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> censorship Except in this case it isn't censorship. Nobody can be forced to do business with BitChute if they don't want to. That is just as much of a righ

> censorship Except in this case it isn't censorship. Nobody can be forced to do business with BitChute if they don't want to. That is just as much of a right as anything else. BitChute is still more than able to host all the trash it wants. They will just have to find another payment provider. And they do exist. I mean, porn sites manage to figure out how to collect payment. It's expensive as hell because people constantly chargeback porn and virtually every porn hoster is sketchy as fuck too. Even then they could just get a PO box and have people mail in checks or hell, even cash. It might be old school, but that is how it was done back when all the wackos and conspiracy newsletters were actual things you got in the mail.

wpietri 8y ago
Exactly. Somebody's freedom of speech does not override a service provider freedom of association. Freedom of speech is not a right to distribution and payment.
- apostacy 8y ago
  These are not merely service providers. They are de-facto utilities. Just because Verizon does not like your politics, does not mean they can cut you off from their services. Same with Wells Fargo denying you a checking account (although they certainly did try in the past, if they thought you were a labor organizer). Patreon, and other payment processors (like Stripe.com) are having their arms twisted from the highest levels by Visa and Mastercard. Think for a moment if it would be ok with you if Visa and Mastercard were doing this because they wanted to silence people who advocated for women's rights. Would you still be so libertarian about it?
  - wpietri 8y ago
    Verizon is a monopoly, and should be tightly regulated. Patreon is definitely not. And there's no particular reason here to think that Patreon is doing this under pressure from Visa. They were under plenty of pressure from their user base. I think there's also a fundamental difference between an organization that bans people who increase the rights of marginalized groups and one that bans people that are looking to further marginalize people, so your analogy doesn't do anything for me.
    - apostacy 8y ago
      I was referring to the credit card companies as being a monopoly. They use their top-down power to impose their politics on people. It's not just Patreon. If anyone sets up a similar service, and does business with someone that Visa does not want, they will use their monopolistic power to shut you down. Imagine if they were doing this about a cause you disagreed with. Imagine if our financial industry was run by Trump supporters, and they were slowly squeezing their critics out financially. This is bad.
      - wpietri 8y ago
        As I said, there's no particular reason here to think that Patreon is doing this under pressure from Visa.
- daxorid 8y ago
  We already lack freedom of association. In the United States, a business is not free to discriminate against certain classes of people, or on the basis of certain things. The only question is what is the precise coefficient of friction on that slippery slope. You can argue that wedding cakes should be baked for gay couples but that websites should not be hosted for nazis for reasons A, B, and C. But claiming that businesses have some sort of broad right to free association is not merely specious, but completely and obviously wrong.
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    Businesses do, in fact, have a broad right of free association, limited only by statutory (and possibly State constitutional) limitations that comport with the high federal Constitutional bar for such limitations.
  - wpietri 8y ago
    No freedom is perfectly available. Freedom of speech, for example, doesn't allow you to commit perjury or fraud, and it doesn't entitle you to harass someone. Freedom of association doesn't let you stalk somebody, or let felons on parole talk to one another. All rights must be balanced against other rights. Businesses do have a very broad right of freedom to serve who they please. The one exception is when historically many businesses have used that power to participate in oppression against specific downtrodden groups. So a business can happily decline to serve US congressmen, freemasons, and people who have thrown up on their floor previously. But they can't decline to serve black people as a group. The specific groups who have been legally recognized for this are called protected classes, and it's pretty settled law in the US: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_group https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_group
apostacy 8y ago
You have no idea what you are talking about. Unless we live in a 100% free market, then what you are saying is totally invalid. We actually ARE forced to use the established banks and payment processors, we have no choice. The government provides all sorts of privileges and protections to them that make it impossible to just build your own. When the government strips payment processors of all of their privileges, and when the Communications Decency Act no longer protects media companies masquerading as communications platforms (eg Twitter, YouTube and Facebook), then and only then will your assertions begin to make any sense. Unless you are trying to send money to ISIS, then payment processors should be obligated to support you. And indeed, payment processors and banks are far more worried about you donating money to people who's politics they disagree with than actual violent terrorists or child pornographers.
- joshuamorton 8y ago
  What protections is stripe or square provided that a payment processing business I set up tomorrow isn't? The government doesn't actually give any specific payment processors special privileges. Yes, all payment processors have special privileges, but so to would the one you start tomorrow. But instead you want to force another to serve you. Why?
  - apostacy 8y ago
    I was referring to financial companies higher up, like Visa and Mastercard. Banks implicitly have government protections and privileges. But in addition to that, the barriers to entry are extreme, to the point where they are essentially monopolies. And they are using their disproportionate powers to play politics.
    - joshuamorton 8y ago
      What unique protections do they have that your company wouldn't have if you started a (regulation compliant) bank tomorrow?
javagram 8y ago
> Even then they could just get a PO box and have people mail in checks or hell, even cash Would it be okay for the US postal service to deplatform them as well? I’m always curious about this argument that “just mail it” because the freedom to send anything though the postal service has not always been some sacrosanct right (e.g. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comstock_laws https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comstock_laws ). And in other countries that don’t have such a permissive First Amendment I imagine it may still be okay for the post office to censor mail.
buboard 8y ago
> Nobody can be forced to do business with BitChute if they don't want to. to bake the cake or not to bake it? that is the question

wpietri 8y ago

Exactly. Somebody's freedom of speech does not override a service provider freedom of association. Freedom of speech is not a right to distribution and payment.

