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> Ideally, we don't allow corporations to control so much of our communications. What laws would you propose to actually implement this? I like free speech a

> Ideally, we don't allow corporations to control so much of our communications. What laws would you propose to actually implement this? I like free speech a lot as well, but it seems that boundaries get a bit fuzzy here. E.g. if you were to run your own forum like HN, don't you think you should be allowed to ban material from, say, KKK supporters?

kerkeslager 9y ago
>> Ideally, we don't allow corporations to control so much of our communications. > What laws would you propose to actually implement this? I didn't. Note that I didn't bring up laws until #2 in my previous post. Programs which educated people on the dangers of social media the same way we educate people around the dangers of drugs and alcohol might go toward changing the way we treat these things in our culture, but on the other hand, there's enough problems with i.e. DARE that they might be counterproductive. > I like free speech a lot as well, but it seems that boundaries get a bit fuzzy here. E.g. if you were to run your own forum like HN, don't you think you should be allowed to ban material from, say, KKK supporters? I think if you combine topic-based moderation with a vote system, you don't need to ban KKK supporters. On a system like HN where all posts are in the same data stream, racist posts are going to be downvoted fairly quickly. And if someone posts racist comments on a post that isn't about race, it's off-topic, so topic-based moderation says it's okay to delete it. It's not a restriction on free speech--it's keeping topics organized to maintain the functioning of the forum. The key exception here is that when the topic is race, then you don't delete racist comments. This is uncomfortable, but racism doesn't simply go away because you censor it--if anything, censoring a racist makes them feel they are a martyr, and strengthens their beliefs. Instead, if you leave the posts up, users will respond to them with the truth. Countering lies with truth is more powerful than countering lies with censorship. There's a tendency, I think, to see bigotry as a monolithic problem in a person, without any reasoning behind it. But if you actually listen to bigots, you'll often discover that behind the bigotry they have legitimate fears and problems, and they think bigotry is the solution to those problems. Part of the problem we have in the US that those who value equality and acceptance too often see bigots as just bigots, and forget that they are people. If we see them as just bigots, then they can't change, or aren't worth changing, and we can discard them. But that hasn't worked--that's why we have the administration we have now. Instead, I think we need to see bigots as people, and try to address their fears and problems with facts and truth. (Most) bigots don't benefit from their bigotry--bigotry doesn't solve their problems, and prevents them from seeing the real solutions. So if we can show them the real solutions to their problems, they might see they don't need bigotry any more. Civil rights leaders of the past understood that a conversation about race had to be an actual conversation, not just shouting your ideals and silencing your opponents. If you refuse to listen to bigots they will refuse to listen to you. It's not us versus them, it's us and them versus ignorance.
- Moodles 9y ago
  Thanks for answering. I think we're going a bit off-topic here though. The crux of what I'm getting at is, do you think that you should have the right to moderate the content on your own platform that you built? Or should the government decide what is and isn't allowed? E.g. maybe instead of you running HN, maybe you run a content distribution network. As its own your network, don't you think you should be allowed to decide which websites you host? Just think of something that disgusts you: extreme right wing, left wing, religious views, whatever. They're allowed in the US and they're using your platform. You hate them. Should you be forced to offer your services to them? Note Cloudflare had this exact issue: https://blog.cloudflare.com/why-we-terminated-daily-stormer/ https://blog.cloudflare.com/why-we-terminated-daily-stormer/ These aren't rhetorical questions by the way. I'm genuinely wondering what HN thinks about this.
  - kerkeslager 9y ago
    > The crux of what I'm getting at is, do you think that you should have the right to moderate the content on your own platform that you built? As I've said elsewhere on this thread, corporations don't have rights, people do. A more clear way to say this might be: corporations only have rights inasmuch as the people who make up the corporation have rights. Even though you're not asking this rhetorically, the way you're asking this question is an appeal to me as a person, and obviously I don't want to be forced to host the content of people I disagree with. But giant corporations are different from individuals. Either we should prevent corporations from being too big to fail, or we should ensure that their failures don't damage society. If a corporation owns a communication platform the size of YouTube, they lose the right to choose what content they host, because doing so infringes their users' rights to free speech, and their users can't just go elsewhere because there are no other equivalent platforms. Just because a corporation doesn't have a right to an ideology doesn't mean we should not let any corporations have ideologies: we can let corporations have ideologies as long as we make sure it isn't harmful to the rights of individuals. The purpose of laws, as I see it, is to protect the weak from the powerful. If I started Dave's Liberal Hosting Service with just a server and a dream, and only hosted Democratic websites, that's fine, because such a service doesn't become the platform of the internet that everyone is forced to use--it's likely a conservative equivalent would arise even before I built a significant business. Part of the problem is that services like Reddit and YouTube have performed a bait-and-switch--they built themselves into major platforms on a free-speech ideology, and then when they were too big to fail, they turned into ideological platforms. Similarly in the realm of CDNs, groups like Amazon, CloudFlare, Akamai, or Google absolutely don't get to have ideologies. Anyone who wants to work on the internet has to work with these CDNs, so if they don't allow free speech, there isn't free speech on the internet. > Note Cloudflare had this exact issue: https://blog.cloudflare.com/why-we-terminated-daily-stormer/ https://blog.cloudflare.com/why-we-terminated-daily-stormer/ Likewise, I'm also not saying free speech is the only right that needs protection. With the CloudFlare case, the "Freedom of Speech < Due Process" is a rational argument, at least. I don't have enough context to 100% decide for myself if I agree with their decision, but I do tend to think that if the Daily Stormer was inciting violence, that's a higher priority than free speech. But note how this isn't about CloudFlare's rights at all--it's about protecting the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness of the people the Daily Stormer was attacking. Random aside: I do wish that they hadn't been so nationalistic about it though. (He said: "I, personally, believe in strong Freedom of Speech protections, but I also acknowledge that it is a very American idea that is not shared globally").

