EFF, Cory Doctorow Warn About the Dangers of De-Platforming and Censorship (eff.org) 231
Last week Cory Doctorow shared his own answer for what Apple and Google should've done about Parler:
They should remove it, and tell users, "We removed Parler because we think it is a politically odious attempt to foment violence. Our judgment is subjective and may be wielded against others in future. If you don't like our judgment, you shouldn't use our app store."
I'm 100% OK with that: first, because it is honest; and second, because it invites the question, "How do we switch app stores?"
Doctorow warns that "vital sectors of the digital economy became as concentrated as they are due to four decades of shameful, bipartisan neglect of antitrust law."
And now Slashdot reader esm88 notes that "The EFF has made a statement raising concerns over tech giants control over the internet and who gets to decide which speech is allowed" (authored by legal director Corynne McSherry, strategy director Danny O'Brien, and Jillian C. York, EFF director for international freedom of expression): Whatever you think of Parler, these decisions should give you pause. Private companies have strong legal rights under U.S. law to refuse to host or support speech they don't like. But that refusal carries different risks when a group of companies comes together to ensure that forums for speech or speakers are effectively taken offline altogether... Amazon's decision highlights core questions of our time: Who should decide what is acceptable speech, and to what degree should companies at the infrastructure layer play a role in censorship? At EFF, we think the answer is both simple and challenging: wherever possible, users should decide for themselves, and companies at the infrastructure layer should stay well out of it....
The core problem remains: regardless of whether we agree with an individual decision, these decisions overall have not and will not be made democratically and in line with the requirements of transparency and due process. Instead they are made by a handful of individuals, in a handful of companies, the most distanced and least visible to the most Internet users. Whether you agree with those decisions or not, you will not be a part of them, nor be privy to their considerations. And unless we dismantle the increasingly centralized chokepoints in our global digital infrastructure, we can anticipate an escalating political battle between political factions and nation states to seize control of their powers.
On Friday Bill Ottman, founder and CEO of the right-leaning blockchain-based social network Minds (which includes a Slashdot discussion area), posted that in order to remain in the Google Play store, "We had to remove search, discovery, and comments..." We aren't happy and will be working towards something better. What is fascinating is how Signal and Telegram are navigating this and in my opinion they are still there because they are encrypted messengers without much "public" content. Obviously controversial speech is happening there too...
We will be releasing a full report on our plan for fully censorship-resistant infrastructure.
Ottman also advises users downloading apps from Apple's store to "leave if you're smart."
I'm 100% OK with that: first, because it is honest; and second, because it invites the question, "How do we switch app stores?"
Doctorow warns that "vital sectors of the digital economy became as concentrated as they are due to four decades of shameful, bipartisan neglect of antitrust law."
And now Slashdot reader esm88 notes that "The EFF has made a statement raising concerns over tech giants control over the internet and who gets to decide which speech is allowed" (authored by legal director Corynne McSherry, strategy director Danny O'Brien, and Jillian C. York, EFF director for international freedom of expression): Whatever you think of Parler, these decisions should give you pause. Private companies have strong legal rights under U.S. law to refuse to host or support speech they don't like. But that refusal carries different risks when a group of companies comes together to ensure that forums for speech or speakers are effectively taken offline altogether... Amazon's decision highlights core questions of our time: Who should decide what is acceptable speech, and to what degree should companies at the infrastructure layer play a role in censorship? At EFF, we think the answer is both simple and challenging: wherever possible, users should decide for themselves, and companies at the infrastructure layer should stay well out of it....
The core problem remains: regardless of whether we agree with an individual decision, these decisions overall have not and will not be made democratically and in line with the requirements of transparency and due process. Instead they are made by a handful of individuals, in a handful of companies, the most distanced and least visible to the most Internet users. Whether you agree with those decisions or not, you will not be a part of them, nor be privy to their considerations. And unless we dismantle the increasingly centralized chokepoints in our global digital infrastructure, we can anticipate an escalating political battle between political factions and nation states to seize control of their powers.
On Friday Bill Ottman, founder and CEO of the right-leaning blockchain-based social network Minds (which includes a Slashdot discussion area), posted that in order to remain in the Google Play store, "We had to remove search, discovery, and comments..." We aren't happy and will be working towards something better. What is fascinating is how Signal and Telegram are navigating this and in my opinion they are still there because they are encrypted messengers without much "public" content. Obviously controversial speech is happening there too...
We will be releasing a full report on our plan for fully censorship-resistant infrastructure.
Ottman also advises users downloading apps from Apple's store to "leave if you're smart."
Amazon warned Parler (Score:3)
Back in November Amazon was already warning Parler about not removing content that violated their TOS.
https://www.businessinsider.co... [businessinsider.com]
Also this. https://i.redd.it/uazhmn3neta6... [i.redd.it]
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we've been through this before (Score:2, Insightful)
Down here in the real world, it's messier. They're talking about app stores, eh? Ok, let's use Walmart as an analogy. I can walk into Walmart and buy almost anything I want. The key word there is ALMOST. A while ago, we figured out that letting people take a shopping cart through the medicine isle and cleaning out the ent
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You know this, how, exactly?
