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Another wrinkle in all of this is that you can use free speech as a form of censorship. For example, if someone says something you don't like, you can intimida

Another wrinkle in all of this is that you can use free speech as a form of censorship. For example, if someone says something you don't like, you can intimidate them into shutting up by, say, threatening to reveal their personal information, such as their legal identity, address of residence, and so on. On certain corners of the Internet, merely dropping dox is good enough to get randos (who won't even be affiliated with you, so +1 to plausible deniability) to harass someone you want to shut up. A more technical variant of this is DDoS attacks. Instead of trying to intimidate someone into shutting up with threats of stochastic terrorism; you shout over them by sending a bunch of traffic to their site until the server crashes or they run out of money. So even if you're a hardcore free speech extremist, you still need to embrace some level of "censoring the censors" if you want the Internet to actually be usable.

hash872 5y ago
Agreed. That's not even getting into just pure spam, which from people like Alex Stamos I've heard is 100-1000x the issue that culture war content moderation is. Once you've accepted that a platform can remove the kind of spam that killed MySpace- or doxing or a DDoS attack, as you say- you're already on the (common sense IMO) road to content moderation. Which again, from 25+ years of the modern Internet, we know is just mandatory to have a useable site
native_samples 5y ago
That's not censorship though. Threats are what people are forced to do when they cannot censor you, as censorship is much more direct. And DDoS attacks aren't speech.
- d23 5y ago
  You've seemingly distinguished DDoS attacks from legitimate traffic. If someone is "flooding the zone" with disinformation with the purpose of making it impossible to discern the truth (i.e. it's not legitimate, good faith discourse), is it not reasonable to draw a parallel with DDoSing?
  - native_samples 5y ago
    DDoS traffic doesn't contain any form of "speech" and cannot lead to any. If you insist on drawing dodgy analogies, the correct parallel would be someone taking a truck to a political rally and then playing incredibly loud white noise at volumes that prevent people hearing each other. As for the idea that people are deliberately flooding the zone with disinformation, I'm afraid I've only seen that coming from the sort of people who use it as an excuse to engage in censorship. There is certainly a massive disinformation problem, but it's not the one they mean when they say that. Consider the experience of this guy, who just "woke up" to the fact that the BBC has been manipulating him: https://twitter.com/James_Townsend9/status/1415651819162898439 https://twitter.com/James_Townsend9/status/14156518191628984... I myself watched a deceptive BBC news report last year in which they presented a social worker as a "dental specialist", a man whose brother died of COVID except the report admitted the cause of death was unconfirmed, and supposedly flooded ECMO unit that turned out to have spare beds available.
mrtksn 5y ago
> threatening to reveal their personal information, such as their legal identity What's the problem with that? Bad things on the internet happen more often than not because of the lack of responsibility. Doxxing has become the primary sin in the Internet religion but it would solve all kind of problems. I am going to commit that sin and say that Doxxing is the solution, you can downvote me and make my comment greyed out and censor me when you argue against censorship. Instead of deleting content, simply make sure that it's linked to someone who can pay for it if it turn out to be something to be payed for. The Anonymity argument is only good when you are actively persecuted by a state actor. I don't agree that you deserve anonymity because the public will demonise you. If you hold strong believes that can be met harshly by the general public, you better be ready for the pushback and think of ways to make it accepted. That's how it has been done since ever. Therefore, when a content is questionable maybe the users should be simply KYC'ed en left alone until a legal take down order is issued. If its illegal(like illegal porn, copyrighted content, terroristic activities etc), go to prison for it. If its BS get your reputation tarnished.
- breakfastduck 5y ago
  You are so, so wrong here. Who the hell gets to judge what is 'to be payed for' in this world you're talking about? The mob? No thanks! In fact the internet actually went to shit the minute it pivoted from 'Dont share your personal info publicly' to 'please give us every last drop of your personal information and share it publicly'
  - mrtksn 5y ago
    >Who the hell gets to judge what is 'to be payed for' in this world you're talking about Those who demand the payment, obviously. Denying the existence of the god or being gay could be something to be payed for in some places and obviously that is horrible thing but anonymity doesn't solve that. Fighting for a change or leaving that place solves something. Alan Turing himself was subjected to these things in the United Kingdom. A few decades later things changed in the UK and had nothing to do with the anonymity. Now those who think that gays deserve equal rights demand payment. Again, anonymity it's not helping the anti-gay folks but simply creates low quality discussion and stress and nothing more.

