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I'm sure this will be an absolutely abhorrent take to the HN audience, but I've been recently wondering if perhaps a bit of censorship could be a good thing. N

I'm sure this will be an absolutely abhorrent take to the HN audience, but I've been recently wondering if perhaps a bit of censorship could be a good thing. Not complete censorship, of course, but not complete freedom of communication either. In the past 25 years or so we've gone from being only able to freely communicate our ideas with people we know directly to being able to share anything with anyone all over the world. And it hasn't made life better. It hasn't improved our wellbeing, it hasn't improved our democracy, it hasn't improved our relationships... Empirically, it just hasn't worked and maybe it would be a good thing to attempt to put the genie back into the bottle.

lvturner 3y ago
There are a couple of countries, one very notable, that we can use as a case study.
wolverine876 3y ago
Who decides what should be censored?
- toofy 3y ago
  if a restaurant removes people if they stand on their tables and scream weird shit at the other diners, is this "censoring"? if hackernews removes child porn or spam, is this "censoring"? if a music venue, who has spent years building a reputation as an amazing place to see goth bands or metal bands or hyperpop bands, is it "censorship" if they don't book a country band? if your email provider removes spam, are they "censoring"? i've found this "who decides" things to be getting increasingly ridiculous. the restaurant owner decides. this isn't rocket science. the music venue owner decides. if a gathering place of humans has spent years cultivating a reputation for certain genres, again, goth music, electronic music, rock music, etc... or fine dining, fast food, bbq, etc.. we don't scream from the rooftops when mcdonalds doesn't serve foie gras. we don't run in panic circles and scream "censorship" when a goth club doesn't book nickelback. we don't clutch our pearls when our email provider removes spam or child porn and proclaim "omg that dick enlargement pill email was removed! censorship! who decides. oh my who decides." if you want to argue against centralization of services, im right there with you. no large city has 1 restaurant. there are hundreds if not thousands. no large city has 1 music venue, again there are hundreds. different places for different experiences. if you want to argue that having 1 gateway to the internet is an absolutely absurd and terrifying dystopia, ill be in the front of that line with you carrying my pitchfork. and if you want to argue that just a handful of centralized increasingly walled off social media sites is absolutely awful, again, im with you. we need hundreds or thousands of gateways to online experiences, not the small handful we have today. at this point the "who decides" thing becomes naturally irrelevant.
  - dns_snek 3y ago
    The false equivalence you're trying to establish between censoring child porn (illegal for very good reasons we hopefully all agree on), spam (something you opt-into and can opt out of at any time), and the censorship of individuals' free speech which happens to contain "bad" opinions is nothing short of remarkable.
    - toofy 3y ago
      > The false equivalence you're trying to establish between censoring child porn (illegal for very good reasons we hopefully all agree on) im not drawing a false equivalence to anything. the article in which this entire comment section is linked surrounds piracy--which for better or worse is illegal, just like child porn. It is entirely and thoroughly relevant to discuss censoring illegal attributes *and* non-illegal attributes such as: > spam (something you opt-into and can opt out of at any time) and it is absolute non-sensical to argue that spam is something we opt into. if it were opted into, then by definition it isn't spam. and to even imply that people can opt-out of actual spam is wild. go ahead, set up your own email server, don't "censor" any spam, and attempt to opt-out. let us know how this goes--as someone who has administered many organization's email servers, i can confidently assure you that it will absolutely not go well and you will of course not be able to simply opt-out of it. you *will* censor it. remember, spam isn't illegal, but pretty much every organization in the world will "censor" spam. any crying about censorship which doesn't consider the question "why is it ok to block spam?" immediately shows how unserious and unnuanced the discussion will be--a literal waste of time. if you can't distinguish between the organizations i listed (restaurants, bars, forums, etc...) curating their audience and some version of wholesale "individuals free speech" then obviously the nuance needed to talk about this in any meaningful manner doesn't exist. if you are able to distinguish the nuances between those, then i absolutely welcome the discussion. again, the "who decides" pearl-clutching boils down to the organization and the audience they're curating. in terms of governments suppressing free-speech, i usually (but not always) agree with most arguments that the government should typically not be prosecuting for speech. sadly, im not shocked with how many of the free-speech internet screamers have suddenly gone quiet now that multiple actual state backed attacks on free-speech are happening across the country. from book bans in libraries, to book bans in schools, to silencing teachers, to drag shows. there have now been 100s (if not 1000s) of these instances and all of those pearl clutchers are now silent. their silence is wildly predictable tho, /shrug again, there's no false-equivalence as the topic has been so muddied by disingenuous bad-faith actors for so long that many people can't even begin to distinguish between a government suppressing free-speech, websites or places curating an audience experience, and also freedom of association. most of the people crying about censorship don't even understand why the conversation must have at least those as a starting point or its not worth having.

