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My question to everyone supporting restrictions on speech and supporting privacy violations, even for good reasons, is this: are you prepared to have these tool

My question to everyone supporting restrictions on speech and supporting privacy violations, even for good reasons, is this: are you prepared to have these tools fall into the wrong hands? The same methods used to quickly shut down a dangerous website or to track down a terrorist by their online posts can be used to silence protests and to hunt down political opposition.

scrollaway 6y ago
I would agree with you in the context of a government or public body. But in the context of private companies, these "tools" were always available. The wrong hands were always able to use them. And did, many times, in fact. Like, the problems you're describing are real but they aren't new, and aren't particularly a bigger threat now than they were before.
- thisiscorrect 6y ago
  Market concentration might make them a bigger problem today than before, though.
duxup 6y ago
I'm not prepared to have them 'fall into the wrong hands'. But these platforms are owned by these companies. What rules do we put in place that they have to host some of this content? Blatant misinformation, vague encouragement of violence... hate? Is the price of free speech that someone has to host it? Who doesn't want to?
- revnode 6y ago
  > What rules do we put in place that they have to host some of this content? Blatant misinformation, vague encouragement of violence... hate? Why do they have to be rules? Why can't we have a culture of tolerance? Robots aren't running these companies. They're people, just like you and me. They can choose to be tolerant. Tolerance is about tolerating the most horrid things. Not because it's nice or those things have some value. They're horrid, they have no value. It's because the alternative is worse. Because censorship is worse. Because when a person is censored, when they can't speak, they resort to violence and through censorship, you encourage violence. And violence can't be censored. It can only be suppressed with further violence.
  - duxup 6y ago
    "culture of tolerance" What does that mean exactly? By that you mean you require someone host, intolerance? Is it a "culture of tolerance" if someone spews hate on me on a social media platform because of my race, because we're tolerating that? I'm still trying to figure out what folks think this alternate choice looks like... do we require people to host whatever gets posted?
    - lommelun 6y ago
      I agree with OP, opinions shouldn’t be censored, no matter how much we disagree with them. Anything that’s not harassment, a direct threat or direct call to violence should be allowed. To your example, if someone attacks you personally then that would count as harassment and be moderated out.
      - duxup 6y ago
        >opinions shouldn’t be censored Let's say I have a platform that let's people comment, so outside of direct harassment I shouldn't be allowed to delete things?
        lommelun 6y ago
        Well it's not really a question of what you should do, it was more a comment on what the ideal solution would be. Is your platform as large as Twitter, is it one of the main communication platforms in society, does it allow users to wield social and political influence? Is it a proverbial public square? If so, then in my view a wise and emotionally mature person would elect not to censor opinions, realizing that there are more important things at stake than hurt feelings. Of course I might be wrong when claiming that censoring opinions and mandating a specific morality will lead to more conflict (see another comment I made in this thread for more on that). Maybe it won't. I guess we'll find out in the next decade or so.
  - nl 6y ago
    > Why can't we have a culture of tolerance? The paradox of tolerance states that if a society is tolerant without limit, its ability to be tolerant is eventually seized or destroyed by the intolerant. Karl Popper described it as the seemingly paradoxical idea that in order to maintain a tolerant society, the society must be intolerant of intolerance.[1] If you haven't read Popper's "The Open Society and Its Enemies" then I'd suggest you do. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
danaris 6y ago
I...beg your pardon? What everyone's been talking about the past few weeks has absolutely nothing to do with shutting down dangerous websites, and any terrorist who leaves a trail of online posts that can be used to track them doesn't need anything special to be done to make that possible. People have been talking about the major social media platforms—who are, arguably, already pretty high up there on the list of "the wrong hands"—deplatforming users actively supporting attacks—physical attacks, in some cases—on our government, our democracy, and our Constitution. I mean, there is stuff to be genuinely concerned about in all of this as regards the future, and there's a real discussion to be had here, but frankly, I don't think this is it.
- opendysphoria 6y ago
  Yes
Barrin92 6y ago
>are you prepared to have these tools fall into the wrong hands? Yes, because society has a plurality of institutions that constrain power. Restrictions (even speech restrictions themselves) are subject to the court of public opinion (we're talking about them right now), there's the judiciary, political opposition and so on. This argument never had any pull for me for the same reason I'm against abolishing the police or abolishing surveillance or anything else. Power, even in the hands of people I don't like, can't be exercised arbitrarily.
- emptyparadise 6y ago
  What country do you live in?
  - Barrin92 6y ago
    Born and lived most of my life in Germany, now UK. I'd be willing to make that claim for much worse governed countries. My birth place influences my position a lot. After the end of the war we enshrined the principle of 'militant democracy' in our basic law. Giving the state and its institutions the explicit power to deal with threats to the constitutional order, not repeating the mistakes of the weakened government of the Weimar period that gave rise to unchecked extremist forces.
    - bawolff 6y ago
      Isn't that a counter argument to your point though? Like you're saying here that the weak weimar republic wasn't strong enough to check the extremist forces and hence that sufficient checks dont always exist.
      - Barrin92 6y ago
        My point is basically that I'm much more afraid of insufficient checks on radicalism and inability of society to deal with extremism than I am just with this abstract idea of tyranny. To bring it back to the topic of the US and Facebook. To me the censorship is not a sign of authoritarianism or anything, but lack of strong institutions. In the face of rising extremism and disorder Facebook effectively has to step in and do something to their best ability because in general the US has very few tools to deal with this at a democratic level. When I see pictures of someone dressed as a shaman on the dais of the senate and lawmakers cowering behind benches it's very weird to me to draw the conclusion that the pressing issue is too much authority and not enough freedom of expression.
bawolff 6y ago
What tools are these actually - the delete button? When it comes down to it - i like moderated spaces on the internet. I dont want to wade through spam, not to mention violent and abusive content. I don't like seeing shock images. So yes, i support having moderation. The question to me is not: yes/no moderation, its where you draw the line; what are your policies and how are they enforced. Fundamentally i think the solution is competitors. This was a much easier position to take when the web did not just have a few social media giants with network effects, but still: if youtube becomes to dranicon, start a new website. The tools to stream video (albeit not at scale) are just an apt-get away.
- emptyparadise 6y ago
  >Fundamentally i think the solution is competitors. This was a much easier position to take when the web did not just have a few social media giants with network effects, but still: if youtube becomes to dranicon, start a new website. The tools to stream video (albeit not at scale) are just an apt-get away. I agree. I wouldn't have a problem with YouTube doing anything if YouTube wasn't the video website. We need decentralization. But at the same time more and more often I also see these same concerns raised with decentralized networks (going beyond standard practices like blocking and preventing federation with instances), and that gets me worried.
  - JCharante 6y ago
