14 ms·

Google's stance on neo-Nazis 'dangerous', says EFF

• bedhead 9y ago
  It's increasingly uncomfortable to realize that a handful of tech companies are in many ways more powerful than the government. I don't like the direction anything is headed in.
  • RodericDay 9y ago
    stop using google
  • clvx 9y ago
    Until the government unplugs the cable.
  • salimmadjd 9y ago
    Agreed! The initial intent of 1st Amendment was to protect the public against tyranny of the government. However, when entities like Google, Apple, FB have such impact on the population and spread of information, they can become the "great firewall". This is very dangerous and google should not be in the position to become the thought police.
    • mantas 9y ago
      It's even more frustrating when people supposedly loving freedom say that freedom of speech was only meant to protect from government and private companies can discriminate as they wish. I'm 99.99% certain if freedom of speech was formulated today, it would include private companies as well.
      • lmm 9y ago
        > I'm 99.99% certain if freedom of speech was formulated today, it would include private companies as well. Freedom of speech already does. Unfortunately Americans tend to conflate the broad concept with the US First Amendment.
        • mantas 9y ago
          Which "freedom of speech" does? European Freedom of speech has quite a few caveats too. There were cases where people lost their jobs for their extracurricular legal activities that were hate speech according to someone. Like in US, private companies seem to give in much quicker than government that tries to follow the law to the letter.
          • tome 9y ago
            The general notion of what it means for speech to be free, not a legal protection of that notion.
        • falcolas 9y ago
          Usually because that's the only place it's really codified into law or any other legitimate document in the US. The Supreme Court has limited the scope of the first amendment, but that's all just implicitly codified via past decisions and opinions - a less discoverable format I've yet to find.
      • cjslep 9y ago
        Yes, like all those conservatives fighting for Hobby Lobby to not provide contraception support for it's employees because "first amendment" and all those mom and pop shops that don't want to serve gay people in the South because of first amendment rights. Seriously, conservatives in America want to have their cake and eat it too. "We meant freedom for corporations-as-people but only when it helps us".
        • mantas 9y ago
          Which is not good either. IMO, any business shall serve any customer regardless. Unless said customer is breaking a (sane) law. For the record, I'm not American. I grew up in ex-USSR country that was just recovering from total censorship. What is going on today in the world is sickening me. A lot of rhetoric in the West is too similar to USSR craziness. I'll be happy to be offended and keep my right to offend you. The other way ain't pretty.
          • tanilama 9y ago
            > any business shall serve any customer regardless Amazon blacklists people who abuse their service, like return policy. They are not breaking the laws, but blocking these bad customers is not only a moral choice but also a rational one, since it protects the sellers and other customers. Likewise, if you are making a scene in a private space, if it disturbs the usual operation, the owner should have the right to kick you out, because you are damaging their business. So I say otherwise, any private business owner should have the right to refuse offering their service to people who they consider harmful to their interests. Google could argue, hosting those hateful content draw negative attention from the media which tarnish their image thus hurt their business interests. The one and only problem is, Google is too big and too powerful, their decision carries significant impact which should not be taken lightly.
            • mantas 9y ago
              What is gay couple is making a scene in a private space and demanding a cake? And the bakery happens to be by the church and having gays hand-in-hand would severely hurt their business? What if instead of gays it's cyclists in undersized lycra? I'd rather not have either of them kicked out. I'm pretty sure abuse of return policy is covered by some kind of law. On the other hand, blacklisting customers who just use advertised return policy to it's full extent is not moral either. False advertisement is breaking of the law too.
      • celticninja 9y ago
        Surely you can be free to say whatever you want but a business doesn't have to do business with you. For example I could wear a Nazi T-Shirt with "Hang all Niggers" emblazoned in it, and a shop could quite rightly refuse to admit me to their store or refuse to serve me if I did go into their store. So why is it different for Google or Facebook to say "we don't want you as a customer"?
        • mantas 9y ago
          That's what I'm saying. If it was truly freedom of speech, a shop couldn't refuse to serve you either.
          • bmelton 9y ago
            By your definition, true freedom of speech would force me to open my home to Nazis so that they could come in and yell at me about how much they hate my consorting with Jews. In the real world, freedom of speech is generally free enough as it is, and in the example above, is in tension with my right to freedom of association. Yes, the Nazis are allowed to yell at me, just as I'm allowed to distance myself from them. If I own property, I can go one step further by going home and locking the door. I don't like Nazis, but Google's censorship here is giving me pause. Yes, of course they have every right to refuse to do business with whomever they like. Thankfully, so do I. If I don't care for Google's censorship, I'm free to use Spotify, or Pandora, or whatever other company (hopefully) makes a principled stand against censorship. At the end of the day, it's their house, and if they want to lock the door to keep Nazis out, I can't imagine any fair world that would force them to open those doors.
            • mantas 9y ago
              At least in my country, there're laws for disturbing public. Even if you shout "I love political correctness" too loudly and too long, you can be taken to custody and fined. If Nazis are such a big problem, secret service and whatnot should start looking into them. It's not a job of private company to enforce it's own point-of-view on the society. Wether it's correct not, but a private company cannot hold a a fair trial. And censorship without one is just wrong. I'd rather have a pissed off bakery serving gay cakes and coffeeshop serving nazi teaparty than letting a private company apply censorship.
