Too big to fail...perhaps too big for normal rules?

During the last recession many businesses were deemed "too big to fail". IE: So big that if they were not bailed out it would constitute a crisis situation. Essentially requiring that special rules be made in order to save the country. Could the same be applied to Big businesses in regards to free speech? For example and more specifically sites that are more often than not are used for conveying speech and expression such as Youtube, Twitter, Facebook, Google etc etc.

The reason that I ask this is because the idea and reasoning behind having free speech is so that things that the majority of people disagreed with can still be talked about with out interference by the government. An entity that, if left unchecked, could suppress things it didn't like because it has power. Power that the normal citizen by him or herself could not hope to defend against on their own. It seems to me that companies such as the above mentioned having the majority of users than most any other site could have the same chilling effect that the government could if left unchecked. Indeed being private companies they don't really have any checks and as such could suppress speech just as effectively as a generic government could. As such would it be unreasonable if such companies had the same free speech restrictions as the government? IE: Not able to censor or negatively affect speech that they do not like.

Note that I am usually one that upholds free speech for individuals and companies so I do not ask this question lightly.

Now I do know that some would be against this simply due to the fact that they think "hate speech" should be squashed and "hate speech is not free speech". I will simply ignore those platitudes because those people do not know what free speech is actually about. But I would like to hear from others on this.

Kal'Stang said:

During the last recession many businesses were deemed "too big to fail". IE: So big that if they were not bailed out it would constitute a crisis situation. Essentially requiring that special rules be made in order to save the country. Could the same be applied to Big businesses in regards to free speech? For example and more specifically sites that are more often than not are used for conveying speech and expression such as Youtube, Twitter, Facebook, Google etc etc.

The reason that I ask this is because the idea and reasoning behind having free speech is so that things that the majority of people disagreed with can still be talked about with out interference by the government. An entity that, if left unchecked, could suppress things it didn't like because it has power. Power that the normal citizen by him or herself could not hope to defend against on their own. It seems to me that companies such as the above mentioned having the majority of users than most any other site could have the same chilling effect that the government could if left unchecked. Indeed being private companies they don't really have any checks and as such could suppress speech just as effectively as a generic government could. As such would it be unreasonable if such companies had the same free speech restrictions as the government? IE: Not able to censor or negatively affect speech that they do not like.

Note that I am usually one that upholds free speech for individuals and companies so I do not ask this question lightly.

Now I do know that some would be against this simply due to the fact that they think "hate speech" should be squashed and "hate speech is not free speech". I will simply ignore those platitudes because those people do not know what free speech is actually about. But I would like to hear from others on this.

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Im not sure if we should make it a law but certainly a deal should be made with the govt to ensure that such companies uphold free speech ideals

Free speech is not unrestricted.

Aristaeus said:

Free speech is not unrestricted.

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Free speech is unrestricted, thats literally the point of it

Crovax said:

Free speech is unrestricted, thats literally the point of it

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Try going into an airport and shouting bomb and let us know how you get on.

Aristaeus said:

Try going into an airport and shouting bomb and let us know how you get on.

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You seem to have confused the ideal of free speech with the codified protections of the 1st amendment

I’m not against the idea of formally recognising the power some organisation have but I think anything along the lines of “the same rules as government” is too simplistic and not practical given the entirely different environments and different reasons. However big a company may get, they’ll never have the potentially unrestricted powers of a government and can always face effective competition. Its also worth noting that any rules applied to organisations would be implemented by government so you could be simply swapping one devil for another.

For “publishers” like YouTube, Facebook and the like (though they don’t like the term for this reason) I think there is actually good competition in the market and while they can restrict things on their own platforms (legitimately or not), they can’t prevent the information being published elsewhere (after all, we generally wouldn’t find out otherwise). There could be an argument for regulatory structure similar to those for the press or television (though that would be difficult in practice) but I don’t see any argument for anything to the extent that you’re implying.

Search engines could be considered a special case just because they’re fulfilling a different role but while Google is dominant, it does have competition. Again though, while some level of regulation could be applicable (though again, difficult) around areas like highlighting paid-for links over true search results and more clarity on the underlying algorithms, greater restrictions strike me as unnecessary.

