15 ms·

UK government’s plans to regulate the internet are a threat to free speech

233 points by timthorn 6y ago

djohnston 6y ago
The last 5 years have really made question the benefits of free speech in our hyperconnected world. My knee jerk reaction to defend free speech has certainly been dampened by the efficacy of disinformation campaigns in the West.
- raxxorrax 6y ago
  Because you don't know the alternative. There are worse things out there than bad opinions on the internet. Which disinformation are you talking about btw?
  - throwaways885 6y ago
    Both political parties have taken "misinformation" to mean "information they don't like", which complicates things. There are very different levels of misinfo: - Democrats think Trump is a Nazi/Russian collaborator - People who think Earth is flat - People who think Covid-19 is a globalist conspiracy from Bill Gates - so he can inject us with microchip vaccines - People who think Brexit is an amazing/terrible idea - People who think QAnon is a real issue - etc... It's simply too broad a brush to call it "disinfo", and those who claim to combat disinfo should be looked at with heavy skepticism for this reason. It will get abused for political ends.
- mrec 6y ago
  I think you have a very rose-tinted view of how these restrictions would be applied, and by whom. The power to decide what counts as "disinformation" would be the most valuable political real estate there is.
  - _jal 6y ago
    Exactly. If you want to see how this works in the real world, you're in luck, it is playing out right now in the Philippines and Hungary. If you find yourself saying, "yes, but it could work if only...", I'd suggest you are failing to understand human nature.
  - Riverheart 6y ago
    Guy didn't say he supported restrictions, only that his normal reaction to defend it has dropped due to significant abuses of it.
- pydry 6y ago
  When you argue the toss on freedom of speech you really have to ask yourself if it's worth entrusting these powers you think the government should have to people whose views you loathe.
- throwaways885 6y ago
  The minute the government comes to censor you, I sense opinions will change. Do not give up that right.
  - jaywalk 6y ago
    They will never censor me! I'm on the right side of history!
- rvz 6y ago
  Yes. Free speech has its consequences as one can use this to suppress someone else that they don't like and completely silence them because of other reasons. It is now far worse online than ever before. > My knee jerk reaction to defend free speech has certainly been dampened by the efficacy of disinformation campaigns in the West. These disinformation and smear tactics is indeed mostly driven by almost every group in the political spectrum but certainly used by the extremes on both sides. In the online side of things, we shouldn't believe everything we see or hear these things on the internet because now: text, images, sound, video, livestreams and now historical archives can be faked and replaced by AI tools. The worst part is: Everyone is now doing it, even the established media companies.
- 52-6F-62 6y ago
  The disinformation campaigns are definitely a problem, but I think peoples' susceptibility to them (as well as the very visible polarization etc) may only be growing pains. The challenge is to make it through those adolescent years in a good way. The current state of hyper connectedness has really come upon us all quickly. We weren't really ready for the challenges—we didn't really foresee what they would be. There was a lot of naive optimism. I'm still optimistic, but maybe just less naive now. Now that tech literacy is starting to become the norm, maybe we can advance to reasoning soon.
- disown 6y ago
  That's an argument against hyperconnection rather than free speech. Also, disinformation campaigns in the "West" have always existed. It's not anything new. And the only way to fight disinformation is with free speech. Free speech is what prevents disinformation to have total control.
  - save_ferris 6y ago
    > Also, disinformation campaigns in the "West" have always existed. It's not anything new. True, but what is new is that disinformation campaigns can utilize popular online platforms to communicate directly with susceptible individuals on the scale of billions of people. That has never existed before and private companies are clearly struggling to address it. > Free speech is what prevents disinformation to have total control. Unfortunately, disinformation doesn't need total control to be able to hijack a democracy, it just needs to be effective enough to keep the electorate wanting to support the officials that disinformation supports. To be clear, I'm very much on the fence on how we should move forward on this issue. But we now clearly live in a world that no longer has a commonly shared truth. One's perception of truth and belief in leadership style, or even the existence of criminal activity depends largely on your political background.
- Consultant32452 6y ago
  The most dangerous disinformation campaigns are coming from the cathedral. They aren't the ones who will be silenced by restrictions on speech.
- pas 6y ago
  Free flow of information is important, but not necessarily in any form. Eg. hate speech, which is pretty redundant. (The same slurs chanted for hours.) Similarly the same idiotic 2 bit memes and other forms of unfortunately rather effective propaganda is of little value after seeing the first few. How to even categorize and how to introduce friction against these is the hard problem of free speech. As long as someone contributes to a discussion that's valuable, even if their idea has a very low probability to be true/useful. But if they are simply repeating the same thing, they stopped contributing, they became noise.
abraxas 6y ago
Elections have consequences.
- raxxorrax 6y ago
  Not on this issue in Europe. Almost every party feels powerless and blindly tries to get power over content. Many parties are even afraid of democracy by now.
  - Shared404 6y ago
    > Not on this issue in Europe. > Many parties are even afraid of democracy by now. So they are afraid of the consequences of elections?
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - jlokier 6y ago
      For the same reason that regular people are afraid of the consequences of elections. It's heartbreaking, and for some life-ruining, what awful things the other side[1] do when they get in. Democracy is no game. [1] for each individual's value of "other side".
      - Consultant32452 6y ago
        "Democracy is people who run businesses well being forced to run businesses poorly by people who can't run businesses at all." ~ Michael Malice Just extrapolate this principle to everything people vote on.
commandlinefan 6y ago
What I’m becoming more painfully aware of with each passing year is that “free speech” is actually (sadly) a very unpopular ideal. We haven’t really had it in a long time, and we have less of it with each passing year - cheered on by a not insignificant majority.
- umvi 6y ago
  "The problem with freedom is that people abuse it and cause harm to others." Edit: (to be clear, I do not personally believe this, just offering a little insight as to how the "not insignificant majority" think)
