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Having been censored multiple times by tech firms, I fall squarely into one camp. During the Snowden Disclosures, I took to Facebook with the documents getting

Having been censored multiple times by tech firms, I fall squarely into one camp. During the Snowden Disclosures, I took to Facebook with the documents getting published and started to do my own summaries. Facebook implemented a policy in which it would not let any post that contained a link to a Snowden Document. In some cases they would let the content get posted, but I confirmed with a friend's account that it was not visible when scrolling my feed from another account. Posts about other content were all visible and otherwise had no problems. I complained and Facebook got back to me with a customer relations paragraph about keeping their platform free of unwanted or questionable content. Not long after I discovered through media, and then some friends from Turkey, that what I experienced was identical to state sponsored censorship that Facebook extends to the Turkish government. This lasted for close to the entire duration of public attention on the global and domestic surveillance scandal. (Other links and content in other scenarios, for example May Day protest organization, was similarly blocked by Facebook - at least in Seattle for the organizers that I was in contact with).

replies_to_all 8y ago
we already have a solution with memo.cash, and Bitcoin Cash, why people are not use it is beyond me.
lordCarbonFiber 8y ago
I love the unspoken sentiment behind your experience. "I took to facebook to post links to grey legal documents rather than hosting them myself because I wanted facebook to be liable; Im shocked when they told me they didn't appreciate the transfer of risk. It's literally censorship I tell you!" Freedom of speech is not, and hopefully never will be,"freedom to post on other people's servers unmoderated".
- grandmczeb 8y ago
  > It's literally censorship I tell you! It literally is. Most people would say that is justifiable given that Facebook owns the platform, but that dosen't change the fact that they're censoring what users say.
  - ratsmack 8y ago
    And everyone seems to be fine with the censorship, until it is their own worldview that is censored. "First the came for the ..."
  - lordCarbonFiber 8y ago
    Moderation != censorship. When facebook can send you to jail for your speech, then we can talk about censorship. I don't want to live in a world where I can't ban bad actors from my own servers (thus violating my freedom of speech).
    - ratsmack 8y ago
      When a moderator removes one of your comments because they disagree with the content, that is censorship. When a moderator removes your comment because it breaks a well defined rule, then that is moderating. Trying to moderate "hate speech", which is highly subjective, is a losing proposition.
      - notveryrational 8y ago
        When well-defined rules include "content that the government wants to suppress because it criticized them" the rules provide censorship via moderation. In this case, Facebook - presuming what they did was "follow the rules" - is following censorship rules. So perhaps the thread should be about the US government forcing companies to censor free speech for them.
    - notveryrational 8y ago
      Something can be both moderation and censorship at the same time. You are presenting a false dichotomy.
    - grandmczeb 8y ago
      Censorship is not defined as illegal speech. Some forms of censorship are perfectly ok, like when you remove objectionable content from your own platform. If the government were to require you to remove that same content, it would still be censorship, but in a much worse form.
- whatshisface 8y ago
  Were the Snowden documents really legally grey? The Guardian had no problem publishing them.
  - detaro 8y ago
    The Guardian was also forced to destroy copies of the files it owned by the UK government.
    - notveryrational 8y ago
      Because the UK government has a censorship program that prevented journalists from reporting on source material relevant to the interests of their citizens.
      - detaro 8y ago
        An example of Snowden documents being legally grey, and even the example of the guardian being under pressure because of it.
        notveryrational 8y ago
        American documents were leaked to journalists and that was a legally gray problem in the UK? Don't be silly. Imagine if some Saudi documents were leaked to journalists and the American government walked into the Times and forced them to destroy the documents at gunpoint. This was clear and simple government censorship. Not particularly unusual or remarkable for the UK.
        detaro 8y ago
        American documents containing information about things the UK government considered state secrets. If there wasn't a legal risk, why would the Guardian have complied? That's kind of unrelated to the question if you consider that legal threat justified or not, it's clearly there.
- brandmeyer 8y ago