    Decentralization of hosting responsibilities would certainly help bring down costs which is usually what makes it hard to make a competing hosting site. Then again any popular website _is_ going to need to go beyond standard protocol practices and try to censor certain illegal content. We could just change our culture to be satisfied with 720p content and use traditional websites that don't use p2p tech. Like, we could all just start using bilibili.com or some other chinese competitors instead of youtube.
    - Thorrez 6y ago
      Does bilibili.com have less censorship than Youtube?
joshuakelly 6y ago
They're already in the wrong hands. The only right hands are our own.
marcinzm 6y ago
That is why I prefer these tools be used by private organizations to enforce their own private rules rather than being managed by government mandate. That ensures that enough social rules exist to maintain society but not rules which are so ingrained in law as to prevent progress or allow trivial total abuse.
- emptyparadise 6y ago
  Would you support breaking the near-monopolies that certain organizations have?
  - marcinzm 6y ago
    Yes although that's a tangential topic I feel related more to power concentration in a society. None of the organizations have close to a monopoly on communication or content. They simply all agree right now which is generally how implicit social rules tend to function. Eventually they'll start to disagree again in one way or another.
    - username90 6y ago
      They all have American left wing bias. Personally I'd prefer if they had either European left wing bias or European right wing bias, but right now we only have one option and that is the American political bias which is a really shitty situation. I can't wait for Europe to either ban them in some way or reign in their rights to moderate.
      - seanp2k2 6y ago
        What is to stop any European companies from starting their own social networks? They are not monopolies, and are much less of monopolies than other de-facto monopolies which are allowed to exist without being regulated as such, such as ISPs in the US.
- jb775 6y ago
  When the private companies start getting billion dollar contracts with the government, or are lobbying politicians for laws massively benefitting the companies in the long run, it's safe to say the decisions behind the "private rules" will be impacted accordingly.
joubert 6y ago
Aren’t there more ways how and more places where you can speak out today than ever before? Aren’t people able to say more radical or extreme things at scale than ever before? I’m reminded of folks claiming that their voices are silenced but say so on Twitter, at physical events, on the news, etc.? The irony seems mind boggling to me.
- sneak 6y ago
  > Aren’t there more ways how and more places where you can speak out today than ever before? No. There was for a little while, but the number of avenues that one has for publishing unpopular speech are at a major low vs 10 or 15 years ago. Now, the internet has reached the status quo of broadcast media prior to it: a small handful of gigantic powerful organizations have total veto over what can be published.
  - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
    I'm pretty confident that, no matter what idea you want to express, you can find a forum on the Internet which allows you to express it. Even the most offensive, socially toxic ideas typically have a handful of forums that welcome them. Am I misunderstanding your argument here?
    - sneak 6y ago
      You can't find one that allows you to publish at scale. Screaming alone or in a tiny venue is very different than being able to publish to millions. Everyone's words and ideas should be able to live or die on their own merit, and not be bottlenecked by shitty hosting and blanket domain bans in posts/DMs. There are tons of places where you can post stuff; Facebook will happily censor DMs between consenting adults that contain your domain name when they want to share links to your content to others. Become too unpopular (or, more accurately, increase in popularity too much with the "wrong" people) and your host will cancel your account. There aren't that many datacenter operators.
root_axis 6y ago
Nobody is being hunted, that's pretty hyperbolic. If YouTube were silencing protests I wouldn't like that, but I don't rely on YouTube to understand what's going on in the world and I would encourage anyone concerned about YouTube's content policy to consider visiting other websites on the internet in addition to YouTube.
- opendysphoria 6y ago
  >Nobody is being hunted, that's pretty hyperbolic. That's pretty hyperbolic.
- sneak 6y ago
  > If YouTube were silencing protests I wouldn't like that, but I don't rely on YouTube to understand what's going on in the world A lot of people do. You can't really find out what's going on in the world from the mainstream media in any real resolution or detail, and "other websites on the internet" don't generally have thousands and thousands of people livestreaming actual live video of what's happening. Perhaps this could be rectified by our society working to make bandwidth an order of magnitude or two cheaper, so that there can be lots more live video hosts. As it stands, you're pretty much stuck with a few giant megacorps like Google or Twitch.
  - seanp2k2 6y ago
    This. Some media outlets have decent live reporting, but going through the available apps on a PlayStation, which is what we use to watch video on a big screen via a projector (we also have a Shield and a Mac mini connected to it, but those get used less), we ended up watching both large media cos and smaller channels live-streaming the events of Jan 6 on YouTube. If one looks at the available apps and platforms on smart TVs, there aren’t actually that many options. This could change, but there are high barriers to entry e.g. having enough of a platform that it makes sense to build an app for Samsung TVs, another for LG TVs, another for Sony TVs, then get those all certified and keep them available.
  - rat87 6y ago
    You can because the mainstream western media despite it's faults tends to be pretty good Meanwhile there are tons of crazy extremists streaming. A lot of it doesnt provide an accurate view and might only be useful as a potentially biased first hand account to digged through by journalists and historians after the fact
cutitout 6y ago
> are you prepared to have these tools fall into the wrong hands? No, they aren't, and when that time comes around they won't own up to the sophistry they spout today. Nobody has the right to leave it up to them. That is all there is to say. Don't ask the most spineless percentile, no matter how large, how to handle issues of this importance. edit: oh fuck off with your cowardly button clicking already. If you can't own it, it's shit. Cope with it.
- dang 6y ago
  Please don't post in the flamewar style to HN. Regardless of how right you are or feel, it only takes discussions into hell, and we're trying to avoid that here. It's possible to make your substantive points while staying within the site guidelines, so please do that instead. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - cutitout 6y ago
    The question was > are you prepared to have these tools fall into the wrong hands? and the topmost comment IS just sophistry, e.g. "So yes, i support having moderation." and so on. Pointing that out isn't "the flamewar style", it's anger at people being dishonest and spineless, even about an issue as important as this. You are ruining the bucket HN exists in, to protect sophistry on HN. > Regardless of how right you are or feel I am right, and these issues will take the WORLD to hell. > It's possible to make your substantive points while staying within the site guidelines, so please do that instead. Nah, I'm good. Save your own soul.
nl 6y ago
Yes. The solution to trolling has always been moderation. If the moderation is too strict then people leave and setup elsewhere. If it is just the trolls leaving then no one cares and it is a win/win.
joiguru 6y ago
It is important to acknowledge that this is a conflict between two ethical ideologies: Deontology/Kantian ethics vs Utilitarian ethics. The Deontological argument is that free speech is good, and any effort to curtail it would lead to a domino effect which will be disastrous. The Utilitarian argument is that this curtailing of free speech is acceptable as the alternative is causing more harm than good. Both ideologies have their limitations and criticisms, and there doesn't seem to be any clear winner.
- varvar 6y ago
  The philosophy that those who hold the power have will be the one winning, since they have the actual means to impose it, regardless of arguments. In this case it is Utilitarian ethics.
mercurialshark 6y ago
Yes, and I fundamentally reject the premise that inaccurate expression should be censored or moderated without a proximate cause to a specific harm or credible imminent apprehension of harm. I do not think censorship is justifiable for potential or non-quantifiable, collective psychic harm.
- opendysphoria 6y ago
  >I do not think censorship is justifiable for potential or non-quantifiable, collective psychic harm. Can you provide an example?