  - macinjosh 6y ago
    Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me. Words are just words. One may hear or read words that provoke them to violence or other negative behavior but blaming the speech in whole or in part removes agency from those who choose to react in a negative way.
    - MiroF 6y ago
      > removes agency from those who choose to react in a negative way. "I order you to kill this person." Just a combination of words, and yet.... I think there is a continuum between this and non-violent+non-inciting speech and your comment does little to tangle with the difference.
      - Stupulous 6y ago
        "I was just following orders" does not defend one's actions, so the whole continuum must respect individual agency over others' speech.
        MiroF 6y ago
        > "I was just following orders" does not defend one's actions I hope you don't take the truth of that statement to mean that the leaders who ordered the Holocaust weren't morally culpable for the deaths of 11 million if they didn't personally kill someone themselves.
raxxorrax 6y ago
The current generation of legislators clearly overexert themselves. They try to achieve something, fail and then try even harder next time. That is not restricted to the UK. In Germany we already got our internet corp Ermächtigungsgesetz. All with good intentions of course... Gladly it had little effect outside of German platforms, which are pretty much non-existent.
sudoaza 6y ago
Not surprising from the government who has imprisoned and tortured Julian Assange for managing a news site.
bennyp101 6y ago
It will no doubt fall at the last hurdle. Another attempt to 'control' the thing they don't understand, ignore any technical advisors, and play to the crowds. Unfortunately there are a vocal group who want little Johnny protected from the big bad internet, and who have no desire to educate him themselves, so want a Gov approved scheme - and these sort of plans fit nicely into that. Hopefully common sense prevails again. Edit: If it does go through, hopefully it will be a UK Gov Tech project, and will go so horribly over budget and time that it will be scrapped after declaring some allowedwords.txt was a success
- _jal 6y ago
  The scolds and prudes who are honestly concerned with Little Johnny are just stalking horses. This is about what it always is: power, control and money.
  - bennyp101 6y ago
    Not sure where the money would come from (other than backhand "take this content off") but yes, it would very well be seen as a move to limit the information - and keep those social media bubbles going
    - _jal 6y ago
      Controlling information is how people become stinking rich. Think about it. Either on a very context-specific moment (think deal-signing) or on a very large scale (think Putin), large fortunes are made via information asymmetries.
- CraigJPerry 6y ago
  I've been really impressed by GDS, i know it's popular to bash on the gov but in this case, i really think it's mis-placed, they've been really good. Take a peek under the covers and see that their work was adopted in other nations too: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/government-digital-service https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/government-digit... Now if we're talking about a public tender then of course i agree completely. Are Capita still blocking new Army recruits due only to systems issues 12 years later...
burlesona 6y ago
I agree with the concerns that society is raising with unlimited free speech at scale via the internet today. Radicalization is a real problem. But I think decentralization and legal liability are better solutions. Drop section 230 and it becomes legally fraught and prohibitively expensive for Facebook to allow disinformation and hate groups to organize on its platform. Get serious about anti-trust so that one monopoly / monopsony isnt allowed to own another and now Facebook and Instagram have to be split up, as well as Google and YouTube. In a decentralized world with many more small networks, the scariest stuff (like state sponsored election manipulation) becomes much, much harder. With the addition of legal liability for the content your platform distributes, I think we’d see a shift toward far more HN-like sites and far less Facebook dominance. Finally, consider that our democratic process in the US needs to be more resistant to polarization and radicalization. First past the post voting and a lack of proportional representation are the key drivers of broken democracy in the US over the last thirty years. These are fixable!
- rayiner 6y ago
  > But I think decentralization and legal liability are better solutions. Drop section 230 and it becomes legally fraught and prohibitively expensive for Facebook to allow disinformation and hate groups to organize on its platform. No it doesn’t. Because of free speech laws in the US, there is no legal liability for whatever it is you are calling “disinformation and hate groups.” Moderation has created remedies against speech that have never existed before. > Finally, consider that our democratic process in the US needs to be more resistant to polarization and radicalization. First past the post voting and a lack of proportional representation are the key drivers of broken democracy in the US over the last thirty years. How would proportional representation work? It seems like most approaches would deemphasize the states, which would cause more polarization in my opinion. The polarization is driven by the fact that folks in New York want to micromanage folks in Iowa in a way that rarely happens even in unitary countries, much less putatively federal ones. In Bavaria they recently passed a law requiring Christian crosses to be displayed in all public buildings. Nobody is getting the federal government of Germany involved to overturn that law. But that’s the playbook for achieving any social change (sometimes good, sometimes bad) here in the US. Of course Germany manages to have a robust federal system as well as proportional representation, but the focus on voting reform seems to be mainly on increasing the power of the central government.
Hitton 6y ago
This would be more concerning if free speech wasn't limited so much already. Screws are already tightened so much you will barely notice difference.
- anentropic 6y ago
  Oh, you are right - I hadn't noticed, but now I am concerned. In what ways is free speech "limited so much already"?
  - Hitton 6y ago
    Few examples [0] from 5 years ago. Since then it became worse. [0]: https://reason.com/2015/04/26/the-slow-death-of-free-speech-in-britain/ https://reason.com/2015/04/26/the-slow-death-of-free-speech-...
confounded 6y ago
