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>Yeah until you get censored by Facebook, Google, Twitter, PayPal, Visa, CloudFront etc. - censors / opponents of free speech have a lot of market power these d

>Yeah until you get censored by Facebook, Google, Twitter, PayPal, Visa, CloudFront etc. - censors / opponents of free speech have a lot of market power these days. Facebook, Google, Twitter, YouTube are all advertising companies. They allow you, for free, to post your content on their advertising platform. They have every right to sensor you. PayPal and Visa are financial companies, they have to protect themselves from high risk activity (pornography, drugs and drug precursors, money-laundering etc) and are allowed to refuse who they want for any number of reasons. CloudFront... a CDN has the right to refuse to deliver content that they find questionable or flat out illegal, they could easily be drug into a costly legal battle and intrusive investigation if someone is say distributing child pornography, content advocating terrorism etc.

tomp 8y ago
everything that you mention that is illegal (child porn, terrorism, drugs, money laundering) is a strawman. Maybe one could argue that Visa, PayPal and Mastercard are acting as a cartel/oligopoly? That would be interesting...
- ryanmercer 8y ago
  >everything that you mention that is illegal (child porn, terrorism, drugs, money laundering) is a strawman. Uh no, the're things that actually happen. People are constantly trying to sell prodrugs and 'raws' via paypal, you can go on most darknet markets and buy both stolen and 'fake' paypal accounts for any number of uses, etc. A quick google of 'paypal drug dealers' or 'paypal steroids' quickly returns both written content and videos on how to make money selling steroids via paypal and social media. Card networks like Visa limit what sort of pornography can be transacted via their network for various legality concerns. A quick google search will bury you in reading material from the EFF to Forbes to pissed off purveyors. Etc etc so on and so forth, you lose, you get nothing, I said good day sir.
  - tomp 8y ago
    Yeah I don't dispute any of that, but that also wasn't the point of discussion. I'm criticising the censorship of legal content. > A straw man is a common form of argument and is an informal fallacy based on giving the impression of refuting an opponent's argument, while actually refuting an argument that was not presented by that opponent.
  - ryanmercer 8y ago
    >Yeah I don't dispute any of that, but that also wasn't the point of discussion. I'm criticising the censorship of legal content. Some of that IS legal content. PayPal and Visa/Mastercard have long lists of high-risk goods they simply won't deal with. That's not censorship, that's preventative damage control.
    - CompanionCuuube 8y ago
      > PayPal and Visa/Mastercard have long lists of high-risk goods they simply won't deal with. Still a strawman as there is no inherent financial damage of political speech compared to those high-risk goods.

tomp 8y ago

everything that you mention that is illegal (child porn, terrorism, drugs, money laundering) is a strawman. Maybe one could argue that Visa, PayPal and Mastercard are acting as a cartel/oligopoly? That would be interesting...

ryanmercer 8y ago
>everything that you mention that is illegal (child porn, terrorism, drugs, money laundering) is a strawman. Uh no, the're things that actually happen. People are constantly trying to sell prodrugs and 'raws' via paypal, you can go on most darknet markets and buy both stolen and 'fake' paypal accounts for any number of uses, etc. A quick google of 'paypal drug dealers' or 'paypal steroids' quickly returns both written content and videos on how to make money selling steroids via paypal and social media. Card networks like Visa limit what sort of pornography can be transacted via their network for various legality concerns. A quick google search will bury you in reading material from the EFF to Forbes to pissed off purveyors. Etc etc so on and so forth, you lose, you get nothing, I said good day sir.
- tomp 8y ago
  Yeah I don't dispute any of that, but that also wasn't the point of discussion. I'm criticising the censorship of legal content. > A straw man is a common form of argument and is an informal fallacy based on giving the impression of refuting an opponent's argument, while actually refuting an argument that was not presented by that opponent.
- ryanmercer 8y ago
  >Yeah I don't dispute any of that, but that also wasn't the point of discussion. I'm criticising the censorship of legal content. Some of that IS legal content. PayPal and Visa/Mastercard have long lists of high-risk goods they simply won't deal with. That's not censorship, that's preventative damage control.
  - CompanionCuuube 8y ago
    > PayPal and Visa/Mastercard have long lists of high-risk goods they simply won't deal with. Still a strawman as there is no inherent financial damage of political speech compared to those high-risk goods.