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You're oversimplifying this as well as constructing a strawman argument which implies it's a simple issue. It's not. You are on Hacker News, do you think people

by gfodor 6y ago

You're oversimplifying this as well as constructing a strawman argument which implies it's a simple issue. It's not. You are on Hacker News, do you think people here are think that the framing you make is objectively the singular one that has any moral standing?

vdnkh 6y ago
What a fantastic rant
- gfodor 6y ago
  OK, so you went with "lol fag" (as per pg's hierarchy of rebuttals) - I tried :)
x86_64Ubuntu 6y ago
It's not oversimplifying. For such a strongly libertarian leaning userbase, it's comical to see HN throw out the property rights of these ISPs and aggregators and replace it with screeching about FreeSpeech. None of these private entities are required to do business with you on the basis of your message.
- gfodor 6y ago
  I see. So if, for example, the phone company were to spy on your private conversations, and determine you are not a person they want to be associated with (say for example, you talk trash about their CEO) - if they were to terminate your phone coverage, we should just accept it in light of their property rights? It's not an analogy to imply ISPs are exactly the same, but property right supremacy when it comes to infrastructure is not a simple question.
  - baumandm 6y ago
    The problematic part of your example is your phone company spying on your private conversations, not them choosing not to do business with you. It's wildly different from a website company running their public business on another companies infrastructure.
    - gfodor 6y ago
      OK, so what about if you are hosting public conference calls they can join about how much their company sucks, and they cut your phone service? Analogies are a stupid form of argument, but I'm trying to surface the problem here somehow. (In this analogy they're not the conference call provider, they're just the phone service provider which enables you to use the conferencing service over their lines, if that wasn't obvious. They're a pipe.)
    - stale2002 6y ago
      > not them choosing not to do business with you. Alright, so then you'd be OK with some phone company, that has a monopoly on a certain geographic area or town, banning anyone who has made a public social media posts that is critical of the company? Do you see any problems with this position?
      - baumandm 6y ago
        I wasn't advocating any particular position in my previous comment. But to answer your question, no, I would not be OK with that. Utility companies (in the United States at least) are typically contracted by cities to provide service, and regulated by a public utility commission as well as various laws. I assume denial of service over social media would violate a number of regulations or contractual obligations. And I agree with that. Now if you're really asking whether or not various service providers should be regulated as utilities and obligated to provide service to everyone, that's a much more difficult (and vague) question that I don't have a easy answer for.
        gfodor 6y ago
        The point is regulating them is very specifically society stating "your property rights do not overrule the factors that led to this regulation." Which is the argument being made as worthy of consideration. Regulation that makes such coercion possible starts out as an argument like the one here. Saying these companies ought not to be able to censor people in a certain context despite their property rights isn't saying they should be arrested or something, it's saying we ought to regulate them.

by gfodor 6y ago

vdnkh 6y ago

What a fantastic rant

gfodor 6y ago
OK, so you went with "lol fag" (as per pg's hierarchy of rebuttals) - I tried :)

x86_64Ubuntu 6y ago

It's not oversimplifying. For such a strongly libertarian leaning userbase, it's comical to see HN throw out the property rights of these ISPs and aggregators and replace it with screeching about FreeSpeech. None of these private entities are required to do business with you on the basis of your message.

gfodor 6y ago
I see. So if, for example, the phone company were to spy on your private conversations, and determine you are not a person they want to be associated with (say for example, you talk trash about their CEO) - if they were to terminate your phone coverage, we should just accept it in light of their property rights? It's not an analogy to imply ISPs are exactly the same, but property right supremacy when it comes to infrastructure is not a simple question.
- baumandm 6y ago
  The problematic part of your example is your phone company spying on your private conversations, not them choosing not to do business with you. It's wildly different from a website company running their public business on another companies infrastructure.
  - gfodor 6y ago
    OK, so what about if you are hosting public conference calls they can join about how much their company sucks, and they cut your phone service? Analogies are a stupid form of argument, but I'm trying to surface the problem here somehow. (In this analogy they're not the conference call provider, they're just the phone service provider which enables you to use the conferencing service over their lines, if that wasn't obvious. They're a pipe.)
  - stale2002 6y ago
    > not them choosing not to do business with you. Alright, so then you'd be OK with some phone company, that has a monopoly on a certain geographic area or town, banning anyone who has made a public social media posts that is critical of the company? Do you see any problems with this position?
    - baumandm 6y ago
      I wasn't advocating any particular position in my previous comment. But to answer your question, no, I would not be OK with that. Utility companies (in the United States at least) are typically contracted by cities to provide service, and regulated by a public utility commission as well as various laws. I assume denial of service over social media would violate a number of regulations or contractual obligations. And I agree with that. Now if you're really asking whether or not various service providers should be regulated as utilities and obligated to provide service to everyone, that's a much more difficult (and vague) question that I don't have a easy answer for.
      - gfodor 6y ago
        The point is regulating them is very specifically society stating "your property rights do not overrule the factors that led to this regulation." Which is the argument being made as worthy of consideration. Regulation that makes such coercion possible starts out as an argument like the one here. Saying these companies ought not to be able to censor people in a certain context despite their property rights isn't saying they should be arrested or something, it's saying we ought to regulate them.