6 ms·

And what of freedom of association as a right and cultural value?

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
autoexec 4y ago
Exactly! I should be able to join or leave groups discussing any sort of topic or view point I like on social media platforms without having my options limited or my views censored. If I don't want to associate with someone I can unfollow them, unsubscribe from their subreddit, block them etc. What matters is that it's my choice to do that. We shouldn't have that choice made for us by the people running online platforms.
- pixl97 4y ago
  Um what? So me and my buddy Tim are going to come to your house and talk about how much you suck. Autoexec: But this is MY private property. So yes, So are online platforms. They can kick you out at any time they want and you can pound sand. If you don't like it set up own server online to freely associate. You don't get to demand their resources. You don't get access to their network.
  - aaronbrethorst 4y ago
    Alex Pareene on the subject from 2018: https://splinternews.com/if-you-truly-care-about-speech-you-will-invite-me-to-y-1823614969 https://splinternews.com/if-you-truly-care-about-speech-you-...
    - pixl97 4y ago
      TL;DR (I did but very quickly) the vast majority of for profit entities do not give one shit about free speech. If you think any online forum does you are in conflict with all evidence presented so far. But it is an important point not to have just one site like Twitter or Reddit or even HN so we can go to one the competitors and complain about the former without angering the later.
  - woooooo 4y ago
    The undersea cables are private property, also. What if all of the layer 3 networks got together and decided to not allow you in particular to demand their resources?
    - pixl97 4y ago
      Then I would assume that you're screwed. With that said, there's a regulator on IP allocations and their may be something doable on the governance level to revoke said IPs if you're not playing nice with the rest of the world. As for the actual server resources, you have not established where you have any legal right to them.
      - woooooo 4y ago
        Perhaps, beyond a certain level of monopoly, there's more of an obligation to provide equal access to service for all?
        SpelingBeeChamp 4y ago
        What obligation are you referring to? Wanting something does not make it reality.
  - autoexec 4y ago
    > So me and my buddy Tim are going to come to your house and talk about how much you suck. My house isn't a global social media platform. It's a private residence. Different rules. It's not that small private online groups shouldn't exist either, but we absolutely should expect major social media platforms to uphold free speech ideals and allow people to speak without excessive censorship. We should seek out and support platforms that do this and shun those that do not. I have no need for another gatekeeper deciding for me what I'm allowed to see and hear based on their personal ideology. A platform like that isn't serving me. If someone wants to create platform as a service for others, that platform should empower the users it serves to find and engage with the content they want and block/ignore what they aren't interested in.
    - pixl97 4y ago
      Please show me where these different rules are codified? It's a bullshit argument and you know it. Social media does not make sense globally. You cannot appease both the US government, conglomerate of EU governments, and the Chinese government without being in conflict of what one of them wants. 'free speech' cannot exist with current national laws in most places and would be banned at DNS level, with the more authoritarian governments banning it at the transit level. You again want access to someone else's network and software you have absolutely zero right to. You use these services under surveillance capitalism without paying directly yourself and make demands of them. Their platform owes you less than nothing and we see this codified in the TOS's that state exactly that. Disconnect from them completely and take their power away. Run your own services and control what is said on your own network. Demanding that someone else do it is insanity.
      - autoexec 4y ago
