
Are Facebook and YouTube quasi-governmental actors? - arctux
https://www.economist.com/democracy-in-america/2018/08/07/are-facebook-and-youtube-quasi-governmental-actors
======
MrMember
It is kind of scary how someone can be "blackballed" from the internet.

All of your social media accounts get deleted so you move to your own website.
Until the hosting company decides they don't want to do business with you so
you start hosting it yourself. Until the domain registrar you used decides
they don't like you so now you have to give people an IP address to reach your
site. Until your ISP terminates your contract because they don't like people
hosting websites on their network.

So many services controlled by private companies that can choose to not do
business with someone.

~~~
drivingmenuts
> So many services controlled by private companies that can choose to not do
> business with someone.

That discrimination is not based on intrinsic qualities, though. You can't
discriminate on skin color, sexual orientation, etc. because society-at-large
has decided those are qualities that you're born with.

But it's perfectly within everyone's right to discriminate against assholes,
if that's what they judge you to be.

You can try to change their minds, but there is no right or law that forces
them to listen.

Furthermore, a person can't change their genetics. But they can change their
attitude, personality, etc. so those are not intrinsic qualities.

~~~
MrMember
Sure, I'm not saying these private companies should be forced to do business
with someone like Alex Jones. But maybe some of these services shouldn't just
be controlled by private companies. I'm kind of surprised that a government
owned domain registrar doesn't exist, for example. If I want to register a
domain name I have to go through a private company who can choose not to serve
me as long as it isn't because I'm a member of a protected class.

~~~
anfilt
There are plenty government owned registrars. Heck the gTLD .gov is pretty
much a goverment entity. They even have policy regarding FOIA requests:
[https://home.dotgov.gov/foia/](https://home.dotgov.gov/foia/) which is they
are exempt. However, good luck getting .gov domain. It probably is not
happening unless your an actual government entity.

------
patrickg_zill
Trying to figure out how a cake baker with 1 store front is NOT allowed to
discriminate, but multi billion dollar multinational companies are allowed
to... ?

BTW Facebook and Google have both received large amounts of government tax
rebates etc. for their datacenters, so there is some government involvement.
e.g. [https://www.techrepublic.com/article/google-microsoft-
facebo...](https://www.techrepublic.com/article/google-microsoft-facebook-
apple-and-amazon-get-2b-in-data-center-tax-breaks-economic-benefit-unclear/)

~~~
dlp211
The cake shop is free to discriminate against Alex Jones for the sane reason
the YT, FB, AAPL, and Spotify are.

~~~
DuskStar
So, undecided then? The Masterpiece Cakeshop decision didn't really resolve
the issue either way, just punted.

------
shiburizu
Problem: social networks are increasingly building themselves around
"journalistic" or "media" companies. These companies can lean on their
political alignment to vindicate themselves when things go sour with the
network. Easy to turn this into a campaign against "mainstream" media AKA
whoever isn't getting banned.

Solution: No idea, but it's interesting to see this play out around media orgs
instead of like, actual users who might have an opinion. Alex Jones is a
strong face for InfoWars, but the whole thing is a media company.

------
happyrock
There seems to be a tremendous opportunity brewing for censorship-free service
providers. If the Terms of Service were such that they only prevented illegal
activity, spam, and other automated abuse being conducted on their platform,
and left content alone, is there a way to make that feasible?

~~~
gdulli
You're essentially describing where we started out. We know what happens
without rules, online and off. There's a reason we converge towards having
standards of behavior above basic legality.

