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Well, so it finally happened. The Rubicon has been breached. One of the great things about the Internet, up until recent times, has been the relative neutralit

Well, so it finally happened. The Rubicon has been breached. One of the great things about the Internet, up until recent times, has been the relative neutrality of the infrastructure. No matter who you were, it was fairly easy to set up shop as long as your content was not super illegal. In general, you could count on having your host back you up unless you were incredibly controversial, and it was out of the question that a mainstream US provider would drop your .com name! A US-hosted .com was a "gold standard" you could count on. The first indication that things were changing was the DMCA. But for all its faults, at least it has a process. This new political "anything goes" trend is going to be awful for anyone not already in the Fortune 500. But I guess that's the point, isn't it? The useful idiots standing by these actions are going to be shocked, SHOCKED when the political winds shift and their favorite site is suddenly forced off the net by tech oligarchs. Do you really think this won't get turned against left-leaning/anti-war sites the moment we get into a large-scale conflict again? But I guess that's the point, too, isn't it!! I'm appalled that anyone on the left who remembers the GWB "with us or against us" era of politics would support this kind of politicization of our infrastructure. The left would NEVER have been able to elect Obama without being able to organize on a free and open Internet! This kind of action is killing what little remains of the open Internet! And all for a petty, temporary victory over a fringe political group! What are you throwing away???

aninhumer 8y ago
Except the actual left has been complaining about centralised capitalist control of the media for decades. Indeed, it's precisely because of that control that you've apparently never heard anything other than liberal centrists talking about access to speech. >This new political "anything goes" trend is going to be awful for anyone not already in the Fortune 500. But I guess that's the point, isn't it? Yes of course. Welcome to Capitalism. When the system starts to break down from the inevitable inequality it causes, capitalists turn to fascism to maintain control. It happened in the Weimar Republic, and it's happening again now. We're seeing business news outlets openly talking about the "investment opportunities" in Brazil as a result of the election of an overt fascist. >And all for a petty, temporary victory over a fringe political group! The left celebrates this, not because the control is good, but because the threat of fascism has become so overt that this is the best we can hope for right now.
- iamnothere 8y ago
  Access to speech has indeed been a problem; there were plenty of court cases about it in the 2000s. What is new, at least in my awareness, is a breakdown in access to infrastructure. Many (though not all) hosts/registrars/etc were built by ideological libertarians who had an absolutist free speech bent. Sites seemed more likely to encounter resistance from the government and big corporations than from their providers. Now the providers are big corporations, and they have close ties with the government! A prime example is rotten.com. They faced plenty of C&Ds and government lawsuits, but it looks like they weren't forced into self-hosting until 2014 based on some quick research. Rotten was 1000x worse than Infowars, Gab, or even 4chan, but it was a protest site of sorts and an important free speech canary. (It's dead now, obviously.) Can you give some examples of leftist sites being booted from their hosts in the 2000s? Maybe I'm not aware of them. WSWS, for instance, seems to be hosted by Godaddy currently, and that's about as left as you can get. Wikileaks is an example of an (IMHO) non-partisan site that has faced troubles, but that's because they actively leaked classified intel about ongoing conflicts. Cyptome faced some government pushback in the 2000s for leaking less controversial material, but they were hosted with Network Solutions in 2012, and now with Web.com.
  - Faark 8y ago
    The sad truth is lefties are mostly irrelevant these days, shifting the overton window far to the right. When have you last heard significant people someone talking nationalizing industries? A few hippies or blue-haired university students are no threat to any ones lives. (Near-)fascists taking over countries is. As usual, people take action not because of some principle, but because a problem got so bad it cannot be ignored anymore. And as usual, it might already be too late...
- forgottenpass 8y ago
  >the actual left has been complaining about centralised capitalist control of the media for decades Cool. How does the "real" left feel about speech these days? >The left celebrates this, not because the control is good, but because the threat of fascism has become so overt that this is the best we can hope for right now. Oh. It's a special case because things are so bad _right now_. The same justification as in every instance of abridging speech we later come to regret.

aninhumer 8y ago

Except the actual left has been complaining about centralised capitalist control of the media for decades. Indeed, it's precisely because of that control that you've apparently never heard anything other than liberal centrists talking about access to speech. >This new political "anything goes" trend is going to be awful for anyone not already in the Fortune 500. But I guess that's the point, isn't it? Yes of course. Welcome to Capitalism. When the system starts to break down from the inevitable inequality it causes, capitalists turn to fascism to maintain control. It happened in the Weimar Republic, and it's happening again now. We're seeing business news outlets openly talking about the "investment opportunities" in Brazil as a result of the election of an overt fascist. >And all for a petty, temporary victory over a fringe political group! The left celebrates this, not because the control is good, but because the threat of fascism has become so overt that this is the best we can hope for right now.

iamnothere 8y ago
Access to speech has indeed been a problem; there were plenty of court cases about it in the 2000s. What is new, at least in my awareness, is a breakdown in access to infrastructure. Many (though not all) hosts/registrars/etc were built by ideological libertarians who had an absolutist free speech bent. Sites seemed more likely to encounter resistance from the government and big corporations than from their providers. Now the providers are big corporations, and they have close ties with the government! A prime example is rotten.com. They faced plenty of C&Ds and government lawsuits, but it looks like they weren't forced into self-hosting until 2014 based on some quick research. Rotten was 1000x worse than Infowars, Gab, or even 4chan, but it was a protest site of sorts and an important free speech canary. (It's dead now, obviously.) Can you give some examples of leftist sites being booted from their hosts in the 2000s? Maybe I'm not aware of them. WSWS, for instance, seems to be hosted by Godaddy currently, and that's about as left as you can get. Wikileaks is an example of an (IMHO) non-partisan site that has faced troubles, but that's because they actively leaked classified intel about ongoing conflicts. Cyptome faced some government pushback in the 2000s for leaking less controversial material, but they were hosted with Network Solutions in 2012, and now with Web.com.
- Faark 8y ago
  The sad truth is lefties are mostly irrelevant these days, shifting the overton window far to the right. When have you last heard significant people someone talking nationalizing industries? A few hippies or blue-haired university students are no threat to any ones lives. (Near-)fascists taking over countries is. As usual, people take action not because of some principle, but because a problem got so bad it cannot be ignored anymore. And as usual, it might already be too late...
forgottenpass 8y ago
>the actual left has been complaining about centralised capitalist control of the media for decades Cool. How does the "real" left feel about speech these days? >The left celebrates this, not because the control is good, but because the threat of fascism has become so overt that this is the best we can hope for right now. Oh. It's a special case because things are so bad _right now_. The same justification as in every instance of abridging speech we later come to regret.