hash872 5y ago

Agreed. That's not even getting into just pure spam, which from people like Alex Stamos I've heard is 100-1000x the issue that culture war content moderation is. Once you've accepted that a platform can remove the kind of spam that killed MySpace- or doxing or a DDoS attack, as you say- you're already on the (common sense IMO) road to content moderation. Which again, from 25+ years of the modern Internet, we know is just mandatory to have a useable site

native_samples 5y ago

That's not censorship though. Threats are what people are forced to do when they cannot censor you, as censorship is much more direct. And DDoS attacks aren't speech.

d23 5y ago
You've seemingly distinguished DDoS attacks from legitimate traffic. If someone is "flooding the zone" with disinformation with the purpose of making it impossible to discern the truth (i.e. it's not legitimate, good faith discourse), is it not reasonable to draw a parallel with DDoSing?
- native_samples 5y ago
  DDoS traffic doesn't contain any form of "speech" and cannot lead to any. If you insist on drawing dodgy analogies, the correct parallel would be someone taking a truck to a political rally and then playing incredibly loud white noise at volumes that prevent people hearing each other. As for the idea that people are deliberately flooding the zone with disinformation, I'm afraid I've only seen that coming from the sort of people who use it as an excuse to engage in censorship. There is certainly a massive disinformation problem, but it's not the one they mean when they say that. Consider the experience of this guy, who just "woke up" to the fact that the BBC has been manipulating him: https://twitter.com/James_Townsend9/status/1415651819162898439 https://twitter.com/James_Townsend9/status/14156518191628984... I myself watched a deceptive BBC news report last year in which they presented a social worker as a "dental specialist", a man whose brother died of COVID except the report admitted the cause of death was unconfirmed, and supposedly flooded ECMO unit that turned out to have spare beds available.

mrtksn 5y ago

> threatening to reveal their personal information, such as their legal identity What's the problem with that? Bad things on the internet happen more often than not because of the lack of responsibility. Doxxing has become the primary sin in the Internet religion but it would solve all kind of problems. I am going to commit that sin and say that Doxxing is the solution, you can downvote me and make my comment greyed out and censor me when you argue against censorship. Instead of deleting content, simply make sure that it's linked to someone who can pay for it if it turn out to be something to be payed for. The Anonymity argument is only good when you are actively persecuted by a state actor. I don't agree that you deserve anonymity because the public will demonise you. If you hold strong believes that can be met harshly by the general public, you better be ready for the pushback and think of ways to make it accepted. That's how it has been done since ever. Therefore, when a content is questionable maybe the users should be simply KYC'ed en left alone until a legal take down order is issued. If its illegal(like illegal porn, copyrighted content, terroristic activities etc), go to prison for it. If its BS get your reputation tarnished.

breakfastduck 5y ago
You are so, so wrong here. Who the hell gets to judge what is 'to be payed for' in this world you're talking about? The mob? No thanks! In fact the internet actually went to shit the minute it pivoted from 'Dont share your personal info publicly' to 'please give us every last drop of your personal information and share it publicly'
- mrtksn 5y ago
  >Who the hell gets to judge what is 'to be payed for' in this world you're talking about Those who demand the payment, obviously. Denying the existence of the god or being gay could be something to be payed for in some places and obviously that is horrible thing but anonymity doesn't solve that. Fighting for a change or leaving that place solves something. Alan Turing himself was subjected to these things in the United Kingdom. A few decades later things changed in the UK and had nothing to do with the anonymity. Now those who think that gays deserve equal rights demand payment. Again, anonymity it's not helping the anti-gay folks but simply creates low quality discussion and stress and nothing more.