Re: we've been through this before (Score:2)
So totally unlike the world of filter bubble circle jerks that is "social media", you mean?
Just look at Reddit. Or Facebook.
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You mean no one left to offer a pro-murder, pro-civil war, pro-racist pro-fascist opinion? That should be the goal, not the danger.
You aren't advocating for free speech when you pursue the destruction of society, you are exploiting free speech.
Re: we've been through this before (Score:2)
Over here, we say "Your freedom ends where my freedom begins.". It reduces libertarianism to a logical fallacy.
Re: we've been through this before (Score:3)
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Sure, The limit on Walmart (and anyone else) selling bulk quantities of pseudoephedrine is probably necessary. The decision to implement that limit was made by a duly elected government answerable to the people, not by a CEO answerable only to the stockholders.
Note that that answerability is why people with legitimate uses for reasonable quantities of pseudoephedrine can still buy it.
That's the real issue. I don't have the first hand knowledge of Parler I would need to form an opinion (just a ton of hearsay
You're telling that to lock-in monopolists. (Score:2)
.(..That are condescending control freak nannies too, modeled after Steve Jobs.)
Their whole schtick is to make it hard to switch "app stores", or hell, to even *think* beyond the concept!
(Package managers anyone? Being paid for actual work instead of imaginary 'property' anyone? Let alone if it wasn't even your own work but you're just leeching on them, calling it a "platform", dear Google, Apple, Uber, etc.)
Locking in and controlling us, essentially like a human herd, a "resource", is what they are.
Instead
Parler was formed because they objected to Twitter (Score:5, Insightful)
The entire reason why most of these 'conservative' forums exist is that the people on them objected to similar platforms that call themselves non-partisan. Whether they are non-partisan or liberal does not matter.
Given that, they should not object when other companies that call themselves non-partisan (which may be liberal or may be non-artisan) also say "Get off of us too."
What Apple etc. did is no more objectionable than what Parler did. They left people they disagree with.
The real problem is that monopolistic powers of the phone stores. Apple Store and Google Play should NOT be the only ways to download apps to your phones. Just as anyone can create their own website and let people log in to it, anyone must be able to offer download an app directly into your phone.
For android phones, this does exist. The one I use is F-Droid. But I do not think one exists for Apple products and it should.
Yes, there is a trustworthiness issue, but that is something for the consumer to decide, NOT the product manufacturer.
The problem is not de-platforming, but the monopolistic power of Apple. They have no business preventing other people from offering apps to download to their phones.
Also not, none of this is censorship. Censorship, as everyone should know, is about government control, not corporate decisions. You can make your own company without other companies arresting or killing you. You can't make your own government without going to war with the current one.
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But how does Apple have a monopoly?
Do they have the only smartphone available? No. Google, Samsung, LG, and a whole host of others make smartphones too.
Are they the makers of the only Smartphone OS? No. Android exists.
Do they control a vast majority of the market? No.
Do they even have a small majority of the market? No. Counterpoint has them, as of Q32020, at 40% of the market. Samsung is next with 30%. LG then with 13%. Combine those tow makers control more market share with Android phones than Apple.
Apple
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That is TOTALLY something new. And it is a monopoly.
Cars do not control the gas you put in them or where you go. Blank notebooks do not control what pen you use in them or what you write in them.
Other people have tried to do this same monopoly thing before - printers try to stop what ink you can put in them, but they do not have the 100% control that Apple does.
The control of what you can put on something does not matter that much when you are one of 10 competiors. It is still a monopoly, but no one care
Free Speech != Broadcast Rights (Score:2)
While I do believe in free speech, I don't believe that media companies (which Amazon is one) must allow everybody to use the platform to disseminate/broadcast whatever anybody wants to say even if they are paying for it.
If someone were to go to Fox News and say that I want to pay for an hour of air time to broadcast leftist views on abortion, gun control, single-payer medical insurance and civil rights I would expect the Fox News editors to tell that person to find someplace else to peddle their socialist
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US conservatives fought for a baker to have the right to refuse making a cake for a gay couple because it went against their beliefs and values - why doesn't the same argument apply for hosting companies like AWS when it comes to hosting far right speech which probably violates their hosting guidelines?
Not to mention said content contained threats to commit acts of terrorism against Amazon itself.
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US conservatives fought for a baker to have the right to refuse making a cake for a gay couple because it went against their beliefs and values - why doesn't the same argument apply for hosting companies like AWS when it comes to hosting far right speech which probably violates their hosting guidelines?
Because a baker is not in the middle of his supply chain but at the user end of it, competing with other bakers. If he refuses a customer, that person can go elsewhere.
Re: Free Speech != Broadcast Rights (Score:5, Informative)
It's to run your own shit, and stop depending on companies to run your shit for you.
Cool plan. First you need to buy a plot of land in the right Zoning District, and a building which you also own. Then you'll need to run your own circuit, using your own workers, using public right of way or across land you also own. And connect to a Peering facility, again which you own. All of this to ensure nobody else can terminate you for "policy violations."
But now you still have to convince other companies or entities to co-locate with you and exchange traffic. You'll also need to have your own ASN and a large enough IP subnet block to participate in global BGP. And although not strictly required, you'll need your own DNS domain.
