is violating it so the customer is offended and is willing to take their business elsewhere. And to publicly condemn the company over it so others do the same. This is how the free market is supposed to work.

If a company is charging 6000% margins, you don't say "well I guess there's no law against it," you stop patronizing that company. And if you can't, the market is broken.

[denton-scratch]

> If you're a vegan libertarian who refuses to patronize agricultural conglomerates engaged in factory farming because it's a violation of the non-aggression principle, your argument for them not being in violation of it is that they never agreed to it?

You make your point well.

However I don't know what this "non-aggression principle" is. That kind of "violation" doesn't seem to be like violating the terms of an agreement; it seems more like "violating my personal space".

I mean, I can set up whatever "principles" I like, and start accusing others of violating them. That's not like violating the terms of a law or agreement. It's a different use of the word "violate".

[bcrosby95]

The federal laws, much less the constitution, are the bare minimum in the USA. For example, most states have at least one statute saying companies can't fire employees over some forms of political speech.

So while your statement is true, it is not the discussion-stopper that most people seem to think it is.

[VLM]

Unregulated monopolies do not have to uphold constitutional rights.

The phone company used to be regulated so even if you were a hated Republican they still had to provide phone service to you if you lived in their service area. Those days are over and monopolies in practice will never be redefined again as "legal monopolies".

[paulcole]

It is definitely a free speech issue but not in the legal and constitutional sense that you're thinking of.

Regardless of the situation you're in, you have the ability to say, "I should have the right to free speech in this situation." Whether this belief will be validated in the reality of the situation is an entirely different matter.

[smcl]

On the contrary, that is exactly the sense I was thinking of. My point was that considering this in terms of an erosion of your free speech doesn't make sense because there's no expectation of free speech in places like Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, etc. There is an expectation that as long as you adhere to TOS you'll be allowed to continue to use a platform, however.

I just thought it was a mistake in this case to get into a broader debate about free speech online, what should be allowed, how it needs to account for various countries' conflicting laws, etc. Because that's a huge issue, it's probably not what was intended by the original commenter and we have a much more narrow and clearly defined issue we can focus on (being kicked off despite adhering to TOS).

[denton-scratch]

> I should have the right to free speech

That's a legitimate opinion.

I am of the view that rights are things that are granted by some authority, not something you acquire by simply existing. I envy the USA their constitutional protections on speech. But unless Google has made a grant of free speech rights on their platform, no such rights exist.

[MereInterest]

> I am of the view that rights are things that are granted by some authority, not something you acquire by simply existing.

That's an interesting view, and not one that is supported by the US Constitution.

> First Amendment: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

This doesn't state that either Congress or the Constitution is granting the freedom of speech, or the right to assemble peacably, but rather states that Congress may not make a law that abridges those rights. The right

> Fourth Amendment: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Again, the right to be secure against unreasonable searches and seizures is something that exists before the Constitution. It isn't something that is granted by the Constitution, but a pre-existing right that may not be violated.

> Ninth Amendment: The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

This is the most direct counter-argument, that rights exist outside of the enumerated rights. That some rights are explicitly enumerated may not be used to imply that those are the only rights that exist. If the Constitution and authorities derived from the Constitution were the source of rights, then there couldn't be rights that exist outside of them. But instead, the Constitution states that there exist rights outside of those mentioned, so they must have been pre-existing rights.

[denton-scratch]

The US Constitution says those things, no doubt. But I'm not a USAian. Similar claims appear in the UN and European declarations of Human Rights. Whatever those documents say, I just don't think rights are things that exist objectively, independent of their declaration in some document.

[paulcole]

yes, had you read/quoted my entire comment you'd realize that your point is exactly equivalent to my point

[stjohnswarts]

Well "free speech" is a concept, context can be "${country_constitution_str}" or as in "humanitarian values"

[contravariant]

The idea that companies should be allowed to trample all over basic freedoms because they're not the government has to be the most capitalist idea ever.

[smcl]

What basic freedom are these companies trampling? I dislike them as much as the next person, but it's been clear from the start that they operate their little fiefdoms as they see fit and we should be under no illusions that we have no rights there.

If we want to fight for a change to the various laws in various countries, then that is a conversation I would be very willing to have. But let's not pretend that any of these companies have ever offered their services as a place where you can exercise whatever version of free-speech laws your country has.

Interestingly the places that tout "free speech" as a feature tend to descend into pretty grim places full of racism, anti-semitism, conspiracy theories and more besides (hello, 8chan/kun!).

