4 ms·

Same with VPS servers. Same with internet infrastructure; hubs, switches and fiber. Or ultimately any physical area in which people uttering heresy and atrociou

by marvin 12y ago

Same with VPS servers. Same with internet infrastructure; hubs, switches and fiber. Or ultimately any physical area in which people uttering heresy and atrocious opinions stay while uttering them (the latter point would ultimately be of concern to any owner of private property, or the state itself in the case of common public property). How are these distinct from imageboards, forums or reddit? This is a very slippery slope which implies censorship from the very beginning. Are you prepared to follow your reasoning all the way to its conclusion and stop people from having any platform for speaking their mind? Once you go there, you no longer have freedom of speech, which I agree with Hitchens et al. has to be protected even when it is uncomfortable. I agree that there is a very tricky ethical case when it comes to harrassment or terrorism, but I have no good ideas on how to resolve it. We should err on the side of not censoring stuff we don't like.

vertex-four 12y ago
> Are you prepared to follow your reasoning all the way to its conclusion and stop people from having any platform for speaking their mind? No, that's not the conclusion. The conclusion is that the providers are responsible for it and are definitely enabling it, but sometimes that's better than the alternative. Not everything's black and white, unfortunately. I'm not entirely certain that unrestricted use of a popular destination is the same thing as unrestricted use of a transport, though, to try and figure out a place where the line should be put. If you have an audience and allow people to reach that audience with dangerous and harmful ideas, that's likely worse than giving them the transport to build their own audience.
- current_call 12y ago
  Alright, so we're separating infrastructure into two types. There's "transport" infrastructure that allows people who already know each other to communicate and there's "audience" infrastructure that provides a way to present ideas to a group of strangers. Holding providers of "audience" infrastructure accountable means that the only unorthodox groups that can communicate as effectively as the orthodoxy are groups with members that can provide "audience" infrastructure. Now the unorthodox suffer a disadvantage. The purpose of this system is to prevent dangerous and harmful ideas from being spread. This is still censorship.
wpietri 12y ago
You're confusing censorship with freedom of association and freedom to chose your customers. If an ISP won't take the KKK's money, that is not censorship. Censorship would be if the government banned every ISP from serving the KKK whether or not they wanted to. Requiring all ISPs (or forums or whatever) to accept and retransmit the KKK's propaganda is just as much a limit on freedom as banning the stuff.
- Crito 12y ago
  If I configure my home router to use OpenDNS, such that my children cannot access internet pornography or extremist forums (such as 4chan or 8chan for example), that is a form of censorship, yes? It is a form of censorship that the government is not involved in. It is legal, and it is well within my rights to do. Hell, I'd go so far as to say it is the appropriate thing to do. It's still censorship though. I don't know what else I'd call it. Alternatively, when an American cable news channel bleeps profanity or blurs nudity, isn't that a form of censorship? I'm really confused with where the "censorship is only something a government can do" idea came from. Some sort of conflation between the ideas of "censorship" and "violation of first amendment rights" I suppose.
  - current_call 12y ago
    Part of it is people confusing legal and ethical. Oh my god, shut up about free speech. It's his privately owned website and he can do whatever he wants with it.
  - wpietri 12y ago
    I gave a government example, as that's what we were talking about. Censorship just requires power, and government power is the most important and obvious kind because governments are monopolies over large numbers of people. But yes, you also, having power over your kids, can censor what they see. But if every individual ISP refuses to host the KKK because they'd just rather not do business with bigots, then that's not censorship. It's just freedom of association. If the 8chan guy tomorrow decided to shut down and nobody else wanted to host the pedophiles, that isn't censorship. They can buy a piece of land and make a pedophile clubhouse. They can buy a printer, make pedophilia leaflets, and distribute them in the town square. But if nobody wants to help them do that, it isn't censorship, because nobody is exercising power over the pedophiles, just over themselves.

by marvin 12y ago

vertex-four 12y ago

> Are you prepared to follow your reasoning all the way to its conclusion and stop people from having any platform for speaking their mind? No, that's not the conclusion. The conclusion is that the providers are responsible for it and are definitely enabling it, but sometimes that's better than the alternative. Not everything's black and white, unfortunately. I'm not entirely certain that unrestricted use of a popular destination is the same thing as unrestricted use of a transport, though, to try and figure out a place where the line should be put. If you have an audience and allow people to reach that audience with dangerous and harmful ideas, that's likely worse than giving them the transport to build their own audience.

current_call 12y ago
Alright, so we're separating infrastructure into two types. There's "transport" infrastructure that allows people who already know each other to communicate and there's "audience" infrastructure that provides a way to present ideas to a group of strangers. Holding providers of "audience" infrastructure accountable means that the only unorthodox groups that can communicate as effectively as the orthodoxy are groups with members that can provide "audience" infrastructure. Now the unorthodox suffer a disadvantage. The purpose of this system is to prevent dangerous and harmful ideas from being spread. This is still censorship.

wpietri 12y ago

You're confusing censorship with freedom of association and freedom to chose your customers. If an ISP won't take the KKK's money, that is not censorship. Censorship would be if the government banned every ISP from serving the KKK whether or not they wanted to. Requiring all ISPs (or forums or whatever) to accept and retransmit the KKK's propaganda is just as much a limit on freedom as banning the stuff.

Crito 12y ago
If I configure my home router to use OpenDNS, such that my children cannot access internet pornography or extremist forums (such as 4chan or 8chan for example), that is a form of censorship, yes? It is a form of censorship that the government is not involved in. It is legal, and it is well within my rights to do. Hell, I'd go so far as to say it is the appropriate thing to do. It's still censorship though. I don't know what else I'd call it. Alternatively, when an American cable news channel bleeps profanity or blurs nudity, isn't that a form of censorship? I'm really confused with where the "censorship is only something a government can do" idea came from. Some sort of conflation between the ideas of "censorship" and "violation of first amendment rights" I suppose.
- current_call 12y ago
  Part of it is people confusing legal and ethical. Oh my god, shut up about free speech. It's his privately owned website and he can do whatever he wants with it.
- wpietri 12y ago
  I gave a government example, as that's what we were talking about. Censorship just requires power, and government power is the most important and obvious kind because governments are monopolies over large numbers of people. But yes, you also, having power over your kids, can censor what they see. But if every individual ISP refuses to host the KKK because they'd just rather not do business with bigots, then that's not censorship. It's just freedom of association. If the 8chan guy tomorrow decided to shut down and nobody else wanted to host the pedophiles, that isn't censorship. They can buy a piece of land and make a pedophile clubhouse. They can buy a printer, make pedophilia leaflets, and distribute them in the town square. But if nobody wants to help them do that, it isn't censorship, because nobody is exercising power over the pedophiles, just over themselves.