Great! Now all you need to do is run your own DNS servers and routers and firewalls. Not exactly a low barrier to entry. And you still don't have DDoS protection or geo redundancy, that's all extra and for geo redundancy you'll not only need a complete second facility, but in order to continue doing as much "for yourself" as possible, you'll need your own long haul circuits, again using your own crews and equipment to build and maintain, as well as running across only public right of way or land you've ourchased.
And then, despite all of that, you can still easily get "kicked off" the internet when companies refuse to physically peer with you, or reject your BGP routes, or blacklist your DNS.
Look, we need to have True Net Neutrality, where companies which provide Infrastructure as Common Carriers or Core Internet Components are required to 100% ignore the content of your communications. If you're doing something Illegal then that should be addressed purely through Legal Channels, not left to the opinion of companies or individuals. AWS and Azure shouldn't be able to decide on their own what ideas are allowed to exist. They simply control too much of the Internet and that is too much power. Yes, people are cheering today over seeing Trump and his ilk getting booted. Because they suck. But it worries me that it's been done before any actual Legal Judgement against them. This sets us up for a situation where Amazon (etc.) are the ones who get to decide what thoughts and ideas are allowed in our Society, and they should not be trusted with that much power. That power should exist only with the People, and only to the extent the Constitution allows.
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How about let's tackle fascism through democratically elected officials...
Did you miss the part where Trump lost by a landslide and then used social media to stir up a riotous crowd which stormed congress trying to kidnap and murder said democratically elected officials? Obviously elections alone don't fix the fascism problem.
Remember, vigilante justice...
Which apparently you don't. Head back two sentences. That's vigilante justice to install a fascist leader organized by social media.
I'm not so sure using fascism to combat other fascism is a good idea.
I don't know what to say if you think banning someone from Twitter from violating their TOS is fascism. Fascism is when a mob
Hyprocisy (Score:3, Insightful)
From a column by David Lazarus published in the Los Angeles Times on 15 January:
The Trump administration didn’t hesitate to side with a Colorado baker who nearly a
decade ago insisted that his religious beliefs allowed him to refuse service to a
same-sex couple seeking a wedding cake. . . . But President Trump and his allies were livid when Twitter exercised its own commercial prerogative and banned him — not to mention tens of thousands of his conspiracy-minded supporters — after Trump’s incendiary words helped spark last week’s rioting at the Capitol. They were equally incensed by Amazon using similar reasoning this week to remove
the conservative social media site Parler from its web-hosting servers. . . . The message from conservative quarters is that a company has every right to refuse service to customers it doesn’t want, except when those customers are people conservatives like.
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If I asked a bakery in Seattle to make a cake saying ``Trump Is The President`` I would be refused service (haven`t tried though).
You could compare bakery to twitter if the owner of the bakery owned all bakeries in town. If he did though that would not be a problem because you can open your own ba
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First of all the baker trying to defend himself only contradicted himself. His point was that he does not discriminate against people by not making a wedding cake only for a gay couple by stating he does not make Halloween cakes for anyone. The gay could did not ask him to make a Halloween cake; they asked him to make a wedding cake which he does for other people.
Second when did Twitter become "all" social media platforms? They are by far the most popular right now but there are alternatives.
Re: Hyprocisy (Score:2)
Yeah, we took away his voice box and cut off his hands because that is exactly the same as not making an *artistic* work for hire.
Exactly the same.
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private property (Score:2)
The issue of private property seems to be missing from these discussions. Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Twitter, and others are all private companies and their infrastructure and services are private property. If you don't like their practices then start your own service. If you want a free speech all the time network then lobby the government to build one. Private entities are not required to support any and all speech.
There is no shield, legal or otherwise, that protects one from the social consequences of o
Re: private property (Score:2)
Are you late to the party? They DID make their own platform and the babies ran to the infrastructure level and shut that shit down too.
Damn you are dim.
This never would have been an issue (Score:2)
No monopolies == Nazis are ok? (Score:2)
So, it sounds like if there was instead a wide selection of hosting and media platforms, then, due to competition, some of them would allow any kind of speech to be published, including violent N@zi-like rhetoric?
Or do we still assume that, even with a liberal and non-monopolized market there are reasonable constraints on some sorts of speech (like the violent racist N@zi stuff?). And if we do - then we should see that the market worked in the current situation "as designed", by deplatforming exactly that k
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It is that it speech feels entitled to speak from a specific selection of platforms, those providing the widest possible reach and audience.
Yes. And the reason for that is that those specific platforms have a (near) monopoly. Not on the technology that enables social media, but on the ability to actually reach that wide audience. They have a monopoly on eyeballs. If you want to inform or engage the general public - especially people who might be interested in what you have to say but haven't heard of you yet - you'll most likely need the large "tech" companies; starting your own platform or joining a niche one isn't going to cut it. And if
It's not censorship (Score:2)
Whether you think it is OK or not, only the government can censor you, you do not have an absolute right to shout fire in somebody else's house.
