8 ms·

Isn't privatized censorship already here? Cloudflare (disclosure: I am an investor), controls a large portion of the internet with their DDOS and CDN. Followed

Isn't privatized censorship already here? Cloudflare (disclosure: I am an investor), controls a large portion of the internet with their DDOS and CDN. Followed by Akamai, etc. There are already cases and examples where Cloudflare and other CDNs have kicked sites off of their platform or responded to take down requests. https://w3techs.com/technologies/details/cn-cloudflare https://w3techs.com/technologies/details/cn-cloudflare

zer00eyz 4y ago
Between ISP's, Proxies, and Payment processors there are lots of extra legal ways to shut down anything you would like to on the web. All it takes is enough money and/or political power. The thing is this isn't new. Traditional publishing had throttles at the publisher, the seller and the library. Freedom of speech is not requirement to broadcast.
- 77pt77 4y ago
  > Freedom of speech is not requirement to broadcast. The USSR's constitution specified that not only was there freedom of speech but also freedom/right to "broadcast". The state would give anyone access to a printing press to disseminate speech. In practice it was a bit different though.
  - kneebonian 4y ago
    An American man and a Russian man were arguing about which country was freer. The American said "I am so free I can walk up to the gates of the white house and scream 'down with Reagan, he stinks'". "I have that freedom too" responds the Soviet man, "I could walk over to the Kremlin right now and yell 'Down with Reagan he stinks'"
- A4ET8a8uTh0 4y ago
  Yep. At banks it has slowly gotten particularly bad since lately EU EBA had to issue guidance on how to tackle 'regulatory expectations and[..] unwarranted derisking'. US Treasury did not offer a guideline yet, but one of its higher up recently had a speech that touched on it too. This is what happens when your system is not dumb pipes and can be massaged based on who is currently doing the bossing part. And this is why I roll my eyes at anyone who tells me 'just do it yourself'. Do what at this point? Roll foundational infrastructure that should be dumb pipes? Coffee did not kick in yet, but the game is rigged and whatever ideals existed with the emergence of early internet have been gone for a long time now. We are just seeing some of its more visible effects.
  - kyrra 4y ago
    And more concrete example for the banking system is a recent bank failures. The Fed and FDIC have effectively given notice to the banking system that crypto is disfavored. See: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/signatures-seized-assets-sold-without-105833351.html https://finance.yahoo.com/news/signatures-seized-assets-sold... > FDIC had told potential bidders that "any buyer of Signature must agree to give up all the crypto business at the bank." And one of the members of Signature Banks board also claimed the FDIC shut them down without the bank being insolvent. See: https://www.wsj.com/articles/signature-bank-new-york-community-bancorp-flagstar-bank-crypto-barney-frank-fdic-9b825e2e https://www.wsj.com/articles/signature-bank-new-york-communi... You can bet banks will be avoiding crypto.
    - brookst 4y ago
      I’m not sure it’s surprising or undesirable for heavily regulated banks that rely on government support in both good and bad times are avoiding a highly speculative and unregulated asset class that has a history of ponzu schemes and other frauds.
- DANmode 4y ago
  extralegal
- account42 4y ago
  We're not talking about broadcasting here but about making speech (i.e. a website) available to those who seek it.
- falcrist 4y ago
  I really wish the messaging about Net Neutrality focused less on the idea that ISPs were going to be able to charge you for access to specific services or throttle competing services (which is a terrible idea), and more on the freedom of speech issue. AFAIK there's no way to say anything on the internet without permission from at least an ISP and DNS... and usually also a webhost and website you don't own. It would be nice to have some legal protections from at least some of those entities.
77pt77 4y ago
It's the american way. The state outsources everything, including censorship. Then it can just say it's out of its hands.
- A4ET8a8uTh0 4y ago
  In my unwritten book ( that will likely never happen, because I am way too lazy ), I call it distributed.
  - rs999gti 4y ago
    > I call it distributed With internet traffic consolidating to just a few major CDNs, the internet is getting more centralized
    - A4ET8a8uTh0 4y ago
      Yes, but individual enforcement and pain point is distributed.
    - kneebonian 4y ago
      This is a question I have. Why do so many websites have CDNs now? Like it seems that everyone feels like they need to throw their website behind Cloudflare even if they are serving content to a relatively confined region. When did everyone decide they needed Cloudflare for everything? Or is this like how you need to use React and SSR even when you have a relatively simple static site, i.e. cargo cutting?
      - rs999gti 4y ago
        > When did everyone decide they needed Cloudflare for everything? I think it was when Reddit and other social link platforms were becoming established, the linked sites would go viral and then the traffic would do an unintended DDOS. Cloudflare and other providers offered free DDOS protection, then it became a defacto standard to have a CDN
dtech 4y ago
That's quite different. The case described here would be another party forcing Cloudflare and any possible other provider to boot the subject as a customer.
- falcolas 4y ago
  Ask Pirate Bay about how this exact thing happens to them.
- slackfan 4y ago
  This happened 3 times in the past six months. Where have you been?
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
bashinator 4y ago
You don't even really need technical means if you have sufficient financial resources, cf. Thiel v. Gawker.
Zetice 4y ago
Privatized censorship is also known as the freedom of association, and a fundamental right both legally in the US, and morally as an inherent human right.
- rcoveson 4y ago
  The fact that it's immoral to infringe freedom of association doens't imply that it is always moral to exercise your right to freedom of association in any way you want. We could all exercise that freedom to refuse to associate with people who are on the wrong side of the $HOT_ISSUE debate and gradually degrade the social fabric until it tears. For many possible values of $HOT_ISSUE, I think we can agree that would be wrong. So even though you aren't required to associate any more liberally than you desire--and requiring you to do so would be wrong--it's still true that we need most people to be quite liberal in their associations for this (or any) country to work. That's all a long way of saying that it's valid to complain about private censorship. It's (generally) not okay to propose that we send in the troops to stop private censorship, but it's fine and good to complain when it happens. It's no different from arguing that some{body|entity} should be nicer, or more careful, or even stricter, for that matter.
  - Zetice 4y ago
    Oh yeah it's for sure valid to criticize people for exercising their freedoms, but it's not okay to prevent them from doing so. My pet peeve however is, "They shouldn't do that" very often leads to, "We shouldn't let them do that." though, which I think we agree is a huge problem.
- Tommstein 4y ago
  I wonder if you would hold that stance if they put out a sign that said "no blacks/gays/whites/whatever."
  - soundnote 4y ago
    The Irish need not apply.
  - 4y ago