[rosmax_1337]

Have you considered why those places become grim places? Does free speech lead to those ideas? That would be quite a out-there conclusion. Rather, those people can only express themselves on forums like that, they are banned on all the other mediums. If free speech was set as a standard on all mediums, those people would express themselves evenly on facebook, youtube and the chans, rather than being penned into fringe spaces like the chans. I think that society should be more clear about the stance on this, either their speech is banned throughout society, and free speech isn't quite what it used to be, or their speech is tolerated throughout society, and free speech remains.

[mrtranscendence]

I'm not sure I follow you here. Are you saying that we should either ban racist speech outright (let's assume for argument that the speech in question is unquestionably, disgustingly racist), or else permit it in all spaces? Clearly there should be spaces where racism shouldn't be tolerated, but banning it outright seems like a bridge too far, and could make martyrs of those who defy such rules.

[dale_glass]

They become grim because the conflict is asymmetric.

Slinging insults, hate, disinformation, or just posting plain nonsense is easy. Explaining how things work properly takes a lot of effort and is hard. Eg, saying "The moon landings were a hoax" is easy. Explaining why that makes no sense, and how exactly humans did land on the Moon takes a good amount longer.

There's also that the valuable, accomplished people in a community are a scarce resource. What would you prefer the resident rocket scientist to do, provide useful information for the community on something new going on, or try to reason with the newly arrived conspiracy theorist?

[JoshuaDavid]

If your space is the only one that doesn't have regular witch hunts, you're going to end up with a lot of witches.

[fallingknife]

Reddit and Twitter very much touted free speech 10 years ago and didn't have this issue (unless you want looking for it). And Google and FB effectively allowed whatever but didn't talk about it, until 2015 or so.

1. Tout free speech to great success and become a dominant platform

2. Get advertiser and political blowback

3. Ban unpopular speech

4. Now "free speech" platforms only have unpopular content

As a tangent, pre 2010, the best argument I had with conspiracy nuts was "if all this shit you're saying is true, then why is the government / corporations not trying to silence you, like you say they are doing to all the people involved." Can't use that anymore.

[smcl]

Did that strategy ever work with conspiracy nuts? In my experience that argument was always met with a response that wove an even more elaborate conspiracy. Like the government/corporations/illuminati deliberately allow just enough people to talk about it unless they get too close, or something similar.

Unfortunately I think this strategy is doomed, it relies on people who have rejected reality to use basic common sense. I don't even know if there is a good strategy to calm a conspiracy nut, thankfully I don't really talk to such people.

[fallingknife]

You're not arguing with them, but with everyone else in the room. Now the conspiracy nut would just say "but they do try to silence us" and he would be right.

[tonguez]

"What basic freedom are these companies trampling?"

Freedom of speech

[smcl]

Honestly this reminds me of a friend who sincerely answered "Because America" when I asked a related question. It didn't really mean anything and it was a naive misunderstanding the situation. In this case you misunderstand your relationship with these companies. Despite what you think about whatever law or amendment ...

    You do not have a right of free speech on Google's platforms.

Yeah it sucks, you could talk about how you think Google are awful and they could kick you off. But also someone could be inciting an uprising against a minority and they can also be kicked off. It all kinda depends on the Terms of Service you agree on with Google. It's complex and annoying and it comes up all the time and has been done to death.

But nonetheless in this case it seems they removed someone who _didn't_ violate TOS, which bodes rather badly for the all of us because it means we are subject to the whims of whoever possesses the banhammer at any given time.

And with that I'm out. I cannot deal with this thread any more.

[bavell]

Capitalism is an economic system that works best in a free market without monopolies. I believe the word you're looking for is corporatism, where huge companies have subsumed the role of government (e.g. controlling speech).

[contravariant]

The fact that it doesn't work in practice doesn't mean the notion of allowing companies to do whatever they want isn't capitalist.

[AnthonyMouse]

The things propping up these companies are laws.

The way you break a network effect is adversarial interoperability. You build a new (ideally open) network by bootstrapping from the old one. But companies use the DMCA and CFAA and other laws to stop competitors from doing that, so it doesn't happen.

[1ris]

I absolutely disagree. But we had this debate over and over and over again. It would be great if you could stop rehashing is debate once more.

I some twist of irony, this comment is against the HN TOS. So please stop.

[smcl]

How is my comment against the HN TOS?

[VLM]

Given the context of the linked article AND the somewhat off topic debate, he was clearly being humorous. Or trying.