I’m strongly opposed to just about everything the UK government has done or proposed involving the internet, but the ‘Free Speech Union’ is an awful source to have on HN. The FSU is entirely a product of the “culture wars” of the outrage manufacturing twitterati, and offers to protect members from “feminist professors”. The UK’s Open Rights Group is the closest thing to a UK EFF (founded by Doctorow), and is generally a better source for policy like this. Here’s their wiki page on the Online Harms Bill[1], and opinion on its policy impact[2]. [1]: https://wiki.openrightsgroup.org/wiki/Online_Harms_white_paper https://wiki.openrightsgroup.org/wiki/Online_Harms_white_pap... [2]: https://www.openrightsgroup.org/publications/org-policy-responses-to-online-harms-white-paper/ https://www.openrightsgroup.org/publications/org-policy-resp...
- christkv 6y ago
  Have a look at the Scottish hate speech law then. It's as Orwellian as it comes.
  - rvz 6y ago
    Oh dear. Time to pack our bags and head to the principality of Sealand then.
- krona 6y ago
  More of a reaction to rather than a product of the culture wars, I'd say. Just like the heterodox academy.
- colpabar 6y ago
  > If you’re no-platformed by a university—a feminist professor who challenges trans orthodoxy, for instance—we’ll encourage you to fight back and members of our advisory councils may be able to tell you what remedies are available to you. it's actually the opposite - it's claiming if you are a feminist professor, they may help you.
  - regularfry 6y ago
    "challenges trans orthodoxy" is definitely picking a side.
Mindwipe 6y ago
Thankfully the Online Harms bill as has been pitched simply has no chance of ever coming to pass. It's now supposed to do so many things that it simply can't work, it's too big, too encompassing, and too vague. It will fall apart under it's own weight.
tialaramex 6y ago
I'm going to guess that many readers from this US-focused site have assumed this is like the ACLU or something but for Britain. It er... is not. It's a platform for Toby Young in particular, and a cadre of fragile Right Wing "intellectuals" to insist that it's wrong for anybody to even criticise their bullshit. This gives you some sort of idea: https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/4agqbn/toby-young-free-speech-union https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/4agqbn/toby-young-free-sp... I actually clicked this link before noticing the affiliation, because I thought it might have technical content and that would actually be interesting. It doesn't. So, ignore Toby Young, but as usual for HN people probably aren't much interested in the actual article so much as the headline anyway, here's the technical consequences of the "plan" if you want to call it that. This government (and its predecessor) have a core plan that relies on how the Internet worked in like 2016. Much of what people do is unencrypted and even when it's encrypted you can at least identify who they're talking to. So your backstop is that if sites are unco-operative (and we can assume many actively criminal and terrorist sites will not cheerfully co-operate) you block them in DNS. This is a known quantity, you can buy DNS blocking appliances at ISP scale. You can budget for it. The service providers will want so-and-so much money, you make them pass the cost on to their subscribers, hopefully it's not enough to cause push back that loses too many votes. However even this limited plan isn't actually popular (it polls badly with certain groups and it's too technical for your doorstep representatives to have any hope of justifying their position so best to shut up about it) and from 2016 onward the British government has had plenty of more important things to do. This plan keeps getting kicked into the long grass. To be clear: It's a government plan, the government could make time for it on the legislative agenda, this isn't like a US House bill that Mitch won't even read let alone bring to a vote in the Senate - but they are far too busy to prioritise this. Meanwhile it is now 2020. Meanwhile DPRIVE is deployed and ECH (what was once eSNI and now encrypts more stuff) is starting to shape up. So the DNS blocking strategy doesn't do anything any more. Now you'd have to rewrite the plan, invent new ISP-scale blocking appliances, goodness knows what those cost and what other problems they introduce, and you still haven't even tried to see if your plan does anything, much less achieves whatever nebulous goals are in your current white paper.
- 12elephant 6y ago
  Is it really that they don't want people to criticize their bullshit? Or is it that they don't want their bullshit to be censored off the face of the planet? Whether or not we agree with their views, should they not be able to express themselves, and how they truly feel? Imagine if your criticism of their viewpoints was being censored instead, so they got to speak un-opposed and un-criticized. I constantly hear that people should "be themselves", and "should not be made ashamed of who they are". It appears this advice falls down when the people aren't who we want them to be, or hold views we consider "wrong". If I hate a specific ethnic group, how else do you expect me to change, if not through sharing my views and then being challenged on those views. If you censor such a person, would you not then further radicalize them?
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
rootsudo 6y ago
We're okay with social media companies regulating free speech, but draw the line at governments. Ironic, isn't it? And yes, I'm well aware that Governments should endorse and not stifle free speech, but this message is propagated on social media platforms. The very systems that enable voice and disable voices because it's a violation of "Terms of Services" or in other words, revenue. But then again, governments grant rights, and social media tech companies, don't. Right?
- msla 6y ago
  > We're okay with social media companies regulating free speech, but draw the line at governments. > Ironic, isn't it? Not unless you're Alanis Morissette. The difference is the concept of monopoly: A government has a monopoly on being a government in a given region. That's pretty fundamental to what a government even is, as per Weber and Westphalia. A social media company isn't a monopoly on being a social media company. You can talk online without using Twitter, or Reddit, or Facebook, or even Hacker News.
  - Sargos 6y ago
    You can talk in the physical world without being in any particular country so none of the governments have a monopoly either. With that definition we don't even really need the concept of free speech as you always have a choice of where to speak. Social media sites have network effects and if you make your own site to put your speech on then nobody will ever see it. If you actually want to interact with others then you need to go on a big site that has a monopoly on the speech of that group of people. It's not that much different than a government and if we want to keep the concept of freedom of speech then we need to discuss whether those rights also apply in some way to public forums.
- jkingsbery 6y ago
  >governments grant rights Perhaps a subtle point, but I think it has consequences... there is a difference between a government granting rights and securing them. The [US Declaration of Independence](https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcrip...) puts forth the opinion that governments are instituted "to secure these rights." I think the regulation of speech is an example where it makes a difference what you believe - if the government grants you rights, it can take them away. If our rights pre-exist the government, then the government can only succeed or fail at accomplishing what it was instituted to do.
