4 ms·

I really don't understand this. I am not American so may have a different perspective, but if by being private, you are ok with censoring, then you are ok with

I really don't understand this. I am not American so may have a different perspective, but if by being private, you are ok with censoring, then you are ok with anyone banning blacks from their businesses, or not hiring gays, or only allowing women to go up the corporate ladder if they sleep around. After all, it is their private company, so why should I care about sexual harassment, blocking people, etc as long I am not the target? Heck, lets have white-men only private schools again, let's leave those blacks/gypsies/whatever out, after all, it is a private school so it should be able to discriminate against anyone.

kelnos 6y ago
I can anticipate the counter-argument to this: "well, discrimination based on race and gender is illegal, so they can't do that". Which is true, but kinda misses the point: it amounts to a position that discrimination and censorship is ok as long as it doesn't run afoul of local laws. If local laws reflect the totality of ethical and moral positions, that would be fine, but I think we all know that laws tend to fall far short on that metric. But I'm also sympathetic to the overall thrust of this. Let's say for a minute that hosting/distributing child porn wasn't illegal. Would you then call Zoom out as somehow evil for shutting down accounts that broadcast child porn live? I'll assume that people would be happy with Zoom shutting down something like that, and are also generally fine that there are laws banning child porn. So then it's impossible to hold a "no censorship at all" position, at least not without being a hypocrite. It's really "I don't like censorship, but it's appropriate in some narrowly-defined cases". Once we agree on that -- which we kinda have to, because that's the reality of the situation -- then it just becomes a matter of agreeing on what those "narrowly-defined cases" are, and of course I'd expect there to be disagreement. For example, I'm fine with a private company deciding they don't want to be used as a platform to distribute racist hate speech. But I'm not ok with a private company shutting down the account of someone organizing events around the Tiananmen massacre. But as long as people (including myself) are willing to say "well, none of the other videoconferencing solutions are good enough for my needs, so I'll look the other way", they can get away with whatever they want.
- odshoifsdhfs 6y ago
  The thing is, imo, we need to stand up for our values. Segregation ended because people raised up. Sexual Harassment laws the same. But seems now, if it is a Tech company, people judge them differently. Wether Facebook or Twitter or Zoom, 'oh I can vote with my feet'. But if that was the case 30-40-60 years ago, we wouldn't have the 'progress' we see now. And while I am opposed to child porn, if it is legal, I am not in favour of having private companies doing the censorship, but I would ask for people to be active on changing that law. Since that is opening a door I am not comfortable opening. We had YouTube/Twitter banning/blocking content that went against WHO guidelines, but we also had WHO guidelines being retracted one day after they were published. We had for days/weeks recommendations from the WHO that were just flat wrong, and we shouldn't let private companies censor information based on 3rd parties that are not 'innocent'. And as your point stands, you are ok with shutting and account based on child porn (Assuming in this context it was legal), but would you be also for someone being banned documenting Police brutality in the BLM protests? Both are(in hypothetical) sense legal, so the only thing we have here is your own morality doing that judgement. And different cultures/religions will have different views on all that, thus I believe as long as it is legal, private companies should never have the right to censor 3rd party speech if they provide a platform for that speech.
  - kelnos 6y ago
    > And as your point stands, you are ok with shutting and account based on child porn (Assuming in this context it was legal), but would you be also for someone being banned documenting Police brutality in the BLM protests? No, and that's exactly the point I'm trying to make. Perhaps I'm doing a bad job of it. > Both are(in hypothetical) sense legal, so the only thing we have here is your own morality doing that judgement. And different cultures/religions will have different views on all that, thus I believe as long as it is legal, private companies should never have the right to censor 3rd party speech if they provide a platform for that speech. And that's where I think you and I fundamentally differ in our beliefs. I think, absent a law either way, companies may -- and perhaps should -- feel free to exercise their own judgment about what they're comfortable broadcasting from their platform. And again, why is "the law" so revered here? The law (at least in the US) is filled with racist and racist-enabling garbage. Why do we hold it as some final word on morality? I don't think we should. Changing the law takes time, effort, and money. Companies refusing to broadcast certain types of speech can be a part of activism and lobbying in order to change laws. And if ultimately the will of society is that this refusal is wrong, there are remedies (legal and economic) for that, too. I believe I do understand your point of view; I just don't agree with it.
deleted 6y ago
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kelnos 6y ago