We have to stop conflating the importance to speak without threat of
imprisonment with a right to publish anything anywhere.

~~~
hkai
I'd argue that there is no significant difference in the way that totalitarian
governments silence democracy activists, Muslims or just random people
protesting against government actions, and the actions of Facebook, Apple,
Google and Spotify.

Yes Alex Jones is horrible. Problem is, if crazy people don't have freedom of
speech, you don't have it either.

------
mirimir
It's pretty clear that they are. And so it is arguable that the First
Amendment should apply.

However, it's also arguable that the men who wrote the Bill of Rights had not
even a shred of a clue about the power of social media on the Internet. News
spread slowly then, and there was time for considered debate.

I mean, they were concerned about restraining democratic will to protect
against populist extremism. For example, US senators were initially elected by
state legislatures. And the Electoral College wasn't just an accounting
system.

But damn, I don't have an answer. One could argue that Alex Jones is basically
yelling "fire", and so has no expectation of free speech. But what about the
antiwar.com people? What's so horrible about advocating the rights of
Palestinians, or opposing sanctions against Iran?

~~~
kryogen1c
> One could argue that Alex Jones is basically yelling "fire", and so has no
> expectation of free speech.

Of all the things you could argue, I think this is explicitly not one of them.
All the crazy and ridiculous things Alex says are in no way comporable to a
direct call to violence or endangering Public safety with knowingly false
statements.

In other words, Facebook is silencing free speech in a way that is definitely
not covered if they must comply with the bill of rights.

~~~
mirimir
I meant "fire" in a political sense.

OK, hypothetically, if he were part of a Russian operation to destabilize the
United States, would the US government be justified in prosecuting him? I
mean, consider Mariia Butina , who "face[s] charges related to interference in
the presidential election."[0]

0) [https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/16/us/politics/trump-
russia-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/16/us/politics/trump-russia-
indictment.html)

~~~
kryogen1c
> OK, hypothetically, if he were part of a Russian operation to destabilize
> the United States, would the US government be justified in prosecuting him?

Sedition is a different charge than censored speech.

> I meant "fire" in a political sense.

When you are talking about free speech, there is no other sense other than the
literal in-a-movie-theater sense.

~~~
mirimir
Why is he being censored, do you think?

Is it just a PR issue?

------
Bucephalus355
Yes. The term that is popular in Europe is “Quangos” or “quasi-autonomous non-
governmental organization”. Quangos doesn’t technically apply here, but I
think it’s a good frame of mind / reference to use.

The fact that government power, has in the West, declined extensively since
the 1970’s, means the power went elsewhere. The corporate / finance sector,
with rock bottom interest rates provided from capital across the globe have
received most of it.

Of course this did all provide some benefits via the many innovations we’ve
seen. But there are also many, probably more, downsides that we are seeing
now.

------
noarchy
To the extent that they are strong-armed by governments to carry out
government mandates, they are. In some nations, governments may require
companies to regulate speech, and in those cases it is hard to argue that
these companies are _not_ acting on behalf of the state.

------
21
What if power companies "de-platformed" you? After all you use that power to
spew hate, so they are morally responsible. And there is no constitutional
right to have electrical power.

You can just get yourself a generator, right.

And of course, Apple is under no obligation to sell you a MacBook. After all,
being a hateful person is not a protected class.

I think it's about time we build a "bad people" list, which companies can
consult before providing service. And if any company doesn't respect it, we
can social media mob them into compliance.

~~~
slivym
Let's be real here, there are big differences in what you're saying. The power
company, or Apple for that matter can't know what you're using their products
for. You could be smearing shit on twitter at work, or on the public wifi.
There's no connection there. Whereas twitter, facebook, insta etc. the literal
process is you send a message to the platform saying "Put X on you're website
on my behalf".