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - mercurialshark 6y ago
    If someone posts an inaccurate or untruthful comment that a reasonable person would not rely upon for their safety, I think the correct response is to mute, unfollow or retort (and if it's self-evident, hopefully it's easy to explain why it's inaccurate or link to countered evidence). However, the imminent apprehension of harm (from a direct, credible or specific threat), does comport with the concept of assault and is grounds for moderation. Likewise, demonstrating proximate cause from someones actions to a specific harm/damages, would also be grounds for censorship.
shrimpx 6y ago
You can make the same argument in the opposite direction: for those who support unbridled electronic speech amplification, are you prepared for it to fall in the hands of people who are bent on changing minds en masse to fill society with falsehoods, uncertainty, and violence? On a more detailed note, I draw a sharp line between normal speech and selectively amplified speech. Twitter and Facebook are in a bind because their business is to curate speech amplification in order to maximize exposure to ads. So if you ask “why did person X see post Y?” it’s because Twitter/FB decided to show Y to X. So they have automatically become at least partially responsible for the effect of that post. So to me this Twitter/FB censorship fiasco is not about free speech censorship whatsoever. It’s about these companies being in the business of deciding who sees what, being externally pressured to do a better job. It wouldn’t make any sense whatsoever to ask Twitter/FB to “stop censoring” while admitting that they should be allowed to curate feeds to maximize ad revenue.
- sneak 6y ago
  > You can make the same argument in the opposite direction: for those who support unbridled electronic speech amplification, are you prepared for it to fall in the hands of people who are bent on changing minds en masse to fill society with falsehoods, uncertainty, and violence? This seems to equate the ability to publish with a society that's filled with falsehoods, uncertainty, and violence. Is it possible that society won't have any more or less falsehoods, more or less uncertainty, or more or less violence than a society in which you don't appoint some "knows better than the reader" censor to decide what people are allowed to see and read? It seems insanely presumptuous to me that some censor at Facebook or Google won't turn into a violent maniac when they see the things you seem to propose that they censor, but the general, unwashed masses will. Give adults some credit. We've had the church around spreading falsehoods, uncertainty, and violence for centuries, and the world is still here (and still improving). I don't think letting people publish whatever legal content they like is going to suddenly send our world to hell in a handbasket. The danger from uncensored publishing is overblown.
  - dunnevens 6y ago
    You're just going to ignore the body count from the spread of falsehoods? The lynchings? The wars? The genocides? None of that matters? Not to mention the world is getting better only in a very narrow sense. Environmentally, we're entering a very dark period. The falsehoods surrounding climate change will cost us a great deal.
Thorrez 6y ago
>supporting restrictions on speech and privacy violations That's a confusing phrase. It took me a while to realize you meant "supporting privacy violations" rather than "supporting restrictions on privacy violations". You seem to be lumping speech restrictions and privacy violations into the same bucket, but I see them as very different, often even opposed to each other. The US elevates free speech higher than privacy. Europe elevates privacy higher than free speech. In many European countries the press isn't allowed to report the names or faces of suspects. In many European countries you can't take pictures of people walking on the street. Doxing is a clear case where free speech is directly opposed to privacy. Same with right to be forgotten.
- julianmarq 6y ago
  > You seem to be lumping speech restrictions and privacy violations into the same bucket, but I see them as very different, often even opposed to each other. And yet today there was an article in the front page claiming that Signal is a problem because its end to end encryption can be used by anyone, even "bad actors", to communicate. That's an attack on both privacy and free speech, and I wouldn't be shocked if GP had that article (and others like it) in mind. Mind you, most of the comments here rightfully called that article out for the absurd fear-mongering it was, and even the increasingly common censorship apologists were unusually silent. I was pleasantly surprised, even if it did still get a lot of upvotes and reached the front page.
- emptyparadise 6y ago
  Fixed the wording to make it a bit more clear, thanks. Connecting doxing as a privacy violation to free speech is a very interesting point that I didn't think about - I was thinking about data collection and tracking when talking about privacy violations. For what you bring up with doxing, I don't think I have a very satisfying answer. I definitely won't advocate for keeping it on social media websites. But I can't advocate for all-powerful tools that would allow even for actually dangerous content like that to be tracked down and removed from everywhere, because there is no way to ensure that tools like that will not be abused. Remove it from Twitter, block it on your own federation nodes, try to bring the perpetrators to justice, but, as painful as it is, you shouldn't have a magic button that would be able to completely eradicate that from the internet. It would also be good to reduce data collection and to teach people to be more conscious of what they share to prevent private information from leaking to begin with.
ogre_codes 6y ago
Your television and radio broadcasts have been "censored" and curated since the dawn of time. Newspapers have curated their content and various newspapers are known for having left or right bias. This isn't just the stations own content. If you paid to put content on television, radio, or in the paper, the publisher has always had the right to publish or not publish content (with some limits, but nothing this article speaks about would be protected by law). You couldn't have a cable community access channel with whatever content you wanted. YouTube/ Twitter/ Facebook have been and remain far more permissive in publishing outside content than any other media in history. You are implying that there is some kind of "new" restrictions on speech, but this is literally hundreds of years old.
- emptyparadise 6y ago
  I think social media is not directly comparable to television and radio broadcasts. The public square analogy makes much more sense here. But even then, in a lot of places there are impartiality requirements on media outlets, as flawed as they may be. Let me use your analogy, though. Let's say there are many newspapers in town. Is it fair for me to refuse to publish certain things? Sure. What if I own the only newspaper in town? It gets more complicated. But hey, perhaps the town has a thriving samizdat culture, so maybe it's fine. But then what if I start buying out every printing press in town? And on top of that, what if I'm pressured by the mayor to not publish something? This is a big issue now, right? How can that situation be addressed? People often suggest regulating that sole paper, but to me the answer is taking steps to ensure that we never end up with one newspaper in town. And we definitely don't let that paper control all of the printing presses.
  - ogre_codes 6y ago
    > The public square analogy makes much more sense here. But even then, in a lot of places there are impartiality requirements on media outlets, as flawed as they may be. The "Public Square" assumes the space is owned by... well the public. Either the town or city. That's not the case here. Even if it were, the reach of a person in the public square is tiny... a few hundred people if they are absolutely lucky. Besides... your rights in actual public squares haven't changed a bit. Save the fact that COVID has shut down many public spaces. > But then what if I start buying out every printing press in town? You mean the way Clear Channel has actually bought up a huge percentage of radio stations? The way big right wing corporations have bought up the majority of local television stations in the country? Is it "fair" that the majority of television broadcast stations are owned by a few right-wing media companies? For what it's worth, all three "competing" local broadcast television stations are owned by the same company now. I'd love to know why people think it's super important that Facebook and Twitter cease their supposedly "biased" curating while so many broadcast companies which reach 10s of millions of homes get a free pass.