zer00eyz 4y ago

Between ISP's, Proxies, and Payment processors there are lots of extra legal ways to shut down anything you would like to on the web. All it takes is enough money and/or political power. The thing is this isn't new. Traditional publishing had throttles at the publisher, the seller and the library. Freedom of speech is not requirement to broadcast.

77pt77 4y ago
> Freedom of speech is not requirement to broadcast. The USSR's constitution specified that not only was there freedom of speech but also freedom/right to "broadcast". The state would give anyone access to a printing press to disseminate speech. In practice it was a bit different though.
- kneebonian 4y ago
  An American man and a Russian man were arguing about which country was freer. The American said "I am so free I can walk up to the gates of the white house and scream 'down with Reagan, he stinks'". "I have that freedom too" responds the Soviet man, "I could walk over to the Kremlin right now and yell 'Down with Reagan he stinks'"
A4ET8a8uTh0 4y ago
Yep. At banks it has slowly gotten particularly bad since lately EU EBA had to issue guidance on how to tackle 'regulatory expectations and[..] unwarranted derisking'. US Treasury did not offer a guideline yet, but one of its higher up recently had a speech that touched on it too. This is what happens when your system is not dumb pipes and can be massaged based on who is currently doing the bossing part. And this is why I roll my eyes at anyone who tells me 'just do it yourself'. Do what at this point? Roll foundational infrastructure that should be dumb pipes? Coffee did not kick in yet, but the game is rigged and whatever ideals existed with the emergence of early internet have been gone for a long time now. We are just seeing some of its more visible effects.
- kyrra 4y ago
  And more concrete example for the banking system is a recent bank failures. The Fed and FDIC have effectively given notice to the banking system that crypto is disfavored. See: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/signatures-seized-assets-sold-without-105833351.html https://finance.yahoo.com/news/signatures-seized-assets-sold... > FDIC had told potential bidders that "any buyer of Signature must agree to give up all the crypto business at the bank." And one of the members of Signature Banks board also claimed the FDIC shut them down without the bank being insolvent. See: https://www.wsj.com/articles/signature-bank-new-york-community-bancorp-flagstar-bank-crypto-barney-frank-fdic-9b825e2e https://www.wsj.com/articles/signature-bank-new-york-communi... You can bet banks will be avoiding crypto.
  - brookst 4y ago
    I’m not sure it’s surprising or undesirable for heavily regulated banks that rely on government support in both good and bad times are avoiding a highly speculative and unregulated asset class that has a history of ponzu schemes and other frauds.
DANmode 4y ago
extralegal
account42 4y ago
We're not talking about broadcasting here but about making speech (i.e. a website) available to those who seek it.
falcrist 4y ago
I really wish the messaging about Net Neutrality focused less on the idea that ISPs were going to be able to charge you for access to specific services or throttle competing services (which is a terrible idea), and more on the freedom of speech issue. AFAIK there's no way to say anything on the internet without permission from at least an ISP and DNS... and usually also a webhost and website you don't own. It would be nice to have some legal protections from at least some of those entities.

