6 ms·

Seems reasonable to me! If your reason for existing is that "information wants to be free" but then you start making exceptions when it conflicts with your poli

by Meekro 6y ago

Seems reasonable to me! If your reason for existing is that "information wants to be free" but then you start making exceptions when it conflicts with your politics, people might think your real political philosophy is "pop music wants to be free."

jakelazaroff 6y ago
Or, more charitably: your stance on information and freedom simply isn’t absolutist.
- mc32 6y ago
  Or more accurately is they agree on the idea of censorship. That censorship has value to them.
  - jakelazaroff 6y ago
    If you don’t mind when platforms get rid of spam, child porn, normal porn, doxxing, death threats, ISIS recruitment videos or assassination contracts, then guess what: censorship has value to you, too.
    - mc32 6y ago
      Maybe misogynistic metal and rap music too? Maybe violent music and movies and video games... Why stop, we’re on a roll Very likely the World would be a better place if we only had happy music, happy movies, happy art. No angry art. No angry expression.
      - jakelazaroff 6y ago
        So to be clear, you're opposed to platforms removing any of those things? Child pornography and spam should remain up? If someone doxxes you, platforms should just leave it?
        mc32 6y ago
        No, we have legal and moral obligations when there are immediate dangers and harm. Simple expressions are different. Look, I wish the world were pure and good. That no one had ill intent. But we know that we cannot have good things because a very small fraction of a percentage are bad people. I don’t like having very bad people destroying freedom for everyone else. I believe people have a right to express unpopular even odious opinions as long as there is no threat to body and life. Unfortunately online media like Twitter give people psychological distance as well as augment the audience for kooks. I’m resigned to believing there is no solution to this dilemma because psychopaths will ruin it for honest but brutal dissenters as well as run of the mill dissenters.
        slg 6y ago
        >No, we have legal and moral obligations when there are immediate dangers and harm. Piratebay exists largely to circumvent the law. They therefore can't really use the law as a guideline for what to censor. They have to make active choices of what illegal content is allowed and what isn't.
        cycomanic 6y ago
        IIRC when pirate bay was founded what they did was not against the law in Sweden. It was only after immense pressure from the US that it became illegal.
        jakelazaroff 6y ago
        That's absolutely a fair position to take. But you have to realize that it's moving the goalposts from your original one, which was that anything short of free speech absolutism is "censorship". Discussions like this are frustrating, because one side frames it as though they're defending free speech from the insidious censors — except it's painfully obvious that if you push them enough, they'll admit that yes, there is some speech they're fine getting rid of. It takes a ton of effort to get back to that baseline, and the actual conversation about acceptable speech never happens. Because if you don't support literal free speech absolutism — with child porn, spam, et al. — then you have to draw a line somewhere. By definition. And we can debate where that line should be drawn, but the debate is still between people who agree on the principle that some speech is unacceptable. Not between Team Freedom and Team Censorship.
      - wp381640 6y ago
        Platforms set the policies to fit the communities they want to build. Twitter allows porn, YouTube, TikTok and Facebook do not Newspaper comment sections will often moderate the word "fuck", while Facebook, YouTube and other will not There are hundreds of dials you can tune in terms of moderation to adjust to fit the community you want to build. Apparently the Facebook moderation guide is 300+ pages long. Parler isn't a "free speech platform" - they pretty much have a ban on porn. You'll find that most other "free speech" platforms also have hard limits (usually _stricter_ than what Twitter allow). Try going onto thedonald and post one of the photos of Trump with Epstein, or Parler with porn, or Gab and curse Jesus[0] in a reply and see what happens They're not free speech platforms, they're _their_ speech platforms. They have built the ultimate safe spaces for some of the worst online communities. [0] Gab's own ToS refers to their discretion in removing content and a "God given right" https://gab.com/about/tos https://gab.com/about/tos
