I’ve been following Taylor Lorenz’s reporting on the New Mexico case, and with it recently won by the state it opens up a whole can of worms that threatens free speech on the internet.
The above video is 52mins and 40secs long, and it goes over all the issues and talking points about the case in New Mexico and how it will affect free speech online.
Now, I’m not a usamerican so I do not have any power to pressure said government in order to stop this stuff, but what laws that do pass in that country affects mine nonetheless (I think many different countries around the world can attest to the same). I felt it was important to bring this to the forefront, if no one else has been talking about it.
I also have developed a strong aversion of any talk about “social media addiction” after actually learning more about what kind of narrative is being pushed forward with that wording. To call a person’s regular use of an account an addiction is a misuse of a carefully defined term. We need to not fall for the propaganda of “protecting children” pushed by far-right groups that want to curtail the sharing of information about LGBTQ+ people, racialized minorities, the war crimes the US commits around the world, or fighting back against ICE. Some of these organizations built to “protect children online” are being funded by large tech companies like Meta.
I’ll also add this link to Bad Internet Bills (in case no one has added it before), if members of this forum who are US citizens and are just learning about this want a place where they can direct their energy and fight back against what their government is doing.
I hope this isn’t too intense of a post. This has been on my mind for the past year since I’ve been learning more about the history of the internet, and I felt like the most recent verdict in the New Mexico case is a tipping point.
Frankly, I don’t want to engage in political action that helps corporate-owned social media platforms. I suspect that Section 230 does more for Facebook than it does for Nearly Free Speech or Neocities.
That is incorrect. The repeal of section 230 will force smaller platforms to close down because they wouldn’t be able to afford any potential charges brought against them for user speech (such as forums like this one, Neocities, small social platforms and archives like Pillowfort, AO3, Dreamwidth etc), and ultimately lead to most discussion online further siloed to big tech platforms like Meta or twitter, which CAN afford to pay any inflated fines or hide behind the smoke screen of using AI to moderate users or identity verification to curtail speech.
Protecting section 230 will keep things the same, letting it go will make things worse. Just because people are claiming (incorrectly) that big tech benefits off of section 230 doesn’t mean they won’t benefit more if the law is repealed.
TL;DW. I’ll read a 10,000 word article, but don’t expect me to sit through even five minutes of video; I can read faster than Ms. Lorenz can speak, and I already know about these bullshit bills.
I also did not (and will not) watch the video, but I understand the issue.
At some point, once the system has become poisoned enough, someone is going to just burn it down. No empire - whether political, cultural, or commercial - lasts forever.
I do find this to be an unhelpful stance to take, and it misunderstands what I was saying and sharing. I would like that people at least read and/or watch what has been linked before commenting. I think it’s the least I can ask for.
I think it would be a good thing if Meta lost the amount of control it has on the digital ecosystem. The same for Google. But what is happening here is not a burning down of an empire, it is shoring it up. It is arguments in support of identity verification, the removal of end-to-end encryption, and a threat to free speech online that would more seriously affect smaller platforms that do not have the money that Meta and Google and Musk have to fight any potential lawsuits. What would be burned are smaller communities, while the stone walled castles of corporate social media would only get singed but continue to stand, and now with more land to snap up.
If you or @starbreaker don’t want to watch a video then here is an article you can read. It’s not 10K words, but hopefully it’s enough for your consideration. I’m happy to keep hunting down sources if this one does not meet your standards.
That’s really only true if people continue to use it. There are large pockets of the population who don’t even use social media, and social media in general has been hemorrhaging users for years. They have the younger generation specifically because that’s what they grew up on. Just because they have them now doesn’t mean they’ll have them forever, people move on from things that no longer serve their interests all the time.
Same with Google. Google only has so much power so long as you use it. I’d say Google sits in a much more powerful seat; the internet could easily move on from Meta straight-up shutting down. Google would be a bit trickier, but not impossible.
I actually watched the vid yesterday as I quite enjoy Taylor’s work and I’m also not an US-american but yeah, this shit is bonkers. It’s not surprising that the backers of all the organization looking to combat “social media addiction”, some I’m sure started in actual good will, are literally Meta and Co themselves. It’s always a matter of following the money. They are the true benefactors of these kind of bills that on the surface look as if they are protecting kids and reducing “social media addiction” (but we know they only end up censoring LGBTQ+ content as you’ve mentioned, and video proof of war crimes, police brutality, etc.). By the way, I hate big social media with a passion and don’t feel an inkling of missing it ever since I quit all the big ones years ago (Insta, Facebook, etc.) and I’ve never even touched others (Snapchat, Tiktok, etc.). But also it’s pretty clear that these bills that look like they are giving power to users and taking it from big tech will in reality only work to destroy smaller spaces like what we have here in forums, personal sites, etc. Like you said they will go first because there’s no way they’ll have the bank to fight their way out of this.
This is what really sucks! Maybe some people think that Meta falling will push everyone to a more regulated, better platform that’s not evil but that’s just not happening. If it’s gonna put a little pressure on Meta, it will probably wipe out something that’s actually independent and there’s not gonna be anywhere to go because that’s what it’s actually designed to do. Or am I losing my mind?! I don’t know, sorry if none of this makes sense!!
I understand where people are coming from with this kind of thinking, it would be really nice if we could vote with our attention, but that is just not the case. We cannot bank on your average person to easily ditch corpo social media, and especially not fast enough to make a dent in some of these platforms. Your average person doesn’t know how nor has the time to learn how to code or seek out non-corporate webspaces, or maybe they do but they keep using corpo social media to talk to their grandparents or whatever.
I think the only corpo social media that took a noticeable hit from user loss was twitter, but it’s still alive and relevant. And that’s the problem. Behind the scenes there is money that keeps these companies alive. School funding goes towards having chromebooks in classrooms. Whole other countries use facebook as their internet. A billionaire keeps twitter afloat. We have to move past this individualist (libertarian maybe?) way of thinking where if just enough individual people stop using the product it’ll stop having power. No. These corporations are tied up in the governmental structure of not just the US but many other countries. You need legislation to fight them, because that is exactly what they are using to make the Internet completely theirs, as I have linked above.
No it’s ok you’re making sense. That’s exactly what Meta and Google want to see happen. That’s pretty much what happened when Meta bought Instagram over a decade ago. I understand your worry, but I also didn’t make this thread to bring people down. I made it because there are solutions, one of them I linked above with the site Bad Internet Bills, which the usamericans in this forum could use to pressure their law makers to stop giving the Internet over to big tech. The Meta case in New Mexico was just one loss, and there will be more cases to come, and this process will take a few years to reach completion, but only without pushback.
If people actually take time to learn and understand what is happening in the wider sphere of Internet legislation rather than being reactionary about corpo social media, then something could actually be done. The energy it takes for the usamericans here to write in to their government officials and tell their friends and family to do the same is way less than getting their social circle to leave something like facebook where all their connections are.
Also I focus on the US here because it is where a lot of Internet infrastructure originated from and is currently being maintained. (I’m also quietly keeping an eye on the legislation happening in my own country, but I’ll only post something when I actually see a method of action.)
This is the kind of unhelpful reactionary commentary I was talking about. This reads like the garbage I used to see on twitter, lol.
Youre right, sorry if I stirred any panic or anything, I just tend to write quite emotionally. Yes, I think the fact that most of the internet is so US-centric (and most corpo social media is US-owned/based) makes me feel like most of what I can do is pretty useless as someone who doesn’t live in the US/isn’t American. I did participate in some European actions against the whole age verification stuff and against online-only services making games obsolete (I feel like it’s important for data preservation) but I’m not a citizen of France (where I live) so I’m very limited locally too. Still, anything is better than nothing! Thank you for your informative links.
Yeah, I felt like I was having one of those ‘curtains for zoosha’-meme moments reading that tbh lmao
I agree with most of your posts and I am very freaked out about changes to Section 230. My state lawmakers are reasonable but politicians don’t understand technology in this country so I am keeping an eye on how this develops. I just used the Bad Internet Bills site to email them, ty for sharing it and I will pass it on.
I’m an alcoholic and I can pretty firmly say that I do have a social media addiction. It messes with very similar pathways for me and my addled brain. That being said, I hate that a real issue some people have is being weaponized to kill the internet. We have liquor stores too and it’s my responsibility not to go to them.
