[ChainReaktion]

There’s one obvious flaw in “Everything that isn’t illegal is allowed”: determining what is illegal. Free speech laws are some of the trickiest legal issues we grapple with in the US, and many statues hinge on the intent behind the speech. How is Twitter supposed to implement this (hypothetical) new policy? Do they always give posters the benefit of the doubt? Seems ripe for abuse. Assume the worst? Probably more censorious than it is today. Punt to the courts? Great, moderation now takes years and costs thousands of dollars. What is the standard of proof to take down a tweet? Preponderance of the evidence? What evidence is admissible? Does Twitter just internally recreate the US trial court system to manage this? Do they do that for every country? The point is, the law on these issues is complex and frequently requires significant interpretation. Maximalism is no silver bullet.

[alex_sf]

This isn't that complicated. Twitter can just take down content in response to court orders, unless their review team decides to fight it on whatever grounds.

This is not only simpler for Twitter to implement, but provides a better level of due process and accountability. How many times has someone been 'abused' on social media and claimed XYZ company did nothing about it?

[notreallyserio]

This is peak modern Silicon Valley: privatize the revenue for the product, socialize[0] the costs (by clogging up courts, in this case). It's not remotely scalable.

0: I don't agree with this vernacular, it's just what the kids say.

[alex_sf]

Good. I don't want suppressing speech to be scalable.

[ChainReaktion]

Sure, but that relies on someone’s ability to secure the court order. That takes days at minimum, possibly much longer. It costs money, possibly thousands of dollars or more. And what about cases that cross borders? Is someone from from South Africa supposed to seek injunctive relief from a U.S. court? Maybe this is better than the status quo ante, but it’s not obvious to me that that’s the case and it doesn’t seem like anyone is asking the hard questions.

[alex_sf]

I mean, that's fine. If you're being 'cyberbullied', it's not an emergency, you can wait a few days.

[rtkwe]

They won't or if they do not for long. Gab, Parlor, and all the other right-wing "we're getting censored on Twitter come here where we won't censor anything (legal)" Twitter clones have all figured out rapidly why content moderation exists and that it's basically a necessity on the web as they get mercilessly trolled and spammed.

All he's really saying is he'd prefer to accept more shitty behavior from people who he aligns with and less from people who annoy him.

[alex_sf]

The only reason those spaces implemented content moderation was because they couldn't get hosting anywhere. Not because of 'merciless trolling and spam'.

[rtkwe]

Hard to say exactly why it happened, but users of those sites were quite unhappy with the lack of moderation from what I saw at the time.