A second big difference is facebook decides to de-platform groups on facebook
for what they do on facebook, they aren't banning people on a shared bad
people list. That would be a kind of cartel/collusion which breaches other
restraints on a company's behaviour.

~~~
21
You are behind the times. Behavior outside Twitch can now lead to an
indefinite ban:

> _In a blog post on Twitch’s community board, the company said that if a
> streamer uses other mediums to send targeted harassment or hate toward
> another streamer, it will consider those actions a violation of Twitch’s
> policies — even though the activity didn’t happen directly on the platform._

[https://www.polygon.com/2018/2/8/16988424/twitch-rules-
haras...](https://www.polygon.com/2018/2/8/16988424/twitch-rules-harassment-
toxicity-ban-policy)

~~~
tmaly
This sounds a lot like how students in the US are treated with respect to
first amendment rights in public schools

------
davidcbc
> Do Facebook and YouTube constitute quasi-governmental actors that should be
> held to constitutional standards when regulating their vast marketplaces of
> ideas? Mr Tribe says that under current law, they aren’t.

Betteridge's Law wins again

~~~
kingbirdy
It seems the point here is to ask if they should be considered as such
(potentially via changing the law), not how they are viewed under the current
legal framework (where as they said, the answer is no).

------
wpdev_63
yes

------
m1sta_
No they aren't.

------
pithic
> He has suggested that America’s government was involved in the Oklahoma City
> bombing in 1993 and the September 11th terrorist attacks. He says that
> vaccinating children will give them autism.

There is always a two-way relationship between the regulated and the
regulator. Therefore, all regulated companies are, in a sense, merged with
government. The greater the regulatory regime, the more deeply society becomes
impressed with the features of fascism.

Do the stakeholders of the banking, pharmaceutical, media, and war cartels,
forged in government agencies (whose charters they themselves drafted) and
nurtured through regulation, hold sway over Alphabet and Facebook? It's a
simple enough question to research and answer.

~~~
aiyodev
He also was one of few people who was right about the NSA pre-Snowden. People
seen to forget this. When I read the Snowen story my first thought was that,
unfortunately, more people would take InfoWars seriously. I do not support
censorship, though.

------
djtriptych
Free speech does not and has never meant “say whatever you want to anyone
without repercussions”. Alex Jones isn’t in jail; that’s about the extent of
the privilege his free speech rights afford him, and he still may be
succesfully sued.

~~~
syrrim
You're thinking of the first amendment and other legal institutions. Free
speech is a much broader concept than this. Ask yourself what a right to
bodily autonomy would be if the government only promised that its officers
wouldn't bring harm to you, but any private citizen could: it would be
anarchy. The reason there is no legal commentary limiting censorship is
because it is difficult to discern in the general case when censorship is
itself a speech act. This does not limit you or I from making this distinction
as private citizens in the particular case, as here.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Free speech is a much broader concept than this.

Free speech is exactly and specifically the right to control what expression
you and your property are deployed to support. Private censorship isn't merely
consistent with it, it is the _core_ of it.

~~~
syrrim
Free speech is, in fact, primarily the right to say what you want, not the
right to stop others from saying what they want. I admitted that the latter
form is sometimes important, but that imparts no requirement on the rest of us
to always agree with it.

>you and your property are deployed to support

In particular: "you and your property" is a much more general concept here
then it might normally be. If I lend out my printing press to people then I
should be able to say what they print with it. If I sell printing presses at a
fair market rate, ie I am satisfied with my side of the transaction, then I
shouldn't turn around and impose terms on the use of that press. These two
things are qualitatively different, even though they both involve limiting the
use of printing presses that were at one point mine.

------
reilly3000
Most of these comments fail to appreciate the highly extreme nature of Alex
Jones' rhetoric. Its obscene, flagrant garbage. There are dozens of lines he
crossed thousands of times. He isn't banned from speech, but there isn't a
place for that kind of conduct on platforms with any kind of standards.

~~~
maratd
> Its obscene, flagrant garbage.

It is. So what?

> there isn't a place for that kind of conduct on platforms with any kind of
> standards.

Flag it as "obscene, flagrant garbage" and hide it. Allow the user to decide.
If they want to switch their account to "allow all", that's their choice.

Google does this with search. They can easily do this on YouTube.

They choose not to, which is unfortunate.