        > Please show me where these different rules are codified? Well, for starters, there are laws where I live against billions of people showing up in my home even though billions of people show up on social media platforms. the rules for residential housing and social media platforms are different just as their intended uses are different. > Social media does not make sense globally. And yet here we are... on a global social media platform. It somehow works. > You cannot appease both the US government, conglomerate of EU governments, and the Chinese government without being in conflict of what one of them wants. social media platforms shouldn't concern themselves with what every government on earth wants. An online service should (generally speaking anyway, this is obviously an oversimplification) only worry about the law says in the country they're located in and it should fall on users to make sure what they post doesn't violate local laws. Some governments won't like that and may block your platform but that's a problem for that country's citizens to sort out with their repressive government. If every person and service on the internet had to concern itself with the laws of every nation on Earth the internet itself would be impossible. > You again want access to someone else's network and software you have absolutely zero right to. You use these services under surveillance capitalism without paying directly yourself and make demands of them. Their platform owes you less than nothing and we see this codified in the TOS's that state exactly that. Within certain legal limitations, a platform has every right to be as restrictive as it wants. It can allow only connections from certain IP ranges. It could only allow people to sign up if they pay them. It can refuse to allow anyone to post anything but the number "8" if it wants to. What a platform has a legal right to do, and what it ought to do are very very different things. I'm not arguing that a platform MUST under the law allow anyone to post anything they want. I'm stating that a major social media platform SHOULD allow people to discuss the topics that interest them freely and openly. It SHOULD avoid censoring people for ideological reasons. We, as users of social media, should make demands of the platforms we use. They exist to serve us. We provide the entirety of their content, which those platforms get and publish without ever paying us directly. It is OUR content that drives the traffic and engagement they see. We should reward platforms that follow free speech ideals and enable us to discuss what we like and we should shun platforms that censor us and limit what we're able to see and do. > Disconnect from them completely and take their power away. Run your own services and control what is said on your own network. That's the problem with a global internet isn't it. Let's say I do decide to create my own social media platform. I still need to depend on others to host my domain and my servers. I depend on payment processors to pay for those things. I depend on every other ISP to carry traffic to/from my IP. I depend on protocols and software written by other people. You cannot have a social media platform on the internet without depending on others. At every step in the chain countless people have the power to censor things they don't like. It's better for everyone when they don't. Censorship should be heavily discouraged everywhere, but especially online.
  - bcrosby95 4y ago
    > If you don't like it set up own server online to freely associate. How exactly does your server get online without utilizing the private property of some entity?
    - pixl97 4y ago
      You don't. With that said we typically treat transport (phone lines, network connectivity) different than applications, and absolve the carrier of the traffic from the content of the traffic itself. With non-transport hosting it gets more complicated quickly. But until the time we adjust our laws (and good luck with that) it's going to be difficult to nullify property rights and freedom of association of the property owners over the users of the services.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- seattle_spring 4y ago
  If I make an online space (subreddit, FB group, etc) about a specific topic (eg hiking) and some clown comes in and repeatedly posts about unrelated politics, that person should be moderated away.
  - fruitpick 4y ago
    The motte: wanting to ensure a niche forum remains on topic. The bailey: getting sites removed from the Internet.
mech765 4y ago
I think that the most virtuous third party platform is the one that allows it's users to associate with each other with the least intervention probably with some limit such as the explicit threat of violence being moderated away. Seeing where the dice land on each social media website, I'm almost always disappointed that the websites are too heavy-handed. I suppose that "4-chan-style chaos as a business strategy" is less profitable than what they currently practice though.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

Exactly! I should be able to join or leave groups discussing any sort of topic or view point I like on social media platforms without having my options limited or my views censored. If I don't want to associate with someone I can unfollow them, unsubscribe from their subreddit, block them etc. What matters is that it's my choice to do that. We shouldn't have that choice made for us by the people running online platforms.

pixl97 4y ago
Um what? So me and my buddy Tim are going to come to your house and talk about how much you suck. Autoexec: But this is MY private property. So yes, So are online platforms. They can kick you out at any time they want and you can pound sand. If you don't like it set up own server online to freely associate. You don't get to demand their resources. You don't get access to their network.
- aaronbrethorst 4y ago
  Alex Pareene on the subject from 2018: https://splinternews.com/if-you-truly-care-about-speech-you-will-invite-me-to-y-1823614969 https://splinternews.com/if-you-truly-care-about-speech-you-...
  - pixl97 4y ago
    TL;DR (I did but very quickly) the vast majority of for profit entities do not give one shit about free speech. If you think any online forum does you are in conflict with all evidence presented so far. But it is an important point not to have just one site like Twitter or Reddit or even HN so we can go to one the competitors and complain about the former without angering the later.
- woooooo 4y ago
  The undersea cables are private property, also. What if all of the layer 3 networks got together and decided to not allow you in particular to demand their resources?
  - pixl97 4y ago
    Then I would assume that you're screwed. With that said, there's a regulator on IP allocations and their may be something doable on the governance level to revoke said IPs if you're not playing nice with the rest of the world. As for the actual server resources, you have not established where you have any legal right to them.
    - woooooo 4y ago
      Perhaps, beyond a certain level of monopoly, there's more of an obligation to provide equal access to service for all?
      - SpelingBeeChamp 4y ago
        What obligation are you referring to? Wanting something does not make it reality.
- autoexec 4y ago
  > So me and my buddy Tim are going to come to your house and talk about how much you suck. My house isn't a global social media platform. It's a private residence. Different rules. It's not that small private online groups shouldn't exist either, but we absolutely should expect major social media platforms to uphold free speech ideals and allow people to speak without excessive censorship. We should seek out and support platforms that do this and shun those that do not. I have no need for another gatekeeper deciding for me what I'm allowed to see and hear based on their personal ideology. A platform like that isn't serving me. If someone wants to create platform as a service for others, that platform should empower the users it serves to find and engage with the content they want and block/ignore what they aren't interested in.
  - pixl97 4y ago
    Please show me where these different rules are codified? It's a bullshit argument and you know it. Social media does not make sense globally. You cannot appease both the US government, conglomerate of EU governments, and the Chinese government without being in conflict of what one of them wants. 'free speech' cannot exist with current national laws in most places and would be banned at DNS level, with the more authoritarian governments banning it at the transit level. You again want access to someone else's network and software you have absolutely zero right to. You use these services under surveillance capitalism without paying directly yourself and make demands of them. Their platform owes you less than nothing and we see this codified in the TOS's that state exactly that. Disconnect from them completely and take their power away. Run your own services and control what is said on your own network. Demanding that someone else do it is insanity.
    - autoexec 4y ago
      > Please show me where these different rules are codified? Well, for starters, there are laws where I live against billions of people showing up in my home even though billions of people show up on social media platforms. the rules for residential housing and social media platforms are different just as their intended uses are different. > Social media does not make sense globally. And yet here we are... on a global social media platform. It somehow works. > You cannot appease both the US government, conglomerate of EU governments, and the Chinese government without being in conflict of what one of them wants. social media platforms shouldn't concern themselves with what every government on earth wants. An online service should (generally speaking anyway, this is obviously an oversimplification) only worry about the law says in the country they're located in and it should fall on users to make sure what they post doesn't violate local laws. Some governments won't like that and may block your platform but that's a problem for that country's citizens to sort out with their repressive government. If every person and service on the internet had to concern itself with the laws of every nation on Earth the internet itself would be impossible. > You again want access to someone else's network and software you have absolutely zero right to. You use these services under surveillance capitalism without paying directly yourself and make demands of them. Their platform owes you less than nothing and we see this codified in the TOS's that state exactly that. Within certain legal limitations, a platform has every right to be as restrictive as it wants. It can allow only connections from certain IP ranges. It could only allow people to sign up if they pay them. It can refuse to allow anyone to post anything but the number "8" if it wants to. What a platform has a legal right to do, and what it ought to do are very very different things. I'm not arguing that a platform MUST under the law allow anyone to post anything they want. I'm stating that a major social media platform SHOULD allow people to discuss the topics that interest them freely and openly. It SHOULD avoid censoring people for ideological reasons. We, as users of social media, should make demands of the platforms we use. They exist to serve us. We provide the entirety of their content, which those platforms get and publish without ever paying us directly. It is OUR content that drives the traffic and engagement they see. We should reward platforms that follow free speech ideals and enable us to discuss what we like and we should shun platforms that censor us and limit what we're able to see and do. > Disconnect from them completely and take their power away. Run your own services and control what is said on your own network. That's the problem with a global internet isn't it. Let's say I do decide to create my own social media platform. I still need to depend on others to host my domain and my servers. I depend on payment processors to pay for those things. I depend on every other ISP to carry traffic to/from my IP. I depend on protocols and software written by other people. You cannot have a social media platform on the internet without depending on others. At every step in the chain countless people have the power to censor things they don't like. It's better for everyone when they don't. Censorship should be heavily discouraged everywhere, but especially online.
- bcrosby95 4y ago
  > If you don't like it set up own server online to freely associate. How exactly does your server get online without utilizing the private property of some entity?
  - pixl97 4y ago
    You don't. With that said we typically treat transport (phone lines, network connectivity) different than applications, and absolve the carrier of the traffic from the content of the traffic itself. With non-transport hosting it gets more complicated quickly. But until the time we adjust our laws (and good luck with that) it's going to be difficult to nullify property rights and freedom of association of the property owners over the users of the services.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
seattle_spring 4y ago
If I make an online space (subreddit, FB group, etc) about a specific topic (eg hiking) and some clown comes in and repeatedly posts about unrelated politics, that person should be moderated away.
- fruitpick 4y ago
  The motte: wanting to ensure a niche forum remains on topic. The bailey: getting sites removed from the Internet.

mech765 4y ago

I think that the most virtuous third party platform is the one that allows it's users to associate with each other with the least intervention probably with some limit such as the explicit threat of violence being moderated away. Seeing where the dice land on each social media website, I'm almost always disappointed that the websites are too heavy-handed. I suppose that "4-chan-style chaos as a business strategy" is less profitable than what they currently practice though.