      - HeadsUpHigh 6y ago
        You write this as a hypothetical but this exact discussion has played out on torrent sites focused on music.
- stevesarmpit 6y ago
  Free Speech isn't a thing that applies to Internet companies, only the government and how they must deal with people who wish to speak in public forums. Internet providers and services aren't "public forums" given their infrastructure is not a public space, but a private space they control. Whether or not someone thinks these services are "censoring" things or not isn't a real argument, again for the reason it must be a ruling authority that violates law by removing a person's speech from a given area or location, which then is censorship. A company can't censor someone who is on their platform given the platform is owned, not ruled.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - wang_li 6y ago
    Free speech is a cultural value and a philosophy it, can apply to anyone and everyone. The first amendment of the US constitution protects the people from politicians and bureaucrats. Just because it’s done by a private party doesn’t mean it’s not censorship. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4t6zNZ-b0A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4t6zNZ-b0A
    - Codazoa 6y ago
      So does that mean if I am hosting a dinner at my home on my own private property and someone starts spewing hate at people I have to let him because it's his free speech? No, I'm kicking that asshole off my property and banning him from returning. It's the same for these tech companies. They are private companies and if you break their ToS for inciting violence or posting illegal shit then they have the right to ban you. You have freedom of speech, not freedom of consequences.
      - vfclists 6y ago
        Your home is not infrastructure. Internet service, banking and online payments are infrastructure just like water, gas and electricity and companies shouldn't have the right to cut you off on ideological grounds or because your spew out so called hate speech. Note I said internet service not a subscription to a social media service. Your internet provider may decline to provide you with email, hell the may even decline you to provide with you with DNS, but they sure as well can't refuse to route your packets or accept incoming connections. Apple and Google were within their rights to cut off access to the App store, but Amazon were in the wrong because they are an infrastructure company. At the very least they were obliged to allow Parler enough time to transfer to new providers.
singron 6y ago
TPB never supported absolute free speech. I can't find it now, but they used to have a section of their site where they posted responses to media company lawyers, and they basically said they wouldn't take down anything except child porn. I'm not sure if the rules have changed in the years since.
- userbinator 6y ago
  CP is one of the very few things where mere possession is illegal. It makes sense that TPB, which is mainly against copyright and IP, would not allow it.
  - berkes 6y ago
    > possession is illegal AFAIK this is not an absolute, global truth. IANAL, but I do know the stance on CP (e.g. anime, ages of wedding, written-Lolita- etc differ per region. Legal and cultural). In many countries, possession of certain books is illegal. Possession of blueprints of weapons is illegal and so on. Point being: banning CP is still a moral choice, made by the operators of the site, not some absolute, global common baseline.
  - DarkWiiPlayer 6y ago
    With CP it's also that making distribution harder might disincentivise the creation of the material, so removing it everywhere could have the very real effect of saving actual children. This might be a bit of a naive view on things, considering how some forms of content will always find ways of spreading, but it's still a very strong point to argue that it's different from content like 3D-printable pistol schematics.
    - jonathanstrange 6y ago
      It's not a strong point because you can make exactly the same argument for anything else you'd like to ban, including printable pistol schematics, anarchist cookbooks, terrorist propaganda, and so on. It's a cheap truism to say that if something is easily available this will make it more likely for people to become interested in it, will make certain people more inclined towards it, may create a market for it, and so on, than if the same thing was hard to find or not available at all. Yes, probably it will.