I can anticipate the counter-argument to this: "well, discrimination based on race and gender is illegal, so they can't do that". Which is true, but kinda misses the point: it amounts to a position that discrimination and censorship is ok as long as it doesn't run afoul of local laws. If local laws reflect the totality of ethical and moral positions, that would be fine, but I think we all know that laws tend to fall far short on that metric. But I'm also sympathetic to the overall thrust of this. Let's say for a minute that hosting/distributing child porn wasn't illegal. Would you then call Zoom out as somehow evil for shutting down accounts that broadcast child porn live? I'll assume that people would be happy with Zoom shutting down something like that, and are also generally fine that there are laws banning child porn. So then it's impossible to hold a "no censorship at all" position, at least not without being a hypocrite. It's really "I don't like censorship, but it's appropriate in some narrowly-defined cases". Once we agree on that -- which we kinda have to, because that's the reality of the situation -- then it just becomes a matter of agreeing on what those "narrowly-defined cases" are, and of course I'd expect there to be disagreement. For example, I'm fine with a private company deciding they don't want to be used as a platform to distribute racist hate speech. But I'm not ok with a private company shutting down the account of someone organizing events around the Tiananmen massacre. But as long as people (including myself) are willing to say "well, none of the other videoconferencing solutions are good enough for my needs, so I'll look the other way", they can get away with whatever they want.

odshoifsdhfs 6y ago
The thing is, imo, we need to stand up for our values. Segregation ended because people raised up. Sexual Harassment laws the same. But seems now, if it is a Tech company, people judge them differently. Wether Facebook or Twitter or Zoom, 'oh I can vote with my feet'. But if that was the case 30-40-60 years ago, we wouldn't have the 'progress' we see now. And while I am opposed to child porn, if it is legal, I am not in favour of having private companies doing the censorship, but I would ask for people to be active on changing that law. Since that is opening a door I am not comfortable opening. We had YouTube/Twitter banning/blocking content that went against WHO guidelines, but we also had WHO guidelines being retracted one day after they were published. We had for days/weeks recommendations from the WHO that were just flat wrong, and we shouldn't let private companies censor information based on 3rd parties that are not 'innocent'. And as your point stands, you are ok with shutting and account based on child porn (Assuming in this context it was legal), but would you be also for someone being banned documenting Police brutality in the BLM protests? Both are(in hypothetical) sense legal, so the only thing we have here is your own morality doing that judgement. And different cultures/religions will have different views on all that, thus I believe as long as it is legal, private companies should never have the right to censor 3rd party speech if they provide a platform for that speech.
- kelnos 6y ago
  > And as your point stands, you are ok with shutting and account based on child porn (Assuming in this context it was legal), but would you be also for someone being banned documenting Police brutality in the BLM protests? No, and that's exactly the point I'm trying to make. Perhaps I'm doing a bad job of it. > Both are(in hypothetical) sense legal, so the only thing we have here is your own morality doing that judgement. And different cultures/religions will have different views on all that, thus I believe as long as it is legal, private companies should never have the right to censor 3rd party speech if they provide a platform for that speech. And that's where I think you and I fundamentally differ in our beliefs. I think, absent a law either way, companies may -- and perhaps should -- feel free to exercise their own judgment about what they're comfortable broadcasting from their platform. And again, why is "the law" so revered here? The law (at least in the US) is filled with racist and racist-enabling garbage. Why do we hold it as some final word on morality? I don't think we should. Changing the law takes time, effort, and money. Companies refusing to broadcast certain types of speech can be a part of activism and lobbying in order to change laws. And if ultimately the will of society is that this refusal is wrong, there are remedies (legal and economic) for that, too. I believe I do understand your point of view; I just don't agree with it.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]