AnotherRainyDay 6y ago
Powered by AWS.
tpmx 6y ago
For those of us not paying attention to UK-specific stuff.. did that default-on porn filter legislation happen? How is this different?
crocodiletears 6y ago
Could somebody in the know explain what this would change with respect to free speech in the UK, outside of just taking things a little upstream? The country's government's already attempted to imprison a guy who taught a dog to perform the Nazi salute as a prank[0], sentenced a woman to community service for posting rap lyrics[1], visit your house for having the wrong opinions on the internet[2, 3, 4, 5]… So exactly what is being preserved by taking things a little further, and just preventing the speech it doesn't like in the first place? [0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2018/03/21/for-weeks-he-trained-a-dog-to-do-a-nazi-salute-the-man-was-just-convicted-of-a-hate-crime/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2018/03... [1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-43816921 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-43816921 [2] https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2018/12/20/37275129/fighting-on-twitter-in-the-uk-you-could-be-arrested-for-that https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2018/12/20/37275129/fightin... [3] https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-surrey-47638527 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-surrey-47638527 [4] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/01/24/man-investigated-police-retweeting-transgender-limerick/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/01/24/man-investigated... [5] https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/police-arresting-nine-people-a-day-in-fight-against-web-trolls-b8nkpgp2d https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/police-arresting-nine-peo...
- sebmellen 6y ago
  The UK is a police state, and the ideal of free speech is certainly dead there (unless, perhaps, you're willing to share some unsavory views at a Madrasa) [0]. [0]: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/dec/10/islamist-extremism-remains-dominant-uk-terror-threat-say-experts https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/dec/10/islamist-ex...
koonsolo 6y ago
The nanny state... I heard this expression about 15 years ago, and it is still true today.
hubbabubbarex 6y ago
UK has became very sad place to live.. I'm looking to move out very soon.. Sad country
s0l1dsnak3123 6y ago
Free Speech Union is a right-wing libertarian think tank headed by Toby Young, who has a bit of a reputation for being a clown. A good summary here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lv_kUE6t7n8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lv_kUE6t7n8
- nickff 6y ago
  I have no idea who Toby Young is, but why describe FSU as "right-wing libertarian"? Are they just normal libertarians? The vast majority of libertarians do not self-identify as being 'right-wing'.
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > but why describe FSU as "right-wing libertarian"? I would guess, from everything I've seen about Young and the FSU, because it is. > Are they just normal libertarians? Well, right-libertarians are a common subset of normal libertarians (in the US, most—but not remotely all—who identify as libertarians are right-libertarians, non-right libertarians are more likely to identify differently, but I don't think that that soft tendency applies to the UK, at least in the same degree.) So, sure in one sense they are “normal libertarians” but not representative of the broader group, AFAICT. > The vast majority of libertarians do not self-identify as being 'right-wing'. So? The FSU is not the vast majority of libertarians, and descriptions of someone's policy position can be independent of their self-identification. A Nazi doesn't become a moderate just because they self identify as “moderate”.
    - s0l1dsnak3123 6y ago
      Eloquently put, thank you. I happen to be a left-wing libertarian - when it comes to preference for utopian projects that is - and that informs my opinion of "the general direction things should go in", if you like. I like to make the distinction between left and right-wing libertarianism wherever possible. When you look up on Wikipedia, you'll even find that "libertarianism originated as a form of left-wing politics such as anti-authoritarian and anti-state socialists like anarchists, especially social anarchists, but more generally libertarian communists/Marxists and libertarian socialists." Another quick search, and you'll find that: > Right-libertarianism, also known as libertarian capitalism or right-wing libertarianism, is a political philosophy and type of libertarianism that supports capitalist property rights and defends market distribution of natural resources and private property. The term right-libertarianism is used to distinguish this class of views on the nature of property and capital from left-libertarianism, a type of libertarianism that combines self-ownership with an egalitarian approach to natural resources. In contrast to socialist libertarianism, right-libertarianism supports free-market capitalism. Like most forms of libertarianism, it supports civil liberties, especially natural law, negative rights and a major reversal of the modern welfare state. So I do think it's right to make the distinction between left-wing and right-wing libertarianism.
drummer 6y ago
The solution here of course is to stop voting and giving away your souvereignty to politicians (criminals) who will rule over you by force.
justanotheranon 6y ago
free speech should only be allowed for people to express Correct ideas. namely, ideas that i happen to agree with. everyone else should not have the right to free speech, and if they do speak freely, then they are Fascists who deserve to be arrested, tried, convicted and shot. sadly, while this sounds like hyperbole or sarcasm, this is exactly what a large percentage of people really do believe. you can't have free speech when a near majority wants to abolish it. therefore, ot's already too late. Free Speech RIP
Cro_on 6y ago
Apologies in advance for my lacking content comment. I'd just like to point out the large quantity of greyed out comments on this thread...
vilifiedtwin 6y ago
The problem is the right to be offended that seems to be a catch all term that makes it okay to block anyone from speaking about things other people don't like. Government seems to have fallen into this trap and believed that if they don't do something about those poor people who feel offended, they will lost the next election. It's actually quite bold hypothesis that they have - of course the next lost elections will have nothing to do with increased taxes, more crime and reduced freedom. Not at all. It's all because those pesky people speak their mind on the internet.