      • Bjartr 9y ago
        Would enforcing freedom of speech on companies that people communicate over mean any kind of moderation would be in violation of that?
        • kazagistar 9y ago
          It would at least mean any kind of moderarion without due process might be questionable.
      • awinder 9y ago
        Really? You think that you could make private individuals carry water for ideals that conflict with their own? And that people, far and wide, would just be openly accepting of this idea? I’ve heard “freedom of speech” defined as a natural right, but this idea is the most unnatural way for people to act.
        • mantas 9y ago
          Private individual getting paid is not so private anymore. Especially once "protected classes" are brought in. Either go all in and allow anybody to refuse service to anybody or make everybody serve everybody. I don't see middle ground in there. It'd always result in he-said, she-said. Point in case - people bringing up the gay cake in mentioning of google memogate. Is a bus company right to refuse service to protesters going to a protest? Can a train company cancel trains specifically on a day of event they don't like for some reason? Can cellphone carrier shut down service for people they don't like for some reason? Can gas station refuse selling gas to skinheads on a roadtrip? What if they're just going to work on a regular workday?
          • awinder 9y ago
            There’s ways to convolute any of those scenarios, but let me just explain why I think there are notable differences: 1. Protected classes are defined by a history of prejudicial treatment and blocked access to essential services, and they exist as a class of people defined by biological markers. So you can control being black or being gay, and you can’t access any bus service or use the same water fountain anywhere. This is very different than holding an opinion, and not being serviced by an add-on provider. 2. There are great differences between being denied a voice and being denied an amplification platform for that voice. We never mandated that newspapers print every letter to the editor, or even provide equal time to classes of opinions (although that did happen in a natural way). If you tried to get a cake plastered with swastikas, that would not be protected free speech and could be denied service. You have to go find a Nazi baker or append the speech yourself. This is very different from being black and you can not get any cake from any baker, and they’ll know too, because you can’t exactly hide the fact that you’re black.
      • jawbone3 9y ago
        You could just update the law you know... it doesn't have to be the slave to old ideas.
      • SaltySolomon 9y ago
        But wouldn't you limit the speech of a person that way, I mean it is also the freedom of association that is given to those companies and they choose not to associate with them.
    • justadeveloper2 9y ago
      Not only that, but the companies you have listed are all to eager to get in bed with the Chinese government and then for efficiency reasons, they start moving everything to that least common denominator of free expression. We definitely have a problem here. I'm thoroughly disgusted with tech companies right now--these are not the brave risk-takers that made me so hopeful for the 21st century.
    • DrJaws 9y ago
      Too late, they already been for at least 2 years
    • erikj 9y ago
      Our communications must be decentralized as much as possible, if we want to avoid the dominance of any kind of thought police. Maybe it's the best time to start rolling out wireless peer-to-peer networks everywhere and to switch to software that doesn't rely on Google or Facebook datacenters.
    • UnoriginalGuy 9y ago
      This is a facet of American culture that I've always found interesting... Self determination is a very core part of what I, an outsider, see as American-ism. But self determination only seems to apply to government interference, not private. For example, in the US organisations like HOAs (Homeowners Associations) and employers are allowed to encroach on what from my perspective I consider personal freedoms, but people accept it in the US because they're non-governmental in origin. Here in Europe, freedom is freedom. It is irrelevant who is telling you you cannot paint your home orange be it local government, a private entity, or your next door neighbour. But in the US freedom only applies to government, private entities are allowed to violate people however they want under the guise of "choice." What I've found in my life is that choice is a perk of the wealthy. The poor often lack choice.
  • tommynicholas 9y ago
    I agree, in that it sucks that it's a literal handful, but on the flip side it's nice to know the government is set up in such a way that it isn't by default the most powerful entity in every imaginable way. The people themselves, private companies, etc have a chance to be more powerful than the government in a variety of ways. I'm a pro-government liberal who is extremely wary of the power of global corporations, but I still take some solace in what this says about our system.
    • wu-ikkyu 9y ago
      What does it say about our system that we have relatively more corporate overlords than government overlords?
      • MBCook 9y ago
        The problem is the government is supposed to keep the private sector in check for such things. But since we've basically given up on stopping monopolies and mega-mergers the companies and now so big and control so many things they have power without competition to keep it in check.
    • ameister14 9y ago
      >on the flip side it's nice to know the government is set up in such a way that it isn't by default the most powerful entity in every imaginable way. The people themselves, private companies, etc have a chance to be more powerful than the government in a variety of ways. That's been the case before, it's not a great thing. In the late 18th and early 19th century, a few magnates were arguably more powerful than the US government. They certainly ran the US government. A lot of the protections we have today are a response to that time period
      • tommynicholas 9y ago
        I mentioned that I'm uncomfortable with how few companies have so much control. It's far better now than it was in the pre-Trust-busting days, for sure. However, it's trending the wrong direction.