Under the reasonable person doctrine [wikipedia.org] you don't have the right to force somebody else to publish your speech, provide a platform ever, especially when that is detrimental to their interests. That is actual settled law promoted and protected by Newspaper magnets for as long as they have existed. This is also something exploited by the TV channels which are owned by th
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Whether you think it is OK or not, only the government can censor you,
You might want to look up the definition of "censor" again - as it makes no such distinction. Censoring is defined by the action taken against speech/expressions, not by who does it. The distinction OTOH does matter when looking at whether it is acceptable or not.
Why do "TV censors" exist, or why does "self censorship" exist, if what you say is true?
Apple's behavior toward Gab was insane (Score:5, Informative)
Unfortunately for Apple, Gab recorded [archive.org] all of their interactions for public record, and they're insane. The extent to which Apple went to find "offending content," including disabling Gab's filters and pretending Gab wasn't in compliance is just nuts. Also, "we found someone using racist language on your app." As Gab's CEO said back "welcome to the Internet, I can find all of those words in 30 seconds on Twitter and Instagram."
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Gab makes a big deal out of the delay to review the app, but this is after two rejections. Do they expect that a company that owes them nothing should suddenly jump when they ask?
Also, in my experience, such delays are not uncommon. My experience is with the Google Play Store, in which we were trying to get an app approved and published after some changes relating to usage of SMS (Google had changed the rules about apps that could use SMS). The app complied with the rules, but we had waited weeks for Google
Encumbering liability. (Score:2)
I think this is pretty simple. If Apple and friends are taking on the legal responsibility for policing the content in the apps in their ecosystem, then they should be legally liable when they fail at doing so. For example, anyone who had property damaged or received personal injury from the multitudes of BLM protests over the last year should have the right to sue Apple if it is apparent that software in the Apple App store was used to organize or otherwise facilitate those protests.
You are either totally
The hypocrisy (Score:3)
So for Doctorow to complain about censorship is the height of fucking hypocrisy. If his site can ban / censor someone for a difference of opinion then how the hell can he complain that another site, or users get banned for actual incitement or death threats?
And why I think there is a debate to be had where the limits lie, he is not the one to bring it. It is the pot calling the kettle black.
Entitlement to audience is not protected speech. (Score:2)
While it's nice to pretend you're entitled to services from private parties because you want them, that's obviously a dodge.
Want hosting? Host it yourself.
Want DDOS protection? Do it yourself.
Want unmoderated content or only your content?
Pay for everything required.
Don't like your own nation?
Copy 4chan (the real voice of the GOP, the Alt Right is all of the right) and host in a country you're not trying to seize by armed revolt.
What they really want is ENTITLEMENT TO A SPECIFIC AUDIENCE
Nudge nudge wink wink (Score:2)
To sum up:
Corey
EFF
ACLU
Germany
Mexico
All say deplatforming is wrong.
I'll add this is in a context of Democrats taking control of everything, threatening section 230 or outright breakup, either of which costs tens of billions in loss, if they don't "voluntarily" censor harrassing or "dangerous" tweets. "Oh, hey, that includes our political opponents, wink!"
Except a wink is quiet. They are very loud about it.
Theory vs Reality (Score:2)
I really hate when we get stuck talking solely about theory.
I mean, in theory I totally support free speech. I don't want you limiting mine, and you don't want me limiting yours. We don't want government or business limiting either of us or limiting us from seeing opposing views, learning about all sides and implications and making our own decisions. In theory, this is all great and we should fight to ensure that remains the case.
But there's more to it than just speech, there's also civility and respect and
I told you so, didn't I? (Score:2)
All the people who cheered for online banning by oligopolies when it was directed against the final week of you-know-who and his crazed you-know-whats are having second thoughts about what they just approved. First, we're about to see inner parts of the Internet supply chain be classified as common carriers, assuring that the next lefty equivalent to Parler cannot be denied a domain name or server access purely because of its political views. Will app stores be classified this way, or will all operating sys
Apple and Google ... (Score:3, Informative)
Until they did, one could still access Parler via their web interface.
Misguided (Score:2)
So first of all, Facebook is not infrastructure, Apple is not infrastructure, and Amazon is not infrastructure (although they will manage infrastructure for you, as a service). Conflating platforms with infrastructure is not a great way to begin an argument. Moreover, if Facebook is infrastructure, then so is Parlor, so is and so is every platform that hosts content. If we don't have clear delineation, then the term is meaningless.
Second, compelling private entities to give a voice to views with which th
Between a rock and a hard place (Score:2)
For me, it's clear why these companies banned/deplatformed a group of people - because they were actively violent, or fomenting violence.
Under normal circumstances, those people would rightly be legally classified as 'domestic terrorists' or 'traitors' or 'seditionous' or 'fascists' or whatever else appropriately applies (but they're currently not of because some of the spinelessness/abettors currently in government), and those companies would then be required to do so anyways.
So from their point of view, i
Doctorow has NO business talking about censorship (Score:3)
If you know him and Xeni Jardin from Boing Boing -- you know anything not extremely left and woke gets immediately shut down down and removed from forums, and opposing views (even moderate/alternate ones) are not tolerated at all. So hearing him talk about censorship is beyond laughable.
His and his pals has a loooong history of censoring and cancelling (before it was called that)
https://www.informationweek.co... [informationweek.com]
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You would be OK with all stores refusing to sell food to "facists" at a point they just starve to death?
