> Phone companies and ISPs facilitate communication between people, but that doesn't necessitate they take political stances on what communication to allow
Taking a stance to not control what communication is allowed is a very political stance. It just so happens that, I believe in those cases, it's also a legally mandated stance; but, if it weren't a legally mandated stance, it would absolutely be a political stance, whatever they ended up saying.
Where a private company decides to limit free speech (or not limit free speech) is, 100%, a political stance when the laws have not been written that make that decision for them.
Even if we maintain a law around protecting companies that just host other people's content vs curating and publishing content, it could be seen as a political decision whether a given website and company choose to be on the publisher vs public content stance.
I'm forgetting the word for publisher vs ... whatever it is where they take no responsibility for what people post on the site; but I hope my point is clear.
A non-political stance would be one which has zero side effects on anybody other than yourself. As soon as the actions you make and the decisions you take have an effect on somebody who isn't you, it becomes political.
Actually _taking_ a non-political stance is an exercise left to the reader.
Indeed! We all take political stances every day and it is certainly not possible to run an apolitical social network. The word is probably not very useful. But being able to reflect on “sensitive” issues is extremely useful and, I would argue, necessary.
And yet any random person on the street can easily flag something as being political or not political. I don’t accept that everything is automatically political. That is just an unrealistic argument that doesn’t match the reality of how the word is used.
You're correct. Almost everyone can efficiently categorize things they disagree with as "politics", while categorizing things they agree with as "common sense".
Again this is hyperbole and is not how people think. The politicization of everything and denying that some ideas are apolitical are tied. The latter is a false justification for the former.
Taking that logic at face value, it would mean "if you choose not to take a political stance, then you still have made a choice". Okay, so you've chosen not to make a decision. Yet I don't see how having made the choice implies you've still made a decision ("you have still taken a political stance"). If anything it seems like you just argued against the point?
Choosing not to restrict what political things people can say (or to whom) is definitely a political choice. In many contexts today in 2020, choosing to allow others to speak about their opinions without restriction or opposition is seen as, not only a political choice, but an active attack.
What is the current political climate? And is it static, will it not change?
Is providing food in supermarkets without political background checks "a political choice"? If so, then everything, including picking your nose with your left or right hand, is a political choice and the term "political choice" becomes utterly meaningless.
The current political climate is the policies enacted by politicians and the populace's reactions to it. It is not static, and it changes with the politicans in power, the laws in effect, and the political mood of the populace.
In these debates, people seem to pretend that if facebook or others don't stay politically neutral as possible premptively, that pissed off politicians will not do it for them, badly, in hundreds of countries. It's why social media companies have the kid gloves with politically powerful people.
A segment of social media company staff also don't like that reality and want their social to censor the political parties / discussions they don't like and thus they toe the line and give unsatisfying non-answers at all hands and to the media.
I see this a misconception a lot online so I have to point out something important. The "publisher" vs "platform" is only about liability.
Publishers are liable for everything posted on their websites. Platforms are not - as long as they make good faith efforts to take down or prevent posting of illegal content.
Both are allowed to engage in moderation, curation or "censorship". Engaging in such does not make a website a publisher.
> Taking a stance to not control what communication is allowed is a very political stance. It just so happens that, I believe in those cases, it's also a legally mandated stance; but, if it weren't a legally mandated stance, it would absolutely be a political stance, whatever they ended up saying.
Not really, no. That is not usually what people mean, when they say "take a political stance".
We can extend this to other examples. Do you think that a grocery store should ban people from their stores, if the individual is wearing a pro Trump, or pro Biden Tshirt?
I think it would be pretty silly to condemn a grocery store, for refusing to ban people from their stores, if they were wearing a "Vote for Biden/Trump" shirt.
Most people would find it absolutely and completely ridiculous to ban people from stores for doing that.
Yes, but a lot of companies would absolutely do so for employees--rather than customers--certainly including grocery stores even if they didn't otherwise have dress codes (which they likely do).
So then you agree with the vast majority of people that it is not a "political" decision to refuse to ban someone for wearing a "vote for Biden/Trump" shirt?
