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Here we have a fundemental problem It is often NOT the users of the platforms that want censorship, it is users of another platform, targeting something they d

Here we have a fundemental problem It is often NOT the users of the platforms that want censorship, it is users of another platform, targeting something they do not like on the internet, and then going after underlying structures be it ISP's, DDOS services, Domain Registrars, Hosting providers, Credit Card Processors, etc etc etc We have plenty of examples of this on the internet, where it is not the users of the sites that want something censored, but 3rd party actors using systemic pressure on critical infrastructure to effect the censorship You have this utopia where someone puts up a gardening forum and the users or even the owner of the forums says "We do not allow talk about Politics here"... Where in reality someone sets up a political forum, someone posts something, then someone on Twitter, Facebook, Insta, etc gets offended and starts a campaign to have CloudFlare, or AWS ban them.

shadowgovt 3y ago
Yep. It's a pretty clever approach, and I for one am in hindsight surprised that it took this long for people to realize that the system is a network and is therefore vulnerable to network dependency attacks. This is not necessarily a bad thing. Nazis, for example, deserve no platform and if companies decide to revoke service when they discover they're serving Nazis that's their prerogative. It can be abused, especially given that the largest players in the space are going to trend sensitive to controversy... But the internet has become embedded deeply enough in our lives that people can no longer enjoy the pretty fantasy of the neutral service provider; IBM got away with it in World War 2 and that's generally pointed to as a moral failing these days. If people are calling for enforced neutrality, they're really calling for government regulation (who else would enforce the neutrality?) which is its own can of worms.
- phpisthebest 3y ago
  >Nazis, for example, Then you have the problem of labeling everyone that disagrees with you a "nazi" for example just because they favor strong border laws, and immigration controls, or oppose social justice and ESG "capitalism" or other such things Or the true crime of having a difference of opinion with a trans person... >>This is not necessarily a bad thing. yes it is a bad thing, it will always be a bad thing, even if doing to to actual nazi's not the new age defination of "nazi's" which seemly is anyone that happened to vote for Trump, or holds conservative political positions. >>If people are calling for enforced neutrality, they're really calling for government regulation yes and no, depends on what we are talking about Are we talking about an already heavily regulated industry like banking. This yes 100% I am calling for enforced neutrality. JP Morgan Chase, nor MasterCard should be able to refuse business to someone for the protected political speech. Services like AWS, or CloudFlare.... No I would not call for supported regulation but then we come full circle back to loss of cultural support for Free Expression There was a time were the ACLU would defend the KKK's right to speak, We should return to those days, where the axiom was "I disagree with you but I will defends your right to say it" If we at the point was the population is pushing for AWS to de-platform competitors of Twitter because of disagreements over politics we are not far removed from government censorship The reality is you would likely support both, as you clear abhor actual free speech This is also why Elon's purchase of Twitter was so critical and 100% support his efforts.
  - shadowgovt 3y ago
    > The reality is you would likely support both, as you clear abhor actual free speech Broadly speaking, I'm a fan of the marketplace of ideas. That marketplace includes boycotts, callouts, and choices by private individuals to provide or revoke a platform for someone else to speak in their space. Freedom of the press has never implied that everyone gets a free press. > which seemly is anyone that happened to vote for Trump, or holds conservative political positions. Hacker News isn't really a great venue for that kind of discussion. But there's a reason the pushback on him and his supporters has been so strong relative to previous politicians. He and his supporters actually do represent something fundamentally caustic to the American body politic. https://www.bu.edu/articles/2022/are-trump-republicans-fascists/ https://www.bu.edu/articles/2022/are-trump-republicans-fasci...
    - phpisthebest 3y ago
      >>That marketplace includes boycotts, callouts, and choices by private individuals to provide Which means I am sure you support the ongoing boycotts happening to BudLight and Target? Or are boycotts only for one side? > Freedom of the press has never implied that everyone gets a free press. The problem here is when the government subsides the people that makes the press, regulates the people that makes the press, and limits the who and produce presses it ceases to be a free market, and becomes a regulated market One can make the case, that since the internet was started by the government (dod) and regulated for decades by the government (Dept of Commerce Via ICANN), and tons of subsidies ISP;s have gotten and continue to get, locations where the internet is a government service, and tons of other factors that the idea that the internet is a purely free market is clearly a false narrative One often used for convince when it meets peoples political goals, and then the second that freedom is not aligned with their goals anymore. Further when it comes to consumer boycotts, you have to actually be a consumer, 99% of the people that have effective policy changes at CloudFlare and AWS have never spent a single dime at either of those services. Today cancel culture is something more than just a boycott, it is something new not seen before in human civilization, and it is a huge threat to not only freedom of expression but freedom in general I am unclear why people do not get that.
mavhc 3y ago
Isn't campaigning to have something banned also free speech? If they start blowing up data centres, that's a different question.