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Re:No need to worry (Score:5, Insightful)
Facial recognition technology is improving quite a bit. And there's the more immediate issue of payment processor services like mastercard refusing to serve certain websites like subscribe star.
If it goes far enough, with the addition to the push of phasing out the physical money, soon you might find a situation where people will be unable to use money.
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They probably want the same level of control, but "pointed at their enemies instead".
You can't choose a party that is actually against those things in the US as there's literally only two viable parties.
There's only non-political solutions left like funding the EFF and hoping for the best, or trying to out-tech silicon valley and protect free speech by "tech force".
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Both are private business that have the right to not serve people and can end up colluding with others if they have similar intents.
And with enough dehumanization, you can justify anything.
Re: No need to worry (Score:2)
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No, that's not the difference. The difference is that you can't use religious exemption to selling a commodity to a protected group (selling a standard cake), but you can refuse compelled speech (i.e. the artistic expression of custom cake decoration).
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Facial recognition is working on being able to determine your political leanings based literally on what you look like. So far it has a 70% or so success rate which is, honestly, terrifying.
So a store can decide that they don't want to sell to republicans OR democrats; the side doesn't matter. Imagine that all the stores in a fifty mile radius somewhere deep in the south deny selling to democrats. Those democrats are literally being forced to move elsewhere in order to realistically get food.
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Why not? I mean there's such a war against having to bake cakes for gay weddings. So honestly, this type of "censorship" (which is it not censorship), is okay in the world view of the audience being affected.
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Well if that were happening I'd say society is trying to tell you something.
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Well if that were happening I'd say society is trying to tell you something.
If you think society speaks intelligently, try and understand the mass stupidity that got us to this point. Then understand it's not getting any better or wiser.
Cancel Culture is perfectly justified in the eyes of those pushing it, right up until that stupid shit is turned against them. Then they cry and whine how unfair and unjust it is.
I thought nothing would eclipse the ever-growing problem of narcissism. Hypocrisy proved me wrong.
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If everyone keeps saying you're an asshole, then you just might be an asshole.
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If everyone keeps saying you're a witch, then you just might be an witch.
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If everyone keeps saying you're an asshole, then you just might be an asshole.
Correct.
And when it's just you, the asshole just might be staring back at you in the mirror.
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I thought nothing would eclipse the ever-growing problem of narcissism. Hypocrisy proved me wrong.
These people actually thought that getting rid of one narcissist would solve the problem.
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You would be OK with all stores refusing to sell food to "facists" at a point they just starve to death?
Sure, simply because "that" group, is easily justified to attack right now.
Those defending this will eventually wake up when "that" group becomes those demanding "Tech Unions", as if Google or Amazon would even have a single reason to allow those conversations to start dominating their platforms.
Wait until government steps in and gently recommends to start squashing all discussions around "UBI". We can't have that kind of talk around here. Not when the rich might have to pay for it.
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And when "Tech Unions" are responsible for millions of deaths, we'll rightfully treat them the same.
I don't understand how dimwits like yourself don't understand the gravity of the situation, and think that lightly tamping down on fascism (as compared to WW II, e.g.) somehow means everyone's freedom is at stake. NOT tamping down fascism is what puts everyone's freedom at stake.
First they came for the fascists and I did not speak up, because fascism is fucking terrible and rightfully needs to be put down.
Th
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Fascism indeed needs to be combated, but you're being used by the big tech to achieve their own goals, not yours.
Anything that don't have enough money and manpower to use some sort of super advanced AI that can detect fascists will be snuffed, including this very website.
Secondly, many of the "fascist hunters" are insane fanatics that keep pushing and broadening the definition so hard you will end being labeled one sooner or later for drinking milk or making the OK symbol, and if those people are the ones o
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The actual slippery slope is rare, but this one is made out of isolated internet bubbles with people picking the worst of the other side to self-radicalize more and more and ramp up the "purity tests" until most of the populace is classified as a bunch of fascist commies for not getting horrified with the OK symbol or a pink heart symbol.
You end up with two groups that hate captain planet because there's a white and a black dude in it.
Re:No need to worry (Score:5, Insightful)
This article is about the stack, and how there are real concerns when companies deep in the stack start blocking speech. Not publishing letters to editors is one thing, but that's at the top of the stack. A more accurate analogy to the concerns the EFF is raising might be not allowing typewriters to type unpopular opinions.
Here is the article again: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/... [eff.org]
I'll quote the conclusions in case you don't have the time to make it to the end:
It’s easy to say today, in a moment of crisis, that a service like Parler should be shunned. After all, people are using it to organize attacks on the U.S. Capitol and on Congressional leaders, with an expressed goal to undermine the democratic process. But when the crisis has passed, pressure on basic infrastructure, as a tactic, will be re-used, inevitably, against unjustly marginalized speakers and forums. This is not a slippery slope, nor a tentative prediction—we have already seen this happen to groups and communities that have far less power and resources than the President of the United States and the backers of his cause. And this facility for broad censorship will not be lost on foreign governments who wish to silence legitimate dissent either. Now that the world has been reminded that infrastructure can be commandeered to make decisions to control speech, calls for it will increase, and principled objections may fall to the wayside.