I think a great part of this is about personal responsibility and there is a risk in relying too much on outside control (private or public) to manage and regulate the information we access. These sources only dominate because we allow them to and 99% of the time that really doesn’t matter. In the times it does though, it’s on us each individually to put in a little more time and effort in to seeking out all of the relevant information from a range of sources. Free speech is useless if nobody is listening.

Kal'Stang said:

During the last recession many businesses were deemed "too big to fail". IE: So big that if they were not bailed out it would constitute a crisis situation. Essentially requiring that special rules be made in order to save the country. Could the same be applied to Big businesses in regards to free speech? For example and more specifically sites that are more often than not are used for conveying speech and expression such as Youtube, Twitter, Facebook, Google etc etc.

The reason that I ask this is because the idea and reasoning behind having free speech is so that things that the majority of people disagreed with can still be talked about with out interference by the government. An entity that, if left unchecked, could suppress things it didn't like because it has power. Power that the normal citizen by him or herself could not hope to defend against on their own. It seems to me that companies such as the above mentioned having the majority of users than most any other site could have the same chilling effect that the government could if left unchecked. Indeed being private companies they don't really have any checks and as such could suppress speech just as effectively as a generic government could. As such would it be unreasonable if such companies had the same free speech restrictions as the government? IE: Not able to censor or negatively affect speech that they do not like.

Note that I am usually one that upholds free speech for individuals and companies so I do not ask this question lightly.

Now I do know that some would be against this simply due to the fact that they think "hate speech" should be squashed and "hate speech is not free speech". I will simply ignore those platitudes because those people do not know what free speech is actually about. But I would like to hear from others on this.

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In fact, there was recently passed a law in Germany holding those companies responsible for erasing content that the government deemed illegal such as “hate speech” or nazi propaganda. The companies are forced to self monitor the content and censor such content. The fines they can face can be substantial.

So yes. These companies do have the power and the people use it to censor content already.

Crovax said:

Im not sure if we should make it a law but certainly a deal should be made with the govt to ensure that such companies uphold free speech ideals

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Yes. I am with you that content should not be censored. In most cases, it is a government that does the censoring, however.
Also, we are quite accustomed to these companies sometimes censoring areas like sex or ‘dirty’ talk and actually expect them to.

Kal'Stang said:

During the last recession many businesses were deemed "too big to fail". IE: So big that if they were not bailed out it would constitute a crisis situation. Essentially requiring that special rules be made in order to save the country. Could the same be applied to Big businesses in regards to free speech? For example and more specifically sites that are more often than not are used for conveying speech and expression such as Youtube, Twitter, Facebook, Google etc etc.

The reason that I ask this is because the idea and reasoning behind having free speech is so that things that the majority of people disagreed with can still be talked about with out interference by the government. An entity that, if left unchecked, could suppress things it didn't like because it has power. Power that the normal citizen by him or herself could not hope to defend against on their own. It seems to me that companies such as the above mentioned having the majority of users than most any other site could have the same chilling effect that the government could if left unchecked. Indeed being private companies they don't really have any checks and as such could suppress speech just as effectively as a generic government could. As such would it be unreasonable if such companies had the same free speech restrictions as the government? IE: Not able to censor or negatively affect speech that they do not like.

Note that I am usually one that upholds free speech for individuals and companies so I do not ask this question lightly.

Now I do know that some would be against this simply due to the fact that they think "hate speech" should be squashed and "hate speech is not free speech". I will simply ignore those platitudes because those people do not know what free speech is actually about. But I would like to hear from others on this.

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I think they certainly have the power in their hands to do that. It reminds me of the recent report of the travel site, Trip Advisor (I think it was) where they were deleting reviews that exposed certain hotels as hot spots for rape and sexual assaults.

And I believe that Google can and does manipulate what comes up on search results, so yeah, it's kind of concerning to me. Twitter though is more instantaneous. Stuff can be deleted after it's out there, but we would know they were suppressing. Facebook too. I don't know how Youtube works.