ajkjk 6y ago
flatly, yes, that sounds like an good tradeoff. It seems unlikely to go wrong the other way, since people are mostly sane about this stuff and agree on what should be shut out (calls for violence, conspiratorial nutjob stuff, widespread misinformation). obviously the calculation would change if Putin-style misinformation was being defended by these people, but it's not.
- bzbarsky 6y ago
  I disagree about people being mostly sane about this stuff, for what it's worth. We may have very different filter bubbles....
tylermenezes 6y ago
Yes. This isn't the government hunting down political opposition, this is a private company saying "hey, neonazis go somewhere else". If a different private company wants to host the neonazis, they can go for it. It turns out it's /difficult/ for them because most people find them repulsive. I don't hear anyone making this argument for child abuse images for what it's worth.
- allarm 6y ago
  That’s because child abuse images are objective while “neonazis” are not. Regarding the “different private company”. Some of your people are already trying to deplatform Telegram now, because those “neonazis” went there after they were banned everywhere else. I have been using this platform to connect with my family for years and now all of a sudden my family and I are supporters of the “neonazi” movement somehow, because of how broad the definition of “neonazi” is, for the American left wing activists. Maybe you are okay with the collateral damage “for the greater good” but I am not willing to make this sacrifice to satisfy the American left-wingers and their witch hunt. I sympathize with the idea, but no, thank you. Please, think of another solution for your problems. Maybe, just maybe, you need to somehow use the law system of your country to stop them criminals? Or, in case they don’t do anything illegal (I’m not implying that they don’t, I’ve no idea) - maybe you just leave them be until they do something illegal? And then like catch them and stuff? And leave me my Telegram to call my mum every evening? Or - wow, even crazier idea - you do not ban them at all, but instead of that you follow their threads and actually prevent them from doing anything illegal when they starting to discuss it? My guess it would be much easier to do when you have this kind of transparency. I understand it’s not that easy as massive bans of everything that moves in a slightly different direction than yours, but this would probably be the right way. Thanks in advance.
jb775 6y ago
Since I primarily see the canned response of "they can build their own youtube if they don't like it", I'll rephrase to help get your actual point across: Imagine if Hitler were currently alive and rising to power in Germany, and imagine if Silicon Valley were located in Germany. Would you be ok with Silicon Valley de-platforming and doing everything in their power to silence the Nazi-opposition political party? And knowing what's about to come, do you think the stance of "they can build their own communication systems" would be beneficial to humanity as a whole? I'm aware this is kind of extreme but there are multiple responses that missed the point.
- Khaine 6y ago
  You do know the Weimar Republic had hate speech laws and enforced them against the nazis: Contrary to what most people think, Weimar Germany did have hate-speech laws, and they were applied quite frequently. The assertion that Nazi propaganda played a significant role in mobilising anti-Jewish sentiment is, of course, irrefutable. But to claim that the Holocaust could have been prevented if only anti-Semitic speech and Nazi propaganda had been banned has little basis in reality. Leading Nazis such as Joseph Goebbels, Theodor Fritsch and Julius Streicher were all prosecuted for anti-Semitic speech.[1] [1] https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/copenhagen-speech-violence https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/copenhagen-speech-v...
- lommelun 6y ago
  Would I be ok with suppressing speech if I was an omnipotent being who knew the future? Probably yes.
vmception 6y ago
The US has strong speech protections, somehow when people are wrong in their beliefs about what that means they move the goal post to this mythical “ethical” free speech maxim. I dont believe in what those people imagine free speech means. I believe in the “first amendment” which includes freedom of association including for the non-government people that create venues and platforms. “We have the right to refuse service to anyone” as seen on any shop any where. If you would like Congress to create a new regulation on interstate commerce preventing internet platforms from doing some particular thing, then articulate that specific position. I am absolutely not bothered the current reality, it is the expected reality and I would like the same privileges on my own venues and platforms.
- andrewprock 6y ago
  I have to agree with this sentiment strongly. As much as I may lament today's social media landscape, it is only a drop in the bucket when it comes to my ability to participate in our cultural zeitgeist. And as long as we are going to pursue capitalism with gusto, I am in favor of capitalists controlling their own business - modulo protected class issues.
  - blahblahblogger 6y ago
    > I am in favor of capitalists controlling their own business - modulo protected class issues What does this mean? Can you give an example of a protected class and how the business would be impacted?
    - jayd16 6y ago
      I think modulo is a bit misused here but race, religion, sex, age and more are legally protected classes in the US and a business' right to refuse service can not be because of discrimination against these protected classes. The parent wants to make it clear that they do support a capitalist's freedom to control their business in so far as it does not conflict with class protections.
- lommelun 6y ago
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
onlydeadheroes 6y ago
It will be easier to see who were the useful idiots when the usefulness runs out.
m463 6y ago
> can be used to silence protests and to hunt down political opposition. Isn't this what is basically happening right now? I don't have a horse in the game, but I do remember that quote: "I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" When I see lots of "this group denied" and "this online account disabled" stuff, I think they should weather the storm. I don't know, is this just a control-grab-during-a-crisis move?
rat87 6y ago
Moderation has already been occuring for a while now This includes moderation of left wing users and things that probably should not be banned(especially minority voices). It's just the the current crop of far right and conspiracy folks complain a lot more/louder. That said I do worry that it will be an extra excuse for authoritarian countries but it probably won't change their behavior
specialist 6y ago
Don't conflate omission with prohibition. Twitter can omit realDonaldTrump, no concerns whatsoever. But any one prohibiting realDonaldTrump from trolling, by whatever medium, would be alarming.
specialist 6y ago
What's your opinion of Project Censored? https://www.projectcensored.org/top-25-censored-stories-of-all-time/ https://www.projectcensored.org/top-25-censored-stories-of-a... Just to pick any example: What's the culture war label for the fate of journalist Abby Martin? https://www.projectcensored.org/24-silenced-in-savannah-journalist-abby-martin-challenges-georgias-bds-gag-law/ https://www.projectcensored.org/24-silenced-in-savannah-jour...
bcronk 6y ago
I think there's no such thing as free speech, and there never has been. Any forum worth reading has to be heavily moderated in some way. Things like scamming people and counterfeiting money are rightfully illegal. Any legitimate state is going to need to quell protests and hunt down political opposition, because at any reasonable population size you are guaranteed to have people who disagree enough with those in power to get violent and criminal about it. We saw this play out recently enough earlier this month on Inauguration Day. Politics is hard, and absolutist ideas like completely unrestricted speech, a completely unrestricted economy, or complete privacy are at best lunacy, at worst downright impossible. I don't think I would want to live in a society where anyone could say anything whenever and wherever, where corporations were completely unregulated, or where law enforcement could never hope to gather evidence because of privacy restrictions. So I think tools and methods for restricting speech and privacy must exist, and they will fall into the wrong hands, but it's ultimately up to the public to collectively decide and enforce what is acceptable and what's not. It's an endless struggle that's been happening not since the birth of the Internet, but since people started living in groups.