77pt77 4y ago

It's the american way. The state outsources everything, including censorship. Then it can just say it's out of its hands.

A4ET8a8uTh0 4y ago
In my unwritten book ( that will likely never happen, because I am way too lazy ), I call it distributed.
- rs999gti 4y ago
  > I call it distributed With internet traffic consolidating to just a few major CDNs, the internet is getting more centralized
  - A4ET8a8uTh0 4y ago
    Yes, but individual enforcement and pain point is distributed.
  - kneebonian 4y ago
    This is a question I have. Why do so many websites have CDNs now? Like it seems that everyone feels like they need to throw their website behind Cloudflare even if they are serving content to a relatively confined region. When did everyone decide they needed Cloudflare for everything? Or is this like how you need to use React and SSR even when you have a relatively simple static site, i.e. cargo cutting?
    - rs999gti 4y ago
      > When did everyone decide they needed Cloudflare for everything? I think it was when Reddit and other social link platforms were becoming established, the linked sites would go viral and then the traffic would do an unintended DDOS. Cloudflare and other providers offered free DDOS protection, then it became a defacto standard to have a CDN

dtech 4y ago

That's quite different. The case described here would be another party forcing Cloudflare and any possible other provider to boot the subject as a customer.

falcolas 4y ago
Ask Pirate Bay about how this exact thing happens to them.
slackfan 4y ago
This happened 3 times in the past six months. Where have you been?

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

bashinator 4y ago

You don't even really need technical means if you have sufficient financial resources, cf. Thiel v. Gawker.

Zetice 4y ago

Privatized censorship is also known as the freedom of association, and a fundamental right both legally in the US, and morally as an inherent human right.

rcoveson 4y ago
The fact that it's immoral to infringe freedom of association doens't imply that it is always moral to exercise your right to freedom of association in any way you want. We could all exercise that freedom to refuse to associate with people who are on the wrong side of the $HOT_ISSUE debate and gradually degrade the social fabric until it tears. For many possible values of $HOT_ISSUE, I think we can agree that would be wrong. So even though you aren't required to associate any more liberally than you desire--and requiring you to do so would be wrong--it's still true that we need most people to be quite liberal in their associations for this (or any) country to work. That's all a long way of saying that it's valid to complain about private censorship. It's (generally) not okay to propose that we send in the troops to stop private censorship, but it's fine and good to complain when it happens. It's no different from arguing that some{body|entity} should be nicer, or more careful, or even stricter, for that matter.
- Zetice 4y ago
  Oh yeah it's for sure valid to criticize people for exercising their freedoms, but it's not okay to prevent them from doing so. My pet peeve however is, "They shouldn't do that" very often leads to, "We shouldn't let them do that." though, which I think we agree is a huge problem.
Tommstein 4y ago
I wonder if you would hold that stance if they put out a sign that said "no blacks/gays/whites/whatever."
- soundnote 4y ago
  The Irish need not apply.
- 4y ago