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The amazing thing to me is how the far left and far right seem to converge to the same censorship solutions, despite the fact that that they have completely opp

The amazing thing to me is how the far left and far right seem to converge to the same censorship solutions, despite the fact that that they have completely opposite ideology. I was laughing at the UK when it tried to ban pornography sites on the grounds of "morality". But it was the NYT who achieved it first. The result is the same: I don't like some of your ideas, so I will shut you completely, just in case. For the particular case of Phub, we should fine it, if it did not comply to takedown requests. But if it did, what is the accusation exactly? That it missed 200 videos from 18M ones? What is next? Shut down the ISPs that profit from this illegal content in their networks? Hard disk companies that store the content? Where does this end?

convery 6y ago
Horseshoe-theory is indeed a thing. As for where it stops; we've already seen Mastercard/Visa force platforms like Patreon to blacklist users, Cloudflare pulling routing to sites, registrars willing to essentially dox owners of 'bad sites', social media blacklisting links to stories hosted on gov websites, Chase-bank closing the accounts of people associated with controversial political groups.. Kind of makes you miss the good old days when companies were just mindlessly greedy rather than pushing morality/ideologies.
- jessaustin 6y ago
  Since you know the phrase "horseshoe theory" I'm a bit surprised you don't know that no one actually on the "far left" in USA proposes censorship. Instead it is a particular flavor of centrist identitarians who couldn't care less about freedom or class consciousness. They're just striving for a bit of attention like everyone else. If you accused them of leftism they would probably take offense. I'm not saying the far left don't have it in them, because obviously they did USSR etc. But that was in that context, in which by some miracle they controlled the murderous tools of a nation-state. In USA they know very well that they're in line for censorship (or whatever, really) immediately behind the pornographers. No one who appears on cable news is part of the "far left", no matter how loudly they shriek.
  - digianarchist 6y ago
    Far-left are usually anti-statist and therefore would be against censorship on the principal that the enforcer (the State) shouldn't exist.
    - jessaustin 6y ago
      The policies of the True Scottish leftists you hypothesize make a great deal of sense to me. I'm not sure they can wriggle out from under the twentieth century. Not all of the excesses of USSR and communist China can be blamed on Western imperialism.
  - cwhiz 6y ago
    Do you speak for the far left? I have seen seemingly infinite demands from liberal Democrats that big tech shut down covid disinformation and election disinformation. Surely you are aware of this. Is it your position that this isn’t censorship?
    - Tempory_terry 6y ago
      Liberalism is not a far left political position. It can lean from slightly left to quite right wing but it is neither far left nor far right.
    - jessaustin 6y ago
      Please read more carefully. You have seen that infinitude of demands on American cable and network TV news. I specifically identify that medium as antithetical to the far left. American conservatives seem not to be able to differentiate e.g. Adam Schiff from Michael Parenti. No human capable of respiration is actually that stupid, so this tragic misunderstanding must be due to the ignorance that is carefully fostered by American news media firms. The people who advocate censorship vote for all the same wars and inhuman abuses that you vote for. They're closer to your position than to mine. If they have anything to their credit, it is that they are less explicitly racist.
deleted 6y ago
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Twixes 6y ago
How is the far left _or_ the far right relevant in this? And how does the UK government _or_ NYT belong to either? Mind you that this is MasterCard and Visa who have forced this move on PH. Now, of course it's still a political issue, but internet censorship transcends the political spectrum

convery 6y ago

Horseshoe-theory is indeed a thing. As for where it stops; we've already seen Mastercard/Visa force platforms like Patreon to blacklist users, Cloudflare pulling routing to sites, registrars willing to essentially dox owners of 'bad sites', social media blacklisting links to stories hosted on gov websites, Chase-bank closing the accounts of people associated with controversial political groups.. Kind of makes you miss the good old days when companies were just mindlessly greedy rather than pushing morality/ideologies.

jessaustin 6y ago
Since you know the phrase "horseshoe theory" I'm a bit surprised you don't know that no one actually on the "far left" in USA proposes censorship. Instead it is a particular flavor of centrist identitarians who couldn't care less about freedom or class consciousness. They're just striving for a bit of attention like everyone else. If you accused them of leftism they would probably take offense. I'm not saying the far left don't have it in them, because obviously they did USSR etc. But that was in that context, in which by some miracle they controlled the murderous tools of a nation-state. In USA they know very well that they're in line for censorship (or whatever, really) immediately behind the pornographers. No one who appears on cable news is part of the "far left", no matter how loudly they shriek.
- digianarchist 6y ago
  Far-left are usually anti-statist and therefore would be against censorship on the principal that the enforcer (the State) shouldn't exist.
  - jessaustin 6y ago
    The policies of the True Scottish leftists you hypothesize make a great deal of sense to me. I'm not sure they can wriggle out from under the twentieth century. Not all of the excesses of USSR and communist China can be blamed on Western imperialism.
- cwhiz 6y ago
  Do you speak for the far left? I have seen seemingly infinite demands from liberal Democrats that big tech shut down covid disinformation and election disinformation. Surely you are aware of this. Is it your position that this isn’t censorship?
  - Tempory_terry 6y ago
    Liberalism is not a far left political position. It can lean from slightly left to quite right wing but it is neither far left nor far right.
  - jessaustin 6y ago
    Please read more carefully. You have seen that infinitude of demands on American cable and network TV news. I specifically identify that medium as antithetical to the far left. American conservatives seem not to be able to differentiate e.g. Adam Schiff from Michael Parenti. No human capable of respiration is actually that stupid, so this tragic misunderstanding must be due to the ignorance that is carefully fostered by American news media firms. The people who advocate censorship vote for all the same wars and inhuman abuses that you vote for. They're closer to your position than to mine. If they have anything to their credit, it is that they are less explicitly racist.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

Twixes 6y ago

How is the far left _or_ the far right relevant in this? And how does the UK government _or_ NYT belong to either? Mind you that this is MasterCard and Visa who have forced this move on PH. Now, of course it's still a political issue, but internet censorship transcends the political spectrum