5 ms·

Culture moves both ways. I would rather American companies not get so comfortable with blatant censorship. While we do still have some degree of censorship (an

Culture moves both ways. I would rather American companies not get so comfortable with blatant censorship. While we do still have some degree of censorship (and a whole lot pf privacy violation), it’s still generally seen as a taboo and not as a moral or necessary thing. Once the social standards change however, the goalpost moves and it becomes harder to maintain the same freedoms we had before.

norwalkbear 4y ago
America is divided more than, Iran maybe a glimpse into our immediate future.
bpodgursky 4y ago
Should American companies pull out of Germany instead of banning Nazi propaganda? The UK instead of removing court-ordered offensive speech? I mean, maybe, but since the US has the least-restricted speech of basically any nation, you are de-facto asking for a nationally partitioned internet. That's a big change.
- olddustytrail 4y ago
  > Should American companies pull out of Germany instead of banning Nazi propaganda? That would be a little ironic since it was the US who pushed for such laws in post-war Germany in the first place.
- 988747 4y ago
  The problem is: if you want to ban Nazi propaganda you have to develop tools to do it. Once you have tools in place you can use it to ban anything you do not like, not just Nazi propaganda.
  - surfpel 4y ago
    Precisely. This is what it means for a company to get 'comfortable' with something. It means that given enough demand they have developed the tools necessary to do that aforementioned thing and those tools now can become accessible to any jurisdiction, even those who didn't ask for it.
  - pjc50 4y ago
    You also have to develop tools to block spam, child porn, and (in practice on almost all social networks) legal porn that there is nevertheless considerable censorious pressure on.
    - fragmede 4y ago
      Or just copyrighted material. Try posting the new Disney movie or streaming the latest UFC fight for free and see what happens. The tools for censorship are there, they just don't count if it's to protect a corporation's assets, for some reason.
criley2 4y ago
I would rather the American people elect a government that will protect their rights through laws. Meta will not violate American law. As citizens, our most effective tool is our government of the people. The idea that we rely on culture or corporate benevolence to maintain our freedoms, and not our representatives and laws... it's insane, to the say the least. I'd prefer to elect the people to protect my freedoms, not hope a for-profit advertising company will do so automatically.
- wahnfrieden 4y ago
  It’s also viable to fight for neither capital or state dominance. You have a lot of confidence in the rule of law applying to power and liberal society
  - junofan 4y ago
    Yeah, wow, laws aren’t code that runs on people instead of silicon.
- surfpel 4y ago
  You've given platitudes with an overall misunderstanding of both the parent comment as well as a the functioning of the real world. > I would rather the American people elect a government that will protect their rights through laws. I would also like a world where problems don't exist, but that doesn't change the real world. It's a naive take. The world is complicated. > Meta will not violate American law. This is both demonstrably false and borderline meaningless. False because they have and will, unless you're suggesting Meta/Facebook has NEVER broken a law. It's just a question of whether they got charged/sued for it. It's meaningless because laws can be highly interpretable, unenforceable, impractical... and the playing field is constantly changing, so there's always a new opportunity for new types of violations. That isn't to say laws are meaningless, obviously they are extremely necessary and must be enforced, but the public response to those ambiguous situations is what would help determine the next set of laws/norms. > The idea that we rely on culture or corporate benevolence to maintain our freedoms... Parent comment doesn't suggest this. "Corporate culture" has little to do with it. American culture is what would change, has changed, and is changing. When the tooling is developed to carry out efficient, sweeping censorship, it will be used. With more use, we become more comfortable with it and even see it as a necessary evil. Currently there is public outrage when a tech company censors information. How long will this remain interesting enough to draw our attention? TSA in airports after 9/11 is a good example of this.
ideamotor 4y ago
Important point. To reiterate, the culture of companies change.
- surfpel 4y ago
  Culture in general changes. A company is not an island. Employees move around, tech moves around. Society at large gets comfortable with censorship when its use spreads. We're all looking for ways to censor spammers or belligerents from internet forums. It could easily start there and spread to other areas.
  - zmgsabst 4y ago
    That already happened, eg, COVID policies on social media and YouTube. We had a breakdown in our consensus mechanism — because the government partnered with corporations to censor rather than allow public debate. The nation is still bitterly divided.

