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That is a horrible mischaracterization of free speech. The first telegraph network banned journalists who reported bad things against the telegraph company. Th

That is a horrible mischaracterization of free speech. The first telegraph network banned journalists who reported bad things against the telegraph company. They manipulated stock prices and influenced elections. That is why common carriage laws were made, which required communications platforms to provide neutral service to everyone. I'm sure that you would have been there, bravely defending the coal barons right to shut down journalists trying to report on union organizing, because they are a private corporation and they can do whatever they want on their property and not answer to anyone. You would have screamed "muh freeze peach" at journalists trying to report about labor abuses. Because they are not entitled to use the private telegraph network. Of course the line between ubiquitous large platform and government is blurry. That is why communications companies over a certain side must be forced to platform everyone, and can only be permitted to ban them when they have met certain criteria.

omegaworks 7y ago
Reporting on union organizing is not the same thing as issuing death threats. You're working really hard to blur the clear line between these two things, why?
- falcolas 7y ago
  Tell that to the union organizers who were killed because of those reports. So no, the line isn't that clear. It's worth remembering that at that point in time, the anti-union faction was strong and brutally violent.
  - omegaworks 7y ago
    You're talking about a totally separate thing here. Death threats are still not the same as reporting intended to expose organizers personally and potentially make them more likely to experience violent retribution. The issue you're grappling with is something that has no clear cut answer, namely: the question of whether doxxing is ever appropriate, and which major publications still face intense heat over. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/26/reader-center/whistle-blower-identity.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/26/reader-center/whistle-blo...
    - falcolas 7y ago
      Death threats are a psychological attack which does have significant consequences, though they rarely evolve into actual physical violence. While I don't want to downplay the potential psychological impact of a death threat, I also don't want to see the union busting activities shrugged off as mere "doxxing" (which, as an aside, has its own psychological harm). We in the modern US simply do not have a frame of reference for how brutal these activities were. Being outed as a union contributor in many cases was equivalent to a death sentence. A small excerpt from when a union activity was "doxxed" to the union busters: >>> More than 200 vigilantes or "citizen deputies", under the ostensible authority of Snohomish County Sheriff McRae, met in order to repel the "anarchists." As the Verona drew into the dock, and someone on board threw a line over a bollard, McRae stepped forward and called out "Boys, who's your leader?" The IWW men laughed and jeered, replying "We're all leaders," and they started to swing out the gang plank. McRae drew his pistol, told them he was the sheriff, he was enforcing the law, and they couldn't land here. There was a silence, then a Wobbly came up to the front and yelled out "the hell we can't."[4] Just then a single shot rang out, followed by about ten minutes of intense gunfire. Most of it came from the vigilantes on the dock, but some fire came from the Verona, although the majority of the passengers were unarmed.[5] Whether the first shot came from boat or dock was never determined. Passengers aboard the Verona rushed to the opposite side of the ship, nearly capsizing the vessel. The ship's rail broke as a result and a number of passengers were ejected into the water, some drowned as a result but how many is not known, or whether persons who'd been shot also went overboard.[6] Over 175 bullets pierced the pilot house alone, and the captain of the Verona, Chance Wiman, was only able to avoid being shot by ducking behind the ship's safe.[5] <<< https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_union_busting_in_the_United_States#Physical_attacks_against_unions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_union_busting_in_th...
- apostacy 7y ago
  Um, from the point of view of the telegraph/coal company, they probably would have said that they were protecting people from dangerous agitators and keeping the peace. But really, by your logic, they have no right to report on union organizing, because it's a private company and they should be allowed to cover up human rights abuses, because the first amendment does not protect it, or something.
  - omegaworks 7y ago
    >But really, by your logic, they have no right to report on union organizing, because it's a private company and they should be allowed to cover up human rights abuses, because the first amendment does not protect it, or something. You're really getting the power dynamic wrong here, carelessly swapping between powerful institutional actors and individual actors as though they were interchangeable and pretending I made a value judgement about a strawman you constructed. My point is that the issue is complicated and deserves more care. The ideologues claiming to champion a distorted, unbounded "free speech" flatten every issue and refuse to engage with the complexities of harm. They employ a technique that allows them to lazily wave away every piece of evidence we have about what is necessary to foster healthy, constructive, inclusive communities online and offline.
jknoepfler 7y ago
Insofar as radio frequencies, internet domains, cable infrastructure and the like are effectively government induced oligolpolies, they are protected media as well. In general though, yes, you have no right to have a particular editorial published in the new york times on your behalf. What the press deigns to publish is protected. You're also free to start your own paper, or blog, or whatever.
- falcolas 7y ago
  > or blog That's exactly what this discussion is about - you're not free to start a blog. Running any form of web site on the internet requires the support of multiple private companies, which can and do shut sites down at their whims.
  - jknoepfler 7y ago
    It requires exactly access to a DNS and an ISP, both of which do have an obligation to enable fair access. Access to some blog-hosting SaSS is another issue entirely. I'm content to provide my own stack from the server up. There is no realistic scenario where I can be deplatformed from purchasing hardware sufficient to host a blog.
  - belltaco 7y ago
    If it's just a blog couldn't you host it on a home internet connection using an ip address? I doubt ISPs would easily cut someone's home internet off. Is there precedent for that?
    - tareqak 7y ago
      1. Some ISPs have provisions separating home use and business use and are priced accordingly. 2. Some ISPs (possibly overlapping 1. or not) explicitly disallow hosting of any service on their Internet plans that they categorize for home use in their Terms of Service.
      - belltaco 7y ago

omegaworks 7y ago

Reporting on union organizing is not the same thing as issuing death threats. You're working really hard to blur the clear line between these two things, why?