  • jostmey 9y ago
    There is a big difference between the government and a private organization. The government can throw you in prison and strip you of your constitutional rights. Private organizations cannot (unless hired by the government, which is should not be happening)
    • deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    • marcosdumay 9y ago
      > strip you of your constitutional rights Like the right of free speech? Or free initiative, by blocking money transfer? The difference isn't that big anymore, and that is the problem.
  • discombobulate 9y ago
    Which is why crypto tech is important. The foundations of a decentralised internet are being built[0]. [0] https://ipfs.io/ https://ipfs.io/
  • moduspol 9y ago
    Well sometimes it works out in our favor. Like when Apple fought the FBI trying to get legal precedent for compelling them to create a backdoor for their own devices / software. As strange as it is, who else but a huge powerful tech company could do that?
• cuckcuckspruce 9y ago
  More discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15042367 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15042367
• nxsynonym 9y ago
  >"Because internet intermediaries, especially those with few competitors, control so much online speech, the consequences of their decisions have far-reaching impacts on speech around the world." Maybe it's just me but I think enabling hate-speech and bigotry is much worse than failing to maintain 100% neutrality. There's nothing stopping these maniacs from starting their own intermediaries to host the content(trash) they want to peddle.
  • tomp 9y ago
    > There's nothing stopping these maniacs from starting their own intermediaries to host the content(trash) they want to peddle. Why couldn't you say the same about net neutrality?
    • lawless123 9y ago
      Are we all incapable of discerning what is and what isn't acceptable?
      • protomyth 9y ago
        Well, since YouTube deleted evidence of war crimes, I would say yes we are incapable.
      • danarmak 9y ago
        We are all incapable of coming to a consensus about what is acceptable. This is pretty much the same as saying there are always disagreements in politics. Whatever you permit to be used against your opponents is certain to be used against your friends as well.
    • CamTin 9y ago
      Without ISP-level neutrality, the opposite would be true. Here's the scenario in that case: 1) Google, Facebook, Twitter, CloudFlare, GoDaddy, and a few other actors ban a certain flavor of hate speech. 2) The pro-hate-speech crowd tries to start their own "Facebook for white nationalism" but can't, because they don't have "premium" peering arrangements with all the eyeball ISPs. 3) There is no step 3, it's game over.
• jasonlotito 9y ago
  It's interesting considering how this is related to Net Neutrality (they aren't the same, but they are related). While I agree with the EFF, that this is happening, I hope, raises awareness around the importance of Net Neutrality.
• ameister14 9y ago
  If anything, this makes the argument for ISP common carrier status stronger, which is a good thing.
• corobo 9y ago
  While I definitely don't support the people they're booting off I do have to agree with the EFF here. For example, "And music streaming services offered by Google, Deezer and Spotify have said they would remove music that incites violence, hatred or racism." Now these services have put it out there as policy someone has to define what's violent, hateful or racist in music. Racism? Ok nobody's really going to bat an eye at that disappearing. Violence and hatred though? As an off again on again heavy metal listener.. almost literally every track could be described as violent or hateful. That's the genre. The same could be said for other genres and their sub-genres. Rap comes to mind. Is Eminem next on the chopping board? Music was the easy example, there's other examples available for the other services (registrar, DNS, hosting, CDN) as to why making this policy is a bad idea. Now anyone needs to do is convince someone at the corresponding target that a site is similar enough that it should be taken down. South Park had a two-parter that addressed this exact problem [1][2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartoon_Wars_Part_I https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartoon_Wars_Part_I [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartoon_Wars_Part_II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartoon_Wars_Part_II
  • moron4hire 9y ago
    It's Tipper Gore vs. Frank Zappa all over again.
    • melling 9y ago
      It's the 1970's all over again... https://www.aclu.org/other/aclu-history-taking-stand-free-speech-skokie https://www.aclu.org/other/aclu-history-taking-stand-free-sp... We seem to keep forgetting what "Freedom of Speech" means. [Update: Added Chomsky quote] "If we don't believe in free expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all." - Noam Chomsky
      • celticninja 9y ago
        But that was the state stopping Nazis from marching, this is a private company refusing to do business with someone. Free speech is a right guaranteed by the state, so you won't go to prison for stating your beliefs. But no one should be obliged to help you air those beliefs against their will.
• undersuit 9y ago
  I don't think private-sector companies have any obligation to host anything. The problem is we in the tech community have watched with only minor concerns as the web grew increasingly centralized and left the power to these companies. The Daily Stormer has no right to an domain name or search results or ad revenue, no site does. The Daily Stormer has every right to exist, but it doesn't have a right to be served fast and conveniently(no, I'm not advocating against net neutrality, any host for the Daily Stormer should treat it exactly as they treat all their other customers). I think despicable sites like the Daily Stormer have a right to exist, but I'd rather they be hosted on a personal computer with a non-static address and every now and then the dial up connection get's interrupted when the site admin has to call David Duke about when the next Klan rally is.
  • yoavm 9y ago
    I'm confused. Are you saying no site should have a domain name?