233 points by timthorn 6y ago

The last 5 years have really made question the benefits of free speech in our hyperconnected world. My knee jerk reaction to defend free speech has certainly been dampened by the efficacy of disinformation campaigns in the West.

raxxorrax 6y ago
Because you don't know the alternative. There are worse things out there than bad opinions on the internet. Which disinformation are you talking about btw?
- throwaways885 6y ago
  Both political parties have taken "misinformation" to mean "information they don't like", which complicates things. There are very different levels of misinfo: - Democrats think Trump is a Nazi/Russian collaborator - People who think Earth is flat - People who think Covid-19 is a globalist conspiracy from Bill Gates - so he can inject us with microchip vaccines - People who think Brexit is an amazing/terrible idea - People who think QAnon is a real issue - etc... It's simply too broad a brush to call it "disinfo", and those who claim to combat disinfo should be looked at with heavy skepticism for this reason. It will get abused for political ends.
mrec 6y ago
I think you have a very rose-tinted view of how these restrictions would be applied, and by whom. The power to decide what counts as "disinformation" would be the most valuable political real estate there is.
- _jal 6y ago
  Exactly. If you want to see how this works in the real world, you're in luck, it is playing out right now in the Philippines and Hungary. If you find yourself saying, "yes, but it could work if only...", I'd suggest you are failing to understand human nature.
- Riverheart 6y ago
  Guy didn't say he supported restrictions, only that his normal reaction to defend it has dropped due to significant abuses of it.
pydry 6y ago
When you argue the toss on freedom of speech you really have to ask yourself if it's worth entrusting these powers you think the government should have to people whose views you loathe.
throwaways885 6y ago
The minute the government comes to censor you, I sense opinions will change. Do not give up that right.
- jaywalk 6y ago
  They will never censor me! I'm on the right side of history!
rvz 6y ago
Yes. Free speech has its consequences as one can use this to suppress someone else that they don't like and completely silence them because of other reasons. It is now far worse online than ever before. > My knee jerk reaction to defend free speech has certainly been dampened by the efficacy of disinformation campaigns in the West. These disinformation and smear tactics is indeed mostly driven by almost every group in the political spectrum but certainly used by the extremes on both sides. In the online side of things, we shouldn't believe everything we see or hear these things on the internet because now: text, images, sound, video, livestreams and now historical archives can be faked and replaced by AI tools. The worst part is: Everyone is now doing it, even the established media companies.
52-6F-62 6y ago
The disinformation campaigns are definitely a problem, but I think peoples' susceptibility to them (as well as the very visible polarization etc) may only be growing pains. The challenge is to make it through those adolescent years in a good way. The current state of hyper connectedness has really come upon us all quickly. We weren't really ready for the challenges—we didn't really foresee what they would be. There was a lot of naive optimism. I'm still optimistic, but maybe just less naive now. Now that tech literacy is starting to become the norm, maybe we can advance to reasoning soon.
disown 6y ago
That's an argument against hyperconnection rather than free speech. Also, disinformation campaigns in the "West" have always existed. It's not anything new. And the only way to fight disinformation is with free speech. Free speech is what prevents disinformation to have total control.
- save_ferris 6y ago
  > Also, disinformation campaigns in the "West" have always existed. It's not anything new. True, but what is new is that disinformation campaigns can utilize popular online platforms to communicate directly with susceptible individuals on the scale of billions of people. That has never existed before and private companies are clearly struggling to address it. > Free speech is what prevents disinformation to have total control. Unfortunately, disinformation doesn't need total control to be able to hijack a democracy, it just needs to be effective enough to keep the electorate wanting to support the officials that disinformation supports. To be clear, I'm very much on the fence on how we should move forward on this issue. But we now clearly live in a world that no longer has a commonly shared truth. One's perception of truth and belief in leadership style, or even the existence of criminal activity depends largely on your political background.
Consultant32452 6y ago
The most dangerous disinformation campaigns are coming from the cathedral. They aren't the ones who will be silenced by restrictions on speech.
pas 6y ago
Free flow of information is important, but not necessarily in any form. Eg. hate speech, which is pretty redundant. (The same slurs chanted for hours.) Similarly the same idiotic 2 bit memes and other forms of unfortunately rather effective propaganda is of little value after seeing the first few. How to even categorize and how to introduce friction against these is the hard problem of free speech. As long as someone contributes to a discussion that's valuable, even if their idea has a very low probability to be true/useful. But if they are simply repeating the same thing, they stopped contributing, they became noise.

abraxas 6y ago

Elections have consequences.

raxxorrax 6y ago
Not on this issue in Europe. Almost every party feels powerless and blindly tries to get power over content. Many parties are even afraid of democracy by now.
- Shared404 6y ago
  > Not on this issue in Europe. > Many parties are even afraid of democracy by now. So they are afraid of the consequences of elections?
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - jlokier 6y ago
    For the same reason that regular people are afraid of the consequences of elections. It's heartbreaking, and for some life-ruining, what awful things the other side[1] do when they get in. Democracy is no game. [1] for each individual's value of "other side".
    - Consultant32452 6y ago
      "Democracy is people who run businesses well being forced to run businesses poorly by people who can't run businesses at all." ~ Michael Malice Just extrapolate this principle to everything people vote on.

commandlinefan 6y ago

What I’m becoming more painfully aware of with each passing year is that “free speech” is actually (sadly) a very unpopular ideal. We haven’t really had it in a long time, and we have less of it with each passing year - cheered on by a not insignificant majority.

