6 ms·

> And at some point, that means it becomes virtually impossible to express yourself if your views are unpopular enough. This is how free speech has always work

> And at some point, that means it becomes virtually impossible to express yourself if your views are unpopular enough. This is how free speech has always worked, though. You could always get on a soapbox in a public plaza and rant, but the potential engaged audience there is pretty small. If you wanted a real audience, even in older times you would've needed a newspaper to print your thoughts, or a publisher to help with your books. "Few people will be listening to highly unpopular messages" hardly seems like something to get in a tiff over, if it's just the result of the free market of ideas.

zepto 8y ago
Except that they aren’t necessarily highly unpopular. They are just outside of the political norms that happen to be popular within a small class in control of the platforms.
- aeternus 8y ago
  If they aren't highly unpopular then there should be a demand and market for services/platforms that do allow those opinions. Even though not as large, another company/service should be able to fill the void.
  - marcosdumay 8y ago
    What smaller company is out there competing with Cloudflare, or Partenon? There isn't, because there's a minimum size to enter those markets, and not enough scale to sustain niches.
  - stevenicr 8y ago
    I was under the impression that the main thing preventing "another company/service should be able to fill the void." - is the rules and hoops / unchecked power of the visa/mc/amex etc. I have seen rumors about us gov and other govs pressuring cc authorities to do things in certain ways as well, however my senator says there is no proof rumored pressure changed anything in one case that I write about. there is demand and market for many things that the CC companies make difficult or impossible, the problem is the CC companies make it difficult or impossible to provide to those markets. Threats from the CC places make many places move to the side of err caution and further marginalize groups. In some cases simply removing some of the banks and such that will do business with some groups gives the few banks that do leverage to charge exorbitant fees and people live with the constant threat that their fees will go up, or the bank will give up and they will have no provider at all. This changes published expression even when there is an option.
    - barry-cotter 8y ago
      > I have seen rumors about us gov and other govs pressuring cc authorities to do things in certain ways as well, however my senator says there is no proof rumored pressure changed anything in one case that I write about. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Choke_Point https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Choke_Point Operation Choke Point was a 2013 initiative of the United States Department of Justice,[1] which would investigate banks in the United States and the business they do with firearm dealers, payday lenders, and other companies believed to be at higher risk for fraud and money laundering. This operation, disclosed in an August 2013 Wall Street Journal story, was officially ended in August 2017. ... On May 29, 2014, the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform published a highly critical staff report that concluded:[21] “ Forceful prosecution of those who defraud American consumers is both responsible and admirable. However, Department of Justice initiatives to combat mass-market consumer fraud must be legitimate exercises of the Department's legal authorities, and must be executed in a manner that does not unfairly harm legitimate merchants and individuals. Operation Choke Point fails both these requirements. The Department's radical reinterpretation of what constitutes an actionable violation under § 951 of FIRREA fundamentally distorts Congress' intent in enacting the law, and inappropriately demands that bankers act as the moral arbiters and policemen of the commercial world. In light of the Department's obligation to act within the bounds of the law, and its avowed commitment not to "discourage or inhibit" the lawful conduct of honest merchants, it is necessary to disavow and dismantle Operation Choke Point.
      - stevenicr 8y ago