Kal'Stang said:

During the last recession many businesses were deemed "too big to fail". IE: So big that if they were not bailed out it would constitute a crisis situation. Essentially requiring that special rules be made in order to save the country. Could the same be applied to Big businesses in regards to free speech? For example and more specifically sites that are more often than not are used for conveying speech and expression such as Youtube, Twitter, Facebook, Google etc etc.

The reason that I ask this is because the idea and reasoning behind having free speech is so that things that the majority of people disagreed with can still be talked about with out interference by the government. An entity that, if left unchecked, could suppress things it didn't like because it has power. Power that the normal citizen by him or herself could not hope to defend against on their own. It seems to me that companies such as the above mentioned having the majority of users than most any other site could have the same chilling effect that the government could if left unchecked. Indeed being private companies they don't really have any checks and as such could suppress speech just as effectively as a generic government could. As such would it be unreasonable if such companies had the same free speech restrictions as the government? IE: Not able to censor or negatively affect speech that they do not like.

Note that I am usually one that upholds free speech for individuals and companies so I do not ask this question lightly.

Now I do know that some would be against this simply due to the fact that they think "hate speech" should be squashed and "hate speech is not free speech". I will simply ignore those platitudes because those people do not know what free speech is actually about. But I would like to hear from others on this.

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Interesting stuff. Previously we had newspapers which were easy to produce but not so easily distributed. With broadcast radio, and TV, production became harder but distribution became much easier. Rules were needed to separate broadcasts from each other. Now we are at a point that production and distribution are very easy, virtually unlimited for everybody who has access to the internet. It's a profound challenge for our time.

The government that hankled "too big to fail" banks with ham-fisted ignorance to the benefit (corporate welfare) of those bands and detrimental to the taxpayer/citizen can be counted on to handle censorship with the same ham-fisted ignorance detrimental to the citizen/taxpayer.
/

Kal'Stang said:

During the last recession many businesses were deemed "too big to fail". IE: So big that if they were not bailed out it would constitute a crisis situation. Essentially requiring that special rules be made in order to save the country. Could the same be applied to Big businesses in regards to free speech? For example and more specifically sites that are more often than not are used for conveying speech and expression such as Youtube, Twitter, Facebook, Google etc etc.

The reason that I ask this is because the idea and reasoning behind having free speech is so that things that the majority of people disagreed with can still be talked about with out interference by the government. An entity that, if left unchecked, could suppress things it didn't like because it has power. Power that the normal citizen by him or herself could not hope to defend against on their own. It seems to me that companies such as the above mentioned having the majority of users than most any other site could have the same chilling effect that the government could if left unchecked. Indeed being private companies they don't really have any checks and as such could suppress speech just as effectively as a generic government could. As such would it be unreasonable if such companies had the same free speech restrictions as the government? IE: Not able to censor or negatively affect speech that they do not like.

Note that I am usually one that upholds free speech for individuals and companies so I do not ask this question lightly.

Now I do know that some would be against this simply due to the fact that they think "hate speech" should be squashed and "hate speech is not free speech". I will simply ignore those platitudes because those people do not know what free speech is actually about. But I would like to hear from others on this.

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I think the simpler solution is to stop regarding them as too big to fail.

They aren't. And if they do, and we let them, society will survive. We've got some proofs of concept, and allowing them to do so ultimately benefits everyone, if they could not sustain themselves. It also tends to encourage those that survived to take more responsibility of their own practices and pay more attention to their customers, when they know they will not be bailed out.

No corporation should have so much power that we are forced to pay for its existence whether we want to or not, no matter how badly they behave. The irony of that, in a country that supposedly champions capitalist markets and meritocracy.

Kal'Stang said:

The reason that I ask this is because the idea and reasoning behind having free speech is so that things that the majority of people disagreed with can still be talked about with out interference by the government. An entity that, if left unchecked, could suppress things it didn't like because it has power.

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I assume therefore that you are in favor of Net Neutrality then right?

Kal'Stang said:

During the last recession many businesses were deemed "too big to fail". IE: So big that if they were not bailed out it would constitute a crisis situation. Essentially requiring that special rules be made in order to save the country. Could the same be applied to Big businesses in regards to free speech? For example and more specifically sites that are more often than not are used for conveying speech and expression such as Youtube, Twitter, Facebook, Google etc etc.