  At least for me, the freedoms enshrined in the bill of rights and other amendments are valuable not just as restrictions on government power, but as restrictions on power. The more asymmetric the relationship between two parties, the more sensitive we become to exercises of power by the stronger party over the weaker one. I think that we do have a reasonable expectation that our employers and service providers won't interfere with our religious lives, that all employees and customers have equal rights and responsibilities, are entitled to due process during disputes, we have the right to not self-incriminate, to face our accusers, to defend ourselves against attack, to associate with whoever we please, and so on. When a dominant platform for communication starts to exercise its own authority over what can be communicated on their platform, I think its only natural that we consider it to be an unethical abuse of power. Property rights are not absolute. As one party becomes more and more dominant, I think it is appropriate that we recognize the asymmetry in the relationship and restrict that party's ability to exert power over others.
  - lordCarbonFiber 8y ago
    The restrictions put on governmental power are proportional to the power we give the government. Your employer can't imprison you, collect taxes from you, send you off to war; pretending "social media add tech company" is in any way comparable doesn't add much to the conversation. You first have to give google the right to send you to jail, before you can demand due process from them (that's a dystopia I think no one wants, not even the tech CEOs). If you don't like the policies for Google, Facebook, others, make your own. Maybe like minded individuals will follow (most likely they won't). Once you no longer have this right then we can talk about censorship.
    - brandmeyer 8y ago
      Power doesn't have to be absolute in order to be asymmetric. In turn, the restrictions imposed on an employer or service provider should be proportional to their dominance.
  - tptacek 8y ago
    You can want the Bill of Rights to be "restrictions on power", but as a positive description of reality and of law, they are not that. In fact: the Constitution had to be amended to make those rights binding on State governments, and it's not perfectly legally clear that all of those rights have been so incorporated. The idea that they bind on Facebook is... aspirational.
- PurpleBoxDragon 8y ago
  Freedom of speech is a much larger broader concept than the First Amendment. Consider for a second if some political position was banned by all privately owned mediums in the US. Say for example it was reported on the violence is Bangladesh. Every internet provider would stop transferring data if it detected any mention of it, every server hosting data in any format would immediately remove any mention of it, Microsoft, Google, and Apple pushed updates to their OS's that would terminate what you were doing if they detected it. Would freedom of speech (not the First Amendment) have been attacked in such a far-fetched scenario? Yes, despite it only being private companies doing things they have the right to do. As such, we can conclude that in such a scenario, freedom of speech includes requiring private entities to support a message they wish to not support. Now, would that not also apply in a less far-fetched scenario? I see no reason it would not.
  - um_ya 8y ago
    Freedom of speech is a principle. Some people seem to forget that.
  - notveryrational 8y ago
    This has actually already been determined. For instance, businesses are required to serve all colors regardless of sexual orientation, color, religion, etc. It's a regressive part of this epoch of human history that the opposite is true of free speech: companies are required by law to surveil and censor.
- ryandrake 8y ago
  While it’s well within Facebook’s rights to censor content that appears on their platform, it’s also within OP’s rights to call out their attempts to whitewash and sanitize their little part of the Internet. It seems HN readership likes to stand up and defend these companies when they get rid of stuff we don’t like, like Nazis and Alex Jones rants. But if we woke up tomorrow and FB or YouTube started deleting content about progressive causes, we’d lose our minds and start sharpening the pitchforks. The double standard is evident. Either these guys should have editorial control of what they publish or not.
  - notveryrational 8y ago
    The HN readership has its own fascistic tendencies, including a large portion of its membership that defends censorship, surveillance and propaganda. Increasingly, that's representative of the US population writ large.
- notveryrational 8y ago
  In no way was there an attempt to transfer risk. Facebook was a community platform where I could reach out to the people I knew and loved - my friends and family. That's the only reason I made Facebook posts. Regarding moderation - do you agree that something can be both moderation and censorship at the same time? To make this more clear, consider Facebook's relationship with the Turkish government. Facebook will moderate the content in Turkey to what is allowed speech in that country, including moderation to remove criticism of the government. Is that moderation or censorship? Or is it both?
- throw2016 8y ago
  There is a difference between hate speech, racism, bigotry, incitement to violence and political speech. Clamping down on political speech and whistleblowing is the definition of censorship. If Facebook as a private party was not hosting any political content then it would be valid, but hosting other political content - for instance politicians and activists calling for ending Chinese censorship - while suppressing Snowden's leaks is a brazen act of political censorship and hypocrisy. If this was a thread about China's dominant social media platform silencing whistleblowers there would be hundred percent agreement its wrong. It is untenable and duplicitous to demonize others for censorship while defending or hand waving this kind of 'moderation'. This makes a mockery of free speech and reduces it to jingoism.

