 Welcome to Teens on Topic. I'm your host, Emma Arnstson, and today I'm joined by... I'm Eric Agler. Lisa Shake. Sam Sheridan. Andy Knox. Cable Park. On this week's episode, we have a discussion that happens a lot today in social media, so let's see what the adults around Davis have to say about it. Do you think Twitter and Facebook should ban certain users? I think they should ban those users if they're spreading hate speech or violence. Yeah, I'm going to have to agree with her statement. Actually, yes. Yes. Highly agree. I got a couple. I like to ban myself. So, like, it's a lot of people out there that don't need...neither. It's people out there that don't need to be seen, actually. A lot of people who have opinions don't need to be heard, voices need to be shut completely off. You're right. Yeah, I think they probably should because there's a lot of people... They have all kinds of community guidelines, and there are a lot of people who break those guidelines and do bad stuff with the platform. Do you think it's an infringement of freedom of speech if they ban people? I think if they're really harassing somebody and maybe threatening them, then it's not really an infringement. But if it's just because of somebody's views, then maybe it could be an infringement. Do you think that Twitter and Facebook should be allowed to ban users from their platform? I'm pretty sure they have a pretty standard community guidelines thing. I do think that the guidelines should be shifted, because I think there's some very influential positive people just spraying truth or just expressing themselves that get their content taken down. I think that's kind of lame. But, you know, that's kind of up to them. But I think that it's sort of open-ended. Obviously, if there's stuff that's super inappropriate that ain't good for nobody, they should take it down, definitely. But there's enough atrocity out there in the world that they promote. So, you know, it's probably just on them to shift their community guidelines to be a little bit more accepting. I think nudity gets a little bit too much of a bad rap, and yet, you know, they don't cover enough of the drone bombings that are going on. There's a lot of violence out there. I don't think nudity hurts anybody, so that's just my personal opinion. Do you think that, like, them banning people is, like, infringing on, like, a First Amendment or, like, freedom of speech rights? Um, I think that's a little tricky just because freedom of the press has expanded now to the Internet, but, you know, even that is really bought out. So, I do think, to a certain extent, you are infringing on someone's right to express themselves. However, you can still take to the streets or, you know, start writing books or whatever. It's not a direct violation per se. Can't ban you from going outside. True talk, but it's still, it's kind of messed up, man. Yeah. Thanks, man. Awesome. Awesome as- Well, it seems like pretty much everyone, again, had a similar view on it. What do you guys think on what they had to say? Yeah. Okay. Cool. So, one thing that I feel like is important to bring up is the fact that, like, talking about freedom of speech online, like, Twitter and Facebook are both privately owned companies, and so, and then, like, obviously, Instagram falls under that, too. And so, they have no, like, obligation to follow, like, the First Amendment, you know? And so, they obviously have community guidelines set in place already, and if people are unable to follow those guidelines, they can, or they would be banned, and that makes sense, you know? Yeah. And I feel like at some point, you become enough of a public forum that, you know, you kind of, even if there's no legal requirement, I feel like you definitely should allow people to voice their opinions. I mean, you know, Twitter, I feel like, was made to be an open forum. You know, it's not like, you know, some mom-and-pop shop where, like, you know, of course you're going to kick someone out for saying something that annoys you. You know, I mean, I think, you know, there's a certain point where Twitter, you know, what they will and won't ban has a major effect on the ideas that will enter people's heads, you know, that the opinions that they'll be able to read. And I think, you know, at a certain point when you have that much influence over what people think, you should either start calling yourself a news outlet, or you should have some kind of regulations that make what you allow a little more like you're a government organization with the First Amendment and, you know, a little less like you're just some regular old private business that can kick people out for saying things that they shouldn't. You think that a private business, because of its success, has a responsibility to uphold the First Amendment? Sure. I mean, I think so. I mean, I'm not saying like, you know, it's the same for McDonald's, but I feel like when you're specifically like talking about, you know, when it's specifically like an idea-sharing platform, I think definitely governments have a responsibility, you know, obviously not-they don't have like a legal responsibility under the law currently, but I think you definitely should try to keep the forum as open to ideas as possible. I think the only thing really that they should ban is content that is blatantly illegal and is an actual like threat to someone or is legitimately inciting violence. Yeah, and like while I agree with that, that Twitter does have like a large influence over what people think. I feel like it is also absolutely fair for them to have community guidelines and saying that just because they are like a large area for people to share their like thoughts and ideas, that does not mean that they have any obligation to like let everyone say just absolutely whatever they want. I think that they have guidelines in place and they don't, even if sometimes mistakes are made, like especially on YouTube, I know a lot of mistakes are made with like demonetizing videos or taking videos down. I don't think that these like companies like Twitter, like YouTube, Facebook are always banning people because they're like, oh I just don't want their opinion to be