scrollaway 6y ago

I would agree with you in the context of a government or public body. But in the context of private companies, these "tools" were always available. The wrong hands were always able to use them. And did, many times, in fact. Like, the problems you're describing are real but they aren't new, and aren't particularly a bigger threat now than they were before.

thisiscorrect 6y ago
Market concentration might make them a bigger problem today than before, though.

duxup 6y ago

I'm not prepared to have them 'fall into the wrong hands'. But these platforms are owned by these companies. What rules do we put in place that they have to host some of this content? Blatant misinformation, vague encouragement of violence... hate? Is the price of free speech that someone has to host it? Who doesn't want to?

revnode 6y ago
> What rules do we put in place that they have to host some of this content? Blatant misinformation, vague encouragement of violence... hate? Why do they have to be rules? Why can't we have a culture of tolerance? Robots aren't running these companies. They're people, just like you and me. They can choose to be tolerant. Tolerance is about tolerating the most horrid things. Not because it's nice or those things have some value. They're horrid, they have no value. It's because the alternative is worse. Because censorship is worse. Because when a person is censored, when they can't speak, they resort to violence and through censorship, you encourage violence. And violence can't be censored. It can only be suppressed with further violence.
- duxup 6y ago
  "culture of tolerance" What does that mean exactly? By that you mean you require someone host, intolerance? Is it a "culture of tolerance" if someone spews hate on me on a social media platform because of my race, because we're tolerating that? I'm still trying to figure out what folks think this alternate choice looks like... do we require people to host whatever gets posted?
  - lommelun 6y ago
    I agree with OP, opinions shouldn’t be censored, no matter how much we disagree with them. Anything that’s not harassment, a direct threat or direct call to violence should be allowed. To your example, if someone attacks you personally then that would count as harassment and be moderated out.
    - duxup 6y ago
      >opinions shouldn’t be censored Let's say I have a platform that let's people comment, so outside of direct harassment I shouldn't be allowed to delete things?
      - lommelun 6y ago
        Well it's not really a question of what you should do, it was more a comment on what the ideal solution would be. Is your platform as large as Twitter, is it one of the main communication platforms in society, does it allow users to wield social and political influence? Is it a proverbial public square? If so, then in my view a wise and emotionally mature person would elect not to censor opinions, realizing that there are more important things at stake than hurt feelings. Of course I might be wrong when claiming that censoring opinions and mandating a specific morality will lead to more conflict (see another comment I made in this thread for more on that). Maybe it won't. I guess we'll find out in the next decade or so.
- nl 6y ago
  > Why can't we have a culture of tolerance? The paradox of tolerance states that if a society is tolerant without limit, its ability to be tolerant is eventually seized or destroyed by the intolerant. Karl Popper described it as the seemingly paradoxical idea that in order to maintain a tolerant society, the society must be intolerant of intolerance.[1] If you haven't read Popper's "The Open Society and Its Enemies" then I'd suggest you do. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

danaris 6y ago

I...beg your pardon? What everyone's been talking about the past few weeks has absolutely nothing to do with shutting down dangerous websites, and any terrorist who leaves a trail of online posts that can be used to track them doesn't need anything special to be done to make that possible. People have been talking about the major social media platforms—who are, arguably, already pretty high up there on the list of "the wrong hands"—deplatforming users actively supporting attacks—physical attacks, in some cases—on our government, our democracy, and our Constitution. I mean, there is stuff to be genuinely concerned about in all of this as regards the future, and there's a real discussion to be had here, but frankly, I don't think this is it.

opendysphoria 6y ago
Yes

Barrin92 6y ago

>are you prepared to have these tools fall into the wrong hands? Yes, because society has a plurality of institutions that constrain power. Restrictions (even speech restrictions themselves) are subject to the court of public opinion (we're talking about them right now), there's the judiciary, political opposition and so on. This argument never had any pull for me for the same reason I'm against abolishing the police or abolishing surveillance or anything else. Power, even in the hands of people I don't like, can't be exercised arbitrarily.

emptyparadise 6y ago
What country do you live in?
- Barrin92 6y ago
  Born and lived most of my life in Germany, now UK. I'd be willing to make that claim for much worse governed countries. My birth place influences my position a lot. After the end of the war we enshrined the principle of 'militant democracy' in our basic law. Giving the state and its institutions the explicit power to deal with threats to the constitutional order, not repeating the mistakes of the weakened government of the Weimar period that gave rise to unchecked extremist forces.
  - bawolff 6y ago
    Isn't that a counter argument to your point though? Like you're saying here that the weak weimar republic wasn't strong enough to check the extremist forces and hence that sufficient checks dont always exist.
    - Barrin92 6y ago
      My point is basically that I'm much more afraid of insufficient checks on radicalism and inability of society to deal with extremism than I am just with this abstract idea of tyranny. To bring it back to the topic of the US and Facebook. To me the censorship is not a sign of authoritarianism or anything, but lack of strong institutions. In the face of rising extremism and disorder Facebook effectively has to step in and do something to their best ability because in general the US has very few tools to deal with this at a democratic level. When I see pictures of someone dressed as a shaman on the dais of the senate and lawmakers cowering behind benches it's very weird to me to draw the conclusion that the pressing issue is too much authority and not enough freedom of expression.

bawolff 6y ago

What tools are these actually - the delete button? When it comes down to it - i like moderated spaces on the internet. I dont want to wade through spam, not to mention violent and abusive content. I don't like seeing shock images. So yes, i support having moderation. The question to me is not: yes/no moderation, its where you draw the line; what are your policies and how are they enforced. Fundamentally i think the solution is competitors. This was a much easier position to take when the web did not just have a few social media giants with network effects, but still: if youtube becomes to dranicon, start a new website. The tools to stream video (albeit not at scale) are just an apt-get away.

emptyparadise 6y ago
>Fundamentally i think the solution is competitors. This was a much easier position to take when the web did not just have a few social media giants with network effects, but still: if youtube becomes to dranicon, start a new website. The tools to stream video (albeit not at scale) are just an apt-get away. I agree. I wouldn't have a problem with YouTube doing anything if YouTube wasn't the video website. We need decentralization. But at the same time more and more often I also see these same concerns raised with decentralized networks (going beyond standard practices like blocking and preventing federation with instances), and that gets me worried.
- JCharante 6y ago
  Decentralization of hosting responsibilities would certainly help bring down costs which is usually what makes it hard to make a competing hosting site. Then again any popular website _is_ going to need to go beyond standard protocol practices and try to censor certain illegal content. We could just change our culture to be satisfied with 720p content and use traditional websites that don't use p2p tech. Like, we could all just start using bilibili.com or some other chinese competitors instead of youtube.
  - Thorrez 6y ago
    Does bilibili.com have less censorship than Youtube?