        exactly. My senator told me that this thing was not really used, was being discontinued, and there was no evidence that any banks or processors we discriminating based upon it. However I am sure that banks were indeed discriminating based upon it, in some cases refuses accounts, in other cases charging higher fees. Taking advantage of marginalized access to banking based upon 'possible scrutiny as laid out by the choke point initiative' There may not be any evidence in that they can refuse service or raise rates and blame this or whatever that, however lets be real. The govs telling private money handlers if they touch money that was part of these things we don't like, err, have a higher chance of fraud, then we will send fed investigators to investigate you - well... here is a list from the linked wiki mentioned in parent comment, partial / edited, Ammunition Sales Cable Box De-scramblers Coin Dealers Dating Services Drug Paraphernalia Escort Services Firearms Sales Fireworks Sales Government Grants Life-Time Memberships Mailing Lists/Personal Info Money Transfer Networks On-line Gambling Pharmaceutical Sales Pornography[5] Racist Materials Surveillance Equipment Telemarketing Tobacco Sales Travel Clubs We do indeed need better ways for people to use decentralized payment options like bitcoin cash, or , zcash, monero and similar. However from what I had seen some time ago, the hard part is getting money into the coin. Using CC or banks for this makes it harder in the US than I think it should be.
  - repolfx 8y ago
    There clearly is such demand. However, all such services require partnership with other services, that's the nature of a modern economy - there's always a supply chain. And the sort of liberals who are systematically trying to shut down all conservatives from the internet will also systematically attack those supply chains, from web hosting to DNS to bandwidth. They will never stop, they will never cease because their goal is totalitarian control over thought and ideas. They are not the majority, but they are significantly more vicious and the majority is largely passive. We have seen this over and over. Any organisation that provides some sort of useful service will inevitably end up hiring activist employees that take extreme positions and threaten to cause as much chaos as they can if they don't get their way with regards to eliminating conservative customers.
marcosdumay 8y ago
That's how speech works since the concentration of press at the middle of the XX century, and I don't think there's anybody claiming it was a good thing. It has never before been that way. The internet did break the press oligopolies, and brought some free exchange of ideas, carrying large changes. But instead of staying a platform where ideas can compete as equals, it is consolidating again on the hand of a few all-powerful individuals.
slededit 8y ago
News organizations used to be much more interested in presenting the “other” side. Sometimes referring to outsider writings when they felt their own biases prevented them from doing justice to the ideas they disagreed with. My favorite example is Edward R. Murrow giving an entire episode to McCarthy (unedited) to explain why he felt black listing communists was necessary. Letters to the editor are vestigial examples of this lost chivalry.
- notafraudster 8y ago
  Murrow devoted an episode to McCarthy because at the time Murrow was one of three people who had an episode to devote to McCarthy. Now McCarthy has a network that will have him on any time he wants, and if he didn't he'd have a hundred online venues, including the one he runs, and most of them spend time talking about how Murrow is a "Jew Communist" or an "SJW" or whatever people say now, so it should probably not be a surprise that Murrow isn't inclined to have him on for a chat. And anyway, we're not talking about McCarthy anyway, we're talking about George Lincoln Rockwell and Robert Welsh. And if we were talking about McCarthy, it still wouldn't be useful, because if Murrow hadn't devoted an entire episode to McCarthy, it's not like we think McCarthy would have a grievance to demand an episode devoted to him because it's his fundamental right, it would have been Murrow's editorial choice. It may well be the case that there exist venues who would do better to give extremists a voice so they can embarrass themselves, but that's quite different from a commitment to sincere pluralism to hear everyone out. By the way, in the end, the thing that did McCarthy in was not his public supporters vanishing because his speeches embarrassed him, it was the Senate voting to censure him and effectively curbing the platform they afforded him.
  - slededit 8y ago
    Referencing McCarthy’s “friendly” networks and TV shows misses the point. “Disgusting” viewpoints can today be had on Drudge Report and numerous other places friendly to that viewpoint. Murrow had spent much of the previous year criticizing McCarthy’s attacks on freedom of speech and association. The equivalent today would be Rachel Maddow giving an entire episode to Trump to do with as he wished. Murrow did not have to do this - in fact he was under great pressure to just drop the thing entirely by his network. He did so because he thought it right to expose his audience to ideas other than his own. Many in the news business felt the same at the time.