The core problem remains: regardless of whether we agree with an individual decision, these decisions overall have not and will not be made democratically and in line with the requirements of transparency and due process. Instead they are made by a handful of individuals, in a handful of companies, the most distanced and least visible to the most Internet users. Whether you agree with those decisions or not, you will not be a part of them, nor be privy to their considerations. And unless we dismantle the increasingly centralized chokepoints in our global digital infrastructure, we can anticipate an escalating political battle between political factions and nation states to seize control of their powers.
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No, there is no need to worry.
You all can get your panties in a twist about what Twitter does or doesn't do. A whole lot of us will just get on with our lives because Twitter isn't important, and doesn't matter in the least.
If Twitter went away tomorrow, the world would go on. Government would still function, news would still be written, food would still make it to our tables. The lights would stay on.
And it's the same with the underlying stack. Yes, we've become really reliant on a few major hosting provid
Re: No need to worry (Score:2)
Yes, big tech is to big, and for reasons that are much more important than Parler getting shut down. But this should not be approached as a free speech problem. It should be approached as an anti-trust problem. Laws need to be passed to require the government to look at big mergers with skepticism and give them the power to prevent them without going to court. No two large, healthy corporations should be allowed to merge. Once a company reaches a certain size, it should have to provide clear justification f
Re:No need to worry (Score:5, Insightful)
Censorship can only be done by the government.
The topic here is that a small handful of corporations can decide what people around the globe can talk about.
Words often have multiple definitions. And definitions that change over time. Sticking to a definition that is very specific to the United States and is only one way the word is used in the US does not further the conversation.
You can choose to willfully misunderstand but please don't try to distract from what actually matters.
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The topic here is that a small handful of corporations can decide what people around the globe can talk about.
People around the globe can talk about whatever they want, regardless of Twitter or Parler. They are free to use e-mail, SMS, phones, written letters, Zoom, or their actual mouths to do it.
The recent "deplatforming" isn't preventing people from talking. It's preventing them from a} amplifying their voices unduly and b} easily finding each other to echo-chamber their opinions.
There's a world of difference between refusing to sell a wedding cake to a same-sex couple and refusing to rent billboard space
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Actually, the baker's would sell them a cake, they just wouldn't decorate it. But, that wasn't good enough. And the label fascists has been abused so much it has
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Right, built into this discussion is that idea that deplatforming is inherently a slippery slope. There are cases where it is absolutely not and inciting civil war would be one of those.
Social media is less important to society than society's very existence, the fact that people cannot see that clearly is alarming.
Re:No need to worry (Score:5, Informative)
Censorship can only be done by the government.
Where did you get that definition? It's not correct.
Perhaps you mean that censorship is only illegal if the government does it. That private organizations are permitted, at least in the US, to censor how they see fit.
Not publishing letters to the editors, not publishing books people write, ain't censorship.
It is literally censorship. But (generally) doesn't violated the First Amendment. And probably doesn't violate any basic human rights.
It is fair if you believe it is OK for this kind of censorship to exist. But It's not a good argument to say essentially: It is good because it is legal.
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Perhaps you mean that censorship is only illegal if the government does it.
To e pedantic, this isn't completely correct either - it is mostly correct, but not in absolute. For example, NDAs can't be used to suppress people talking about / whistleblowing on illegal activities.
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Not publishing letters to the editor even has the defense that a newspaper has a very limited amount of space, and each letter takes up a relatively significant proportion of that space. The editor has to make a choice of what makes it into the newspaper and what doesn't.
Can the same be said for AWS, for example? Obviously they still have limited space since nothing is infinite, but from any one person or small group's point of view the space may as well be infinite. There's no need for an editor to choose
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Well, it's a matter of definition, but from a *legal* standpoint, and in the US, there's a huge difference between government censorship and private suppression of expression. Private parties have more leeway than the government, because they're not bound by the First Amendment. In fact, their suppressive actions are often protected by it. For example conservatives have advocated boycotting Rachel Ray because she banned gun advertising from her site, and that's their right, just as liberals can advocate
Re: No need to worry (Score:3)
What the framers did not and could not have anticipated was the role that private corporations can play as gatekeepers of communication
100% wrong. When this country was founded there was very little mass communication and it was largely controlled by a small number of private, wealthy individuals. They called it "The Press" and several of the Founders wrote about it at great length and how important it was to prevent the Government from having any ability to interfere with it. They didn't need to "anticipate" it because it already existed, and to a much more extreme degree than is seen today.
I don't care about people getting kicked off twi
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Err.. name one newspaper from that time.
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It is literally censorship. But (generally) doesn't violated the First Amendment. And probably doesn't violate any basic human rights.
It is fair if you believe it is OK for this kind of censorship to exist. But It's not a good argument to say essentially: It is good because it is legal.
Nor would anybody be saying that, if the tech companies were all banding together to disappear, say, BLM or Anitifa. The same people shrugging their shoulders would be up in arms.
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If the government threatens tens of billions in losses by threatening section 230 changes if they don't do this, then yes, it is classical censorship, and these nominally free companies, and their free owners with freedom of speech, are not in fact free from government punishment for not censoring things those who will hurt them want.
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Anyone can perform censorship. Self-censorship has long been a concern in a repressive environment.
