Social Media and the Trump Ban

[easyrider16]

This opinion piece argues strongly that the Facebook ban of Donald Trump is arbitrary and ideological.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/ ... 944994001/

Here's a primary premise in the piece:

What content the company suppresses or amplifies changes the flow of information, opinion formation and the nature of independent thought around the world for billions of people at a time.

My question is, how accurate is the premise in real terms? Do we really believe that Facebook has that much influence over the independent thought of billions of people around the world? I looked up some stats. Facebook accounts for 60 percent of social media visits in the U.S. in January 2021. According to one study, about 36% of U.S. adults said they regularly accessed Facebook to get the news.
https://techcrunch.com/2021/01/12/study ... -facebook/

What does this really tell us? A lot of people use Facebook, sure. But don't a lot of people use other sources as well? How many of those 36% who get news from Facebook also access other sources on the internet for news?

But here's a key issue for me: Facebook owns the servers, the infrastructure, and the brand that is their social media web site. Do they have a right to manage their own property? Do they have a right to exclude people from using it if they want? How is it different from a grocery store kicking someone off their property and not letting them back in?

Another key issue is this - don't people who get banned from Facebook have a ton of alternatives for speech? President Trump just set up his own blog/platform to keep putting out statements. Before that, he was doing press releases and giving speeches. Does free speech mean he gets to force a company to carry his message when they don't want to, even if he has other means of spreading that message? If yes, where does that lead? Can a newspaper be forced to print a letter to the editor? Do people get to force CNN or Fox to cover certain stories? If a person owns a donut shop can you force them to let you put a flyer up on their wall?

In the end, doesn't this all come down to individual liberty? I'm free to use or not use Facebook. The people who own Facebook are free to do what they want with it. But if I could force Facebook to post my messages, doesn't that infringe on their liberty?

[deadheadskier]

Facebook is no different than Kzone. The owners can do as they please.

Maybe throbster and BigJohnski can reach out to Donny and ask him to sign up here.

[throbster]

Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and Google coordinated a disinformation/censure campaign against Trump. The oligarch leaders of these monopolies command too much power and need to be broken up.

Will you support book burning next?

[Bigjohnski]

The leftist can do this the the president of the United States think what it could to do you Grubers


Be afraid Very Afraid

[daytripper]

So you don't think that a privately owned company has the right to allow whoever they do or do not want on there website? If all 70+ million who voted for trump in the last election stopped using Facebook I guarantee you facebook would reverse there decision. Are you on Facebook?

[Dickc]

Prior to bankruptcy, the railroads in the US owned all the infrastructure, the land they ran the rails on, the rolling stock, the stations, etc, etc. The US regulated them as common carriers, and as such, told them they MUST carry all paying passengers no matter whether they liked them, wanted them or not.

Perhaps social media needs to be turned into a common carrier? I am not sure wither way, but some of you will add great ideas on this argument.

[throbster]

https://babylonbee.com/news/skynet-is-a ... terminator

[deadheadskier]

Prior to bankruptcy, the railroads in the US owned all the infrastructure, the land they ran the rails on, the rolling stock, the stations, etc, etc. The US regulated them as common carriers, and as such, told them they MUST carry all paying passengers no matter whether they liked them, wanted them or not.

Perhaps social media needs to be turned into a common carrier? I am not sure wither way, but some of you will add great ideas on this argument.

Where do you draw the line though?

Many decades ago the government forced a private transportation business to operate as an all inclusive public utility. BTW I'm pretty certain trains still do have to service all paying customers.

But anyways

Fast forward to modern times and the courts recently decided a baker could tell gays to go screw; he won't bake their wedding cake. A supreme court decision widely praised by conservatives

So why does the small bakery get to choose who they service, but Facebook cannot do the same? Volume of customers? If that's the case, where's the cutoff?

[XtremeJibber2001]

Some GOPers (Charlie Kirk) are calling for SCOTUS to overturn the decision by the oversight board ....

[boston_e]

Some GOPers (Charlie Kirk) are calling for SCOTUS to overturn the decision by the oversight board ....

They packed the court so they could try to do stuff like that.

[daytripper]

Some GOPers (Charlie Kirk) are calling for SCOTUS to overturn the decision by the oversight board ....

They packed the court so they could try to do stuff like that.

Who packed the court? I was unaware of that happening lately. I do recall that Dems are trying to pack the court.

[deadheadskier]

Some GOPers (Charlie Kirk) are calling for SCOTUS to overturn the decision by the oversight board ....

They packed the court so they could try to do stuff like that.

Who packed the court? I was unaware of that happening lately. I do recall that Dems are trying to pack the court.

Well, Mitch screwed Obama and Garland to prevent a moderate/liberal judge being seated. That was under the guise of being an election year. Then this fall they refused to follow the same logic and rushed through Barret confirmation.

So while technically they didn't "pack" the court, they certainly stole a seat.

[easyrider16]

Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and Google coordinated a disinformation/censure campaign against Trump. The oligarch leaders of these monopolies command too much power and need to be broken up.

Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and Google are already separate companies. What would be gained by breaking down each individual further? How do you even break up Facebook or twitter? Do you want to make a Facebook East for New England, and a Facebook West for California and the Rockies? This Republican argument about breaking these companies up seems quite illogical.

The only reason companies are broken up in the U.S. is for anti-competitive behavior, and I think it's pretty rare. What's the anti-competitive behavior here? Arguably these companies have actually created the opportunity for more competition - they've carved out a space where someone like Trump could go start a competitive product that won't ban him or people like him. See e.g. Parler. So they've done the opposite of what companies normally get broken up for.

Seems to me the only reason we're talking about this is Trump is butthurt that he got kicked off these platforms and wants to lash out at them. Pretty typical Trump, but not so typical of Republicans in general. They're usually much more business-friendly.

Prior to bankruptcy, the railroads in the US owned all the infrastructure, the land they ran the rails on, the rolling stock, the stations, etc, etc. The US regulated them as common carriers, and as such, told them they MUST carry all paying passengers no matter whether they liked them, wanted them or not.

Perhaps social media needs to be turned into a common carrier? I am not sure wither way, but some of you will add great ideas on this argument.

This is a much better and smarter argument. I believe the U.S. could regulate social media as common carriers of information. The trouble with it is that information is very different from transportation. There has to be some level of self-regulation because otherwise, Facebook would be full of porn and there'd be literally nothing Facebook could do to stop it. That's the whole point behind the Communications Decency Act that Trump wanted to repeal. It allows companies like Facebook or even KillingtonZone to remove lewd, illegal, or otherwise harmful information without being held liable. Arguably the internet as we know it today could not exist without it. That said, there's probably something Congress could do to prevent Facebook or Twitter from banning someone for purely political reasons. But it's a tough line, because Nazis are a political group, and should Facebook be prevented from removing Nazi content from their servers? How about Jihaad content? That's political, isn't it?

I'm a free market guy. I think we should let the free market decide if Facebook or Twitter are doing a good job of self-regulating. If they do too much of it, and people don't like it, there are lots of alternatives.* In this day and age, a new social media site could pop up next week and make Facebook obsolete. It's not like a railroad where buying land and building tracks all across the U.S. is extraordinarily expensive. The barriers to entry into the social media space are miniscule. All you need is a computer, an internet connection, and too much time on your hands. So, I'm not sure it makes sense for government to step in here and regulate when the competitive forces of the market should be able to do the job.

*as an experiment, go to your favorite Google machine and type in "social media web sites" My very first search result led to a page with a list of 95 social media web sites. 95!! You're trying to tell me Facebook is a monopoly when there are 94 other companies doing something similar??

[Dickc]

Prior to bankruptcy, the railroads in the US owned all the infrastructure, the land they ran the rails on, the rolling stock, the stations, etc, etc. The US regulated them as common carriers, and as such, told them they MUST carry all paying passengers no matter whether they liked them, wanted them or not.

Perhaps social media needs to be turned into a common carrier? I am not sure wither way, but some of you will add great ideas on this argument.

Where do you draw the line though?

Many decades ago the government forced a private transportation business to operate as an all inclusive public utility. BTW I'm pretty certain trains still do have to service all paying customers.

But anyways

Fast forward to modern times and the courts recently decided a baker could tell gays to go screw; he won't bake their wedding cake. A supreme court decision widely praised by conservatives

So why does the small bakery get to choose who they service, but Facebook cannot do the same? Volume of customers? If that's the case, where's the cutoff?

The above from me is just rabbiting some stuff I've read about. I threw it out as a conversation piece. Perhaps server hosting companies would be a better group to consider being common carriers. Being a common carrier removes most if not all of the liability if say a hosted product offered child porn. The hosting company would not be liable as they did not put it there, but only rented the space.

Good argument on the small bakery thing. I suspect the USSJC ruled as they did because there are a very large lot of small bakeries. Now if it was something like GM, Ford or Dodge/Ram refusing to sell to LGBT..........

[Mister Moose]

Some GOPers (Charlie Kirk) are calling for SCOTUS to overturn the decision by the oversight board ....

They packed the court so they could try to do stuff like that.

Who packed the court? I was unaware of that happening lately. I do recall that Dems are trying to pack the court.

Well, Mitch screwed Obama and Garland to prevent a moderate/liberal judge being seated. That was under the guise of being an election year. Then this fall they refused to follow the same logic and rushed through Barret confirmation.

So while technically they didn't "pack" the court, they certainly stole a seat.

Which part of "Advise and consent" are you missing? Did Obama consult with McConnell to assure a nominee that would get a vote? If Garland is as mainstream as you say, why was there such strong objection to his nomination?

McConnell made a poor choice of explanation when he denied the vote, but the rules allowed him to do that. So I'll agree McConnell was hypocritical and got caught doing it, but it was within the rules. There was no stolen seat.

It will be interesting if the Senate turns republican in 2022, and Breyers retires in 2023. Then McConnell will yet again have to come up with an even more twisted explanation... or be honest about it.