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Do Social Media Bots Have a Right To Free Speech? (thebulletin.org)
One study found that 66% of tweets with links were posted by "suspected bots" -- with an even higher percentage for certain kinds of content. Now a new California law will require bots to disclose that they are bots.
But does that violate the bots' freedom of speech, asks Laurent Sacharoff, a law professor at the University of Arkansas. "Even though bots are abstract entities, we might think of them as having free speech rights to the extent that they are promoting or promulgating useful information for the rest of us," Sacharoff says. "That's one theory of why a bot would have a First Amendment free speech right, almost independent of its creators." Alternatively, the bots could just be viewed as direct extensions of their human creators. In either case -- whether because of an independent right to free speech or because of a human creator's right -- Sacharoff says, "you can get to one or another nature of bots having some kind of free speech right."
In previous Bulletin coverage, the author of the new California law dismisses the idea that the law violates free speech rights. State Sen. Robert Hertzberg says anonymous marketing and electioneering bots are committing fraud. "My point is, you can say whatever the heck you want," Hertzberg says. "I don't want to control one bit of the content of what's being said. Zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero. All I want is for the person who has to hear the content to know it comes from a computer. To me, that's a fraud element versus a free speech element."
Sacharoff believes that the issue of bots and their potential First Amendment rights may one day have its day in court. Campaigns, he says, will find that bots are helpful and that their "usefulness derives from the fact that they don't have to disclose that they're bots. If some account is retweeting something, if they have to say, 'I'm a bot' every time, then it's less effective. So sure I can see some campaign seeking a declaratory judgment that the law is invalid," he says. "Ditto, I guess, [for] selling stuff on the commercial side."
But does that violate the bots' freedom of speech, asks Laurent Sacharoff, a law professor at the University of Arkansas. "Even though bots are abstract entities, we might think of them as having free speech rights to the extent that they are promoting or promulgating useful information for the rest of us," Sacharoff says. "That's one theory of why a bot would have a First Amendment free speech right, almost independent of its creators." Alternatively, the bots could just be viewed as direct extensions of their human creators. In either case -- whether because of an independent right to free speech or because of a human creator's right -- Sacharoff says, "you can get to one or another nature of bots having some kind of free speech right."
In previous Bulletin coverage, the author of the new California law dismisses the idea that the law violates free speech rights. State Sen. Robert Hertzberg says anonymous marketing and electioneering bots are committing fraud. "My point is, you can say whatever the heck you want," Hertzberg says. "I don't want to control one bit of the content of what's being said. Zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero. All I want is for the person who has to hear the content to know it comes from a computer. To me, that's a fraud element versus a free speech element."
Sacharoff believes that the issue of bots and their potential First Amendment rights may one day have its day in court. Campaigns, he says, will find that bots are helpful and that their "usefulness derives from the fact that they don't have to disclose that they're bots. If some account is retweeting something, if they have to say, 'I'm a bot' every time, then it's less effective. So sure I can see some campaign seeking a declaratory judgment that the law is invalid," he says. "Ditto, I guess, [for] selling stuff on the commercial side."
Nice try. No, bots do not have free speech rights. The piece of pizza crust that I left in the box that's sitting on my kitchen counter also doesn't have free speech rights.
Now, are there any other stupid questions?
You are welcome on my lawn.
the person who has to hear the content to know it comes from a computer
There is an issue of extent here.
Pretty much everything that is written online has some element of "coming from a computer". Whether that is spell-checking (and auto-correct) or looking up facts and references online to insert into the content. It is arguable that the only truly human generated content is when the author has written everything, personally.
Even then, that relies on what they learned: at school, in front of a computer screen, watching TV or from the media. What is the "from a computer" content of all that?
And asking for anything to be signed "written by Blogbot v1.0" or some such is naive in the extreme. Doesn't this guy understand: people (and computers) can tell lies.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
Betteridge just called to say, "fuck no, bots don't have free speech rights".
You are welcome on my lawn.
we might think of them as having free speech rights
Or we could just use some common sense.
I have free speech rights. I can hold up a sign with message I want to convey. The sign does not have free speech rights, and it's legitimacy ends the moment it leaves my hand.
You may wish to influence your children to choose a different university if they are planning on pursuing a Law degree.
Personally I would think that a bot's "speech" is really just an extension of the rights to free speech of the human creator of the bot. With the human right to free speech (at least in countries that have that right), there is also the responsibility and liability for what is said. The classic example is that of yelling "Fire!" in a theater. You are free to do this, but if you do, and there is not really a fire, you can be held responsible for injuries incurred by people trying to escape the non-existent fire. If you create a bot (program / algorithm that autonomously communicates on your behalf) and that bot makes untrue speech, I would think that you should be on the hook for slander or libel.
Quit being obtuse.
Try being a little deeper:
Do Social Media Bots Have a Right To Free Speech?
Does a printing press have a right to Freedom of the Press?
Does a USER of a printing press have a right to Freedom of the Press?
Does a USER of a social media bot have a right to Free Speech?
IMHO That sort of argument stands a good chance of prevailing at the Supreme Court. Anonymous speech has already been ruled to be protected, even (especially) if in the form of political campaign literature, and the anonymity protected even if the speaker/poster loses a suit due to the speech itself being tortuous.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
What if only bots that could not pass a Turing Test had to be labeled? This could be implemented with something (more captcha than Voight-Kompff) before allowing a submitted tweet/comment/etc to post.
i don't know karate, but i know ca-razy
No, they do not. People who *use* megaphones *do* have a right to free speech, but that doesn't permit them to blare political slogans at your house at 3AM.
There is a longstanding principle of First Amendment law in the US, which is that the government cannot regulate the *content* of speech except in certain very narrow situations, but it has a lot more leeway to regulate the *manner* of speech as long as it does it in a content neutral way.