shared. I think that there is a lot of like, there's a lot of risk in that of being like Twitter could just shut down all users with like one opinion, but I don't think that is happening and I think if we did see that happen in a really, really extreme way, we'd see people kind of shift and begin to use other platforms. I think we need to... No, you go ahead. Yeah, thanks. I think what we need to draw a distinction between is, and so in the video what they were asking was, do you think Twitter should be allowed to do this versus what was in the Chiron which is should they be allowed to do this? I think there's a huge distinction between those two. I'm sorry, what was the first one? Should they versus should they be allowed to. Okay. And so I think Twitter should be allowed to take these people off, but in between the people who they take off, I think there's a distinction, right? There are people who are posting things that are either violent or explicit versus people who are espousing these opinions. And so you'll see recently, I can't remember if it was Facebook or Twitter, but there are these right-wing figures that were taking off info-worse people and then Lewis Farrakhan as well as on the other side. And so when those people are taking off what you're doing, is you're removing their opinion from the marketplace? And that might be a good thing, but there's a strong argument on the other side that you should confront these ideas head-on at Davis Media Access. We do believe in free speech. And what that entails in a lot of situations is those ideas are still out there, but what you're really doing is you're going after them in the public square where people are really facing off. I do think that there is a huge problem where there is distrust of these social media companies because a lot of the people who get blocked will get blocked for things that aren't that bad. And they'll be mostly from one political side. They'll be conservative. You'll see a lot of conservative things on YouTube be demonetized. You'll see people get off Twitter for tweeting, learn to code at journalists or criticizing Brian Stelter. There's a pattern where you see a lot more right-wingers getting locked out of their accounts or taking off social media. And while Twitter is a private company and they should be allowed to do that, it doesn't look good when you have these Silicon Valley liberals controlling their companies with such a bias. Do you have something to say about that, Eric? Yeah, I follow this guy. He got blocked three times. He's an active duty guy, and he posts pictures of dead terrorists. But he doesn't post it because he's saying that he killed his people. He posts what he's doing for his country. So some people just go out and just say, it's blocking because it's not good. Well, people are probably just not doing nothing as great as this guy is doing, risking his life for this country. I don't think it's bad, it's violent, but I don't think it should be blocked just because someone says, these blood, this guy is doing something for his country. One, that person is probably just sitting somewhere and just, I don't know. I honestly think it's fine to block that. I don't think that members of the military should be posting pictures of dead terrorists on their accounts. I say he should not be blocked because he's doing something for his country. Well, this person is probably just saying he's doing something for his country but glorifying death on pictures of corpses. I feel like more than unethical. One thing we haven't really been talking about is the actual blocking feature where you can block an account if you don't like what it's posting. Don't follow it. Yeah, you can just not follow them. You can make it so you don't have to see any of their posts. So I mean, I think, you know, there is person doesn't like you don't follow it, but you know. Yeah, exactly. And I feel like websites also that have like loser rules often run into problems. Like I know that there is the big thing because like Tumblr banned adult content and then like a ton of people online were like, well, now I'm just not going to use the app anymore. But like, yeah, there needs to be like some sort of distinction made of like, like private accounts versus public accounts. But I think that like, yeah, one thing people don't always think about is like, like Twitter and Facebook and all these companies, like they can technically ban whoever they want because it is, it is they are private corporations. But I mean, do you think they should do that? No, no, no, no, I don't think they should, but I think that they should be allowed to. And I think that like obviously there is a problem with people on the right getting like their accounts removed. But at the same time, I don't think that that Twitter or Facebook or YouTube or whatever should turn into a place of like free, just like free speech like people post whatever they want. I just mean, I feel like, you know, in principle, in a way I agree with that. I just feel like there comes a certain point where, you know, when like it's media outlets who control the information that people get and that includes social media. I think there's just so much, there's a certain point where you can just have so much influence over what people see and what people know based on the controlling, you know, based on controlling what is on their feeds and you know, what they're allowed to see. I think there's a certain point where that becomes almost, if not as bad as the government restricting free speech in some way. I think that Twitter definitely has a responsibility to like be very fair with their community guidelines. And I think that something we're seeing right now, obviously, I said before, is that they're not always being fair with those guidelines. But I do, like I don't understand exactly what you mean of like Twitter should be treated like a news outlet. Oh, that's just to say, I don't know exactly all the details of this. It's more that like, you know, Fox News obviously is allowed to be as biased as they want, but that kind of comes with certain other separate regulations about how you can like regulate the content and how you can actually