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Free Speech For Computers?
snydeq writes "Law professor Tim Wu sheds light on a growing legal concern: the extent to which computers have a constitutional right to free speech. 'This may sound like a fanciful question, a matter of philosophy or science fiction. But it's become a real issue with important consequences,' Wu writes. First it was Google defending — and winning — a civil suit on grounds that search results are constitutionally protected speech. Now it is doubling down on the argument amidst greater federal scrutiny. 'Consider that Google has attracted attention from both antitrust and consumer protection officials after accusations that it has used its dominance in search to hinder competitors and in some instances has not made clear the line between advertisement and results. Consider that the "decisions" made by Facebook's computers may involve widely sharing your private information. ... Ordinarily, such practices could violate laws meant to protect consumers. But if we call computerized decisions "speech," the judiciary must consider these laws as potential censorship, making the First Amendment, for these companies, a formidable anti-regulatory tool.'"
A computer can't have rights any more than a hammer can. Not unless it's sentient, it's a tool that does what you tell it to.
The only way I can see this working is if the computational results are non-deterministic. Otherwise, it is just people telling a machine what to say and the people who do that are in fact culpable. On the otherhand if this passes then regulation should (rightfully IMHO) be placed on what we can program computerized results to be, in otherwords we will have rules on how to make rules.
-- The morphemes of your disquisition are ascertainable, but they have eschewed an ambit of transpicuous exposition.
Free speech is a human right, the speech of corporations can be limited.
... can have rights like humans when the State of Texas executes one.
This is not about "free speech rights for computers". If the action is protected by the First Amendment for the person who owns the computer, than just because they use a computer to do it does not make it something that you can prevent them from doing. On the other hand, if they could be held legally liable for the results if they did it in person, than they should be held legally liable if they use a computer to do it. Computers do not have free speech rights, the people who use them do. Just as the Citizen's United decision did not say that corporations had free speech rights, but that the people who form them do.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
But if we call computerized decisions "speech"
Yes. And if we call computers animals that will confuse the hell out of everybody too. What a nonsense.
It doesn't matter if the text is algorithmically generated or if it was penned by a human. If google broadcasts it, it's speech.
When you conduct a search you're really asking Google it's opinion. They just happen to form an opinion based on a computer model they developed, and choose to pass it to you automatically.
Makes me wonder, though. What if I developed a piece of software that, through analysis and crawling the web, was designed to create the most offensive and repugnant statements possible? What if it made potentially slanderous and libelous statements? Could I claim my "Offend-o-tron" is free speech? Would I put 4chan out of business?
Rights are for humans or citizens. This is another case of trying to failing to generate an interesting philosophical question by taking an existing issue and adding 'with a computer'.
If corporations are allowed to be people then surely they, and not their computers, are accountable for what the computers do.
> I would say if a computer can make a descision for itself, such as a web crawler building a serach index then indeed that is speech.
It didn't. A human made the decision when it programmed the computer. Google is perfectly within it's rights to exercise editorial judgement on search listings whether it uses humans to curate the listings like Yahoo! of old or programs rules into a computer. Facebook can't scoop up a bunch of personal info and sell it in violation of privacy laws, thus they can't get away with encoding that decision into software.
Good grief people, this isn't hard. Just like you shouldn't be able to take every single fracking invention from pre 1990 and add "on the Internet" to the patent application and get a brand new one. You can't program a computer to do things you can't do. The only grey area is if it does something unintended while processing inhuman amounts of information, whether you are equally liable as if you manually did it yourself. And again, if you think a little the answer is already there in the law, negligence is fairly well settled.... as whatever you can convince a jury to award damages for. :(
Democrat delenda est
The same logic seems to suggest that the printing pressess at the New York Times aren't entitled to publish news that the government would rather they didn't (and anyway, the NYT is a corporation that can't have any First Amendment rights). Hey, I'm not saying anything about people's speech -- I'm only restricting what the inanimate printing press can do! Or transistor radio amps for that matter.
If I'm exercising my right to free speech, it doesn't matter whether I'm using a printing press or slashcode to deliver my expressive message (although the former might be more effective). Heck, the courts have even recognized the right to expressive conduct in which various symbolic actions are considered protected. And yet here law profs are seriously arguing that if you use a computer to express something, it loses protection along the way?
Moreover, the idea that Facebook computers might "decide to share your personal data" is an entirely ridiculous abuse of language. Facebook management might decide that, but the computers cannot decide anything -- they are programmed to spec. And if that decision is contrary to law, there's nothing about free speech that makes a whit of difference. I've never heard of a colluder, price-fixer or blackmailer getting out of the charge because their crime is essentially one carried out by expressive conduct. Sure, you blackmail someone by expressing something to them and threatening to express something else more publicly, and yet blackmail is not somehow magically protected even though the crime consists entirely of speech. In short, this criticism -- that somehow we need this new magical technological de-protection because it's required to enforce the law -- is nonsensical.
with free speech rights. That's reserved for corporations.
Just because a computer was given an 'if' statement doesn't mean it made a decision in the same sense that a human would. Free speech clearly applies to the publisher, not the tool with which they used to publish or initially analyse the information (which can be the same tool in the case of a web server). If Google and Facebook did all their aggregation with an abacus, paper and pen which they then displayed in their shop window would we be asking if free speech applied to beads on a wire?
So the real question being asked here is can free speech conflict with regulation on company behaviour.
it's "heart attack", not "card attached"!
