4 ms·

I hate how Kiwi Farms has become the benchmark for so many important concepts relating to internet freedom. As much as I think the world would be a better place

I hate how Kiwi Farms has become the benchmark for so many important concepts relating to internet freedom. As much as I think the world would be a better place with them being forever banished to the onion realm, I can't really defend HE and other service providers drafting their own visions of internet code of ethics, then enforcing them on other people's traffic. A smaller ISP would probably start losing business over such concerns, but HE is so large, almost all of internet traffic touches them at some point, so their ability to moderate is not even impacted by their business decisions. Defending a company's AUP/ToS is reasonable when the company is reasonably sized, but HE is clearly over that limit. When a company gets too big to fail (banking also comes to mind) due to providing crucial societal function, there should be very strict restrictions on what they're allowed to moderate. This also applies to big industry conglomerates (oil, pharmaceuticals). Another part of the problem seem to be various lazy officials not prosecuting these sites on the basis of obvious crimes involved in their operation. I really appreciate EFF defending the obviously neutral approach here.

dmatech 3y ago
It's an interesting edge case. It's pretty clearly completely legal in the USA, though the content is grossly offensive. Some of the individual posts are almost certainly defamatory, but §230 shields the site itself from that liability (though not the posters). This brings us back to the real question: should extreme unpopularity alone be enough for deplatforming in a free society? Or should actual laws need to be broken?
- johnnyanmac 3y ago
  I think it's much simpler: make sure the content isn't legal to begin with. doxxing seems to broach on 4th amendment rights and we're no longer in a day and age where we will freely give out our address in newspapers. I don't know the fine legal details, but make a DMCA equivalent of private information. If you request a takedown of your identity and they don't comply, throw the book at them. Likewise, death threats and that kind of harassment isn't protected by 1st amendment rights. I don't think sites should be sued by consumers over user submitted posts, but they should be held accountable for at the bare minimum removing that harassment in a timely matter when asked. If it doesn't happen often enough, fine them.

dmatech 3y ago

It's an interesting edge case. It's pretty clearly completely legal in the USA, though the content is grossly offensive. Some of the individual posts are almost certainly defamatory, but §230 shields the site itself from that liability (though not the posters). This brings us back to the real question: should extreme unpopularity alone be enough for deplatforming in a free society? Or should actual laws need to be broken?

johnnyanmac 3y ago
I think it's much simpler: make sure the content isn't legal to begin with. doxxing seems to broach on 4th amendment rights and we're no longer in a day and age where we will freely give out our address in newspapers. I don't know the fine legal details, but make a DMCA equivalent of private information. If you request a takedown of your identity and they don't comply, throw the book at them. Likewise, death threats and that kind of harassment isn't protected by 1st amendment rights. I don't think sites should be sued by consumers over user submitted posts, but they should be held accountable for at the bare minimum removing that harassment in a timely matter when asked. If it doesn't happen often enough, fine them.