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No, I would not feel the same way... I would likely boycott the company. I don't think there would be a legal issue, though. I always hate this part of these c
by cortesoft 6y ago
No, I would not feel the same way... I would likely boycott the company. I don't think there would be a legal issue, though.
I always hate this part of these comment threads; there is always a lot of conflation between legal and moral responsibilities.... I hate that people who think this sort of censorship is ok (and I am actually one of them) try to argue from a legal standpoint.... I am pretty sure almost everyone agrees that Wordpress isn't breaking the law here, so why argue that point?
As for the moral argument, I don't think I am being hypocritical to say it is morally ok to censor some things but not others. Not everything is the same.
In fact, I think even the most die hard free speech absolutists are ok with anti-fraud laws. No one is arguing that is ok to host a typo-squatting website pretending I am amazon and harvest login credentials. No one would say we can't take down that site because of free speech.
So, what we are really arguing about is degree; how fraudulent does something have to be in order for it to be ok to censor?
Personally, I think the decision should be made on a combination of the certainty that the content is false, along with the harm the content can cause. Fake amazon site is clearly false and clearly harmful; automatic censoring.
Flat earth society? Clearly false, but depending on what the site is advocating, it might be mostly harmless.
Part of the harm determination is also going to be based on evidence; how many people have we seen be tricked by the false information?
Basically, I don't think this is one of those issues that you can have a clear rule for, which is probably why programmers have such a hard time with the concept and default to saying we shouldn't even try.