umvi 6y ago
"The problem with freedom is that people abuse it and cause harm to others." Edit: (to be clear, I do not personally believe this, just offering a little insight as to how the "not insignificant majority" think)
- macinjosh 6y ago
  Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me. Words are just words. One may hear or read words that provoke them to violence or other negative behavior but blaming the speech in whole or in part removes agency from those who choose to react in a negative way.
  - MiroF 6y ago
    > removes agency from those who choose to react in a negative way. "I order you to kill this person." Just a combination of words, and yet.... I think there is a continuum between this and non-violent+non-inciting speech and your comment does little to tangle with the difference.
    - Stupulous 6y ago
      "I was just following orders" does not defend one's actions, so the whole continuum must respect individual agency over others' speech.
      - MiroF 6y ago
        > "I was just following orders" does not defend one's actions I hope you don't take the truth of that statement to mean that the leaders who ordered the Holocaust weren't morally culpable for the deaths of 11 million if they didn't personally kill someone themselves.

raxxorrax 6y ago

The current generation of legislators clearly overexert themselves. They try to achieve something, fail and then try even harder next time. That is not restricted to the UK. In Germany we already got our internet corp Ermächtigungsgesetz. All with good intentions of course... Gladly it had little effect outside of German platforms, which are pretty much non-existent.

sudoaza 6y ago

Not surprising from the government who has imprisoned and tortured Julian Assange for managing a news site.

bennyp101 6y ago

It will no doubt fall at the last hurdle. Another attempt to 'control' the thing they don't understand, ignore any technical advisors, and play to the crowds. Unfortunately there are a vocal group who want little Johnny protected from the big bad internet, and who have no desire to educate him themselves, so want a Gov approved scheme - and these sort of plans fit nicely into that. Hopefully common sense prevails again. Edit: If it does go through, hopefully it will be a UK Gov Tech project, and will go so horribly over budget and time that it will be scrapped after declaring some allowedwords.txt was a success

_jal 6y ago
The scolds and prudes who are honestly concerned with Little Johnny are just stalking horses. This is about what it always is: power, control and money.
- bennyp101 6y ago
  Not sure where the money would come from (other than backhand "take this content off") but yes, it would very well be seen as a move to limit the information - and keep those social media bubbles going
  - _jal 6y ago
    Controlling information is how people become stinking rich. Think about it. Either on a very context-specific moment (think deal-signing) or on a very large scale (think Putin), large fortunes are made via information asymmetries.
CraigJPerry 6y ago
I've been really impressed by GDS, i know it's popular to bash on the gov but in this case, i really think it's mis-placed, they've been really good. Take a peek under the covers and see that their work was adopted in other nations too: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/government-digital-service https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/government-digit... Now if we're talking about a public tender then of course i agree completely. Are Capita still blocking new Army recruits due only to systems issues 12 years later...

burlesona 6y ago

I agree with the concerns that society is raising with unlimited free speech at scale via the internet today. Radicalization is a real problem. But I think decentralization and legal liability are better solutions. Drop section 230 and it becomes legally fraught and prohibitively expensive for Facebook to allow disinformation and hate groups to organize on its platform. Get serious about anti-trust so that one monopoly / monopsony isnt allowed to own another and now Facebook and Instagram have to be split up, as well as Google and YouTube. In a decentralized world with many more small networks, the scariest stuff (like state sponsored election manipulation) becomes much, much harder. With the addition of legal liability for the content your platform distributes, I think we’d see a shift toward far more HN-like sites and far less Facebook dominance. Finally, consider that our democratic process in the US needs to be more resistant to polarization and radicalization. First past the post voting and a lack of proportional representation are the key drivers of broken democracy in the US over the last thirty years. These are fixable!

rayiner 6y ago
> But I think decentralization and legal liability are better solutions. Drop section 230 and it becomes legally fraught and prohibitively expensive for Facebook to allow disinformation and hate groups to organize on its platform. No it doesn’t. Because of free speech laws in the US, there is no legal liability for whatever it is you are calling “disinformation and hate groups.” Moderation has created remedies against speech that have never existed before. > Finally, consider that our democratic process in the US needs to be more resistant to polarization and radicalization. First past the post voting and a lack of proportional representation are the key drivers of broken democracy in the US over the last thirty years. How would proportional representation work? It seems like most approaches would deemphasize the states, which would cause more polarization in my opinion. The polarization is driven by the fact that folks in New York want to micromanage folks in Iowa in a way that rarely happens even in unitary countries, much less putatively federal ones. In Bavaria they recently passed a law requiring Christian crosses to be displayed in all public buildings. Nobody is getting the federal government of Germany involved to overturn that law. But that’s the playbook for achieving any social change (sometimes good, sometimes bad) here in the US. Of course Germany manages to have a robust federal system as well as proportional representation, but the focus on voting reform seems to be mainly on increasing the power of the central government.