Cool. That is my point. Basically everyone would not call it political to refuse to ban someone for that.
[EDIT: actually what’s probably quite relevant is all the stories about high schools sending young women home because they don’t approve of their outfits even if said outfit doesn’t violate a dress code.]
Imagine someone walks into a grocery store naked.
Or wearing a t-shirt with a explicit image of a man and a woman having sex. Or two men having sex.
Or a t-shirt which says / shows something extremely inflammatory yet not illegal.
I could imagine various stores making various decisions in all of these cases, all of which would be the folks working in that store expressing their beliefs!
Humans are inherently social and thus inherently political (politics in the sense of politics as the negotiation and management of a community).
Or imagine someone walks into a grocery store and doesn’t wear a mask! Lol :):/:(.
But, in general, businesses businesses should generally have a fairly wide latitude as to what the t-shirt slogans they allow customers to wear. (Though I think we can imagine various slogans a business might deem objectionable.)
At the same time, businesses can reasonably have a fairly narrow latitude as to what employees should wear, even barring an official dress code, with respect to even advocating for a specific candidate--and that may even get into matters of company campaigning.
Actually I do call it a political decision, but one that is not so controversial in many places in the US - the political decision to value freedom of speech!
In China, for example, while I don’t know for sure I would bet you could not wear a t shirt with the face of say, a former communist party member who had opposed current clique in power (Ie the closest thing to an “opposition” politician that China has).
Or a democracy activist t shirt.
Point is, in the US, though we are lucky in that we often don’t have to think about it, our politicial principles of free speech allow for a lot of behavior.
Stores are demonstrating their political belief in freedom of speech if a store manager doesn’t kick up a fuss when someone walks in wearing a t shirt for a politician the manager dislikes.
Of course there are probably also laws or the manager is savvy enough to know they could get the store sued, but, you get what I’m saying I think / hope :).
You don’t notice it until it’s not there.
And thus, what often appears to be not making a choice, really is making a choice, albeit the default choice :).
> Do you think that a grocery store should ban people from their stores, if the individual is wearing a pro Trump, or pro Biden Tshirt?
A lot of bars and clubs have dress codes. Many ban wearing clothes that could be perceived as "gang" colors. It would be a terrible business decision for a grocery store to do this, but I don't think it's wrong.
Taking a stance to not control what communication is allowed is a very political stance.
That's simply not true. One can verify the truth or falsehood of your statement by applying the knife of logic. Draw your statement to its logical conclusion in order to determine if it results in absurdity.
Let's do that.
A person who has had their brain surgically removed will (quite probably) never mention politics or attempt to control other's communications about politics. According to your statement, that person's actions are political. Sorry, but that's absurd.
1. People who live in the Congo may consciously choose not to become involved in Candian politics. It is absurd to think that is political.
2. You wrote: Your conflation of passive inaction with an active choice to refrain from certain action is absurd.
That is only meaningful as a circular definitio0n. Choosing not to act differs from an inability to act. Why? How would you define the difference between the action of not acting and the action of not acting, because of not making a choice to act?
> How would you define the difference between the action of not acting and the action of not acting, because of not making a choice to act?
I wouldn't, because not making a choice to act in a particular way is very different from making a choice to avoid as policy acting in that way, or, as was at issue upthread, “Taking a stance to not” act in a particular way. Taking a stance is (for this subject matter, at least) political. Inaction on its own is not.
Taking a stance to not control what communication is allowed is a very political stance. It just so happens that, I believe in those cases, it's also a legally mandated stance; but, if it weren't a legally mandated stance, it would absolutely be a political stance, whatever they ended up saying.
Where a private company decides to limit free speech (or not limit free speech) is, 100%, a political stance when the laws have not been written that make that decision for them.
Even if we maintain a law around protecting companies that just host other people's content vs curating and publishing content, it could be seen as a political decision whether a given website and company choose to be on the publisher vs public content stance.
I'm forgetting the word for publisher vs ... whatever it is where they take no responsibility for what people post on the site; but I hope my point is clear.