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For some weird reason, the same people can be OK with Cloudflare or Twitter banning someone for their political views, but wouldn't be OK with a bank or electri

by tomp 5y ago

For some weird reason, the same people can be OK with Cloudflare or Twitter banning someone for their political views, but wouldn't be OK with a bank or electricity provider banning someone for their political views.

drdec 5y ago
An electrical provider is typically a government-granted monopoly, and given that, it is not unreasonable to extend the protection of speech against government action to the electrical provider. Banks are not however, and in fact, banks and the financial system do act against classes of people. Visa and Mastercard frequently pressure their customers in an effort to prevent sex work in the name of preventing sex trafficking. If their customers do not do enough they will cut them off. This most recently happened with OnlyFans. See also PornHub.
- PeterisP 5y ago
  You're right about banks in USA, but I think that this is wrong and indicates that the ability of these middlemen to prevent people from interacting in society (being able to pay one another is essentially part of freedom of association) needs to be restricted.
PeterisP 5y ago
In my mind there is a big difference between banning particular views versus banning someone for their particular views. Like, Cloudflare or Twitter should be free to choose what speech they publish and what they prohibit, but they (and banks and electricity providers) should not be banning someone because of who they are as a person or for their political views expressed elsewhere. Cloudflare should be free to ban Daily Stormer as they did, but if the same people from Daily Stormer were just running a cat picture site through Cloudflare (and publishing their neo-Nazi stuff elsewhere) then IMHO Cloudflare should not ban their cat picture site. To choose an extreme (but less-political?) example of paedophilia, it's obviously okay to ban distribution of child sexual abuse material, but IMHO someone who's just came out from prison after being convicted for child rape should not get automatically banned from platforms (or banks, or electricity providers) as a person despite being a paedophile child abuser, they should be able to participate in the society unless/until their ongoing acts become criminal and they get removed from the society by the courts. And if that's the case, then it also applies to the less extreme views.
- tomp 5y ago
  > We're not banning you, we're just want to prevent you from using our electricity for undesirable activities. Well, since we cannot actually distinguish undesirable activities from non-undesirable activities, we'll just stop providing you any electricity, that way we can be sure you're not using it for undesirable activities.
leaflets2 5y ago
You cannot manipulate people via the electricity network and the power plugs in you house. But you can, via Twitter and Facebook. Communication is its own different animal

by tomp 5y ago

drdec 5y ago

An electrical provider is typically a government-granted monopoly, and given that, it is not unreasonable to extend the protection of speech against government action to the electrical provider. Banks are not however, and in fact, banks and the financial system do act against classes of people. Visa and Mastercard frequently pressure their customers in an effort to prevent sex work in the name of preventing sex trafficking. If their customers do not do enough they will cut them off. This most recently happened with OnlyFans. See also PornHub.

PeterisP 5y ago
You're right about banks in USA, but I think that this is wrong and indicates that the ability of these middlemen to prevent people from interacting in society (being able to pay one another is essentially part of freedom of association) needs to be restricted.

PeterisP 5y ago

In my mind there is a big difference between banning particular views versus banning someone for their particular views. Like, Cloudflare or Twitter should be free to choose what speech they publish and what they prohibit, but they (and banks and electricity providers) should not be banning someone because of who they are as a person or for their political views expressed elsewhere. Cloudflare should be free to ban Daily Stormer as they did, but if the same people from Daily Stormer were just running a cat picture site through Cloudflare (and publishing their neo-Nazi stuff elsewhere) then IMHO Cloudflare should not ban their cat picture site. To choose an extreme (but less-political?) example of paedophilia, it's obviously okay to ban distribution of child sexual abuse material, but IMHO someone who's just came out from prison after being convicted for child rape should not get automatically banned from platforms (or banks, or electricity providers) as a person despite being a paedophile child abuser, they should be able to participate in the society unless/until their ongoing acts become criminal and they get removed from the society by the courts. And if that's the case, then it also applies to the less extreme views.

tomp 5y ago
> We're not banning you, we're just want to prevent you from using our electricity for undesirable activities. Well, since we cannot actually distinguish undesirable activities from non-undesirable activities, we'll just stop providing you any electricity, that way we can be sure you're not using it for undesirable activities.

leaflets2 5y ago

You cannot manipulate people via the electricity network and the power plugs in you house. But you can, via Twitter and Facebook. Communication is its own different animal