    • hjnilsson 9y ago
      They can switch to a dns provider that tolerates their cause. But GoDaddy has no obligation to provide service to them if they do not want to. (I assume GoDaddy only pulled their DNS service, Daily Storm still owns the domain. If this is wrong please correct me)
    • eli_gottlieb 9y ago
      He's saying no site is entitled to a domain name from a privately-owned registrar.
      • yoavm 9y ago
        Ah, agreed. I was confused by the use of the word right in "has no right to an domain name", but English isn't my first language. I agree that a private company does not have to host any neo-nazi materials (or anything really, for that matter). I would do the same if it was my company and I would rather work with such a company as a customer.
• tyingq 9y ago
  "And music streaming services offered by Google, Deezer and Spotify have said they would remove music that incites violence, hatred or racism." That sounds like a big job, and one filled with ambiguity. Classifying forum posts is one thing, but trying to determine intent with music is going to be tricky.
  • devmunchies 9y ago
    Its a roundabout way of saying "music that engages in far-right conservative thought." Its definitely a political issue.
    • eli_gottlieb 9y ago
      There's never been anything conservative about the far-right. Comparing Chesterton and Pinochet is an insult to Chesterton, let alone comparing him to Hitler!
• soft_serve 9y ago
  I think the genesis of this can be traced back to Reddit deciding that an anti-obesity subreddit couldn't be hosted there because it hurt people's feelings. But back then, pre-Trump, they seemed to have no problem with extreme neo-Nazi subreddits, which Pao kept.
• gthtjtkt 9y ago
  It also had the opposite of its intended effect. Millions of people had no idea Daily Stormer existed until GoDaddy, Google, and CloudFlare kicked them out. Each one only added to their growing pile of free publicity. I guess Google never Googled "Streisand Effect"? First Damore and now this. Edit: Also kind of ironic that my comments are now being buried on HN because I posted some unpopular opinions. Maybe we should throw HN in the mix too. Edit2: Aaaaand now I'm not even allowed to post. HN is at least predictable in their censorship tactics, if nothing else.
  • jlebrech 9y ago
    yes but, you cannot access any of it. the downside to them being down is that there's no more proof they were more than just white trolls.
    • gthtjtkt 9y ago
      Yes, but you'll easily find similar sites when you search for it.
  • lallysingh 9y ago
    Why do you think that's why you're being buried?
    • gthtjtkt 9y ago
      Because it happened almost immediately. HN has always had trigger-happy moderators who abuse their power to silence people they don't like, including PG himself. Just Google 'Hacker News Shadowban' sometime.
  • mikeash 9y ago
    I think the attention is good. Normal people think of Nazis as 1930s/40s Germans. Now many of them know that it also includes modern Americans.
  • MBCook 9y ago
    Some percentage of people learned the site exists. Some other percent learned there are still a lot of people (relative to what they thought) that believe in nazi principles. This attention would only be bad in my eyes if the first group was bigger than the second.
• gggdvnkhmbgjvbn 9y ago
  I find it odd that websites seem to either harbor a slowly growing extreme right wing, or choose to seek and destroy it. It seems like the extreme rights' method of gaining control is to be provocative while the extreme left lobbies admins to remove the provocateurs (see: reddit, youtube). This ends with the tech companies complying with the left. Why isnt it the other way around? Edit: apparently today okcupid banned a nazi as a publicity stunt. Maybe im looking too much into this
  • pjc50 9y ago
    The far-right is trying to be "counterculture", in an effort to make hate speech "cool". The people lobbying for the removal of the hate speech and its enablers are far more mainstream than "extreme left". People who are victims of hate speech don't have to be extreme anything to prefer that sites choose not to enable harassment. I'm not even sure who counts as "extreme left" any more, there are very few people trying to do revolutionary communism or actual Maoism in the West.
    • saalweachter 9y ago
      I'm not sure about "extreme left" as a movement but there are definitely positions I'd attribute to the "extreme left". Universal Basic Income. Replacing the police force with a comparably sized and empowered army of social workers and therapists. Outlawing fossil fuels. Banning GMO.
      • pjc50 9y ago
        > Universal Basic Income Seriously considered and nearly implemented by famous leftist Richard M. Nixon: https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/05/richard-nixon-ubi-basic-income-welfare/ https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/05/richard-nixon-ubi-basic-i... > Outlawing fossil fuels. A fossil fuel phase out eventually is a requirement, both to deal with depletion and global warming. It's just the schedule that's reasonable to argue over. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/08/g7-leaders-agree-phase-out-fossil-fuel-use-end-of-century https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/08/g7-leaders-agr... > Banning GMO. Mainstream position in the EU: https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn28283-more-than-half-of-european-union-votes-to-ban-growing-gm-crops/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn28283-more-than-half-...
• averagewall 9y ago
  Why are big companies banning this? Surely Google, GoDaddy and Cloudflare, even Spotify aren't going to be hurt by any public backlash. GoDaddy is already widely despised as a bad actor. I can understand a small startup at risk of being destroyed by an internet mob for supporting Nazis, but not these. Are they afraid of legal consequences? Aren't they safe to just wait till the police asks them to take it down before doing so?
  • dragonwriter 9y ago
    > Why are big companies banning this? Surely Google, GoDaddy and Cloudflare, even Spotify aren't going to be hurt by any public backlash Because they are owned and run by humans with moral values, not financial return maximizing automatons?