falcolas 7y ago
Tell that to the union organizers who were killed because of those reports. So no, the line isn't that clear. It's worth remembering that at that point in time, the anti-union faction was strong and brutally violent.
- omegaworks 7y ago
  You're talking about a totally separate thing here. Death threats are still not the same as reporting intended to expose organizers personally and potentially make them more likely to experience violent retribution. The issue you're grappling with is something that has no clear cut answer, namely: the question of whether doxxing is ever appropriate, and which major publications still face intense heat over. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/26/reader-center/whistle-blower-identity.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/26/reader-center/whistle-blo...
  - falcolas 7y ago
    Death threats are a psychological attack which does have significant consequences, though they rarely evolve into actual physical violence. While I don't want to downplay the potential psychological impact of a death threat, I also don't want to see the union busting activities shrugged off as mere "doxxing" (which, as an aside, has its own psychological harm). We in the modern US simply do not have a frame of reference for how brutal these activities were. Being outed as a union contributor in many cases was equivalent to a death sentence. A small excerpt from when a union activity was "doxxed" to the union busters: >>> More than 200 vigilantes or "citizen deputies", under the ostensible authority of Snohomish County Sheriff McRae, met in order to repel the "anarchists." As the Verona drew into the dock, and someone on board threw a line over a bollard, McRae stepped forward and called out "Boys, who's your leader?" The IWW men laughed and jeered, replying "We're all leaders," and they started to swing out the gang plank. McRae drew his pistol, told them he was the sheriff, he was enforcing the law, and they couldn't land here. There was a silence, then a Wobbly came up to the front and yelled out "the hell we can't."[4] Just then a single shot rang out, followed by about ten minutes of intense gunfire. Most of it came from the vigilantes on the dock, but some fire came from the Verona, although the majority of the passengers were unarmed.[5] Whether the first shot came from boat or dock was never determined. Passengers aboard the Verona rushed to the opposite side of the ship, nearly capsizing the vessel. The ship's rail broke as a result and a number of passengers were ejected into the water, some drowned as a result but how many is not known, or whether persons who'd been shot also went overboard.[6] Over 175 bullets pierced the pilot house alone, and the captain of the Verona, Chance Wiman, was only able to avoid being shot by ducking behind the ship's safe.[5] <<< https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_union_busting_in_the_United_States#Physical_attacks_against_unions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_union_busting_in_th...
apostacy 7y ago
Um, from the point of view of the telegraph/coal company, they probably would have said that they were protecting people from dangerous agitators and keeping the peace. But really, by your logic, they have no right to report on union organizing, because it's a private company and they should be allowed to cover up human rights abuses, because the first amendment does not protect it, or something.
- omegaworks 7y ago
  >But really, by your logic, they have no right to report on union organizing, because it's a private company and they should be allowed to cover up human rights abuses, because the first amendment does not protect it, or something. You're really getting the power dynamic wrong here, carelessly swapping between powerful institutional actors and individual actors as though they were interchangeable and pretending I made a value judgement about a strawman you constructed. My point is that the issue is complicated and deserves more care. The ideologues claiming to champion a distorted, unbounded "free speech" flatten every issue and refuse to engage with the complexities of harm. They employ a technique that allows them to lazily wave away every piece of evidence we have about what is necessary to foster healthy, constructive, inclusive communities online and offline.

jknoepfler 7y ago

Insofar as radio frequencies, internet domains, cable infrastructure and the like are effectively government induced oligolpolies, they are protected media as well. In general though, yes, you have no right to have a particular editorial published in the new york times on your behalf. What the press deigns to publish is protected. You're also free to start your own paper, or blog, or whatever.

falcolas 7y ago
> or blog That's exactly what this discussion is about - you're not free to start a blog. Running any form of web site on the internet requires the support of multiple private companies, which can and do shut sites down at their whims.
- jknoepfler 7y ago
  It requires exactly access to a DNS and an ISP, both of which do have an obligation to enable fair access. Access to some blog-hosting SaSS is another issue entirely. I'm content to provide my own stack from the server up. There is no realistic scenario where I can be deplatformed from purchasing hardware sufficient to host a blog.
- belltaco 7y ago
  If it's just a blog couldn't you host it on a home internet connection using an ip address? I doubt ISPs would easily cut someone's home internet off. Is there precedent for that?
  - tareqak 7y ago
    1. Some ISPs have provisions separating home use and business use and are priced accordingly. 2. Some ISPs (possibly overlapping 1. or not) explicitly disallow hosting of any service on their Internet plans that they categorize for home use in their Terms of Service.
    - belltaco 7y ago