lvturner 3y ago

There are a couple of countries, one very notable, that we can use as a case study.

wolverine876 3y ago

Who decides what should be censored?

toofy 3y ago
if a restaurant removes people if they stand on their tables and scream weird shit at the other diners, is this "censoring"? if hackernews removes child porn or spam, is this "censoring"? if a music venue, who has spent years building a reputation as an amazing place to see goth bands or metal bands or hyperpop bands, is it "censorship" if they don't book a country band? if your email provider removes spam, are they "censoring"? i've found this "who decides" things to be getting increasingly ridiculous. the restaurant owner decides. this isn't rocket science. the music venue owner decides. if a gathering place of humans has spent years cultivating a reputation for certain genres, again, goth music, electronic music, rock music, etc... or fine dining, fast food, bbq, etc.. we don't scream from the rooftops when mcdonalds doesn't serve foie gras. we don't run in panic circles and scream "censorship" when a goth club doesn't book nickelback. we don't clutch our pearls when our email provider removes spam or child porn and proclaim "omg that dick enlargement pill email was removed! censorship! who decides. oh my who decides." if you want to argue against centralization of services, im right there with you. no large city has 1 restaurant. there are hundreds if not thousands. no large city has 1 music venue, again there are hundreds. different places for different experiences. if you want to argue that having 1 gateway to the internet is an absolutely absurd and terrifying dystopia, ill be in the front of that line with you carrying my pitchfork. and if you want to argue that just a handful of centralized increasingly walled off social media sites is absolutely awful, again, im with you. we need hundreds or thousands of gateways to online experiences, not the small handful we have today. at this point the "who decides" thing becomes naturally irrelevant.
- dns_snek 3y ago
  The false equivalence you're trying to establish between censoring child porn (illegal for very good reasons we hopefully all agree on), spam (something you opt-into and can opt out of at any time), and the censorship of individuals' free speech which happens to contain "bad" opinions is nothing short of remarkable.
  - toofy 3y ago
    > The false equivalence you're trying to establish between censoring child porn (illegal for very good reasons we hopefully all agree on) im not drawing a false equivalence to anything. the article in which this entire comment section is linked surrounds piracy--which for better or worse is illegal, just like child porn. It is entirely and thoroughly relevant to discuss censoring illegal attributes *and* non-illegal attributes such as: > spam (something you opt-into and can opt out of at any time) and it is absolute non-sensical to argue that spam is something we opt into. if it were opted into, then by definition it isn't spam. and to even imply that people can opt-out of actual spam is wild. go ahead, set up your own email server, don't "censor" any spam, and attempt to opt-out. let us know how this goes--as someone who has administered many organization's email servers, i can confidently assure you that it will absolutely not go well and you will of course not be able to simply opt-out of it. you *will* censor it. remember, spam isn't illegal, but pretty much every organization in the world will "censor" spam. any crying about censorship which doesn't consider the question "why is it ok to block spam?" immediately shows how unserious and unnuanced the discussion will be--a literal waste of time. if you can't distinguish between the organizations i listed (restaurants, bars, forums, etc...) curating their audience and some version of wholesale "individuals free speech" then obviously the nuance needed to talk about this in any meaningful manner doesn't exist. if you are able to distinguish the nuances between those, then i absolutely welcome the discussion. again, the "who decides" pearl-clutching boils down to the organization and the audience they're curating. in terms of governments suppressing free-speech, i usually (but not always) agree with most arguments that the government should typically not be prosecuting for speech. sadly, im not shocked with how many of the free-speech internet screamers have suddenly gone quiet now that multiple actual state backed attacks on free-speech are happening across the country. from book bans in libraries, to book bans in schools, to silencing teachers, to drag shows. there have now been 100s (if not 1000s) of these instances and all of those pearl clutchers are now silent. their silence is wildly predictable tho, /shrug again, there's no false-equivalence as the topic has been so muddied by disingenuous bad-faith actors for so long that many people can't even begin to distinguish between a government suppressing free-speech, websites or places curating an audience experience, and also freedom of association. most of the people crying about censorship don't even understand why the conversation must have at least those as a starting point or its not worth having.