    • pyroinferno 9y ago
      The Stormfront is a well known FBI honey pot. Why would people with "moral values" try to interfere with the FBI trying to infiltrate and arrest nazis?
  • 5040 9y ago
    It may be that they are worried about getting punished by advertisers in the future. Youtube took a hit when news stories started claiming that extremists were making money off videos on the site.
  • watty 9y ago
    It's the opposite - they believe that banning them will get them GOOD publicity, and it has. Look at how many people are talking about OkCupid today for banning that Nazi in the Vice video.
• gormo2 9y ago
  If recent events have shown anything, it is that we need to do a lot MORE to stop neo-Nazism. I'm not saying doxx all neo-Nazis and whites, supremacists. But we need to name them. Make them known. Don't support their businesses. Don't let them have domains or websites. Kick them off Google platforms, Facebook, even OKCupid. All private companies need to take action now and make sure none of them can use the internet to spread their hate, or really use any service. I think it is time to organize contacting car dealerships working next to deny selling any automobiles to them. Eventually we can get the DMV to deny licenses to these dangerous individuals, or at least put them on a registry so the feds can check in on them.
  • ameister14 9y ago
    There are a few hundred neo-nazis in the US. There are 50,000 in Austria and they have seats on the European Parliament from Austria, Greece, and Germany, despite the much harsher rules there.
    • scottmf 9y ago
      The US currently has them in the White House.
      • wjsn 9y ago
        Jared Kushner, for one
  • pyroinferno 9y ago
    I agree, we should do this with Muslims too, right? Since they also kill people.
    • gormo2 9y ago
      There is nothing inherently bigoted about Islam or Muslims. Neo-Nazism however...
      • 9y ago
• meri_dian 9y ago
  This is how extremism spreads: 1. A Reasonable Position is expressed, in this case - 'Nazi's are very bad'. The Reasonable Position often involves an Enemy that must be stopped. Most reasonable people will agree with the Reasonable Position. 2. The Reasonable Position becomes the overriding factor in any situation that involves it. All other factors and considerations are dwarfed by it and forgotten. 3. Because the Reasonable Position comes to dominate the thinking of the Extremist - who often means well - they come to believe one can only ever be for or against the Reasonable Position. There is no room for moderate positions that try to balance the Reasonable Position with other important considerations and values - in this case, freedom of speech. 4. In order to show support for the Reasonable Position, third parties are forced to action in accordance with the world view of the Extremist. If they try to balance other considerations against the Reasonable Position, they are seen by the Extremist as sympathizing with the Enemy. 5. The fervor of extremism charges through society, trampling on other values and considerations.
  • tyrw 9y ago
    Some examples would help here. Reading this did not bring any real world situations to mind for me.
    • meri_dian 9y ago
      >https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution >https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism >https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salem_witch_trials https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salem_witch_trials
    • existencebox 9y ago
      (Edit/disclaimer, the sister post's examples of mcarthyism et al. are far better than my ken-burns-biased analogues) Prohibition comes to mind. Washingtonians and other early groups were based more in abstinance than prohibition; but the dogma shifted under a mix of social/religious pressures from the dominating voices in that fight to result in an all or nothing approach which, while it succeeded, had disastrous effects in the longer term.
• timwaagh 9y ago
  if you want to give a better world a chance you have to give a worse world a chance.
• ponco 9y ago
  Slippery slope fallacy applies here I feel.
  • MBCook 9y ago
    Given we fought a literal world war over this... is it really that slippery?
    • ponco 9y ago
      What? Aren't you making the opposite argument?
• norea-armozel 9y ago
  I agree but only in part. The real problem isn't that Google is able to shutdown a site as a registrar it's the fact DNS as designed needs a hierarchy to make it scale. This is the real problem with DNS and trying to shame Google to not cover its bottom line on such matters isn't going to work when you have a government that may decide they're too big for their britches and decides to go after them. Instead, I wish EFF and other organizations would fund the development of a replacement for DNS rather than trying to legislate its use. Computers aren't like other kinds of technology where the implementation has to follow the physical structure, especially when considering the idea of domain names which are human readable to bind to IP addresses (which aren't human readable enough). That way, you get around corporate and government interventions entirely.
• ptasci67 9y ago
  I think an important aspect that is often missed here is how conservative most tech companies are when it comes to legal boundaries. I would posit that each of these companies is arguing internally (at least in part) in favor of removing neo-Nazi and other violence inducing content from their services to distance themselves from fault when that content results in legal harm.
• mikeash 9y ago
  Why don't people get upset like this when companies refuse to carry pornography? That's been really common for a long time, even if not universal, and I don't recall ever hearing a peep about it from the likes of the EFF. Maybe I missed it?
  • lagadu 9y ago
    I agree with your sentiment but I only realise it now after having given it some thought. The reason I disagree with the silencing of nationalist speech but didn't consider porn to be effectively suffering from the same issue is because I simply never considered censoring porn to be a speech issue. I had never thought of it as an idea, which is what I think of when it comes to political ideologies. I think the difference here is more related to whom is doing the censoring. Google or MS don't censor porn on their products, Facebook only partially removes some related imagery so I don't see it as a concerted attempt to blocking the people's access to it, which is what I see as being the current trend when it comes to these more controversial topics. It's all my bias of course.