norwalkbear 4y ago

America is divided more than, Iran maybe a glimpse into our immediate future.

bpodgursky 4y ago

Should American companies pull out of Germany instead of banning Nazi propaganda? The UK instead of removing court-ordered offensive speech? I mean, maybe, but since the US has the least-restricted speech of basically any nation, you are de-facto asking for a nationally partitioned internet. That's a big change.

olddustytrail 4y ago
> Should American companies pull out of Germany instead of banning Nazi propaganda? That would be a little ironic since it was the US who pushed for such laws in post-war Germany in the first place.
988747 4y ago
The problem is: if you want to ban Nazi propaganda you have to develop tools to do it. Once you have tools in place you can use it to ban anything you do not like, not just Nazi propaganda.
- surfpel 4y ago
  Precisely. This is what it means for a company to get 'comfortable' with something. It means that given enough demand they have developed the tools necessary to do that aforementioned thing and those tools now can become accessible to any jurisdiction, even those who didn't ask for it.
- pjc50 4y ago
  You also have to develop tools to block spam, child porn, and (in practice on almost all social networks) legal porn that there is nevertheless considerable censorious pressure on.
  - fragmede 4y ago
    Or just copyrighted material. Try posting the new Disney movie or streaming the latest UFC fight for free and see what happens. The tools for censorship are there, they just don't count if it's to protect a corporation's assets, for some reason.

criley2 4y ago

I would rather the American people elect a government that will protect their rights through laws. Meta will not violate American law. As citizens, our most effective tool is our government of the people. The idea that we rely on culture or corporate benevolence to maintain our freedoms, and not our representatives and laws... it's insane, to the say the least. I'd prefer to elect the people to protect my freedoms, not hope a for-profit advertising company will do so automatically.

wahnfrieden 4y ago
It’s also viable to fight for neither capital or state dominance. You have a lot of confidence in the rule of law applying to power and liberal society
- junofan 4y ago
  Yeah, wow, laws aren’t code that runs on people instead of silicon.
surfpel 4y ago
You've given platitudes with an overall misunderstanding of both the parent comment as well as a the functioning of the real world. > I would rather the American people elect a government that will protect their rights through laws. I would also like a world where problems don't exist, but that doesn't change the real world. It's a naive take. The world is complicated. > Meta will not violate American law. This is both demonstrably false and borderline meaningless. False because they have and will, unless you're suggesting Meta/Facebook has NEVER broken a law. It's just a question of whether they got charged/sued for it. It's meaningless because laws can be highly interpretable, unenforceable, impractical... and the playing field is constantly changing, so there's always a new opportunity for new types of violations. That isn't to say laws are meaningless, obviously they are extremely necessary and must be enforced, but the public response to those ambiguous situations is what would help determine the next set of laws/norms. > The idea that we rely on culture or corporate benevolence to maintain our freedoms... Parent comment doesn't suggest this. "Corporate culture" has little to do with it. American culture is what would change, has changed, and is changing. When the tooling is developed to carry out efficient, sweeping censorship, it will be used. With more use, we become more comfortable with it and even see it as a necessary evil. Currently there is public outrage when a tech company censors information. How long will this remain interesting enough to draw our attention? TSA in airports after 9/11 is a good example of this.

ideamotor 4y ago

Important point. To reiterate, the culture of companies change.

surfpel 4y ago
Culture in general changes. A company is not an island. Employees move around, tech moves around. Society at large gets comfortable with censorship when its use spreads. We're all looking for ways to censor spammers or belligerents from internet forums. It could easily start there and spread to other areas.
- zmgsabst 4y ago
  That already happened, eg, COVID policies on social media and YouTube. We had a breakdown in our consensus mechanism — because the government partnered with corporations to censor rather than allow public debate. The nation is still bitterly divided.