zepto 8y ago

Except that they aren’t necessarily highly unpopular. They are just outside of the political norms that happen to be popular within a small class in control of the platforms.

aeternus 8y ago
If they aren't highly unpopular then there should be a demand and market for services/platforms that do allow those opinions. Even though not as large, another company/service should be able to fill the void.
- marcosdumay 8y ago
  What smaller company is out there competing with Cloudflare, or Partenon? There isn't, because there's a minimum size to enter those markets, and not enough scale to sustain niches.
- stevenicr 8y ago
  I was under the impression that the main thing preventing "another company/service should be able to fill the void." - is the rules and hoops / unchecked power of the visa/mc/amex etc. I have seen rumors about us gov and other govs pressuring cc authorities to do things in certain ways as well, however my senator says there is no proof rumored pressure changed anything in one case that I write about. there is demand and market for many things that the CC companies make difficult or impossible, the problem is the CC companies make it difficult or impossible to provide to those markets. Threats from the CC places make many places move to the side of err caution and further marginalize groups. In some cases simply removing some of the banks and such that will do business with some groups gives the few banks that do leverage to charge exorbitant fees and people live with the constant threat that their fees will go up, or the bank will give up and they will have no provider at all. This changes published expression even when there is an option.
  - barry-cotter 8y ago
    > I have seen rumors about us gov and other govs pressuring cc authorities to do things in certain ways as well, however my senator says there is no proof rumored pressure changed anything in one case that I write about. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Choke_Point https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Choke_Point Operation Choke Point was a 2013 initiative of the United States Department of Justice,[1] which would investigate banks in the United States and the business they do with firearm dealers, payday lenders, and other companies believed to be at higher risk for fraud and money laundering. This operation, disclosed in an August 2013 Wall Street Journal story, was officially ended in August 2017. ... On May 29, 2014, the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform published a highly critical staff report that concluded:[21] “ Forceful prosecution of those who defraud American consumers is both responsible and admirable. However, Department of Justice initiatives to combat mass-market consumer fraud must be legitimate exercises of the Department's legal authorities, and must be executed in a manner that does not unfairly harm legitimate merchants and individuals. Operation Choke Point fails both these requirements. The Department's radical reinterpretation of what constitutes an actionable violation under § 951 of FIRREA fundamentally distorts Congress' intent in enacting the law, and inappropriately demands that bankers act as the moral arbiters and policemen of the commercial world. In light of the Department's obligation to act within the bounds of the law, and its avowed commitment not to "discourage or inhibit" the lawful conduct of honest merchants, it is necessary to disavow and dismantle Operation Choke Point.
    - stevenicr 8y ago
      exactly. My senator told me that this thing was not really used, was being discontinued, and there was no evidence that any banks or processors we discriminating based upon it. However I am sure that banks were indeed discriminating based upon it, in some cases refuses accounts, in other cases charging higher fees. Taking advantage of marginalized access to banking based upon 'possible scrutiny as laid out by the choke point initiative' There may not be any evidence in that they can refuse service or raise rates and blame this or whatever that, however lets be real. The govs telling private money handlers if they touch money that was part of these things we don't like, err, have a higher chance of fraud, then we will send fed investigators to investigate you - well... here is a list from the linked wiki mentioned in parent comment, partial / edited, Ammunition Sales Cable Box De-scramblers Coin Dealers Dating Services Drug Paraphernalia Escort Services Firearms Sales Fireworks Sales Government Grants Life-Time Memberships Mailing Lists/Personal Info Money Transfer Networks On-line Gambling Pharmaceutical Sales Pornography[5] Racist Materials Surveillance Equipment Telemarketing Tobacco Sales Travel Clubs We do indeed need better ways for people to use decentralized payment options like bitcoin cash, or , zcash, monero and similar. However from what I had seen some time ago, the hard part is getting money into the coin. Using CC or banks for this makes it harder in the US than I think it should be.
- repolfx 8y ago
  There clearly is such demand. However, all such services require partnership with other services, that's the nature of a modern economy - there's always a supply chain. And the sort of liberals who are systematically trying to shut down all conservatives from the internet will also systematically attack those supply chains, from web hosting to DNS to bandwidth. They will never stop, they will never cease because their goal is totalitarian control over thought and ideas. They are not the majority, but they are significantly more vicious and the majority is largely passive. We have seen this over and over. Any organisation that provides some sort of useful service will inevitably end up hiring activist employees that take extreme positions and threaten to cause as much chaos as they can if they don't get their way with regards to eliminating conservative customers.

marcosdumay 8y ago

That's how speech works since the concentration of press at the middle of the XX century, and I don't think there's anybody claiming it was a good thing. It has never before been that way. The internet did break the press oligopolies, and brought some free exchange of ideas, carrying large changes. But instead of staying a platform where ideas can compete as equals, it is consolidating again on the hand of a few all-powerful individuals.

slededit 8y ago

News organizations used to be much more interested in presenting the “other” side. Sometimes referring to outsider writings when they felt their own biases prevented them from doing justice to the ideas they disagreed with. My favorite example is Edward R. Murrow giving an entire episode to McCarthy (unedited) to explain why he felt black listing communists was necessary. Letters to the editor are vestigial examples of this lost chivalry.

notafraudster 8y ago
Murrow devoted an episode to McCarthy because at the time Murrow was one of three people who had an episode to devote to McCarthy. Now McCarthy has a network that will have him on any time he wants, and if he didn't he'd have a hundred online venues, including the one he runs, and most of them spend time talking about how Murrow is a "Jew Communist" or an "SJW" or whatever people say now, so it should probably not be a surprise that Murrow isn't inclined to have him on for a chat. And anyway, we're not talking about McCarthy anyway, we're talking about George Lincoln Rockwell and Robert Welsh. And if we were talking about McCarthy, it still wouldn't be useful, because if Murrow hadn't devoted an entire episode to McCarthy, it's not like we think McCarthy would have a grievance to demand an episode devoted to him because it's his fundamental right, it would have been Murrow's editorial choice. It may well be the case that there exist venues who would do better to give extremists a voice so they can embarrass themselves, but that's quite different from a commitment to sincere pluralism to hear everyone out. By the way, in the end, the thing that did McCarthy in was not his public supporters vanishing because his speeches embarrassed him, it was the Senate voting to censure him and effectively curbing the platform they afforded him.
- slededit 8y ago
  Referencing McCarthy’s “friendly” networks and TV shows misses the point. “Disgusting” viewpoints can today be had on Drudge Report and numerous other places friendly to that viewpoint. Murrow had spent much of the previous year criticizing McCarthy’s attacks on freedom of speech and association. The equivalent today would be Rachel Maddow giving an entire episode to Trump to do with as he wished. Murrow did not have to do this - in fact he was under great pressure to just drop the thing entirely by his network. He did so because he thought it right to expose his audience to ideas other than his own. Many in the news business felt the same at the time.