The reason that I ask this is because the idea and reasoning behind having free speech is so that things that the majority of people disagreed with can still be talked about with out interference by the government. An entity that, if left unchecked, could suppress things it didn't like because it has power. Power that the normal citizen by him or herself could not hope to defend against on their own. It seems to me that companies such as the above mentioned having the majority of users than most any other site could have the same chilling effect that the government could if left unchecked. Indeed being private companies they don't really have any checks and as such could suppress speech just as effectively as a generic government could. As such would it be unreasonable if such companies had the same free speech restrictions as the government? IE: Not able to censor or negatively affect speech that they do not like.

Note that I am usually one that upholds free speech for individuals and companies so I do not ask this question lightly.

Now I do know that some would be against this simply due to the fact that they think "hate speech" should be squashed and "hate speech is not free speech". I will simply ignore those platitudes because those people do not know what free speech is actually about. But I would like to hear from others on this.

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I was wrong about Twitter

Twitter Bias Continues: Blocks Anti-Amnesty ad Over 'Hate Speech' - Breitbart

Kal'Stang said:

Could the same be applied to Big businesses in regards to free speech?

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Let me think about it NO.

:mrgreen:

It seems to me that companies such as the above mentioned having the majority of users than most any other site could have the same chilling effect that the government could if left unchecked. Indeed being private companies they don't really have any checks and as such could suppress speech just as effectively as a generic government could. As such would it be unreasonable if such companies had the same free speech restrictions as the government? IE: Not able to censor or negatively affect speech that they do not like.

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And what solution do you recommend? That the government force them to allow anyone to use their platforms, no matter how many rules they break, no matter what laws they break, no matter what?

That would basically turn the entire internet into 4Chan overnight. Screw that.

Free speech does not mean that anyone is guaranteed a platform. Free speech doesn't just mean letting anyone say what they want, wherever they want, using someone else's resources. Free speech does not mean freedom from consequences. Free speech does not mean that you can harass, troll, insult and threaten, especially using someone else's platform and resources. Free speech, along with the freedom of association, includes the right of a platform to exercise editorial control.

Should the government require the New York Times to let Richard Spencer write and publish as many columns as he wants, because the NYT is a major platform? Should the government force Fox News to show editorials by the Communist Party USA, because they're a top cable network?

Freedom of speech means freedom from government interference. It does not mean using the power of government to force publishers to distribute content. Doing so violates the spirit and letter of the 1st Amendment.

SmokeAndMirrors said:

I think the simpler solution is to stop regarding them as too big to fail.

They aren't. And if they do, and we let them, society will survive.

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If more banks had failed in 2007, the entire global economy could have capsized, and we'd be looking at another global recession with 30%+ unemployment, and decades of slow recovery. Pass.

The better answer is to force these financial institutions to pay for their own protection, and enforce basic common-sense regulations such as requiring specific capital requirements, isolating investment banking from other functions, requiring transparency and a clearinghouse for derivatives, setting up better ratings agencies, and so forth. That doesn't even require breaking up the big banks, other than isolating the risky investments from what should be the more vital, stable, boring banking segments.

DaveFagan said:

The government that hankled "too big to fail" banks with ham-fisted ignorance to the benefit (corporate welfare) of those bands and detrimental to the taxpayer/citizen can be counted on to handle censorship with the same ham-fisted ignorance detrimental to the citizen/taxpayer.
/

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Today's news of FCC plans to eliminate net neutrality is closely allied to the OP regarding censorship.

Censorship is bad, even though our colleges today seem to be very much in favor of it.

Good conversation here.

holbritter said:

I think they certainly have the power in their hands to do that. It reminds me of the recent report of the travel site, Trip Advisor (I think it was) where they were deleting reviews that exposed certain hotels as hot spots for rape and sexual assaults.

And I believe that Google can and does manipulate what comes up on search results, so yeah, it's kind of concerning to me. Twitter though is more instantaneous. Stuff can be deleted after it's out there, but we would know they were suppressing. Facebook too. I don't know how Youtube works.