replies_to_all 8y ago

we already have a solution with memo.cash, and Bitcoin Cash, why people are not use it is beyond me.

lordCarbonFiber 8y ago

I love the unspoken sentiment behind your experience. "I took to facebook to post links to grey legal documents rather than hosting them myself because I wanted facebook to be liable; Im shocked when they told me they didn't appreciate the transfer of risk. It's literally censorship I tell you!" Freedom of speech is not, and hopefully never will be,"freedom to post on other people's servers unmoderated".

grandmczeb 8y ago
> It's literally censorship I tell you! It literally is. Most people would say that is justifiable given that Facebook owns the platform, but that dosen't change the fact that they're censoring what users say.
- ratsmack 8y ago
  And everyone seems to be fine with the censorship, until it is their own worldview that is censored. "First the came for the ..."
- lordCarbonFiber 8y ago
  Moderation != censorship. When facebook can send you to jail for your speech, then we can talk about censorship. I don't want to live in a world where I can't ban bad actors from my own servers (thus violating my freedom of speech).
  - ratsmack 8y ago
    When a moderator removes one of your comments because they disagree with the content, that is censorship. When a moderator removes your comment because it breaks a well defined rule, then that is moderating. Trying to moderate "hate speech", which is highly subjective, is a losing proposition.
    - notveryrational 8y ago
      When well-defined rules include "content that the government wants to suppress because it criticized them" the rules provide censorship via moderation. In this case, Facebook - presuming what they did was "follow the rules" - is following censorship rules. So perhaps the thread should be about the US government forcing companies to censor free speech for them.
  - notveryrational 8y ago
    Something can be both moderation and censorship at the same time. You are presenting a false dichotomy.
  - grandmczeb 8y ago
    Censorship is not defined as illegal speech. Some forms of censorship are perfectly ok, like when you remove objectionable content from your own platform. If the government were to require you to remove that same content, it would still be censorship, but in a much worse form.
whatshisface 8y ago
Were the Snowden documents really legally grey? The Guardian had no problem publishing them.
- detaro 8y ago
  The Guardian was also forced to destroy copies of the files it owned by the UK government.
  - notveryrational 8y ago
    Because the UK government has a censorship program that prevented journalists from reporting on source material relevant to the interests of their citizens.
    - detaro 8y ago
      An example of Snowden documents being legally grey, and even the example of the guardian being under pressure because of it.
      - notveryrational 8y ago
        American documents were leaked to journalists and that was a legally gray problem in the UK? Don't be silly. Imagine if some Saudi documents were leaked to journalists and the American government walked into the Times and forced them to destroy the documents at gunpoint. This was clear and simple government censorship. Not particularly unusual or remarkable for the UK.
        detaro 8y ago
        American documents containing information about things the UK government considered state secrets. If there wasn't a legal risk, why would the Guardian have complied? That's kind of unrelated to the question if you consider that legal threat justified or not, it's clearly there.
brandmeyer 8y ago
At least for me, the freedoms enshrined in the bill of rights and other amendments are valuable not just as restrictions on government power, but as restrictions on power. The more asymmetric the relationship between two parties, the more sensitive we become to exercises of power by the stronger party over the weaker one. I think that we do have a reasonable expectation that our employers and service providers won't interfere with our religious lives, that all employees and customers have equal rights and responsibilities, are entitled to due process during disputes, we have the right to not self-incriminate, to face our accusers, to defend ourselves against attack, to associate with whoever we please, and so on. When a dominant platform for communication starts to exercise its own authority over what can be communicated on their platform, I think its only natural that we consider it to be an unethical abuse of power. Property rights are not absolute. As one party becomes more and more dominant, I think it is appropriate that we recognize the asymmetry in the relationship and restrict that party's ability to exert power over others.
- lordCarbonFiber 8y ago