joshuakelly 6y ago

They're already in the wrong hands. The only right hands are our own.

marcinzm 6y ago

That is why I prefer these tools be used by private organizations to enforce their own private rules rather than being managed by government mandate. That ensures that enough social rules exist to maintain society but not rules which are so ingrained in law as to prevent progress or allow trivial total abuse.

emptyparadise 6y ago
Would you support breaking the near-monopolies that certain organizations have?
- marcinzm 6y ago
  Yes although that's a tangential topic I feel related more to power concentration in a society. None of the organizations have close to a monopoly on communication or content. They simply all agree right now which is generally how implicit social rules tend to function. Eventually they'll start to disagree again in one way or another.
  - username90 6y ago
    They all have American left wing bias. Personally I'd prefer if they had either European left wing bias or European right wing bias, but right now we only have one option and that is the American political bias which is a really shitty situation. I can't wait for Europe to either ban them in some way or reign in their rights to moderate.
    - seanp2k2 6y ago
      What is to stop any European companies from starting their own social networks? They are not monopolies, and are much less of monopolies than other de-facto monopolies which are allowed to exist without being regulated as such, such as ISPs in the US.
jb775 6y ago
When the private companies start getting billion dollar contracts with the government, or are lobbying politicians for laws massively benefitting the companies in the long run, it's safe to say the decisions behind the "private rules" will be impacted accordingly.

joubert 6y ago

Aren’t there more ways how and more places where you can speak out today than ever before? Aren’t people able to say more radical or extreme things at scale than ever before? I’m reminded of folks claiming that their voices are silenced but say so on Twitter, at physical events, on the news, etc.? The irony seems mind boggling to me.

sneak 6y ago
> Aren’t there more ways how and more places where you can speak out today than ever before? No. There was for a little while, but the number of avenues that one has for publishing unpopular speech are at a major low vs 10 or 15 years ago. Now, the internet has reached the status quo of broadcast media prior to it: a small handful of gigantic powerful organizations have total veto over what can be published.
- SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
  I'm pretty confident that, no matter what idea you want to express, you can find a forum on the Internet which allows you to express it. Even the most offensive, socially toxic ideas typically have a handful of forums that welcome them. Am I misunderstanding your argument here?
  - sneak 6y ago
    You can't find one that allows you to publish at scale. Screaming alone or in a tiny venue is very different than being able to publish to millions. Everyone's words and ideas should be able to live or die on their own merit, and not be bottlenecked by shitty hosting and blanket domain bans in posts/DMs. There are tons of places where you can post stuff; Facebook will happily censor DMs between consenting adults that contain your domain name when they want to share links to your content to others. Become too unpopular (or, more accurately, increase in popularity too much with the "wrong" people) and your host will cancel your account. There aren't that many datacenter operators.

root_axis 6y ago

Nobody is being hunted, that's pretty hyperbolic. If YouTube were silencing protests I wouldn't like that, but I don't rely on YouTube to understand what's going on in the world and I would encourage anyone concerned about YouTube's content policy to consider visiting other websites on the internet in addition to YouTube.

opendysphoria 6y ago
>Nobody is being hunted, that's pretty hyperbolic. That's pretty hyperbolic.
sneak 6y ago
> If YouTube were silencing protests I wouldn't like that, but I don't rely on YouTube to understand what's going on in the world A lot of people do. You can't really find out what's going on in the world from the mainstream media in any real resolution or detail, and "other websites on the internet" don't generally have thousands and thousands of people livestreaming actual live video of what's happening. Perhaps this could be rectified by our society working to make bandwidth an order of magnitude or two cheaper, so that there can be lots more live video hosts. As it stands, you're pretty much stuck with a few giant megacorps like Google or Twitch.
- seanp2k2 6y ago
  This. Some media outlets have decent live reporting, but going through the available apps on a PlayStation, which is what we use to watch video on a big screen via a projector (we also have a Shield and a Mac mini connected to it, but those get used less), we ended up watching both large media cos and smaller channels live-streaming the events of Jan 6 on YouTube. If one looks at the available apps and platforms on smart TVs, there aren’t actually that many options. This could change, but there are high barriers to entry e.g. having enough of a platform that it makes sense to build an app for Samsung TVs, another for LG TVs, another for Sony TVs, then get those all certified and keep them available.
- rat87 6y ago
  You can because the mainstream western media despite it's faults tends to be pretty good Meanwhile there are tons of crazy extremists streaming. A lot of it doesnt provide an accurate view and might only be useful as a potentially biased first hand account to digged through by journalists and historians after the fact

cutitout 6y ago

> are you prepared to have these tools fall into the wrong hands? No, they aren't, and when that time comes around they won't own up to the sophistry they spout today. Nobody has the right to leave it up to them. That is all there is to say. Don't ask the most spineless percentile, no matter how large, how to handle issues of this importance. edit: oh fuck off with your cowardly button clicking already. If you can't own it, it's shit. Cope with it.

dang 6y ago
Please don't post in the flamewar style to HN. Regardless of how right you are or feel, it only takes discussions into hell, and we're trying to avoid that here. It's possible to make your substantive points while staying within the site guidelines, so please do that instead. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- cutitout 6y ago
  The question was > are you prepared to have these tools fall into the wrong hands? and the topmost comment IS just sophistry, e.g. "So yes, i support having moderation." and so on. Pointing that out isn't "the flamewar style", it's anger at people being dishonest and spineless, even about an issue as important as this. You are ruining the bucket HN exists in, to protect sophistry on HN. > Regardless of how right you are or feel I am right, and these issues will take the WORLD to hell. > It's possible to make your substantive points while staying within the site guidelines, so please do that instead. Nah, I'm good. Save your own soul.

nl 6y ago

Yes. The solution to trolling has always been moderation. If the moderation is too strict then people leave and setup elsewhere. If it is just the trolls leaving then no one cares and it is a win/win.

joiguru 6y ago

It is important to acknowledge that this is a conflict between two ethical ideologies: Deontology/Kantian ethics vs Utilitarian ethics. The Deontological argument is that free speech is good, and any effort to curtail it would lead to a domino effect which will be disastrous. The Utilitarian argument is that this curtailing of free speech is acceptable as the alternative is causing more harm than good. Both ideologies have their limitations and criticisms, and there doesn't seem to be any clear winner.

varvar 6y ago
The philosophy that those who hold the power have will be the one winning, since they have the actual means to impose it, regardless of arguments. In this case it is Utilitarian ethics.

mercurialshark 6y ago

Yes, and I fundamentally reject the premise that inaccurate expression should be censored or moderated without a proximate cause to a specific harm or credible imminent apprehension of harm. I do not think censorship is justifiable for potential or non-quantifiable, collective psychic harm.