by Meekro 6y ago

jakelazaroff 6y ago

Or, more charitably: your stance on information and freedom simply isn’t absolutist.

mc32 6y ago
Or more accurately is they agree on the idea of censorship. That censorship has value to them.
- jakelazaroff 6y ago
  If you don’t mind when platforms get rid of spam, child porn, normal porn, doxxing, death threats, ISIS recruitment videos or assassination contracts, then guess what: censorship has value to you, too.
  - mc32 6y ago
    Maybe misogynistic metal and rap music too? Maybe violent music and movies and video games... Why stop, we’re on a roll Very likely the World would be a better place if we only had happy music, happy movies, happy art. No angry art. No angry expression.
    - jakelazaroff 6y ago
      So to be clear, you're opposed to platforms removing any of those things? Child pornography and spam should remain up? If someone doxxes you, platforms should just leave it?
      - mc32 6y ago
        No, we have legal and moral obligations when there are immediate dangers and harm. Simple expressions are different. Look, I wish the world were pure and good. That no one had ill intent. But we know that we cannot have good things because a very small fraction of a percentage are bad people. I don’t like having very bad people destroying freedom for everyone else. I believe people have a right to express unpopular even odious opinions as long as there is no threat to body and life. Unfortunately online media like Twitter give people psychological distance as well as augment the audience for kooks. I’m resigned to believing there is no solution to this dilemma because psychopaths will ruin it for honest but brutal dissenters as well as run of the mill dissenters.
        slg 6y ago
        >No, we have legal and moral obligations when there are immediate dangers and harm. Piratebay exists largely to circumvent the law. They therefore can't really use the law as a guideline for what to censor. They have to make active choices of what illegal content is allowed and what isn't.
        cycomanic 6y ago
        IIRC when pirate bay was founded what they did was not against the law in Sweden. It was only after immense pressure from the US that it became illegal.
        jakelazaroff 6y ago
        That's absolutely a fair position to take. But you have to realize that it's moving the goalposts from your original one, which was that anything short of free speech absolutism is "censorship". Discussions like this are frustrating, because one side frames it as though they're defending free speech from the insidious censors — except it's painfully obvious that if you push them enough, they'll admit that yes, there is some speech they're fine getting rid of. It takes a ton of effort to get back to that baseline, and the actual conversation about acceptable speech never happens. Because if you don't support literal free speech absolutism — with child porn, spam, et al. — then you have to draw a line somewhere. By definition. And we can debate where that line should be drawn, but the debate is still between people who agree on the principle that some speech is unacceptable. Not between Team Freedom and Team Censorship.
    - wp381640 6y ago
      Platforms set the policies to fit the communities they want to build. Twitter allows porn, YouTube, TikTok and Facebook do not Newspaper comment sections will often moderate the word "fuck", while Facebook, YouTube and other will not There are hundreds of dials you can tune in terms of moderation to adjust to fit the community you want to build. Apparently the Facebook moderation guide is 300+ pages long. Parler isn't a "free speech platform" - they pretty much have a ban on porn. You'll find that most other "free speech" platforms also have hard limits (usually _stricter_ than what Twitter allow). Try going onto thedonald and post one of the photos of Trump with Epstein, or Parler with porn, or Gab and curse Jesus[0] in a reply and see what happens They're not free speech platforms, they're _their_ speech platforms. They have built the ultimate safe spaces for some of the worst online communities. [0] Gab's own ToS refers to their discretion in removing content and a "God given right" https://gab.com/about/tos https://gab.com/about/tos
    - HeadsUpHigh 6y ago
      You write this as a hypothetical but this exact discussion has played out on torrent sites focused on music.
stevesarmpit 6y ago
Free Speech isn't a thing that applies to Internet companies, only the government and how they must deal with people who wish to speak in public forums. Internet providers and services aren't "public forums" given their infrastructure is not a public space, but a private space they control. Whether or not someone thinks these services are "censoring" things or not isn't a real argument, again for the reason it must be a ruling authority that violates law by removing a person's speech from a given area or location, which then is censorship. A company can't censor someone who is on their platform given the platform is owned, not ruled.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- wang_li 6y ago
  Free speech is a cultural value and a philosophy it, can apply to anyone and everyone. The first amendment of the US constitution protects the people from politicians and bureaucrats. Just because it’s done by a private party doesn’t mean it’s not censorship. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4t6zNZ-b0A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4t6zNZ-b0A
  - Codazoa 6y ago
    So does that mean if I am hosting a dinner at my home on my own private property and someone starts spewing hate at people I have to let him because it's his free speech? No, I'm kicking that asshole off my property and banning him from returning. It's the same for these tech companies. They are private companies and if you break their ToS for inciting violence or posting illegal shit then they have the right to ban you. You have freedom of speech, not freedom of consequences.
    - vfclists 6y ago
      Your home is not infrastructure. Internet service, banking and online payments are infrastructure just like water, gas and electricity and companies shouldn't have the right to cut you off on ideological grounds or because your spew out so called hate speech. Note I said internet service not a subscription to a social media service. Your internet provider may decline to provide you with email, hell the may even decline you to provide with you with DNS, but they sure as well can't refuse to route your packets or accept incoming connections. Apple and Google were within their rights to cut off access to the App store, but Amazon were in the wrong because they are an infrastructure company. At the very least they were obliged to allow Parler enough time to transfer to new providers.

singron 6y ago

TPB never supported absolute free speech. I can't find it now, but they used to have a section of their site where they posted responses to media company lawyers, and they basically said they wouldn't take down anything except child porn. I'm not sure if the rules have changed in the years since.

userbinator 6y ago
CP is one of the very few things where mere possession is illegal. It makes sense that TPB, which is mainly against copyright and IP, would not allow it.
- berkes 6y ago
  > possession is illegal AFAIK this is not an absolute, global truth. IANAL, but I do know the stance on CP (e.g. anime, ages of wedding, written-Lolita- etc differ per region. Legal and cultural). In many countries, possession of certain books is illegal. Possession of blueprints of weapons is illegal and so on. Point being: banning CP is still a moral choice, made by the operators of the site, not some absolute, global common baseline.
- DarkWiiPlayer 6y ago
  With CP it's also that making distribution harder might disincentivise the creation of the material, so removing it everywhere could have the very real effect of saving actual children. This might be a bit of a naive view on things, considering how some forms of content will always find ways of spreading, but it's still a very strong point to argue that it's different from content like 3D-printable pistol schematics.
  - jonathanstrange 6y ago
    It's not a strong point because you can make exactly the same argument for anything else you'd like to ban, including printable pistol schematics, anarchist cookbooks, terrorist propaganda, and so on. It's a cheap truism to say that if something is easily available this will make it more likely for people to become interested in it, will make certain people more inclined towards it, may create a market for it, and so on, than if the same thing was hard to find or not available at all. Yes, probably it will.