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holbritter said:

I was wrong about Twitter

Twitter Bias Continues: Blocks Anti-Amnesty ad Over 'Hate Speech' - Breitbart

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Yeah, all of the ones that I mentioned have been known to censor or "favortise" certain forms of speech. By "favortise" I mean like what google has been known to do in purposely rating certain things to the top so as to bury things that they don't like or don't support. You Tube has been known to do this along with deleting accounts due to very broad and subjective use of their TOS. I know one Youtuber who had his account deleted simply for asking questions to people at rally's. He never cussed in them or threatened anyone and even had disclaimers in his video's which denounced violence when such was tentatively shown in his vids. Thankfully after 2 months of people hollering the right person was finally contacted he was able to get his account back. But that was 2 months of revenue that he lost. All because someone didn't like that he was questioning antifa.

Anyways, I do agree that if something were to be done in regards to making sure free speech ideals are protected on these platforms it shouldn't be too restrictive. These companies should definitely be able to only allow certain things while disallowing other things (such as porn or use of vulgar words). I think that the main things that should be protected is political, religious and press speech. Those three things are the main things that are targeted most by governments when they're able to. And its those above any others that SHOULD be protected.

Visbek said:

Let me think about it NO.

:mrgreen:



And what solution do you recommend? That the government force them to allow anyone to use their platforms, no matter how many rules they break, no matter what laws they break, no matter what?

That would basically turn the entire internet into 4Chan overnight. Screw that.

Free speech does not mean that anyone is guaranteed a platform. Free speech doesn't just mean letting anyone say what they want, wherever they want, using someone else's resources. Free speech does not mean freedom from consequences. Free speech does not mean that you can harass, troll, insult and threaten, especially using someone else's platform and resources. Free speech, along with the freedom of association, includes the right of a platform to exercise editorial control.

Should the government require the New York Times to let Richard Spencer write and publish as many columns as he wants, because the NYT is a major platform? Should the government force Fox News to show editorials by the Communist Party USA, because they're a top cable network?

Freedom of speech means freedom from government interference. It does not mean using the power of government to force publishers to distribute content. Doing so violates the spirit and letter of the 1st Amendment.

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I'll get to your post later. Right now I've got to go.

Kal'Stang said:

During the last recession many businesses were deemed "too big to fail". IE: So big that if they were not bailed out it would constitute a crisis situation. Essentially requiring that special rules be made in order to save the country. Could the same be applied to Big businesses in regards to free speech? For example and more specifically sites that are more often than not are used for conveying speech and expression such as Youtube, Twitter, Facebook, Google etc etc.

The reason that I ask this is because the idea and reasoning behind having free speech is so that things that the majority of people disagreed with can still be talked about with out interference by the government. An entity that, if left unchecked, could suppress things it didn't like because it has power. Power that the normal citizen by him or herself could not hope to defend against on their own. It seems to me that companies such as the above mentioned having the majority of users than most any other site could have the same chilling effect that the government could if left unchecked. Indeed being private companies they don't really have any checks and as such could suppress speech just as effectively as a generic government could. As such would it be unreasonable if such companies had the same free speech restrictions as the government? IE: Not able to censor or negatively affect speech that they do not like.

Note that I am usually one that upholds free speech for individuals and companies so I do not ask this question lightly.

Now I do know that some would be against this simply due to the fact that they think "hate speech" should be squashed and "hate speech is not free speech". I will simply ignore those platitudes because those people do not know what free speech is actually about. But I would like to hear from others on this.

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No one has free speech in any company, and companies can use their power over the media to suppress speech, but wars were fought and demonstrations formed long before big companies had any real power over the spread of news etc. So I'm sure I get your point.

Kal'Stang said:

During the last recession many businesses were deemed "too big to fail". IE: So big that if they were not bailed out it would constitute a crisis situation. Essentially requiring that special rules be made in order to save the country. Could the same be applied to Big businesses in regards to free speech? For example and more specifically sites that are more often than not are used for conveying speech and expression such as Youtube, Twitter, Facebook, Google etc etc.