Hitton 6y ago

This would be more concerning if free speech wasn't limited so much already. Screws are already tightened so much you will barely notice difference.

anentropic 6y ago
Oh, you are right - I hadn't noticed, but now I am concerned. In what ways is free speech "limited so much already"?
- Hitton 6y ago
  Few examples [0] from 5 years ago. Since then it became worse. [0]: https://reason.com/2015/04/26/the-slow-death-of-free-speech-in-britain/ https://reason.com/2015/04/26/the-slow-death-of-free-speech-...

confounded 6y ago

I’m strongly opposed to just about everything the UK government has done or proposed involving the internet, but the ‘Free Speech Union’ is an awful source to have on HN. The FSU is entirely a product of the “culture wars” of the outrage manufacturing twitterati, and offers to protect members from “feminist professors”. The UK’s Open Rights Group is the closest thing to a UK EFF (founded by Doctorow), and is generally a better source for policy like this. Here’s their wiki page on the Online Harms Bill[1], and opinion on its policy impact[2]. [1]: https://wiki.openrightsgroup.org/wiki/Online_Harms_white_paper https://wiki.openrightsgroup.org/wiki/Online_Harms_white_pap... [2]: https://www.openrightsgroup.org/publications/org-policy-responses-to-online-harms-white-paper/ https://www.openrightsgroup.org/publications/org-policy-resp...

christkv 6y ago
Have a look at the Scottish hate speech law then. It's as Orwellian as it comes.
- rvz 6y ago
  Oh dear. Time to pack our bags and head to the principality of Sealand then.
krona 6y ago
More of a reaction to rather than a product of the culture wars, I'd say. Just like the heterodox academy.
colpabar 6y ago
> If you’re no-platformed by a university—a feminist professor who challenges trans orthodoxy, for instance—we’ll encourage you to fight back and members of our advisory councils may be able to tell you what remedies are available to you. it's actually the opposite - it's claiming if you are a feminist professor, they may help you.
- regularfry 6y ago
  "challenges trans orthodoxy" is definitely picking a side.

Mindwipe 6y ago

Thankfully the Online Harms bill as has been pitched simply has no chance of ever coming to pass. It's now supposed to do so many things that it simply can't work, it's too big, too encompassing, and too vague. It will fall apart under it's own weight.

tialaramex 6y ago

I'm going to guess that many readers from this US-focused site have assumed this is like the ACLU or something but for Britain. It er... is not. It's a platform for Toby Young in particular, and a cadre of fragile Right Wing "intellectuals" to insist that it's wrong for anybody to even criticise their bullshit. This gives you some sort of idea: https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/4agqbn/toby-young-free-speech-union https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/4agqbn/toby-young-free-sp... I actually clicked this link before noticing the affiliation, because I thought it might have technical content and that would actually be interesting. It doesn't. So, ignore Toby Young, but as usual for HN people probably aren't much interested in the actual article so much as the headline anyway, here's the technical consequences of the "plan" if you want to call it that. This government (and its predecessor) have a core plan that relies on how the Internet worked in like 2016. Much of what people do is unencrypted and even when it's encrypted you can at least identify who they're talking to. So your backstop is that if sites are unco-operative (and we can assume many actively criminal and terrorist sites will not cheerfully co-operate) you block them in DNS. This is a known quantity, you can buy DNS blocking appliances at ISP scale. You can budget for it. The service providers will want so-and-so much money, you make them pass the cost on to their subscribers, hopefully it's not enough to cause push back that loses too many votes. However even this limited plan isn't actually popular (it polls badly with certain groups and it's too technical for your doorstep representatives to have any hope of justifying their position so best to shut up about it) and from 2016 onward the British government has had plenty of more important things to do. This plan keeps getting kicked into the long grass. To be clear: It's a government plan, the government could make time for it on the legislative agenda, this isn't like a US House bill that Mitch won't even read let alone bring to a vote in the Senate - but they are far too busy to prioritise this. Meanwhile it is now 2020. Meanwhile DPRIVE is deployed and ECH (what was once eSNI and now encrypts more stuff) is starting to shape up. So the DNS blocking strategy doesn't do anything any more. Now you'd have to rewrite the plan, invent new ISP-scale blocking appliances, goodness knows what those cost and what other problems they introduce, and you still haven't even tried to see if your plan does anything, much less achieves whatever nebulous goals are in your current white paper.

12elephant 6y ago
Is it really that they don't want people to criticize their bullshit? Or is it that they don't want their bullshit to be censored off the face of the planet? Whether or not we agree with their views, should they not be able to express themselves, and how they truly feel? Imagine if your criticism of their viewpoints was being censored instead, so they got to speak un-opposed and un-criticized. I constantly hear that people should "be themselves", and "should not be made ashamed of who they are". It appears this advice falls down when the people aren't who we want them to be, or hold views we consider "wrong". If I hate a specific ethnic group, how else do you expect me to change, if not through sharing my views and then being challenged on those views. If you censor such a person, would you not then further radicalize them?

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

rootsudo 6y ago

We're okay with social media companies regulating free speech, but draw the line at governments. Ironic, isn't it? And yes, I'm well aware that Governments should endorse and not stifle free speech, but this message is propagated on social media platforms. The very systems that enable voice and disable voices because it's a violation of "Terms of Services" or in other words, revenue. But then again, governments grant rights, and social media tech companies, don't. Right?

msla 6y ago
> We're okay with social media companies regulating free speech, but draw the line at governments. > Ironic, isn't it? Not unless you're Alanis Morissette. The difference is the concept of monopoly: A government has a monopoly on being a government in a given region. That's pretty fundamental to what a government even is, as per Weber and Westphalia. A social media company isn't a monopoly on being a social media company. You can talk online without using Twitter, or Reddit, or Facebook, or even Hacker News.
- Sargos 6y ago
  You can talk in the physical world without being in any particular country so none of the governments have a monopoly either. With that definition we don't even really need the concept of free speech as you always have a choice of where to speak. Social media sites have network effects and if you make your own site to put your speech on then nobody will ever see it. If you actually want to interact with others then you need to go on a big site that has a monopoly on the speech of that group of people. It's not that much different than a government and if we want to keep the concept of freedom of speech then we need to discuss whether those rights also apply in some way to public forums.
jkingsbery 6y ago
>governments grant rights Perhaps a subtle point, but I think it has consequences... there is a difference between a government granting rights and securing them. The [US Declaration of Independence](https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcrip...) puts forth the opinion that governments are instituted "to secure these rights." I think the regulation of speech is an example where it makes a difference what you believe - if the government grants you rights, it can take them away. If our rights pre-exist the government, then the government can only succeed or fail at accomplishing what it was instituted to do.