I'm not sure why some people try to create Newspeak by trying to redefine words. 1984 was supposed to be a warning, not an instruction manual.
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Censorship can only be done by the government.
It is amazing though, seriously, that people believe this idea in earnest, when a simple looking up the definition makes no stipulation in terms of what defines censorship (versus, perhaps, what makes a censorship acceptable or not).
American corporate brainwashing. (Score:2)
Yes, right. That "choice" between using Google/Apple and hence having a job and food in the table, and /starving under a bridge/.
And other "totally a choice" choices that are completely unrealistic and blatantly ignore the brutally obvious intentional lock in and trapping of people with psycholgically manipulative tactics and simply making it impossible to live a competitively advantageous life without them.
Like even having fucking friends!
How do you fuckers manage to even keep up such a massive delusion? K
Re: No need to worry (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Over and above that, you can set up your own sever and pay for an internet feed from a common carrier, then start collecting e-mail addresses of supporters and publish whatever you want. That's how several of the now-large New Media news/commentary publishers got started in the early oughts.
Of course, you have to find people willing to /pay/ for your content...
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but not ON MY LAWN
It's not YOUR LAWN if you were granted a government license to conduct a business (and receive some very lucrative tax benefits) from the government. Why should our government be empowered to create entities (actual persons in some legal contexts) that have powers and immunities greater than what it has itself?
Confusing 1st Amendment vs censorship? (Score:4, Informative)
Censorship is when you have censors, people who block certain messages. For example, all the the TV networks employ censors who bleep out or remove particular things that people try to say in their channel.
The first amendment says that the US federal government isn't allowed to infringe the right of free speech, by censorship or other means. Other means would include punishing people for wrongthink after they've said something the administration doesn't agree with.
Censorship is defined by "prior restraint"not by who does it.
On a tangent:
Sometimes people get upset when they hear the definition of censorship, saying or thinking something like "punishing people for saying that isn't censorship?! How dare you say that! How dare you say it's perfectly okay to punish people for exercising their free speech rights!"
That's making the error of thinking that everything that isn't censorship is perfectly okay. Murder is not censorship, it is a different bad thing. Theft is not censorship, it's a different bad thing. Punishing someone for saying that they support candidate X isn't censorship, it's a different bad thing. Things can be bad and not be censorship.
Censorship is a censor blocking someone from saying "I support candidate X"; yelling at somebody after they say that isn't censorship. (It might be bad, but not all bad things are censorship.)
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Political spectrum is more than left or right.
Even the meme political spectrum adds the libertarian-authoritarian axis to it.
Re:No need to worry (Score:5, Insightful)
Amazon is just one of many players in the hosting game. There is also the option of raising capital, gathering the knowledge or leverage knowledgeable people who share your worldview and doing the hosting yourself, if other businesses object to your worldview.
Treating companies such as web hosts as 'just companies' ignores the fact that they have effectively become societal infrastructure. When you support them in de-platforming people and groups 'because rights', you are buying into the notion that corporations are real people deserving of the same rights held by private citizens. They aren't - they are powerful entities that need to be controlled and sometimes held in check for the good of society. If people and groups must be de-platformed because they're engaged in the social media equivalent of yelling "fire" in a crowded theatre, then it must be governments that do it transparently and via due process - not corporations doing it on a whim. Letting corporations get away with this kind of behaviour sets a very dangerous precedent and is another step in the devolution of State powers to the private sector. Europeans understand this - that's why even Angela Merkel has condemned the de-platforming of Trump, a man whom she surely detests.
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Other than the "paying taxes" and "obeying reasonable regulation" part of being societal infrastructure that was expected from ~1870-1994.
Re:No need to worry (Score:4, Insightful)
The whole "we're just infrastructure" or "we're just a neutral town square" arguments are self-serving at best. Name an actual town square that records your speech and makes money by selling your attention to the highest bidder based on everything you've ever said in that square. The same civil libertarians that are outraged at this 'censorship' would be triply outraged if some town decided to install facial recognition/speech recognition systems and then personalize billboards based on who's standing in front of them. Hell, the NYC sidewalk Wifi kiosks are a small step in that direction - and I for one am outraged that New York is turning the entire city into a mini Times Square, all for the promise of free connectivity that almost noone uses. Okay, I've seen homeless people using them as charging stations, but still...
The only internet companies that are truly 'platforms' are ISP's - and they should not be allowed to store and/or use your personal data at all. Most are de facto monopolies riding on top of a public network that they were given for free. (Okay, some of them have invested heavily in Internet infrastructure - but that's what we pay them for.
Beyond that, some of these platforms are more 'platformy' than others. Twitter (I think) just shows you stuff from people you're following (I don't use Twitter, so maybe that's not even true any more). Facebook, on the other hand, curates a feed of whatever they want to show you - including people you're following, but also including much more. They are a news organization, whether they want to accept the responsibilities of that or not. Do a survey of everyday citizens and see how many say they get their news there. So either turn off the algorithm and go back to baby and cat pictures, or start acting like a responsible media outlet. Fact check. Require and display retractions of false statements. It's not so hard. It's just not in keeping with their 'labor-free' business model.