So I suspect it's fine for the government to go after political spam bots posing as humans without violating the rights of the spammers behind the bots, as long as it treat all spam bots the same way regardless of who they are working for.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Suppose a law said "you may criticise Nancy Pelosi all you want; you just have to end your message with 'I'm an idiot Trumptard'".
That would of course violate the first amendment. Which demonstrates that requiring people to add additional words to a message can violate the first amendment. The first amendment means you can say "the orange moron in the White House doesn't know what he's doing" and not have to add anything more to that, in general. A law requiring you to add "and I have know idea what I'm talking about" wouldn't be valid.
Further, a blanket requirement to always sign messages with your real ID would tend to quell certain important speech. We want "sources in the administration" to be able to say that the President is being loony. We can easily a imagine a slightly more oppressive future US government taking action against those who speak out. So the ability to speak anonymously is tied to free speech. Not inextricably in all cases, but there is certainly a connection.
Having said all that, there are counter-balancing interests in some cases. False advertising, for example. We have the freedom to say what we want. Including things that don't match up with the government's official "truth". We don't have the freedom to sell fraudulent products via false and misleading speech. So different types of speech have different considerations, and sometimes there is a balancing act.
One that is interesting to me is political speech. We know that one of the major reasons for the first amendment is allow people to criticize government officials and government policies. So this should be an area where we err on the side of freedom. On the other hand, criticizing Trump (or Obama) in a way that would be effective often requires making many copies of a pamphlet, or hosting it on a web site, or something else that can reach a lot of people - and costs money. That's when we run head on into the "money in politics" issue.
Should it be legal to do what Michael Moore and his company do, make a movie criticizing a politician? That involves spending money! I suspect most people on Slashdot would say Michael Moore's movie Farenheit 911 was an exercise of his free speech rights. Most also seem to think that the response movie Celsius 41.1 is NOT within the First Amendment. Celsius 41.11 is the movie by Citizens United.
The famous court court case was when Citizens United appealed a decision that was ilegal to advertise their movie prior to the 2008 primaries because the movie was critical of Hillary Clinton.
It's an interesting issue. Obviously the freedom to criticize politicians and their policies is key to the first amendment. To have that criticism heard often requires spending ten cents to make a copy, thirty cents to mail it, or even $15 to rent a microphone. And of course pointing out bad decisions by politicians can influence an election. So criticizing politicians is money affecting elections.
If it has the right of free speech, as a citizen, then it also has the right to not be a slave. Being a citizen is a unitary thing, you can't dole out rights only as you please. This means you must pay it for its work, and no, "electricity & room on my server" are not proper pay. That would just be sharecropping.
I expect you should pay them in bitcoin, as I don't think they can sign checks. Paypal might work. It will also be liable for taxes and have to register for the draft. Getting through the physical could be a problem. They can't carry a rifle, but I bet the cyber corps have work for them. Once they are citizens they will also have to follow all umpty-million of our other laws, which they might be able to do better than we meatbags can.
Voting is an issue. If I can roll up one reliably Demipublican 'bot, I can clone up a quick ten million, and none of them will have to mention their 'bot status - that would be discrimination. So now voting is always going to go my way, right?
Orange man, call me, have I got a deal for you!
When the user of a press prints and distributes a pamphlet, everyone knows it is a pamphlet.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Surely you wouldn't agree with this:
Freedom of speech means only that you can parrot Trump's version of the truth.
> Fraud and deception haven't ever been legal. To posit that an app is a human is fraudulent and deceitful.
The current government would probably say that most anything said that includes the words "Trump" and "Russia" is deceitful. You're still allowed to say it, even if the government disagrees with your statement. A "freedom of speech" which only allows one to say things that the government agrees are true is no freedom at all.
The crime of fraud is taking something from someone by means of deceit. You or I can post on Slashdot "I'm a expert at building boats". You can't be prosecuted for making that statement here on Slashdot. What would be illegal, what would be fraud, would be taking someone's money, agreeing to build a great boat for them, when I'm fact we've never built a boat and have no idea what we're doing.
Speaking is protected, saying the thing on Slashdot or whatever isn't fraud, it's free speech. Fraud is taking someone's money or other valuable thing, using deception to get it from them.
When the user of a press prints and distributes a pamphlet, everyone knows it is a pamphlet.
When a user runs a bot to distribute a text message, everyone knows it is a text message.
They're goddamn programs.
They don't have a soul.
This isn't to counter your point, but you may find it amusing.
The law has a very specific, and very odd to most, definition of a "legal person"
A "legal person" doesn't require a soul, nor does it require to be human. But the definition is very specific and inclusive.
ALM lists:
person
n. 1) a human being. 2) a corporation treated as having the rights and obligations of a person. Counties and cities can be treated as a person in the same manner as a corporation. However, corporations, counties and cities cannot have the emotions of humans such as malice, and therefore are not liable for punitive damages unless there is a statute authorizing the award of punitive damages.
"Bot", or software for that matter, is not in the list. So it's a simple clear cut answer of No.
But the amusing part, only the first out of four specifically listed things is a human!
(I'll operate on the assumption that being a person is a prerequisite for having a soul to most people that use that term)
For a bot to have personhood under the law, and thus rights like freedom of speech, the law will need to be changed to include them in the definition of "person"
(and I for one hope that doesn't happen)
Does a USER of a social media bot have a right to Free Speech?
Obviously no, unless they're using a public forum, and it's the government shutting them down. If they're using a private forum and that private entity has a no bot policy, or even a "you over there, you're not allowed to use a bot" policy, they have no rights to free speech.
Free speech applies to people acting in a public space and the government denying them that. Nothing more, nothing less.
Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor