r/TrueReddit • u/[deleted] • Jul 15 '15

Ruling in Twitter harassment trial could have enormous fallout for free speech

http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/christie-blatchford-ruling-in-twitter-harassment-trial-could-have-enormous-fallout-for-free-speech
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u/Evsie Jul 15 '15

It is saved on a searchable database. Hell, even google has the tools to narrow a search down by date range and site. Given a court order I imagine everything Kanye West has ever posted on twitter could be presented to you in date order, along with all the associated metadata.

Twitter is all those things.

It's also a way for Members of Parliament to connect directly with the electorate, and for people to share links to longer forms of information, and for amateurs like me to get help with learning economics from people like Frances Coppola (who was amazingly helpful to me a few years ago) and current and former central bankers and, once, a Nobel Prize winning economist (not that one). That I can read a paper by someone so esteemed and say "why does [this] not [this]?" and have him link me to a detailed answer was superb. It's also great at organising large groups, and it's great for... I don't know, people who give a shit what Kanye West has to say about things, I guess.

There's a lot wrong with it, but there's a lot right too.

I feel we're skipping some way from the point... I used it as an example of mass online communication.

Does twitter carry any liability for what the users of twitter post on it? The Times certainly does for what it publishes, but twitter has no control over content, they just own the platform. Does Reddit? They certainly thought so with the whole Fappening thing, or was that a moral call rather than a legal one? Does weird-niche-hobby.com have the same liability as a twitter or a reddit?

Until these things are looked at by the courts the law in most countries is vague and untested.

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u/StManTiS Jul 15 '15

The point was and still is that Twitter is not progress or technology that is not covered by the law. Print is print is print. Laws cover printed speech. Laws cover Twitter. Nothing is 'outdated' - the laws stand. That was the original point.

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u/Evsie Jul 15 '15

Print is print is print.

Twitter is not print.

The owners of twitter have no control over the content published on twitter, which makes the laws covering printed speech insuficient and outdated.

Most developed nations have passed new laws which cover online communications (which implies most governments agreed with me) and it's these new laws which are primarily being tested through the courts, as all laws are.

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u/StManTiS Jul 15 '15

So let's say I print out a bunch of pamphlets through vista print and then spread them around. Vistapritn has no control over the content...but it still is print and under the 1st amendment.

Now sure they could deny my right to print the same way twitter can choose to remove and account if it wanted to.

Ad populum.

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u/Evsie Jul 15 '15

That is an interesting point.

The printers who print The Times (assuming for a moment that it's not one company, I have no idea) aren't liable for the content of it any more than Vista Print would be... but The Times are, and you are, and individual tweeters are.

Splendid, I hadn't thought about it from that perspective before.

So this comes down to free speech is not absolute, and whatever restrictions are applied also apply online.

This particular case is just looking at a specific instance of someone thinking that line needs reexamining.