"Bad" platforms aren't bad because "we disagree with them."
They're bad because they're lying to people en masse and inciting rebellion.
And yes, I absolutely think that behavior that reaches that bar should be squelched. The dangers of enabling the spread of misinformation are entirely too visible in today's society.
The slippery slope argument is garbage in this case. No one has been banning political speech from major platforms. Heck, they bent over backwards to allow Trump and company to say the most outrageous things for years before finally stepping in and putting a stop to it.
And Parler being deplatformed for enabling the public organization of rebellion against the United States hardly seems like an "oh no, we're becoming Nazis!" moment.
It's only the most extreme views that result in deplatforming; "your view on taxes is different than mine" will never rise to that level, so there's no slippery slope.
So in what case can we justify enabling platforms to lie to people and incite violence? It simply can't be done.
If it's the first, I can find a TON of lying and misinformation on 'mainstream' sites and institutions. Off the top of my head, I can think of examples in the past year where the NYT and ACLU lied or misrepresented information, for example. There's also a shit ton of information flying around respectable Dem Twitter and Reddit whenever news events happen. Remember how many people thought that the people Kyle Rittenhouse shot were black and tried to stoke racial tensions using that talking point?
So obviously it's not the lying.
So let's talk about 'inciting rebellion.'
Everybody involved in the January 6th riot is a braindead moron. Trump is a braindead moron. And, frankly, if Trump were arrested, I wouldn't lose any sleep over it. That doesn't mean we crack down on speech. It'd be like ordering the USPS to open letters and report people if they plotted their stupid Dollar Store peasant rebellion using paper letters, or tapping everybody's phones.
I'm also exceptionally uncomfortable with the idea that inciting rebellion is inherently bad, as somebody who does believe we should resist tyranny and people have the right to rebel.
They should have been able to talk about how much the government sucks all they want, they crossed the line when they showed up to break into Congress.
> It's only the most extreme views that result in deplatforming; "your view on taxes is different than mine" will never rise to that level, so there's no slippery slope.
Taxes, probably not, but it'll be really interesting to see how union discussions, for example, are handled. Also I could definitely come up with some tax policies that would get me deplatformed from the big spaces. We just haven't dragged taxes into the culture war yet.
When the NYT says something that is factually incorrect, they issue a retraction. Everything they do say is fact-checked, even if they make mistakes.
That's not even close to "lying".
"Misrepresentation" can be a grey area that blends into framing and emphasizing certain parts over others. I didn't include misrepresentation on my list, and that was intentional. You can disagree with how an event is reported without the report containing any actual lies--and that falls under "a matter of opinion."
Things bouncing around "Dem Twitter," whatever that means, are hardly the fault of the NYT or ACLU. Whatever was said, it didn't enter my bubble, in that I never saw a claim that Rittenhouse shot any black people.
But I don't find Twitter useful, so I don't follow anything on it. Instead I read the NYT, and while I don't always agree with their editorials, I generally feel the information they publish as news is as accurate as they can figure out how to make it.
> It'd be like ordering the USPS to open letters and report people if they plotted their stupid Dollar Store peasant rebellion using paper letters, or tapping everybody's phones.
No, it really, really isn't like that.
It's more like shutting down stations from using the licensed public airwaves to disseminate incitement to violence or to broadcast blatant lies--and then later argue in court that "no reasonable person" should have believed those lies. I'm sure you know the latter actually happened, and the former was the law of the land until Reagan managed to tear down the Fairness Doctrine. [1] Which was found to be compatible with the First Amendment, and the only reason we don't have law to replace the original FCC rule is that Reagan vetoed it.
Regardless, my point is that there is potentially a way to limit speech that doesn't prevent people from complaining about the government but that also prohibits people from outright lying about the government (or other facts).
They're bad because they're lying to people en masse and inciting rebellion.
And yes, I absolutely think that behavior that reaches that bar should be squelched. The dangers of enabling the spread of misinformation are entirely too visible in today's society.
The slippery slope argument is garbage in this case. No one has been banning political speech from major platforms. Heck, they bent over backwards to allow Trump and company to say the most outrageous things for years before finally stepping in and putting a stop to it.
And Parler being deplatformed for enabling the public organization of rebellion against the United States hardly seems like an "oh no, we're becoming Nazis!" moment.
It's only the most extreme views that result in deplatforming; "your view on taxes is different than mine" will never rise to that level, so there's no slippery slope.
So in what case can we justify enabling platforms to lie to people and incite violence? It simply can't be done.