opendysphoria 6y ago
>I do not think censorship is justifiable for potential or non-quantifiable, collective psychic harm. Can you provide an example?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- mercurialshark 6y ago
  If someone posts an inaccurate or untruthful comment that a reasonable person would not rely upon for their safety, I think the correct response is to mute, unfollow or retort (and if it's self-evident, hopefully it's easy to explain why it's inaccurate or link to countered evidence). However, the imminent apprehension of harm (from a direct, credible or specific threat), does comport with the concept of assault and is grounds for moderation. Likewise, demonstrating proximate cause from someones actions to a specific harm/damages, would also be grounds for censorship.

shrimpx 6y ago

You can make the same argument in the opposite direction: for those who support unbridled electronic speech amplification, are you prepared for it to fall in the hands of people who are bent on changing minds en masse to fill society with falsehoods, uncertainty, and violence? On a more detailed note, I draw a sharp line between normal speech and selectively amplified speech. Twitter and Facebook are in a bind because their business is to curate speech amplification in order to maximize exposure to ads. So if you ask “why did person X see post Y?” it’s because Twitter/FB decided to show Y to X. So they have automatically become at least partially responsible for the effect of that post. So to me this Twitter/FB censorship fiasco is not about free speech censorship whatsoever. It’s about these companies being in the business of deciding who sees what, being externally pressured to do a better job. It wouldn’t make any sense whatsoever to ask Twitter/FB to “stop censoring” while admitting that they should be allowed to curate feeds to maximize ad revenue.

sneak 6y ago
> You can make the same argument in the opposite direction: for those who support unbridled electronic speech amplification, are you prepared for it to fall in the hands of people who are bent on changing minds en masse to fill society with falsehoods, uncertainty, and violence? This seems to equate the ability to publish with a society that's filled with falsehoods, uncertainty, and violence. Is it possible that society won't have any more or less falsehoods, more or less uncertainty, or more or less violence than a society in which you don't appoint some "knows better than the reader" censor to decide what people are allowed to see and read? It seems insanely presumptuous to me that some censor at Facebook or Google won't turn into a violent maniac when they see the things you seem to propose that they censor, but the general, unwashed masses will. Give adults some credit. We've had the church around spreading falsehoods, uncertainty, and violence for centuries, and the world is still here (and still improving). I don't think letting people publish whatever legal content they like is going to suddenly send our world to hell in a handbasket. The danger from uncensored publishing is overblown.
- dunnevens 6y ago
  You're just going to ignore the body count from the spread of falsehoods? The lynchings? The wars? The genocides? None of that matters? Not to mention the world is getting better only in a very narrow sense. Environmentally, we're entering a very dark period. The falsehoods surrounding climate change will cost us a great deal.

Thorrez 6y ago

>supporting restrictions on speech and privacy violations That's a confusing phrase. It took me a while to realize you meant "supporting privacy violations" rather than "supporting restrictions on privacy violations". You seem to be lumping speech restrictions and privacy violations into the same bucket, but I see them as very different, often even opposed to each other. The US elevates free speech higher than privacy. Europe elevates privacy higher than free speech. In many European countries the press isn't allowed to report the names or faces of suspects. In many European countries you can't take pictures of people walking on the street. Doxing is a clear case where free speech is directly opposed to privacy. Same with right to be forgotten.

julianmarq 6y ago
> You seem to be lumping speech restrictions and privacy violations into the same bucket, but I see them as very different, often even opposed to each other. And yet today there was an article in the front page claiming that Signal is a problem because its end to end encryption can be used by anyone, even "bad actors", to communicate. That's an attack on both privacy and free speech, and I wouldn't be shocked if GP had that article (and others like it) in mind. Mind you, most of the comments here rightfully called that article out for the absurd fear-mongering it was, and even the increasingly common censorship apologists were unusually silent. I was pleasantly surprised, even if it did still get a lot of upvotes and reached the front page.
emptyparadise 6y ago
Fixed the wording to make it a bit more clear, thanks. Connecting doxing as a privacy violation to free speech is a very interesting point that I didn't think about - I was thinking about data collection and tracking when talking about privacy violations. For what you bring up with doxing, I don't think I have a very satisfying answer. I definitely won't advocate for keeping it on social media websites. But I can't advocate for all-powerful tools that would allow even for actually dangerous content like that to be tracked down and removed from everywhere, because there is no way to ensure that tools like that will not be abused. Remove it from Twitter, block it on your own federation nodes, try to bring the perpetrators to justice, but, as painful as it is, you shouldn't have a magic button that would be able to completely eradicate that from the internet. It would also be good to reduce data collection and to teach people to be more conscious of what they share to prevent private information from leaking to begin with.

ogre_codes 6y ago

Your television and radio broadcasts have been "censored" and curated since the dawn of time. Newspapers have curated their content and various newspapers are known for having left or right bias. This isn't just the stations own content. If you paid to put content on television, radio, or in the paper, the publisher has always had the right to publish or not publish content (with some limits, but nothing this article speaks about would be protected by law). You couldn't have a cable community access channel with whatever content you wanted. YouTube/ Twitter/ Facebook have been and remain far more permissive in publishing outside content than any other media in history. You are implying that there is some kind of "new" restrictions on speech, but this is literally hundreds of years old.

emptyparadise 6y ago
I think social media is not directly comparable to television and radio broadcasts. The public square analogy makes much more sense here. But even then, in a lot of places there are impartiality requirements on media outlets, as flawed as they may be. Let me use your analogy, though. Let's say there are many newspapers in town. Is it fair for me to refuse to publish certain things? Sure. What if I own the only newspaper in town? It gets more complicated. But hey, perhaps the town has a thriving samizdat culture, so maybe it's fine. But then what if I start buying out every printing press in town? And on top of that, what if I'm pressured by the mayor to not publish something? This is a big issue now, right? How can that situation be addressed? People often suggest regulating that sole paper, but to me the answer is taking steps to ensure that we never end up with one newspaper in town. And we definitely don't let that paper control all of the printing presses.
- ogre_codes 6y ago
  > The public square analogy makes much more sense here. But even then, in a lot of places there are impartiality requirements on media outlets, as flawed as they may be. The "Public Square" assumes the space is owned by... well the public. Either the town or city. That's not the case here. Even if it were, the reach of a person in the public square is tiny... a few hundred people if they are absolutely lucky. Besides... your rights in actual public squares haven't changed a bit. Save the fact that COVID has shut down many public spaces. > But then what if I start buying out every printing press in town? You mean the way Clear Channel has actually bought up a huge percentage of radio stations? The way big right wing corporations have bought up the majority of local television stations in the country? Is it "fair" that the majority of television broadcast stations are owned by a few right-wing media companies? For what it's worth, all three "competing" local broadcast television stations are owned by the same company now. I'd love to know why people think it's super important that Facebook and Twitter cease their supposedly "biased" curating while so many broadcast companies which reach 10s of millions of homes get a free pass.