AnotherRainyDay 6y ago

tpmx 6y ago

For those of us not paying attention to UK-specific stuff.. did that default-on porn filter legislation happen? How is this different?

crocodiletears 6y ago

Could somebody in the know explain what this would change with respect to free speech in the UK, outside of just taking things a little upstream? The country's government's already attempted to imprison a guy who taught a dog to perform the Nazi salute as a prank[0], sentenced a woman to community service for posting rap lyrics[1], visit your house for having the wrong opinions on the internet[2, 3, 4, 5]… So exactly what is being preserved by taking things a little further, and just preventing the speech it doesn't like in the first place? [0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2018/03/21/for-weeks-he-trained-a-dog-to-do-a-nazi-salute-the-man-was-just-convicted-of-a-hate-crime/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2018/03... [1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-43816921 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-43816921 [2] https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2018/12/20/37275129/fighting-on-twitter-in-the-uk-you-could-be-arrested-for-that https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2018/12/20/37275129/fightin... [3] https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-surrey-47638527 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-surrey-47638527 [4] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/01/24/man-investigated-police-retweeting-transgender-limerick/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/01/24/man-investigated... [5] https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/police-arresting-nine-people-a-day-in-fight-against-web-trolls-b8nkpgp2d https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/police-arresting-nine-peo...

sebmellen 6y ago
The UK is a police state, and the ideal of free speech is certainly dead there (unless, perhaps, you're willing to share some unsavory views at a Madrasa) [0]. [0]: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/dec/10/islamist-extremism-remains-dominant-uk-terror-threat-say-experts https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/dec/10/islamist-ex...

koonsolo 6y ago

The nanny state... I heard this expression about 15 years ago, and it is still true today.

hubbabubbarex 6y ago

UK has became very sad place to live.. I'm looking to move out very soon.. Sad country

s0l1dsnak3123 6y ago

Free Speech Union is a right-wing libertarian think tank headed by Toby Young, who has a bit of a reputation for being a clown. A good summary here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lv_kUE6t7n8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lv_kUE6t7n8

nickff 6y ago
I have no idea who Toby Young is, but why describe FSU as "right-wing libertarian"? Are they just normal libertarians? The vast majority of libertarians do not self-identify as being 'right-wing'.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > but why describe FSU as "right-wing libertarian"? I would guess, from everything I've seen about Young and the FSU, because it is. > Are they just normal libertarians? Well, right-libertarians are a common subset of normal libertarians (in the US, most—but not remotely all—who identify as libertarians are right-libertarians, non-right libertarians are more likely to identify differently, but I don't think that that soft tendency applies to the UK, at least in the same degree.) So, sure in one sense they are “normal libertarians” but not representative of the broader group, AFAICT. > The vast majority of libertarians do not self-identify as being 'right-wing'. So? The FSU is not the vast majority of libertarians, and descriptions of someone's policy position can be independent of their self-identification. A Nazi doesn't become a moderate just because they self identify as “moderate”.
  - s0l1dsnak3123 6y ago
    Eloquently put, thank you. I happen to be a left-wing libertarian - when it comes to preference for utopian projects that is - and that informs my opinion of "the general direction things should go in", if you like. I like to make the distinction between left and right-wing libertarianism wherever possible. When you look up on Wikipedia, you'll even find that "libertarianism originated as a form of left-wing politics such as anti-authoritarian and anti-state socialists like anarchists, especially social anarchists, but more generally libertarian communists/Marxists and libertarian socialists." Another quick search, and you'll find that: > Right-libertarianism, also known as libertarian capitalism or right-wing libertarianism, is a political philosophy and type of libertarianism that supports capitalist property rights and defends market distribution of natural resources and private property. The term right-libertarianism is used to distinguish this class of views on the nature of property and capital from left-libertarianism, a type of libertarianism that combines self-ownership with an egalitarian approach to natural resources. In contrast to socialist libertarianism, right-libertarianism supports free-market capitalism. Like most forms of libertarianism, it supports civil liberties, especially natural law, negative rights and a major reversal of the modern welfare state. So I do think it's right to make the distinction between left-wing and right-wing libertarianism.

drummer 6y ago

The solution here of course is to stop voting and giving away your souvereignty to politicians (criminals) who will rule over you by force.

justanotheranon 6y ago

free speech should only be allowed for people to express Correct ideas. namely, ideas that i happen to agree with. everyone else should not have the right to free speech, and if they do speak freely, then they are Fascists who deserve to be arrested, tried, convicted and shot. sadly, while this sounds like hyperbole or sarcasm, this is exactly what a large percentage of people really do believe. you can't have free speech when a near majority wants to abolish it. therefore, ot's already too late. Free Speech RIP

Cro_on 6y ago

Apologies in advance for my lacking content comment. I'd just like to point out the large quantity of greyed out comments on this thread...

vilifiedtwin 6y ago

The problem is the right to be offended that seems to be a catch all term that makes it okay to block anyone from speaking about things other people don't like. Government seems to have fallen into this trap and believed that if they don't do something about those poor people who feel offended, they will lost the next election. It's actually quite bold hypothesis that they have - of course the next lost elections will have nothing to do with increased taxes, more crime and reduced freedom. Not at all. It's all because those pesky people speak their mind on the internet.