    • justadeveloper2 9y ago
      The Chinese and North Koreans ban pornography don't they? It's a pretty good litmus test for how open or closed a society is.
    • eli_gottlieb 9y ago
      So to be clear, you think "Heil Hitler! Enslave the blacks and exterminate the Jews!" is a more socially important sort of speech than, "Fuck me harder, I love it!"? I don't want to live on this planet anymore, with the bizarre reversals in basic sense of priorities here.
      • lagadu 9y ago
        I feel they are both socially important.
  • eli_gottlieb 9y ago
• eeks 9y ago
  I'm glad to see the EFF making the point I'be been trying to make all week; at the cost of multiple downvotes: "Because internet intermediaries, especially those with few competitors, control so much online speech, the consequences of their decisions have far-reaching impacts on speech around the world."
  • tchaffee 9y ago
    It's not really a free speech issue. It's a monopoly issue. Google should be protected from government interference in their right to exercise free speech just like every other individual and company in the US. The fact that they are a near monopoly is a problem that has side effects, but the real issue to focus on is the monopoly.
    • Chaebixi 9y ago
      > Google should be protected from government interference in their right to exercise free speech just like every other individual and company in the US. If Google wants those rights, it could surrender its monopoly (through a voluntary break-up).
      • tchaffee 9y ago
        Google has these rights, monopoly or not. The government is forbidden from interfering with free speech. The government is however allowed to break up monopolies, which is why we should focus on the real issue, and the real solution.
      • dragonwriter 9y ago
        > If Google wants those rights, it could surrender its monopoly (through a voluntary break-up). Google is not a monopoly on domain registration.
• TheKIngofBelAir 9y ago
  The Pandora's box just opened
• tgb 9y ago
  I think the hypothetical that people like me on the left need to consider is the following. Our current vice president is extremely anti-abortion. It's no stretch of the imagination to see that portion of the country growing in strength to be there dominant view in power within ten years. In their view abortion doctors are literal baby killers, websites arguing the benefits of abortion are literally advocating the killing of babies. In their eyes, this is literally as bad as Hitler. If you set the standard at "ban everything that the populace deems to be as bad as Hitler" then today we get rid of Nazi sites and tell KKK members they can't use our gyms, but tomorrow who will be condemned? (Note that this isn't even a slippery slope argument: it's saying that who gets to define the slope changes.) The other argument is that if Google and co have never ever bowed to political pressure to remove something except as required by law, that gives them a great argument to push back against some of the less progressive governments which they must work with. If Assad starts demanding that internet companies in Syria ban his political opponents, then Google could reply "we didn't even ban Nazis, why the hell would you expect us to ban anyone for you?" And in case this all seems hypothetical, remember that the current US government recently requested all visitor logs for an anti-Trump website.
  • Icedcool 9y ago
    Well said.
  • eli_gottlieb 9y ago
    The missing distinction here is between a public utility with monopoly privileges (more like Google) and just some business (GoDaddy or some gym). Nazis should be able to use public utilities, but the thing is, if we decide Google is a public utility, then so should communists, pornographers, drug dealers, criminal gangs, et al. And in fact, great, let's do that! Let's pass those statutes, let's break up the internet monopolies, let's decentralize and encrypt everything we can, all the time. But let's also make sure that up until the very moment those statutes pass, we're not giving Nazis special favors.
    • leereeves 9y ago
      The problem is what happens in the meantime, when Google is effectively a public utility but not regulated as one.
• etaty 9y ago
  First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Socialist. Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Trade Unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_...
  • yoavm 9y ago
    That's a false analogy. You can't compare the freedom rights of the oppressed to these of the oppressor. The context in which rights are granted or taken plays a big role here. If it wouldn't, someone on HN would long ago code a moral bot that just answers "of course" every time you ask it "is it okay to say X?".
  • justadeveloper2 9y ago
    I used this same quotation back in the '90s for something. It's become kind of trite, like the Ben Franklin quote about liberty and safety. Yes, we know the Jews suffered, it's been drilled into your psyches over and over again. Not the blame the victims, but Germany's Jews are the perfect example of why you don't believe in government benevolence and why you never let anyone conduct mass civil disarmament. Stalin proved that the Germans were right to go after the Socialists who were trying to undermine Germany. Not defending what the Germans did, it was horrifying. Both sides ended up being brutal and completely evil. Look at the Spanish Civil War, no real winners there and that was the prototype for WWII--fascism rose as a counter to communism. Again, not trying to excuse it, it's just reality.
    • timecube 9y ago
      Are you seriously doing "both sides are bad" with the actual Nazis right now
• ollybee 9y ago
  "Dark web network Tor has said it has no plans to stop the Daily Stormer from using its technology." This straight after having talked about various other services having banned Daily Stormer. It implies Tor is a service controlled by the Tor project who could actually kick Daily Stormer if they wanted. While it could be accidental incompetence I worry this is a deliberate attempt to paint tor negatively in the public’s mind.
