I always think about publishing in these circumstances.
In the UK you can't just write anything you want and publish it in a book. I can't just make something up about someone in a book. There are also laws I can't break about inciting violence. Etctera.
I don't see this as much about the individual's right to free speech as about the platform's ability to monetise published content, which is what Twitter and Facebook are doing. When you view things through this prism, I think it's simpler.
Either the platforms conform to the law as a book publisher must, which makes it hard for a real-time _broadcast_ platform to exist, or the platform does not exist at all.
This exposes the social media platforms as another instance of the same pattern as Uber or Airbnb, in that they are publishing platforms that simply ignore the law.
Before you shoot me down here: I agree that being able to share with your friends is not the same as publishing. It's the features that turn the medium from sharing with friends into a broadcast medium that have made the social media companies (reckless) publishers.
I'd like to see an end to the broadcast features, as companies are unlikely to change.
In the UK you can't just write anything you want and publish it in a book. I can't just make something up about someone in a book. There are also laws I can't break about inciting violence. Etctera.
I don't see this as much about the individual's right to free speech as about the platform's ability to monetise published content, which is what Twitter and Facebook are doing. When you view things through this prism, I think it's simpler.
Either the platforms conform to the law as a book publisher must, which makes it hard for a real-time _broadcast_ platform to exist, or the platform does not exist at all.
This exposes the social media platforms as another instance of the same pattern as Uber or Airbnb, in that they are publishing platforms that simply ignore the law.
Before you shoot me down here: I agree that being able to share with your friends is not the same as publishing. It's the features that turn the medium from sharing with friends into a broadcast medium that have made the social media companies (reckless) publishers.
I'd like to see an end to the broadcast features, as companies are unlikely to change.