ajkjk 6y ago

flatly, yes, that sounds like an good tradeoff. It seems unlikely to go wrong the other way, since people are mostly sane about this stuff and agree on what should be shut out (calls for violence, conspiratorial nutjob stuff, widespread misinformation). obviously the calculation would change if Putin-style misinformation was being defended by these people, but it's not.

bzbarsky 6y ago
I disagree about people being mostly sane about this stuff, for what it's worth. We may have very different filter bubbles....

tylermenezes 6y ago

Yes. This isn't the government hunting down political opposition, this is a private company saying "hey, neonazis go somewhere else". If a different private company wants to host the neonazis, they can go for it. It turns out it's /difficult/ for them because most people find them repulsive. I don't hear anyone making this argument for child abuse images for what it's worth.

allarm 6y ago
That’s because child abuse images are objective while “neonazis” are not. Regarding the “different private company”. Some of your people are already trying to deplatform Telegram now, because those “neonazis” went there after they were banned everywhere else. I have been using this platform to connect with my family for years and now all of a sudden my family and I are supporters of the “neonazi” movement somehow, because of how broad the definition of “neonazi” is, for the American left wing activists. Maybe you are okay with the collateral damage “for the greater good” but I am not willing to make this sacrifice to satisfy the American left-wingers and their witch hunt. I sympathize with the idea, but no, thank you. Please, think of another solution for your problems. Maybe, just maybe, you need to somehow use the law system of your country to stop them criminals? Or, in case they don’t do anything illegal (I’m not implying that they don’t, I’ve no idea) - maybe you just leave them be until they do something illegal? And then like catch them and stuff? And leave me my Telegram to call my mum every evening? Or - wow, even crazier idea - you do not ban them at all, but instead of that you follow their threads and actually prevent them from doing anything illegal when they starting to discuss it? My guess it would be much easier to do when you have this kind of transparency. I understand it’s not that easy as massive bans of everything that moves in a slightly different direction than yours, but this would probably be the right way. Thanks in advance.

jb775 6y ago

Since I primarily see the canned response of "they can build their own youtube if they don't like it", I'll rephrase to help get your actual point across: Imagine if Hitler were currently alive and rising to power in Germany, and imagine if Silicon Valley were located in Germany. Would you be ok with Silicon Valley de-platforming and doing everything in their power to silence the Nazi-opposition political party? And knowing what's about to come, do you think the stance of "they can build their own communication systems" would be beneficial to humanity as a whole? I'm aware this is kind of extreme but there are multiple responses that missed the point.

Khaine 6y ago
You do know the Weimar Republic had hate speech laws and enforced them against the nazis: Contrary to what most people think, Weimar Germany did have hate-speech laws, and they were applied quite frequently. The assertion that Nazi propaganda played a significant role in mobilising anti-Jewish sentiment is, of course, irrefutable. But to claim that the Holocaust could have been prevented if only anti-Semitic speech and Nazi propaganda had been banned has little basis in reality. Leading Nazis such as Joseph Goebbels, Theodor Fritsch and Julius Streicher were all prosecuted for anti-Semitic speech.[1] [1] https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/copenhagen-speech-violence https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/copenhagen-speech-v...
lommelun 6y ago
Would I be ok with suppressing speech if I was an omnipotent being who knew the future? Probably yes.

vmception 6y ago

The US has strong speech protections, somehow when people are wrong in their beliefs about what that means they move the goal post to this mythical “ethical” free speech maxim. I dont believe in what those people imagine free speech means. I believe in the “first amendment” which includes freedom of association including for the non-government people that create venues and platforms. “We have the right to refuse service to anyone” as seen on any shop any where. If you would like Congress to create a new regulation on interstate commerce preventing internet platforms from doing some particular thing, then articulate that specific position. I am absolutely not bothered the current reality, it is the expected reality and I would like the same privileges on my own venues and platforms.

andrewprock 6y ago
I have to agree with this sentiment strongly. As much as I may lament today's social media landscape, it is only a drop in the bucket when it comes to my ability to participate in our cultural zeitgeist. And as long as we are going to pursue capitalism with gusto, I am in favor of capitalists controlling their own business - modulo protected class issues.
- blahblahblogger 6y ago
  > I am in favor of capitalists controlling their own business - modulo protected class issues What does this mean? Can you give an example of a protected class and how the business would be impacted?
  - jayd16 6y ago
    I think modulo is a bit misused here but race, religion, sex, age and more are legally protected classes in the US and a business' right to refuse service can not be because of discrimination against these protected classes. The parent wants to make it clear that they do support a capitalist's freedom to control their business in so far as it does not conflict with class protections.
lommelun 6y ago

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

onlydeadheroes 6y ago

It will be easier to see who were the useful idiots when the usefulness runs out.

m463 6y ago

> can be used to silence protests and to hunt down political opposition. Isn't this what is basically happening right now? I don't have a horse in the game, but I do remember that quote: "I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" When I see lots of "this group denied" and "this online account disabled" stuff, I think they should weather the storm. I don't know, is this just a control-grab-during-a-crisis move?

rat87 6y ago

Moderation has already been occuring for a while now This includes moderation of left wing users and things that probably should not be banned(especially minority voices). It's just the the current crop of far right and conspiracy folks complain a lot more/louder. That said I do worry that it will be an extra excuse for authoritarian countries but it probably won't change their behavior

specialist 6y ago

Don't conflate omission with prohibition. Twitter can omit realDonaldTrump, no concerns whatsoever. But any one prohibiting realDonaldTrump from trolling, by whatever medium, would be alarming.

specialist 6y ago

What's your opinion of Project Censored? https://www.projectcensored.org/top-25-censored-stories-of-all-time/ https://www.projectcensored.org/top-25-censored-stories-of-a... Just to pick any example: What's the culture war label for the fate of journalist Abby Martin? https://www.projectcensored.org/24-silenced-in-savannah-journalist-abby-martin-challenges-georgias-bds-gag-law/ https://www.projectcensored.org/24-silenced-in-savannah-jour...

bcronk 6y ago

I think there's no such thing as free speech, and there never has been. Any forum worth reading has to be heavily moderated in some way. Things like scamming people and counterfeiting money are rightfully illegal. Any legitimate state is going to need to quell protests and hunt down political opposition, because at any reasonable population size you are guaranteed to have people who disagree enough with those in power to get violent and criminal about it. We saw this play out recently enough earlier this month on Inauguration Day. Politics is hard, and absolutist ideas like completely unrestricted speech, a completely unrestricted economy, or complete privacy are at best lunacy, at worst downright impossible. I don't think I would want to live in a society where anyone could say anything whenever and wherever, where corporations were completely unregulated, or where law enforcement could never hope to gather evidence because of privacy restrictions. So I think tools and methods for restricting speech and privacy must exist, and they will fall into the wrong hands, but it's ultimately up to the public to collectively decide and enforce what is acceptable and what's not. It's an endless struggle that's been happening not since the birth of the Internet, but since people started living in groups.