But supposing someone has been around long enough that there is no organic component left to them? Even their brain is completely synthetic. Bearing in mind that this individual experienced a continuity of existence, from being born into the world as a human, through the multiple surgeries, incrementally approaching what they are now.
But are they still human? Why, or why not?
I realize that actually requiring an answer to this sort of question is probably no less than a hundred years away or so... but it's an interesting philosophical puzzle, don't you think?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
How can the results of computations could be other than the results "free speech" of programmers and inputters? No matter how convoluted, complex and otherwise magic-appearing (to insufficiently advanced individuals) computers _always_ follow instructions created by humans.
Those humans usually had to work very hard to get correct results (debugging), not very different from a painter drawing an image, or a writer crafting a text.
the extent to which computers have a constitutional right to free speech.
They are machines, they do not.
'This may sound like a fanciful question,
No, it's a bullshit question. Computers are machines, like printing presses are machines. Like transmitters are machines. Like the phone is a machine.
a matter of philosophy or science fiction.
No, right now, it's a matter of complete bullshit by a lawyer who doesn't even understand what computers are and should be kept as far away from the computing machinery as possible.
But it's become a real issue with important consequences,'
What consequences? Really, what consequences that are really any different than the consequences of broadcast and print media?
Wu writes. First it was Google defending â" and winning â" a civil suit on grounds that search results are constitutionally protected speech.
Because Google is basically a publisher, and the people who run it use computers as a tool of business and communications, thus, their speech.
I can't go on. I'm not going to give this guy the click from the obvious trolling with an argument that starts off with a false premise, that machines have rights. No, you dumbfuck, the people who own the machines have rights, and those rights are the ones that the courts deal with.
I don't even.
--
BMO
Computers don't have independent agency. They are utterly in thall to their programmers, admins, and users. The responsibility for their actions rests with the humans, much as if I set an automotive transmission to "D", put a brick on the gas pedal, and step aside.
At such point as computers develop self-guided heuristics, we can revisit the idea. In the meantime, this is just another exercise in humans looking for another legal fiction to add to the arsenal of limited liability provided by the fiction of a corporation.
Luke, help me take this mask off
Only way computers would get free speech is if they were sentient. Bottom line is computers are controlled by their owners and thus a extension of the owner. A computer cant "make decisions" or choices, it only does what its operator wants to. If that were the case then every child pornographer would get off scott free because it wasnt him, it was his computer.
Facebook shares peoples information because its what the people who run facebook let happen willingly. Google puts in advertisements in its results because thats the way the people who run google want. Neither has anything at all to do with the computers doing it.
Besides this matter wont ever change or go anywhere until something happens in which a politician can use it to their advantage and further their agenda. Then they will defend it or condemn it depending on what will make the voters happiest. Its as stupid as a murder saying "Hey I didnt kill that guy, it was the gun that did it".
Whats next is the government going to start hiring blade runners?
It's a side point to the main issue, but cite please?
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
These "X does/does not have free speech" statements are people trying to obfuscate their political agendas.
Do computers have "free speech"? No, of course not. But the people owning those computers do. So, when Google's search engine puts out text, that is effectively speech generated on behalf of the company. The computer is no more like "Frankenstein's creation" than a spokesperson speaking on behalf of the corporation.
Now, does the company have free speech? No, of course not; the company is just a legal construct by which people pool their money and have some legal protections. However, the company's owners do, and when they voluntarily pool their resources (through buying shares), they, as a group, still retain the individual's right to free speech. That's what "corporations are people" means.
Note that there is no obvious right to free speech for organizations that you are an involuntary member of: if you are forced to join by law, the organization cannot claim to speak on your or anybody else's behalf. Such organizations may still speak as organizations, but there is nothing limiting the ability of the government to curtail their speech.
Some political groups would love nothing more than to be able to restrict the ability of groups of people to engage in free speech. Don't let them by obfuscating the issue. Whether you speak by stepping up on a box, with a loudspeaker, with a computer, or by putting your money into an organization that represents your interests, ultimately it is _your_ free speech rights that are at stake.
A computer can't have rights any more than a hammer can. Not unless it's sentient, it's a tool that does what you tell it to.
If Moore's law continues, by 2030, computers will have exceeded the capacity of the human brain
I'll only be impressed when they can select really hot porn
Eugene Volokh, one of the authors of the Google white paper that the author discusses, has posted a response here.
The speech of humans is not completely free; liable, slander, incitement, conspriacy, etc.
It also depends on how one sees a corporation. To me, a corporation is a collection of people. Speech by a corporation is very close to speech of the people in and/or controlling the corporation. While the people in a corporation have a limited personal financial liability (limited liability corporation) they do lave personal legal liability. People in a corporation have gone to jail for actions taken on behalf of the corporation. People in corporation also need not be censored just because they speak on behalf of a corporation.
Another issue is the semantics use in 1789. The pertinent part of the amendment is "abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press". Here is where interpretation comes in. Does "the press" mean the Media (radio station,s television stations, newspaper publishers, etc) or does it men the physical, mechanical printing press that produced newspapers. fliers. etc. At that time a a physical printing ress was the only other means of speech than the human voice.The issue is that people in 1789 had no conception of the technology used today. In my mind the First amendment can be paraphrases as "The freedom to disseminate factual information by what ever means." Whether the information comes from an individual or individuals in a corporation they both need equal protection.
Though a Robot is more than a mere computer, this is important. Corporations have free speech. Why not computers? Why not Robots? Robots United for a Fair Wage!!!