• narrator 9y ago
  Even more disturbing to me is that youtube has started banning UFO research channels like Steve Greer's CSETI. I don't really bother watching these channels and consider the UFO thing a bit of a quasi-religion, but they aren't inciting violence or hate against anybody. Has Google decided they are now the truth police? Is Google taking it upon themselves to be like the Chinese censorship bureaus except for the whole world?
• danblick 9y ago
  I recently finished Tim Wu's "The Master Switch", which is a history about the early radio/telephone/television/film industries, consolidation in those industries, and the effects on free speech. One of my favorite examples from the book is the story about Hollywood and the Production Code in the 1930s. This was a voluntary code that the major studios obeyed for their own commercial interests (they wanted to avoid boycotts by groups like the National Legion of Decency). Because the film industry was centralized (with a small number of companies controlling all film production and distribution and most of the national theaters), this private decision by a handful of companies led to effective censorship in nearly all film in the US for ~20-30 years, all without any government action whatsoever. I think we're in the same boat here with Google and other major internet infrastructure providers. Because a huge amount of power over the internet is concentrated in the hands of a few companies, those companies need to be very careful about the way they handle censorship. "In an information industry the cost of monopoly must not be measured in dollars alone, but also in its effect on the economy of ideas and images, the restraint of which can ultimately amount to censorship." "The story of Daniel Lord and the Legion of Decency goes to a central contention of this book: in the United States, it is industrial structure that determines the limits of free speech." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_Picture_Production_Code https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_Picture_Production_Code
  • leereeves 9y ago
    > Hollywood and the decency code in the 1930s Hollywood suffered again under corporate censorship during the second Red Scare (the Hollywood blacklist). History should have taught us the dangers of the attitude that "free speech doesn't apply to private companies".
• apatters 9y ago
  It seems to me that the right to exclude certain types of speech from your privately owned platform is in itself a form of expression, and important to preserve. Where we get into trouble is when one entity obtains monopoly or near-monopoly control over a means of spreading information, and thus gains the power to tell everyone what they can and can't know. And Google is not that far off. They have a monopoly in at least one market and the EU has already found them guilty of anti-competitive practices. The US government has not brought an anti-trust case against Google, and you could argue it's failing to do its job--the ties between Google and the US government run disturbingly deep, with Google allegedly serving as an arm of US foreign policy in many ways: https://wikileaks.org/google-is-not-what-it-seems/ https://wikileaks.org/google-is-not-what-it-seems/ Either way, the most important point is simply that monopolies are dangerous. And the best solution is to weaken them, whether through regulatory action, consumers voting with their feet, or other companies introducing competition. I think the most interesting project in this space is Searx, which allows me to aggregate results from Google and other search engines, and flip a switch to turn each engine on or off. Searx is a great step in the direction of breaking Google's monopoly and thus hindering its ability to severely limit free speech. https://github.com/asciimoo/searx https://github.com/asciimoo/searx
• ultim8k 9y ago
  I personally believe we should not only block those ideas on the web, but also everywhere else. Those ideas supporters should see that their opinions lead them outside of the society and make them suffer of loneliness and no support from anyone. Then and only then, they will understand they are wrong. It's another thing to allow the freedom of speech and another thing to make it easier for people to promote those ideas. We are not free to walk out with a gun, so we shouldn't be free to advocate violence.
• fatjokes 9y ago
  I disagree with the EFF on this one. I don't think free speech needs to be absolute. You can draw the line at Nazis. These companies didn't draw the line at Breitbart, or Alex Jones, or any number of far-right sites, but at a site that proudly traces its ideology to a group that successfully executed genocide. Germany and South Korea (among others, I'm sure) still have vibrant democracies and economies despite stricter online and offline speech controls. I feel like Americans have an odd obsession with absolute freedom, e.g., they're more "free" because they can own assault rifles.
• deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
• tytso 9y ago
  There are a huge number of DNS registrars. So the fact that GoDaddy and Google chose not to act as their DNS registrar doesn't follow that they can't find _anyone_ to be a DNS registrar. (And indeed, they were able to find a DNS registrar in Russia.) Similarly, there are a large number of ISP's and hosting partners. So if Amazon were to choose not to want to host their web site, on the theory that they were going to get huge numbers of DOS attacks, and they don't want to do deal with the PR blowback of supporting an extremely unpopular group --- is that really censorship? This seems to be another variant of "freedom of the press" doesn't mean "free presses" issue. To say that the owner of a printing press should be forced to print Racist materials seems to be... morally dubious. It's true that the owner of an apartment isn't allowed to choose not to do business with someone based on their race, gender, religion, etc. Unfortunately for the Alt-Right, the neo-Nazi's aren't a protected class. If they think it should be, they should feel free to lobby to change the law. If President Trump thinks there are "very fine people" who belong to the Alt-Right, maybe he would even be willing to sign it....
• PoliteTwig 9y ago
  Someone needs to publish a list of companies that violate free speech, with examples, for people to avoid them in the future. Does anything like this exist? I have a small but growing list myself with Google at the top.