shadowgovt 3y ago

Yep. It's a pretty clever approach, and I for one am in hindsight surprised that it took this long for people to realize that the system is a network and is therefore vulnerable to network dependency attacks. This is not necessarily a bad thing. Nazis, for example, deserve no platform and if companies decide to revoke service when they discover they're serving Nazis that's their prerogative. It can be abused, especially given that the largest players in the space are going to trend sensitive to controversy... But the internet has become embedded deeply enough in our lives that people can no longer enjoy the pretty fantasy of the neutral service provider; IBM got away with it in World War 2 and that's generally pointed to as a moral failing these days. If people are calling for enforced neutrality, they're really calling for government regulation (who else would enforce the neutrality?) which is its own can of worms.

phpisthebest 3y ago
>Nazis, for example, Then you have the problem of labeling everyone that disagrees with you a "nazi" for example just because they favor strong border laws, and immigration controls, or oppose social justice and ESG "capitalism" or other such things Or the true crime of having a difference of opinion with a trans person... >>This is not necessarily a bad thing. yes it is a bad thing, it will always be a bad thing, even if doing to to actual nazi's not the new age defination of "nazi's" which seemly is anyone that happened to vote for Trump, or holds conservative political positions. >>If people are calling for enforced neutrality, they're really calling for government regulation yes and no, depends on what we are talking about Are we talking about an already heavily regulated industry like banking. This yes 100% I am calling for enforced neutrality. JP Morgan Chase, nor MasterCard should be able to refuse business to someone for the protected political speech. Services like AWS, or CloudFlare.... No I would not call for supported regulation but then we come full circle back to loss of cultural support for Free Expression There was a time were the ACLU would defend the KKK's right to speak, We should return to those days, where the axiom was "I disagree with you but I will defends your right to say it" If we at the point was the population is pushing for AWS to de-platform competitors of Twitter because of disagreements over politics we are not far removed from government censorship The reality is you would likely support both, as you clear abhor actual free speech This is also why Elon's purchase of Twitter was so critical and 100% support his efforts.
- shadowgovt 3y ago
  > The reality is you would likely support both, as you clear abhor actual free speech Broadly speaking, I'm a fan of the marketplace of ideas. That marketplace includes boycotts, callouts, and choices by private individuals to provide or revoke a platform for someone else to speak in their space. Freedom of the press has never implied that everyone gets a free press. > which seemly is anyone that happened to vote for Trump, or holds conservative political positions. Hacker News isn't really a great venue for that kind of discussion. But there's a reason the pushback on him and his supporters has been so strong relative to previous politicians. He and his supporters actually do represent something fundamentally caustic to the American body politic. https://www.bu.edu/articles/2022/are-trump-republicans-fascists/ https://www.bu.edu/articles/2022/are-trump-republicans-fasci...
  - phpisthebest 3y ago
    >>That marketplace includes boycotts, callouts, and choices by private individuals to provide Which means I am sure you support the ongoing boycotts happening to BudLight and Target? Or are boycotts only for one side? > Freedom of the press has never implied that everyone gets a free press. The problem here is when the government subsides the people that makes the press, regulates the people that makes the press, and limits the who and produce presses it ceases to be a free market, and becomes a regulated market One can make the case, that since the internet was started by the government (dod) and regulated for decades by the government (Dept of Commerce Via ICANN), and tons of subsidies ISP;s have gotten and continue to get, locations where the internet is a government service, and tons of other factors that the idea that the internet is a purely free market is clearly a false narrative One often used for convince when it meets peoples political goals, and then the second that freedom is not aligned with their goals anymore. Further when it comes to consumer boycotts, you have to actually be a consumer, 99% of the people that have effective policy changes at CloudFlare and AWS have never spent a single dime at either of those services. Today cancel culture is something more than just a boycott, it is something new not seen before in human civilization, and it is a huge threat to not only freedom of expression but freedom in general I am unclear why people do not get that.

mavhc 3y ago

Isn't campaigning to have something banned also free speech? If they start blowing up data centres, that's a different question.