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From wikipedia[1]: > Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information. This may be done on the basis that such material is c

From wikipedia[1]: > Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information. This may be done on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or "inconvenient." Censorship can be conducted by governments, private institutions, and other controlling bodies. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship

smoldesu 5y ago
They weren't suppressing his content on the basis that it was "objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or "inconvenient" though: they banned him because he posted something which explicitly violated EULA, which had clearly defined stipulations. Perhaps if he didn't read or understand those rules I'd understand where he's coming from, but his treatment is nothing atypical.
- samtheprogram 5y ago
  The part of the EULA he violated was for objectionable and harmful content. The rules were laid out ahead of time in the EULA, sure, but the point that this can be considered censorship remains.
  - smoldesu 5y ago
    If we want to go down this route, then we could argue that every platform censors content. Hacker News censors content when it removes rule-breaking content, and the radio station down the road is censoring your because they won't play your music. But you have a right to free speech, not a right to be heard. Censorship is a word that we use to describe the abuse of that limitation, and doing something that happens hundreds of times a day (banning users for violating the TOS) absolutely don't constitute as an abuse. Even using the most liberal possible definition of "censorship", it barely applies in this situation.
    - amadeuspagel 5y ago
      > If we want to go down this route, then we could argue that every platform censors content. Hacker News censors content when it removes rule-breaking content. Yes, that's true. But for most platforms, like Hacker News, that's not a concern, because they don't have that many users. > The radio station down the road is censoring you because they won't play your music. That's not really what censorship means, because the radio station only has limited time, and they have to choose what music to play. (This limit on time also creates competition: Since one radio station can't play everything, there will always be many different radio stations, they same isn't true for social networks.)
      - smoldesu 5y ago
        > that's not a concern, because they don't have that many users. Oh, so all of the sudden censorship is a matter of scale? I'd like to see a definition of censorship that involves scale in any way. > That's not really what censorship means, because the radio station only has limited time, and they have to choose what music to play. Yeah, and Facebook's servers have limited capacity and their bandwidth is billed at-cost. They're limited in the content they can serve, with the difference being that they can scale infinitely. In any case, your liability as a user increases as your share of that content scales. All you've done so far is deflect, without actually making any case. There are hundreds of social networks. You can build your own social network in 5 minutes with Mastodon and a VPS. Failing that, there's hundreds of decentralized and perfectly un-censorable protocols that you can use too. Facebook is a business. They have every right to refuse you service if you break their rules. End of discussion.
        amadeuspagel 5y ago
        > Yeah, and Facebook's servers have limited capacity and their bandwidth is billed at-cost. This is a red herring. Facebook doesn't argue that they have to ban Trump to save bandwidth. > In any case, your liability as a user increases as your share of that content scales. I don't even know what this is supposed to mean. > All you've done so far is deflect, without actually making any case. This is pretty rich. My first comment in this thread was: "Yeah, I don't have a facebook account either, yet I'm concerned about censorship on facebook, because facebook has enough users in my country to swing any election." All you've done is to deflect from my main point - the concern about facebooks power to swing elections - by playing wordgames with the word "censorship", making various claims about what isn't censorship without even offering a definition of your own. > You can build your own social network in 5 minutes with Mastodon and a VPS. Failing that, there's hundreds of decentralized and perfectly un-censorable protocols that you can use too. Needless to say, none of this engages with my main point either.
tshaddox 5y ago
That's a plausible but extremely simplistic definition. If I teach private music lessons to children and hold a public recital where only my students can perform, is that censorship? If a small town holds a local short film competition and has a public screening of the chosen winners, is that censorship? I think the term "censorship" is overwhelming understood to refer to cases where the suppression of communication is particularly onerous or harmful. There is a vast range of reasonable moderation that absolutely limits the distribution of communication but I would argue is not harmful, and I think it's unreasonable to refer to all such instances as "censorship." (I'm not however arguing that this particular action by Facebook doesn't constitute censorship. I'm just arguing that the extremely simplistic definition you provided does not really match broad usage of the term.)