~~~
reilly3000
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exce...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exceptions)

The tradition of American law certainly flies a different way than the
approach you suggest. I sincerely respect your position, but feel that wisdom
and tradition have found value in taking a more nuanced approach.

~~~
maratd
That’s a list of speech that can be justifiably repressed by the _government_.
It doesn’t apply here. We’re talking about private parties and about speech
that doesn’t meet those thresholds, but is nevertheless reprehensible.

~~~
reilly3000
I assert that this threshold:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exce...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exceptions#Fighting_words_and_offensive_speech)

was broken by this incident: "The Pizzagate incident, like Jade Helm before
it, illustrates Jones’s ability to influence his followers to take action in
the real world, no matter how far-fetched or unrealistic his claims might be.
The Pizzagate “story” emerged in the final days of the 2016 presidential
campaign, and thanks in part to active promotion by Michael G. Flynn, the son
of former National Security Advisor Michael T. Flynn (who also appeared to
endorse the story on social media), was still going strong a full month after
Election Day, when Edgar Welch appeared at Comet Ping Pong with an assault
rifle, ready to “rescue” the children he was convinced were being held in the
basement. Welch fired several shots and spent close to an hour inside the
restaurant before apparently determining that there were not, in fact, any
signs of any criminal activity anywhere in the building. He surrendered to
police, and later pleaded guilty to assault and weapons charges. Welch was
sentenced in June 2017 to four years in prison."

Source: [https://www.adl.org/resources/backgrounders/alex-jones-
five-...](https://www.adl.org/resources/backgrounders/alex-jones-five-things-
to-know)

It is rather audacious to me that you seem to assert that speech in social
platforms that are owned and operated in the US with US citizens talking to
each other is somehow separate from the rule of law of the US government. The
internet was essentially created by the US government. The notion that
internet companies somehow supersede individual governments is- dangerous.

The decision of social platforms to enforce their policies in this matter is
in part in response to the will of their stakeholders, but also to insulate
themselves from anything remotely close to being a party to defamation.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_defamation_law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_defamation_law)

> It doesn’t apply here. <\- doesn't hold up for me.

One could argue that ironically, in exercising editorial discretion on
content, social platforms demonstrate their ability to censure content, and
thus open themselves up to liability for all of the content they chose not to
take editorial action against.

If you've gotten this far in this thread, please spend some time with Alex
Jones' greatest hits and give me your honest opinion of its merit.

