On concentrated power: use ctrl+F to find the section with the sentence: "Western Union carried Associated Press reports exclusively"

https://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/12/books/review/excerpt-the-master-switch.html

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One idea I like, is that you can voluntarily submit to regulation. If you carry everything without discrimination you get immunity. Otherwise you're open to any lawsuits that might happen.

Because more lawsuits congest the judicial system and what would be small aggregated claims vs issues like mass censorship of humans just like "wham i dont like you".

Well, that would level the playing fields

If all participants in the market have to carry whatever in put there, the brands are equally stained

And lawsuit protection

Simply opening up everything to lawsuits seems to me like a good way to get well-heeled NGOs to use tort as a means of political harassment.

I think it would open up more censorship, not less.

That said, there are venues where you'd necessarily want to be able to curate, I'm not against leaving companies to have a choice.

Wait, did someone delete their post?

I haven't.

Hmm

Well someone suggested that we force all speech carriers to carry whatever is put there and to protect against lawsuit. That was what I was responding to when I said it'd level the playing field and equally sully brands so it wouldn't go against the market.

Not sure how society would like where that would lead, though

I'm imagining how that could backfire to enhance crimes

As I see it, criminal activity is handled as it currently. By finding and punishing the criminals.

You could try and make a similar argument about the postal service after the recent bomb scare.

But bombs travelling through the mail is rare and the guy responsible (we think) is in custody and looking at hard time.

Would this eliminate any private forum, though? Would there be any ability for people to be selective in who they associate with?

As I said, I'm open to it being optional (I think it may be the best way to be honest. A similar system exists for Fedex and UPS).

Only really major players matter for one. So you should be able to run a small website as you want (you're really not providing a service for others in that case). There is also a distinction between a service like discord that allows users to create and join small private groups (in which case the users select who is in the group) and the company blanket banning certain users or groups. I'm only concerned with the latter.

@pratel why do you keep straw Manning. They would only be open to lawsuits if they keep banning. And if they want to, you are right. NGO and SPLC would keep pressuring to ban people on Twitter... Which would force more and more people to make an alternative and kill Twitter.

Yeah, what alternative? Gab? I give it less than 2 weeks.

And I'm not straw manning. Point me to where I'm straw manning.

You think if only the SPLC could use Twitter no alternative would pop up?

That's not what would happen.

You just said it would

And don't pretend it would. They might purge 30% of people. But if those 30% just give up. That's space where the SPLC has uncontested mindshare over the remaining 70%.

More over, SPLC would sue to get someone banned. Then some other grounp would sue back for being purged

No. I said they'd sue to get the 30% removed and harass your alternatives into oblivion.

Republicans suing for censorship, Regressives suing over hate speech

Not if the other party lacks the resources of the SPLC.

A republican super pac has less resources than the SPLC?

You really underestimate how much money the SPLC has and how little the Republican party really cares.

Oh they care when it comes to midterms

By then it's too late.

And if you want to play the "Republican Super PAC" card, remember the Dems have way more money. You'd need to include that too if you want to pull parties into it.

Yes, and they would all be suing Twitter

Killing it

Or, Twitter goes hands off, and they can't sue

You and Beemann both somehow believe simultaneously that "removing section 230 would kill social media" and yet "people would make alternatives" despite Gab getting harrassed to hell and back and the SPLC literally being created to sue organizations it doesn't like out of existence.

It's not just Twitter though. It's your fabled alternatives.