Re:No need to worry (Score:5, Insightful)
A court order should be required for a hosting company to drop a website over content. If someone has a drug selling website, the police or FBI need to be informed. They will get the court order telling the hosting company to drop them.
It's not up to the hosting company to be the police. They should work with the police but not BE the police. Hosting company should not be liable for their users content unless they ignore the court order.
If a website has copyright material, then the copyright owner needs to go to court against the website. Has nothing to do with the hosting company at all.
Hosting companies shouldn't be monitoring the content. At most, if the server instance is being used in a DDOS attack or otherwise being used as an attack platform, then yeah shut them down. That's got nothing to do with content though.
The hosting company is like the property owner of a mall. If some random business is doing something illegal, it's not on the property owner but rather the individual business owner. The only way the property owner would be charged of anything would be if they were directly involved in the illegal activity.
Good for the EFF.
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folks demanding Reaction-less free speech
Thanks for putting your actual motivation in there somewhere.
Re:No need to worry (Score:5, Interesting)
There are nothing in the word "censorship" that means that only governments can carry out "censorship". The United States first amendment only stops the government from carrying out censorship, however that doesn't mean that it isn't censorship when a company decides to block some material. The word censorship in no way excludes [oxfordreference.com]private censorship [wikipedia.org] and most film censor boards, for example, are run privately.
Exactly. Also, it isn't as if Parler (and other forums of questionable worldviews) have nowhere else to turn.
Parler is a lesson in incompetence, since they were reliant on one provider. That's a decision some startups make on the grounds that they are 70% likely to fail anyway, so the fact that they have a 5% extra chance of failing because AWS kicks them off is not a worry. It's not an acceptable choice for something that claims to be a "free speech network". That they were doing that whilst providing a safe space for terrorists shows they were complete clowns.
The infamous 8Chan/8Kun is using a Russian hosting company. And, there is the Far-Right worldview hosting company Epik, where Parler has now turned and who hosts another Parler Alternative, Gab.
In this case there are alternatives and that kind of makes Amazon's position okay. In the cases where there are full on monopolies, this wouldn't be okay. If the phone or cable companies were allowed to do the same thing then that could mean that for people in rural areas free speech is not attainable. The cake case is a trade off - the free speech of one person for the free speech of another and can reasonably be decided one way or another. However, if every cake company in a state / country refuses to make cakes for gy people then we start to have a problem.
With parler we have to face up to the fact that it might end up that every reasonable hosting company would refuse them the service they need. Since they were a network that was in fact dealing in censorship and was consciously encouraging violence and illegal activity that's fine by me, however there should be clear due process before they are censored and we shouldn't just accept the power of a monopoly group of private companies to block them. We should be clear that it's only okay for AWS to block them a) because there are alternatives, so it is not refusal of service and b) because this was* a service encouraging illegal behaviour.
Having seen that parler is involved in illegal activities the correct action is not to censor them. Peaceful people using parler for legitimate reasons should not be allowed to become collateral damage. Instead they should be infiltrated and specifically terrorist and violence supporting parts of their community should be identified and arrested. Shutting them down without identifying the criminals just drives everyone underground.
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The same illegal activities are happening on FB and Twitter. Only hypocrisy keeps them platformed.
Where hypocrisy is spelt m.o.n.e.y. but yes. Both are responsible for spreading considerable amounts of shit.
Re: In other news... (Score:2)
I didn't know Bono [youtube.com] had joined Facebook!
Re:I agree. (Score:4, Informative)
Unless those people are given a special status as a common carrier - who is expected to carry everyone's messages with absolutely no distinction, or who offers an item for sale with no rules on who can buy it - it's not legally discrimination to ask them to find another place for their messages.
This is a complete misunderstanding of the role of a common carrier. A common carrier does not have to carry your message without distinction. The phone company will stop serving you instantly if the government tells them you are a terrorist. They will also stop selling you service instantly if they decide you are too poor to pay for it.
What makes a common carrier special is that they have too many messages to be held responsible for them. Most of the time they just let the messages go by without any knowledge of content. If they find out you are a telemarketer upsetting their paying customers, however, they will drop you in an instant. There is no obligation on common carriers to carry everyone's content.
Re: (Score:2)
>>What makes a common carrier special is that they have too many messages to be held responsible for them. Most of the time they just let the messages go by without any knowledge of content. If they find out you are a telemarketer upsetting their paying customers, however, they will drop you in an instant. There is no obligation on common carriers to carry everyone's content.
Yes - that's because there's special rules that allow them to do so and still maintain common carrier status. They're not given
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What I'm trying to say is that, whilst it's true that common carrier companies are supposed to provide service to all private individuals in their area, even for businesses in their area they will cut them off at the first slight sign of misbehaviour. When it comes to companies that are not in the area of service and just want to call in, the phone company has effectively no requirement to provide service and will cut people off at the first sign of trouble if they feel like it.
In other words, common carri
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But it's not just because they feel like it - there has to be valid reasons, recorded for these disconnects. Just like they can't switch your phone line on you (slamming) without a validly verified request - which is why that was a problem for a while that groups were spoofing those.
What folks really seem to want is a solid base to be able to communicate from.
We don't really have that - we have computers that can host things - but no guarantee of freedom from curation unless you own the server.
There's bett
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