apostacy 8y ago
These are not merely service providers. They are de-facto utilities. Just because Verizon does not like your politics, does not mean they can cut you off from their services. Same with Wells Fargo denying you a checking account (although they certainly did try in the past, if they thought you were a labor organizer). Patreon, and other payment processors (like Stripe.com) are having their arms twisted from the highest levels by Visa and Mastercard. Think for a moment if it would be ok with you if Visa and Mastercard were doing this because they wanted to silence people who advocated for women's rights. Would you still be so libertarian about it?
- wpietri 8y ago
  Verizon is a monopoly, and should be tightly regulated. Patreon is definitely not. And there's no particular reason here to think that Patreon is doing this under pressure from Visa. They were under plenty of pressure from their user base. I think there's also a fundamental difference between an organization that bans people who increase the rights of marginalized groups and one that bans people that are looking to further marginalize people, so your analogy doesn't do anything for me.
  - apostacy 8y ago
    I was referring to the credit card companies as being a monopoly. They use their top-down power to impose their politics on people. It's not just Patreon. If anyone sets up a similar service, and does business with someone that Visa does not want, they will use their monopolistic power to shut you down. Imagine if they were doing this about a cause you disagreed with. Imagine if our financial industry was run by Trump supporters, and they were slowly squeezing their critics out financially. This is bad.
    - wpietri 8y ago
      As I said, there's no particular reason here to think that Patreon is doing this under pressure from Visa.
daxorid 8y ago
We already lack freedom of association. In the United States, a business is not free to discriminate against certain classes of people, or on the basis of certain things. The only question is what is the precise coefficient of friction on that slippery slope. You can argue that wedding cakes should be baked for gay couples but that websites should not be hosted for nazis for reasons A, B, and C. But claiming that businesses have some sort of broad right to free association is not merely specious, but completely and obviously wrong.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  Businesses do, in fact, have a broad right of free association, limited only by statutory (and possibly State constitutional) limitations that comport with the high federal Constitutional bar for such limitations.
- wpietri 8y ago
  No freedom is perfectly available. Freedom of speech, for example, doesn't allow you to commit perjury or fraud, and it doesn't entitle you to harass someone. Freedom of association doesn't let you stalk somebody, or let felons on parole talk to one another. All rights must be balanced against other rights. Businesses do have a very broad right of freedom to serve who they please. The one exception is when historically many businesses have used that power to participate in oppression against specific downtrodden groups. So a business can happily decline to serve US congressmen, freemasons, and people who have thrown up on their floor previously. But they can't decline to serve black people as a group. The specific groups who have been legally recognized for this are called protected classes, and it's pretty settled law in the US: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_group https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_group

apostacy 8y ago

You have no idea what you are talking about. Unless we live in a 100% free market, then what you are saying is totally invalid. We actually ARE forced to use the established banks and payment processors, we have no choice. The government provides all sorts of privileges and protections to them that make it impossible to just build your own. When the government strips payment processors of all of their privileges, and when the Communications Decency Act no longer protects media companies masquerading as communications platforms (eg Twitter, YouTube and Facebook), then and only then will your assertions begin to make any sense. Unless you are trying to send money to ISIS, then payment processors should be obligated to support you. And indeed, payment processors and banks are far more worried about you donating money to people who's politics they disagree with than actual violent terrorists or child pornographers.

joshuamorton 8y ago
What protections is stripe or square provided that a payment processing business I set up tomorrow isn't? The government doesn't actually give any specific payment processors special privileges. Yes, all payment processors have special privileges, but so to would the one you start tomorrow. But instead you want to force another to serve you. Why?
- apostacy 8y ago
  I was referring to financial companies higher up, like Visa and Mastercard. Banks implicitly have government protections and privileges. But in addition to that, the barriers to entry are extreme, to the point where they are essentially monopolies. And they are using their disproportionate powers to play politics.
  - joshuamorton 8y ago
    What unique protections do they have that your company wouldn't have if you started a (regulation compliant) bank tomorrow?

javagram 8y ago

> Even then they could just get a PO box and have people mail in checks or hell, even cash Would it be okay for the US postal service to deplatform them as well? I’m always curious about this argument that “just mail it” because the freedom to send anything though the postal service has not always been some sacrosanct right (e.g. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comstock_laws https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comstock_laws ). And in other countries that don’t have such a permissive First Amendment I imagine it may still be okay for the post office to censor mail.

buboard 8y ago

> Nobody can be forced to do business with BitChute if they don't want to. to bake the cake or not to bake it? that is the question