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by NayamAmarshe 1375 days ago
This analogy doesn't work. Social Media is not newspaper, they're a printing machine letting you publish your own newspaper. You can't just register with a newspaper and post opinions for free.

Social Media websites and platforms are acting as common carriers. They provide you an audience, without upfront cost.

If they discriminate against you for an opinion their 'experts' do not like, they should suffer the consequences for it because social media websites, let me publish my own newspaper.
4 comments
NaturalPhallacy 1375 days ago
Exactly. People keep ginning up false analogies to justify censorship.

If you create a service deliberately designed so that anyone can sign up and start posting things without so much as an employee approving their registration, then you've deliberately created what amounts to a public square.

To then selectively censor people on such a platform is tantamount to a bait & switch. You promised people a public square, and then revoked that mechanism for people you disagree with.

And if you think big tech doesn't all have the same bias, take a look at this graph: https://i.imgur.com/Si183zE.jpg

Social media like twitter and facebook aren't a newspaper. They're not a podcast. They're not a TV show. They're a digital public square. The sooner we collectively admit that, the better.

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wvenable 1375 days ago
> If you create a service deliberately designed so that anyone can sign up and start posting things without so much as an employee approving their registration, then you've deliberately created what amounts to a public square.

That makes no sense. You can literally build something identical to a literal physical public square in the real world and still kick people out because it's private property. This is no different than that.

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legacynl 1375 days ago
> If you create a service deliberately designed so that anyone can sign up and start posting things without so much as an employee approving their registration, then you've deliberately created what amounts to a public square.

So if I host an open-mic night in my comedy-club, i lose the right to reject applicants?

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NaturalPhallacy 1374 days ago
False analogy. Twitter et al deliberately encourage and sometimes try to force you to create accounts and join their platform. Instagram won't even let you look at stuff without creating an account and logging in.

Is your hypothetical comedy club deliberately and indiscriminately trying to drive people into coming in to increase the number of people inside it? And bragging about how many people are in there?

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smaddox 1375 days ago
> You can't just register with a newspaper and post opinions for free.

You don't have to register to send a letter to the editor. The newspaper has discretion about whether or not to publish it.

There's certainly a difference in scale, but I don't really see a fundamental difference in kind.

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legacynl 1375 days ago
Social media isn't a common carrier.

The internet is the common carrier.

The analogy of the printing press doesn't work, because the printing press symbolizes a big clunky piece of machinery that a regular user can't build, maintain, run or afford. With the internet it's not like that is it? There are literally thousands of options for a regular user to create their own 'newspaper' without having to pay large sums up front or anything at all.

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NayamAmarshe 1375 days ago
> There are literally thousands of options for a regular user to create their own 'newspaper' without having to pay large sums up front or anything at all.

That's like saying censorship is not censorship because the banned users can just write their opinions in a text editor.

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AstralStorm 1375 days ago
They literally can write their opinions in a text editor and publish it on the internet for cost of ISP and a PC, and a public internet address. You can skip the public address part potentially with more complex censorship resistant tech like Freenet.

Even the software is free. Now, the problem with social media is the network effects creating popularity and visibility, which cannot be replicated.

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AstralStorm 1375 days ago
Well, running a website is cheap, but not free.

The analogy is clunkier than expected, but it mostly works.

However, you are still not prevented from building your own printing press or copy machine. There were regimes that attempted similar controls...

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AstralStorm 1375 days ago
Sure you can ask a newspaper to publish an opinion for free. It's called "letter to the editor". Very old institution.

That said, analogies are just that, and social media are just not common carriers. By their design, they are selective about information they show you, whether by algorithm, your choice or the operator's choice. Especially since they use user submitted data including social network structure to manage your feed, it's editorializing by design.

A common carrier version would have to make the algorithms public, well described, remove moderation and other more undesirable features that increase income. This is not what these private companies run.

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