kerkeslager 9y ago

>> Ideally, we don't allow corporations to control so much of our communications. > What laws would you propose to actually implement this? I didn't. Note that I didn't bring up laws until #2 in my previous post. Programs which educated people on the dangers of social media the same way we educate people around the dangers of drugs and alcohol might go toward changing the way we treat these things in our culture, but on the other hand, there's enough problems with i.e. DARE that they might be counterproductive. > I like free speech a lot as well, but it seems that boundaries get a bit fuzzy here. E.g. if you were to run your own forum like HN, don't you think you should be allowed to ban material from, say, KKK supporters? I think if you combine topic-based moderation with a vote system, you don't need to ban KKK supporters. On a system like HN where all posts are in the same data stream, racist posts are going to be downvoted fairly quickly. And if someone posts racist comments on a post that isn't about race, it's off-topic, so topic-based moderation says it's okay to delete it. It's not a restriction on free speech--it's keeping topics organized to maintain the functioning of the forum. The key exception here is that when the topic is race, then you don't delete racist comments. This is uncomfortable, but racism doesn't simply go away because you censor it--if anything, censoring a racist makes them feel they are a martyr, and strengthens their beliefs. Instead, if you leave the posts up, users will respond to them with the truth. Countering lies with truth is more powerful than countering lies with censorship. There's a tendency, I think, to see bigotry as a monolithic problem in a person, without any reasoning behind it. But if you actually listen to bigots, you'll often discover that behind the bigotry they have legitimate fears and problems, and they think bigotry is the solution to those problems. Part of the problem we have in the US that those who value equality and acceptance too often see bigots as just bigots, and forget that they are people. If we see them as just bigots, then they can't change, or aren't worth changing, and we can discard them. But that hasn't worked--that's why we have the administration we have now. Instead, I think we need to see bigots as people, and try to address their fears and problems with facts and truth. (Most) bigots don't benefit from their bigotry--bigotry doesn't solve their problems, and prevents them from seeing the real solutions. So if we can show them the real solutions to their problems, they might see they don't need bigotry any more. Civil rights leaders of the past understood that a conversation about race had to be an actual conversation, not just shouting your ideals and silencing your opponents. If you refuse to listen to bigots they will refuse to listen to you. It's not us versus them, it's us and them versus ignorance.

Moodles 9y ago
Thanks for answering. I think we're going a bit off-topic here though. The crux of what I'm getting at is, do you think that you should have the right to moderate the content on your own platform that you built? Or should the government decide what is and isn't allowed? E.g. maybe instead of you running HN, maybe you run a content distribution network. As its own your network, don't you think you should be allowed to decide which websites you host? Just think of something that disgusts you: extreme right wing, left wing, religious views, whatever. They're allowed in the US and they're using your platform. You hate them. Should you be forced to offer your services to them? Note Cloudflare had this exact issue: https://blog.cloudflare.com/why-we-terminated-daily-stormer/ https://blog.cloudflare.com/why-we-terminated-daily-stormer/ These aren't rhetorical questions by the way. I'm genuinely wondering what HN thinks about this.
- kerkeslager 9y ago
  > The crux of what I'm getting at is, do you think that you should have the right to moderate the content on your own platform that you built? As I've said elsewhere on this thread, corporations don't have rights, people do. A more clear way to say this might be: corporations only have rights inasmuch as the people who make up the corporation have rights. Even though you're not asking this rhetorically, the way you're asking this question is an appeal to me as a person, and obviously I don't want to be forced to host the content of people I disagree with. But giant corporations are different from individuals. Either we should prevent corporations from being too big to fail, or we should ensure that their failures don't damage society. If a corporation owns a communication platform the size of YouTube, they lose the right to choose what content they host, because doing so infringes their users' rights to free speech, and their users can't just go elsewhere because there are no other equivalent platforms. Just because a corporation doesn't have a right to an ideology doesn't mean we should not let any corporations have ideologies: we can let corporations have ideologies as long as we make sure it isn't harmful to the rights of individuals. The purpose of laws, as I see it, is to protect the weak from the powerful. If I started Dave's Liberal Hosting Service with just a server and a dream, and only hosted Democratic websites, that's fine, because such a service doesn't become the platform of the internet that everyone is forced to use--it's likely a conservative equivalent would arise even before I built a significant business. Part of the problem is that services like Reddit and YouTube have performed a bait-and-switch--they built themselves into major platforms on a free-speech ideology, and then when they were too big to fail, they turned into ideological platforms. Similarly in the realm of CDNs, groups like Amazon, CloudFlare, Akamai, or Google absolutely don't get to have ideologies. Anyone who wants to work on the internet has to work with these CDNs, so if they don't allow free speech, there isn't free speech on the internet. > Note Cloudflare had this exact issue: https://blog.cloudflare.com/why-we-terminated-daily-stormer/ https://blog.cloudflare.com/why-we-terminated-daily-stormer/ Likewise, I'm also not saying free speech is the only right that needs protection. With the CloudFlare case, the "Freedom of Speech < Due Process" is a rational argument, at least. I don't have enough context to 100% decide for myself if I agree with their decision, but I do tend to think that if the Daily Stormer was inciting violence, that's a higher priority than free speech. But note how this isn't about CloudFlare's rights at all--it's about protecting the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness of the people the Daily Stormer was attacking. Random aside: I do wish that they hadn't been so nationalistic about it though. (He said: "I, personally, believe in strong Freedom of Speech protections, but I also acknowledge that it is a very American idea that is not shared globally").