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Big fan of the archive, especially openlibrary. But the lofty talk of “democratizing” this-or-that is a bit overblown: in authoritarian countries, the archive d

Big fan of the archive, especially openlibrary. But the lofty talk of “democratizing” this-or-that is a bit overblown: in authoritarian countries, the archive does zero democratizing, because it’s either just not available, or all the relevant individual documents are blocked. For democratic countries that have democratically elected to restrict the distribution of some materials the society considers harmful, such as Germany with Nazi propaganda, the archive happily decides to undermine those clear, longstanding, and — disproving the single argument for free speech absolutism — not slippery-sloping anywhere over decades. Why? Because laws you disagree with are, apparently, illegitimate. It probably helps their bold defense of all that is holy to intimately know that these really are democratic countries, which aren’t going to just send a wet team to dismember them, Saudis-style, or to spend millions on an elaborate plan whose only purpose is to let you live for another month, with a clear mind that has complete certainty that you will die, and who did it. The anti-semitism and racism on archive.org, plus some copyright violations isn’t a byproduct of their “freedom”. It’s all of it. There are plenty of free hosts for video or documents, and an hour at minimum wage would pay for hosting quite a lot for quite a while for most of the archive’s audience. But the killer feature is immunity, through anonymity and DMCA’s Safe Harbour. Sure, everyone here is only defending “free speech” and would never agree with the swastika-fetishists. Only, somehow, they never complain about ISIS having a hard time on Twitter, or porn being censored on Facebook. It’s the scans of Der Stürmer, especially of the 38 to 44 vintage, are the chosen symbols of “democratization”. [0]: https://www.sfgate.com/california-politics/article/Internet-Archive-Neo-Nazis-white-supremacist-SF-16320465.php https://www.sfgate.com/california-politics/article/Internet-...

textfiles 5y ago
"Big Fan" is doing a lot of heavy lifting there.
ZeroGravitas 5y ago
I was intrigued by this comment, but couldn't really figure out what was being claimed so read the linked article. It's still not 100% clear but elements of it include: - Historical racist texts (Mein Kampf, 1930s newspapers) which I feel on balance is a good thing to preserve in a library. I would assume having those papers available does more to combat fascism than to encourage it (though who knows really) - archives of websites that are dodgy (ISIS and Neo-Nazi are mentioned but there must be all sorts of crazy and or bad stuff on the web that gets archived) - following US law rather than local law (a general conundrum for internet sites like this, especially if you do it for countries whose laws you like but not for other countries) - providing a place for people to upload and share files anonymously So yeah, I'm not really a Free Speech absolutist myself (doesn't seem like many that claim they are actually believe it when it comes to things they disagree with) but doesn't feel like they're in the same boat as social media platforms who actively spread bad things if it increases ad impressions. Some similar issues around policing large amounts of content and dealing with different legal, political and moral frameworks at scale though.

textfiles 5y ago

"Big Fan" is doing a lot of heavy lifting there.

ZeroGravitas 5y ago

I was intrigued by this comment, but couldn't really figure out what was being claimed so read the linked article. It's still not 100% clear but elements of it include: - Historical racist texts (Mein Kampf, 1930s newspapers) which I feel on balance is a good thing to preserve in a library. I would assume having those papers available does more to combat fascism than to encourage it (though who knows really) - archives of websites that are dodgy (ISIS and Neo-Nazi are mentioned but there must be all sorts of crazy and or bad stuff on the web that gets archived) - following US law rather than local law (a general conundrum for internet sites like this, especially if you do it for countries whose laws you like but not for other countries) - providing a place for people to upload and share files anonymously So yeah, I'm not really a Free Speech absolutist myself (doesn't seem like many that claim they are actually believe it when it comes to things they disagree with) but doesn't feel like they're in the same boat as social media platforms who actively spread bad things if it increases ad impressions. Some similar issues around policing large amounts of content and dealing with different legal, political and moral frameworks at scale though.