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Comment by gabordemooij

5 years ago

I don't see the problem, just reject the special privs for twitter and treat it like a publisher. It should be fairly simple, either you do not moderate at all (and your not responsible for whatever people say on your platform) or you moderate and therefore you publish. It aint that hard. Twitter clearly moderates, that's fine, so it should be treated as a publisher, not as a public 'facility'. Simple.

10 comments

gabordemooij

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khaledtaha  5 years ago

Or perhaps we should take a step back and design a new set of rules that can allow Twitter and other companies to moderate without having to be responsible for the content. I feel like there’s a false dichotomy being portrayed here that’s unnecessary.

  • gabordemooij  5 years ago

    This kind of logic makes life hopelessly complex. It's a very simple rule that does not need 'special adjustments'. Just stick to the rules we agreed upon and face the facts. Twitter is now a publisher. You cannot bend the rules everytime you don't agree with them.

hellomyguys  5 years ago

So all platforms that have moderators (reddit, 4chan, FB, etc) are considered publishers now? What would actually be defined as a platform in your model?

  • gabordemooij  5 years ago

    4chan hardly moderates. If Twitter wants to cater to people that want some kind of filtering just allow those people to enable a filter. Problem solved.

    A platform should not moderate at all. Only remove clearly illegal stuff. For the rest, offer filters for people that want to have them (or better, design a protocol: <content-label type="trump">) so it can be built into browsers.

    That way you can have both: free speech and optional filtering. And you can be a platform instead of a publisher.

    (edit: I added some elaboration on a possible solution )

pps43  5 years ago

Twitter does not want to be a publisher, because then lots of people will sue it for libel and other nasty stuff in twits.

  • NeverFade  5 years ago

    So it should stop editorializing and moderating.

    • JakeTheAndroid  5 years ago

      But they aren't generating the content, users are. Why should they be responsible for what you say? And it's their platform, why are you entitled to it insofar they can't moderate?

      Can Amazon not kick people off their servers without being responsible as a publisher? At what point can a company no longer decide what happens within their ecosystem?

      I thought we appreciated freedom of speech in the US, and that includes freedom to ignore speech.

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