smoldesu 5y ago

They weren't suppressing his content on the basis that it was "objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or "inconvenient" though: they banned him because he posted something which explicitly violated EULA, which had clearly defined stipulations. Perhaps if he didn't read or understand those rules I'd understand where he's coming from, but his treatment is nothing atypical.

samtheprogram 5y ago
The part of the EULA he violated was for objectionable and harmful content. The rules were laid out ahead of time in the EULA, sure, but the point that this can be considered censorship remains.
- smoldesu 5y ago
  If we want to go down this route, then we could argue that every platform censors content. Hacker News censors content when it removes rule-breaking content, and the radio station down the road is censoring your because they won't play your music. But you have a right to free speech, not a right to be heard. Censorship is a word that we use to describe the abuse of that limitation, and doing something that happens hundreds of times a day (banning users for violating the TOS) absolutely don't constitute as an abuse. Even using the most liberal possible definition of "censorship", it barely applies in this situation.
  - amadeuspagel 5y ago
    > If we want to go down this route, then we could argue that every platform censors content. Hacker News censors content when it removes rule-breaking content. Yes, that's true. But for most platforms, like Hacker News, that's not a concern, because they don't have that many users. > The radio station down the road is censoring you because they won't play your music. That's not really what censorship means, because the radio station only has limited time, and they have to choose what music to play. (This limit on time also creates competition: Since one radio station can't play everything, there will always be many different radio stations, they same isn't true for social networks.)
    - smoldesu 5y ago
      > that's not a concern, because they don't have that many users. Oh, so all of the sudden censorship is a matter of scale? I'd like to see a definition of censorship that involves scale in any way. > That's not really what censorship means, because the radio station only has limited time, and they have to choose what music to play. Yeah, and Facebook's servers have limited capacity and their bandwidth is billed at-cost. They're limited in the content they can serve, with the difference being that they can scale infinitely. In any case, your liability as a user increases as your share of that content scales. All you've done so far is deflect, without actually making any case. There are hundreds of social networks. You can build your own social network in 5 minutes with Mastodon and a VPS. Failing that, there's hundreds of decentralized and perfectly un-censorable protocols that you can use too. Facebook is a business. They have every right to refuse you service if you break their rules. End of discussion.
      - amadeuspagel 5y ago
        > Yeah, and Facebook's servers have limited capacity and their bandwidth is billed at-cost. This is a red herring. Facebook doesn't argue that they have to ban Trump to save bandwidth. > In any case, your liability as a user increases as your share of that content scales. I don't even know what this is supposed to mean. > All you've done so far is deflect, without actually making any case. This is pretty rich. My first comment in this thread was: "Yeah, I don't have a facebook account either, yet I'm concerned about censorship on facebook, because facebook has enough users in my country to swing any election." All you've done is to deflect from my main point - the concern about facebooks power to swing elections - by playing wordgames with the word "censorship", making various claims about what isn't censorship without even offering a definition of your own. > You can build your own social network in 5 minutes with Mastodon and a VPS. Failing that, there's hundreds of decentralized and perfectly un-censorable protocols that you can use too. Needless to say, none of this engages with my main point either.

tshaddox 5y ago

That's a plausible but extremely simplistic definition. If I teach private music lessons to children and hold a public recital where only my students can perform, is that censorship? If a small town holds a local short film competition and has a public screening of the chosen winners, is that censorship? I think the term "censorship" is overwhelming understood to refer to cases where the suppression of communication is particularly onerous or harmful. There is a vast range of reasonable moderation that absolutely limits the distribution of communication but I would argue is not harmful, and I think it's unreasonable to refer to all such instances as "censorship." (I'm not however arguing that this particular action by Facebook doesn't constitute censorship. I'm just arguing that the extremely simplistic definition you provided does not really match broad usage of the term.)