Snarky disclaimer: I give money to the ACLU, I believe in free speech deeply,
and though every fiber in my being is opposed to their cause I will fight for
the right for Westboro Baptist Church to be able to assemble peacefully in
public space. But even Alex Jones' site acknowledges the need for limits:
[https://www.snopes.com/news/2018/08/07/censorship-
platforms-...](https://www.snopes.com/news/2018/08/07/censorship-platforms-
delete-infowars-content-not-according-infowars/)

~~~
maratd
You've made a couple of points here.

With regard to the Pizzagate incident, using the same set of arguments, I can
claim that fringe leftist publications resulted in the Congressional baseball
shooting where people were actually hurt.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Congressional_baseball_sh...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Congressional_baseball_shooting#Perpetrator)

So are you arguing that all those groups he participated in should be banned?
That's what it sounds like.

Are you willing to ban Bernie for incitement?

> It is rather audacious to me that you seem to assert that speech in social
> platforms that are owned and operated in the US with US citizens talking to
> each other is somehow separate from the rule of law of the US government.
> The internet was essentially created by the US government. The notion that
> internet companies somehow supersede individual governments is- dangerous.

It is not the job of private companies to enforce the law. That's the
government's job. And there's a reason for that. You do not get to be judge,
jury, and executioner because you have some superiority complex.

If the government took action, we can have a substantive discussion over the
merits of the case ... but it's irrelevant, because they didn't.

> The decision of social platforms to enforce their policies in this matter is
> in part in response to the will of their stakeholders, but also to insulate
> themselves from anything remotely close to being a party to defamation.

It doesn't matter what reason they had for doing it. They may not even have
had a reason. It is their right to do it ... but just because you can, doesn't
mean you should. That was my point. It's a poor decision.

> If you've gotten this far in this thread, please spend some time with Alex
> Jones' greatest hits and give me your honest opinion of its merit.

What merit does the WWE ( [https://www.wwe.com/](https://www.wwe.com/) ) have?

He's the equivalent in the talk show space. It's entertainment.

Do some people take it seriously? I'm sure they do. Some people take the WWE
seriously too and think that it's real. So what?

Even if the content has no merit whatsoever, so what? Again, we're not talking
about the government censoring him. That's when merit would come into play.
It's a private party.

They can absolutely do it. And they shouldn't, because censorship is bad.
Really, really bad.

And let's not pretend like their censorship is targeted at only undesirables.
Well, I suppose it is, but it depends on who is pointing the finger. These
same shitty companies censor perfectly legitimate content in China, because
$$$. Not cool.

All these private companies that banned him, they _all_ categorize content.
They can easily have a _nutjob_ category and if I want to watch that, it's my
business. I don't need the social engineering, thanks.

Also, social engineering usually backfires. I hear Alex Jones has a really
popular app and website now due to all the publicity?

------
throw2016
The ad economy incentivizes poor quality content, clickbait and more and more
extremist and divisive content. This won't stop, it will keep becoming more
and more extreme and more and more divisive. You can confirm this on facebook
and youtube at any time.

The interim solution is to demonetize any non-original content, political
content, news and opinion based content and disable personalized political or
social advertising on all platforms.

Because at the moment the large social media companies are profiting from
incentivizing extremism and division and are basically poisoning the well.

------
tbabb
Facebook, YouTube, and the like are publishers.

As a society, we did not have qualms before the internet about publishers
declining to amplify the views of people like Alex Jones. Even in the absence
of YouTube's support, he arguably has far more of a voice now than he did in
the pre-internet days, before he could host his own website. He has that on
top of all the traditional means of communication he always had, which
includes passing out flyers and yelling in the street.

It is the responsibility of information disseminators to curate their content.
Nobody is going to jail over these editorial choices, so the notion that this
is a constitutional issue is pure hysteria. YouTube and Facebook are finally
stepping up to the responsibility they have long owed us from the beginning.

~~~
sheepmullet
> Facebook, YouTube, and the like are publishers.

If they are publishers then they should be held responsible for the content
they publish.

Just like a newspaper would be.

~~~
tbabb
Agree.

I think we are waking up to that, and this is a sign that we are beginning to
move in that direction.

~~~
sheepmullet
Facebook etc want to have the best of both worlds.

For example if a reporter at the NYT slanders me then I can hold the NYT
responsible.

Facebook wants to say "oh no no no we are just a platform - you have to find
and sue the poster" while at the same time heavily curating content.

~~~
tbabb
Sure. They would like their liability be zero in both cases. I think it should
be more than zero in both cases.

------
hyperdunc
It's time to improve the law and guarantee the right of all citizens to use
monopoly services.

Any large private platform or network should be subject to the First
Amendment, because most of them don't operate primarily in a free market.
Instead they are monopolies that enjoy network effects and as a consequence
are easily strong-armed by governments.

If Facebook's stock keeps declining and it ends up a shadow of its current
self then it can be released from this obligation.

~~~
lozaning
How would any of these sites then be moderated? If removing a comment is now a
violation of the first amendment how do you keep sites true to the niche they
where founded to serve?

If I run the most popular website for people who like chili do I now have to
allow posts related to all types of soups? Can my really popular chili site
remove posts about your dog you keep making?

~~~
hyperdunc
If your chili site reaches the status of de facto town square where most
public political discourse occurs, then yes you need to let everyone
participate.

Silicon Valley social media companies are effectively public forums on private
land.

