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Writer's pictureMadDad

Big Tech as the arbitrator of speech

Seems like this happens with greater frequency these days and it’s always the conservative voice. Big Tech’s enforcement of their “speech violation policies“ is always ”ready, fire, aim“ - a sort of ask for forgiveness not permission. I suspect this will only get worse as we approach the 2020 election season.

https://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/politics/mitch-mcconnell/2019/08/07/mitch-mcconnell-campaign-suspended-twitter-profanity-laced-video/1948050001/





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MichaelD
MichaelD
Aug 08, 2019

If the government were to set rules regulating speech, they would be directly unconstitutional under the first amendment. These are private, global companies and they have the right to set and enforce policies for the use of their platforms. Under current law, the content is the responsibility of the poster, with these companies providing a platform for the dissemination of posts by individual users. They have rules that try and prevent hateful or violent postings, but the technology doesn't really exist to catch and monitor every posting in real time. If, as some propose, the law were to change to make the tech company responsible for content the outcome is pretty clear; they would close down, move fully out…

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I could not agree more! This is a huge problem. Quite honestly, even if we had regulations to protect speech in these sites I don't think that we can keep up with their technology that might allow them to skirt regulations and I don't trust them to do the right thing. They have made it clear that they want to curb speech and the free flow of information even more.

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