- 11 Jun 2021 03:38
#15176487
Juin wrote:
Therein lies the problem. Are Big Tech platforms or publishing platforms?
If they are publishing platforms, then they can be held liable for whatever users post on their platforms. That is not the preferred situation for Big Tech. And in the case of the US a Section 230 protects them from being held liable for what users post.
As a matter of fact, whatever concerns and fears they may have felt in the 90s, they have since long left that behind; they have felt their power and have acted with the same megalomaniacal desire to control you make reference to. A case in point is the experience of Parler. Facebook, Twitter having censored conservative voices to the max faced they faced a situation which would have made their victory hollow; conservative voices were gonna decamp by the thousands to Parler; the plug was pulled on Parler, and Parler went dark for like a three months or so. That was an arrogant display of power.
Whatever the case Section 230 is a US Law. Nigeria and India have their laws. Why should Big Tech presume to have primacy over Indian or Nigerian Law?
Juin << India has been reading the Riot Act to Twitter: basically India is telling Twitter, you cannot operate in India as a sovereign body, Twitter's rules cannot have primacy over Indian Law<<
GandalfTheGrey << Are you referring to this?:
All four accounts, like several others that the Indian government ordered to be blocked in the country earlier this year, had protested New Delhi’s agriculture reforms and some had posted other tweets that criticized Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s seven years of governance in India, an analysis by TechCrunch found.
https://techcrunch.com/2021/06/07/twitt ... l-request/
To which twitter complied.
But surely you are not saying this is a good thing?
India is supposedly a democracy, and I would assume would have laws in place that should protect the protestor's right to criticise the government. I think its pretty obvious where the problem of censorship lies in this particular case - and its not the fact that twitter initially allowed these people to freely post on their platform.<<
The particular cases are irrelevant. Twitter may very well be justified in its actions. But that is not the point.
Nigeria and India are democracies. The goverment of Modi can be voted out of office. As well as the government of Muhammadu Buhari. Who can vote Twitter out of office?
That is the problem.
Therein lies the problem. Are Big Tech platforms or publishing platforms?
If they are publishing platforms, then they can be held liable for whatever users post on their platforms. That is not the preferred situation for Big Tech. And in the case of the US a Section 230 protects them from being held liable for what users post.
GandalfTheGrey wrote:But really they are behaving as if they consider themselves responsible for user's posts. Thats my point: they go around "censoring" users precisely *because* they are terrified they will be held liable for hosting illegal and even morally dubious content. Thats their motivation - not some megalomaniacal desire to control and restrict everyone's free speech. I don't know anything about this Section 230, but it doesn't seem to me that it is having much effect - in terms of allaying their fears about being held liable for user's content.
As a matter of fact, whatever concerns and fears they may have felt in the 90s, they have since long left that behind; they have felt their power and have acted with the same megalomaniacal desire to control you make reference to. A case in point is the experience of Parler. Facebook, Twitter having censored conservative voices to the max faced they faced a situation which would have made their victory hollow; conservative voices were gonna decamp by the thousands to Parler; the plug was pulled on Parler, and Parler went dark for like a three months or so. That was an arrogant display of power.
Whatever the case Section 230 is a US Law. Nigeria and India have their laws. Why should Big Tech presume to have primacy over Indian or Nigerian Law?
Juin << India has been reading the Riot Act to Twitter: basically India is telling Twitter, you cannot operate in India as a sovereign body, Twitter's rules cannot have primacy over Indian Law<<
GandalfTheGrey << Are you referring to this?:
All four accounts, like several others that the Indian government ordered to be blocked in the country earlier this year, had protested New Delhi’s agriculture reforms and some had posted other tweets that criticized Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s seven years of governance in India, an analysis by TechCrunch found.
https://techcrunch.com/2021/06/07/twitt ... l-request/
To which twitter complied.
But surely you are not saying this is a good thing?
India is supposedly a democracy, and I would assume would have laws in place that should protect the protestor's right to criticise the government. I think its pretty obvious where the problem of censorship lies in this particular case - and its not the fact that twitter initially allowed these people to freely post on their platform.<<
The particular cases are irrelevant. Twitter may very well be justified in its actions. But that is not the point.
Nigeria and India are democracies. The goverment of Modi can be voted out of office. As well as the government of Muhammadu Buhari. Who can vote Twitter out of office?
That is the problem.