like present yourself. You know, so I mean, I just mean like, if Twitter is going to be, if Twitter and Facebook are going to be saying like, we're going to like remove fake news or something, they should consider themselves a news outlet like, and they should say, hi, we're Twitter the news outlet. Rather than we're Twitter the social media. I think there's some greater argument to that. I'm just kind of parroting something that I heard several months ago though. I was talking about how Twitter has a Twitter and other similar things have a responsibility. I still really disagree with that. Like for example, I'm going to bring in a hypothetical here. Do you think Twitter has a responsibility to stay open? Like if they were to just shut down tomorrow, do you think they're allowed to do that? I think it's more about treating people equally. Right? I mean, you've suggested that the space that they're currently providing is so important that removing someone from their own system is destroying their capability to express themselves. So if they were to remove their website altogether, they've destroyed everybody's capability. No, I think it's while they're open, they have an agreement with their users that this is what we are a form for people to post their stuff. It's not like it's not like there are any societal impositions that they have to do any of this stuff. It's just that while they're open, that's what they market themselves as a form for people to post stuff, not as a news organization. I think it's a different thing to get rid of misinformation. Well, I mean, I just mean like while you are providing people with information, like while people are using Twitter as their primary source of like news and information, that's when you have a responsibility to like be unbiased with the way that you like enforce your regulations and have the regulations set up. So if Twitter completely closed down, then no one would be getting their information from Twitter. And that's why I feel like that's different and that it would be okay. I don't think Twitter wants it. I don't think they want to be the primary source of information for people. And it's a huge mistake. Viewers, please do not use Twitter as your primary source of information. There are plenty of newspapers, plenty of news channels that you can use for reliable news, including TV, but just because people are using it as their primary news because they're too lazy to pick up a newspaper, it doesn't mean that Twitter has to become this newspaper just because people are just too stupid to actually go to news. I'm going to defend Twitter a little bit right now because I like using Twitter for reading because there's lots of articles that are on Twitter. Twitter does a really good job of when something happens, they set up something like a moment, that's what they call it, and you can scroll through and read different articles from different perspectives. And so I think in that sense, they are doing a really good job of covering both sides of a story. Obviously, they still have story selection on what goes in those moments and what tweets are highlighted. But I think that they more often than not do a good job of having, when something happens, like when an event happens, they have a place where you can go and find multiple articles from multiple news sources. And that is one thing because I like Twitter. And that's one thing that I found helpful if I don't know exactly what's going on. I feel like they gave good... I think that's fair. I just think that people should seek out more news, maybe click on. Because a lot of people do just scroll through the feed and look at headlines. I think people should either click on the articles, especially for mainstream outlets, even opinionated outlets that are within the mainstream. But then once again, I don't think that... I think that Twitter is doing their best when it comes to that. I just don't think that Twitter should be treated like a media outlet just because... Oh, I mean, I just mean if they start really saying like, oh, we're going to crack down on fake news or something like that, I think that's when they should be considered more of a media outlet. So if you turn on TV and look at the news, are you actually going to believe what they're saying? You never know. So you can't really trust the news or whatever, you know? There could be a line. I think that's kind of crazy. Do you think it's crazy that the news might be lying to you? Oh, dude. Good God, is that what we're doing here? The news is lying to me. Yeah, I totally agree with Eric. I feel like all the fake news on Twitter kind of teaches you like, yeah, I should be very skeptical of the information I'm getting. I think it's fair to be skeptical. I feel like you're more likely to... Media is gone off the rails. I think... I don't know. I definitely see where Eric is coming from in the sense of like, it's good to read stuff on Twitter because then you're getting like a lot of people's opinions and then you're able to look at that critically and be like, oh, that's wrong. Or like, oh, I kind of agree with that. People like it a little bit more than they just would like... I think there are a couple of problems with that. You create your own Twitter feed, right? Because people are following only people that are agreeing with them so then they're furthering their bubble. Another thing is that... It's the same thing with cable news. Yeah, I agree with that. Which is why you should read. Some conservative on Twitter is just as likely to like lie to you as like someone on Fox. Money talks, they pay you to say something. I think it's really easy. Every day we see things that go viral that are not true. Which is it's really easy to fall into these traps where your entire feed is blowing up over this one story that may or may not be true. And it's less likely for that to happen, especially if you go to reliable sources. Associated Press. Yeah, the Associated Press is always great. The only reliable news source. Well, that was a very interesting conversation. Thank you for having it with me. It did get a little off the rails through the end, but all in good fun. Thank you and join us next week.