• yoavm 9y ago
  I have to disagree with the EFF on this one. "Sometimes standing on the wrong side of history in defense of a cause you think is right is still just standing on the wrong side of history." https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/08/17/opinion/aclu-first-amendment-trump-charlottesville.html https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/08/17/opinion/aclu-first-ame...?
• abritinthebay 9y ago
  Slippery slopes are a fallacy for a reason. I understand the concern - and it’s totally reasonable to point out concerns - but let’s fight when they actually start sliding down that slope rather than hand-ring over Nazi’s, hmm?
• tradesmanhelix 9y ago
  While I definitely don't support these people, I do have to point out: The problem with the approach taken by Google & Co. is that it criminalizes beliefs, regardless of whether or not adherents have taken illegal actions based on their beliefs. If people 1) believe something, and 2) perform illegal actions based on their beliefs, a free society can punish #2. However, a free society can neither outlaw nor punish #1 without sinking into some form of despotism. Liberty need not approve of all that she protects, and the best way to combat bad ideas is with better ideas, not censorship. Kudos to the EFF for raising an important point.
  • tyrw 9y ago
    Google has not criminalized anything, certainly not beliefs. A different word might suit your argument better.
    • tradesmanhelix 9y ago
      criminalize v. To impose a criminal penalty on or for; outlaw. v. To treat as a criminal. I suppose the idea of "outlawing beliefs" might be more fitting. In any case, outlawing or criminalizing, isn't the result is the same? Maybe a better response by Google: For any searches that would turn up these detestable sites, include some contrasting/opposing results. Balance it out - show how stupid the Neo-Nazi arguments really are using sites with well-reasoned counter-arguments. My concern is that flat out removal just allows the scoundrels to cast themselves as victims and sets some bad precedents. [1] https://duckduckgo.com/?q=define+criminalize&t=ffab&ia=definition https://duckduckgo.com/?q=define+criminalize&t=ffab&ia=defin...
  • Tomte 9y ago
    Strange. Quite a few countries manage to outlaw and punish (expressions of) Nazi beliefs, without "sinking into despotism". Actually, the country many people are very concerned about now happens to be the country that is a free-for-all when it comes to Neo-Nazism and White Supremacy.
    • tradesmanhelix 9y ago
• nohat 9y ago
  In at least a few cases most of terrorism's damage to a society is from the auto immune response.
• thinkingemote 9y ago
  Please don't flag this submission, fellow users, there's already been one direct from the EFF even when it was at number one and one hour.
• AaronFriel 9y ago
  Would the EFF defend private companies hosting ISIS recruitment? That's the question that matters.
• 013a 9y ago
  Thank you EFF; You've earned a recurring donor. I will also be removing all of my domains from GoDaddy and Google Domains. If you support net neutrality, you fundamentally cannot support the actions of these companies. These two ideals are in direct conflict.
• HumbleGamer 9y ago
  I hear the arguments for and against. I've noticed its always easier for people to argue these type of things when they feel they aren't the target of the harrassment. People who can take a "not me" position can reason that the site deserves a voice. That said, if the site was spouting ideologies that did target you, would you continue to argue for its existence? Were this an Isis site, would you argue it deserves a voice as well? Just wondering.
• sctb 9y ago
  Ongoing discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15042367 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15042367
• mungoid 9y ago
  I think a lot of people, me included, play on both sides of this fence too often. Where we shun companies that host this content, but will also blame them for restricting freedom of speech if they remove it. I definitely see both sides to this argument, but how extreme does a website have to be in order for it to be OK by everyone for companies to remove the content? If it were my company, I wouldn't want to be associated with content like this either. So if it's lose-lose either way, I would probably do the same thing as these companies.
• kingmanaz 9y ago
  Google's recent crackdown on alternative viewpoints appears to have also been coordinated across other tech monopolies. From American Renaissance: """ Since the Charlottesville rally last weekend, American Renaissance has been under attack. Internet giants from PayPal to Facebook are trying to squeeze us out. PayPal has cut us off, which means for now we can no longer take donations or sell books by credit card or any electronic means. All our recurring monthly donations—which are the predictable cash flow we count on and plan around—have stopped. Facebook has blocked the AmRen account for seven days with a warning that if we violate their vague “terms of service” it will close us down for good. MailChimp, which is the service we use to reach supporters by email, has cut us off completely. Our Twitter accounts—with a total of more than 60,000 followers—could be next, and our YouTube channel, with 35,000 subscribers and millions of views, is just as vulnerable. As you know, American Renaissance had nothing to do with Charlottesville, and for all its 27 years, AmRen has consistently repudiated violence. This doesn’t matter. Corporate America is stamping out our revenue sources and trying to block our access to the public. If this continues, AmRen.com could be kicked completely off the internet. We cannot go back to the pre-internet days. With your help, we will find alternative platforms and, if need be, take legal action. This is a historic moment in our movement. We are being silenced because we are winning. We are winning because we cannot be refuted. We cannot be refuted because we are right! Please, give us the means to keep our voice heard. At this point we can take only checks, money orders and cash; no electronic or credit cards. Please send your donation made out to: <snip> """