  The restrictions put on governmental power are proportional to the power we give the government. Your employer can't imprison you, collect taxes from you, send you off to war; pretending "social media add tech company" is in any way comparable doesn't add much to the conversation. You first have to give google the right to send you to jail, before you can demand due process from them (that's a dystopia I think no one wants, not even the tech CEOs). If you don't like the policies for Google, Facebook, others, make your own. Maybe like minded individuals will follow (most likely they won't). Once you no longer have this right then we can talk about censorship.
  - brandmeyer 8y ago
    Power doesn't have to be absolute in order to be asymmetric. In turn, the restrictions imposed on an employer or service provider should be proportional to their dominance.
- tptacek 8y ago
  You can want the Bill of Rights to be "restrictions on power", but as a positive description of reality and of law, they are not that. In fact: the Constitution had to be amended to make those rights binding on State governments, and it's not perfectly legally clear that all of those rights have been so incorporated. The idea that they bind on Facebook is... aspirational.
PurpleBoxDragon 8y ago
Freedom of speech is a much larger broader concept than the First Amendment. Consider for a second if some political position was banned by all privately owned mediums in the US. Say for example it was reported on the violence is Bangladesh. Every internet provider would stop transferring data if it detected any mention of it, every server hosting data in any format would immediately remove any mention of it, Microsoft, Google, and Apple pushed updates to their OS's that would terminate what you were doing if they detected it. Would freedom of speech (not the First Amendment) have been attacked in such a far-fetched scenario? Yes, despite it only being private companies doing things they have the right to do. As such, we can conclude that in such a scenario, freedom of speech includes requiring private entities to support a message they wish to not support. Now, would that not also apply in a less far-fetched scenario? I see no reason it would not.
- um_ya 8y ago
  Freedom of speech is a principle. Some people seem to forget that.
- notveryrational 8y ago
  This has actually already been determined. For instance, businesses are required to serve all colors regardless of sexual orientation, color, religion, etc. It's a regressive part of this epoch of human history that the opposite is true of free speech: companies are required by law to surveil and censor.
ryandrake 8y ago
While it’s well within Facebook’s rights to censor content that appears on their platform, it’s also within OP’s rights to call out their attempts to whitewash and sanitize their little part of the Internet. It seems HN readership likes to stand up and defend these companies when they get rid of stuff we don’t like, like Nazis and Alex Jones rants. But if we woke up tomorrow and FB or YouTube started deleting content about progressive causes, we’d lose our minds and start sharpening the pitchforks. The double standard is evident. Either these guys should have editorial control of what they publish or not.
- notveryrational 8y ago
  The HN readership has its own fascistic tendencies, including a large portion of its membership that defends censorship, surveillance and propaganda. Increasingly, that's representative of the US population writ large.
notveryrational 8y ago
In no way was there an attempt to transfer risk. Facebook was a community platform where I could reach out to the people I knew and loved - my friends and family. That's the only reason I made Facebook posts. Regarding moderation - do you agree that something can be both moderation and censorship at the same time? To make this more clear, consider Facebook's relationship with the Turkish government. Facebook will moderate the content in Turkey to what is allowed speech in that country, including moderation to remove criticism of the government. Is that moderation or censorship? Or is it both?
throw2016 8y ago
There is a difference between hate speech, racism, bigotry, incitement to violence and political speech. Clamping down on political speech and whistleblowing is the definition of censorship. If Facebook as a private party was not hosting any political content then it would be valid, but hosting other political content - for instance politicians and activists calling for ending Chinese censorship - while suppressing Snowden's leaks is a brazen act of political censorship and hypocrisy. If this was a thread about China's dominant social media platform silencing whistleblowers there would be hundred percent agreement its wrong. It is untenable and duplicitous to demonize others for censorship while defending or hand waving this kind of 'moderation'. This makes a mockery of free speech and reduces it to jingoism.