The reason that I ask this is because the idea and reasoning behind having free speech is so that things that the majority of people disagreed with can still be talked about with out interference by the government. An entity that, if left unchecked, could suppress things it didn't like because it has power. Power that the normal citizen by him or herself could not hope to defend against on their own. It seems to me that companies such as the above mentioned having the majority of users than most any other site could have the same chilling effect that the government could if left unchecked. Indeed being private companies they don't really have any checks and as such could suppress speech just as effectively as a generic government could. As such would it be unreasonable if such companies had the same free speech restrictions as the government? IE: Not able to censor or negatively affect speech that they do not like.

Note that I am usually one that upholds free speech for individuals and companies so I do not ask this question lightly.

Now I do know that some would be against this simply due to the fact that they think "hate speech" should be squashed and "hate speech is not free speech". I will simply ignore those platitudes because those people do not know what free speech is actually about. But I would like to hear from others on this.

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Dynamically and well stated regarding the need to NOT restrict. There is another side of empowerment or the reasons for it that are untouched however.

The Indigenous American spiritual people of the Six Nations Iroquois Confederacy, particularly the Seneca had a philosophical doctrine that laid out the sociocultural justifications of empowerment very well. Unfortunately the framers only touched on 30%, or one side of the reasoning for free speech in the Declaration of Independence (DOI) without even saying so, and Tory gold bought out enough peers to stop those other purposes or meanings from being even mentioned in the 1st Amendment.

There are two sides. One with reasons for not limiting, another for empowering. There was the "Greater Meaning Of Free Speech" which was found through the practice of free speech between people. From that understanding could be created. From the understanding could come; foregiveness, tolerance, acceptance, respect, trust, friendship and love, protecting life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

So it's clear the first 70% totally fits with the last 30% which is all that is stated in the DOI.

Clearly a society has good reason to empower the reach of free speech, but the reasons need to be well defined with great positivity. Therein is reason to revise the first amendment so such purpose can manifest. Today such meanings will not be supported by any entities with the power to do so which represents an immense deprival of the people to great meaning.

Sort of related to this is the practice of some of the credit card companies to not allow funding or contributions to various organizations that are blacklisted. An example is WikiLeaks, and how one cannot contribute to their efforts by credit card. Censorship permeates society.

Kal'Stang said:

During the last recession many businesses were deemed "too big to fail". IE: So big that if they were not bailed out it would constitute a crisis situation. Essentially requiring that special rules be made in order to save the country. Could the same be applied to Big businesses in regards to free speech? For example and more specifically sites that are more often than not are used for conveying speech and expression such as Youtube, Twitter, Facebook, Google etc etc.

The reason that I ask this is because the idea and reasoning behind having free speech is so that things that the majority of people disagreed with can still be talked about with out interference by the government. An entity that, if left unchecked, could suppress things it didn't like because it has power. Power that the normal citizen by him or herself could not hope to defend against on their own. It seems to me that companies such as the above mentioned having the majority of users than most any other site could have the same chilling effect that the government could if left unchecked. Indeed being private companies they don't really have any checks and as such could suppress speech just as effectively as a generic government could. As such would it be unreasonable if such companies had the same free speech restrictions as the government? IE: Not able to censor or negatively affect speech that they do not like.

Note that I am usually one that upholds free speech for individuals and companies so I do not ask this question lightly.

Now I do know that some would be against this simply due to the fact that they think "hate speech" should be squashed and "hate speech is not free speech". I will simply ignore those platitudes because those people do not know what free speech is actually about. But I would like to hear from others on this.

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Absolutely not. Targeting individual companies and having the government telling them how they may govern themselves with regards to their terms of service and content on their sites is not appropriate. The notion of free speech on the internet isn't whether or not facebook or youtube or google allows for something but whether or not a competitor can legitimately utilize the infrastructure to put forth a competitor. A combination of killing net neutrality while putting government crackdown on the remaining large popular sites would be a tag team approach to absolutely ****ing over the open internet.

Aristaeus said:

Free speech is not unrestricted.

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Free speech is absoluted unrestricted and protected. Not all speech qualifies as free speech.