Also on sort of related note, this is why I disparage the "cake baking" and "wedding flowers" lawsuits... While I don't care what two adults do in the bedroom, I do care that a private business could be forced to render services. What if Mike Pence becomes president and uses the precedent set by these lawsuits to justify the passage of his version of Christianity into law? I think these issues are better left unturned; in this case, CloudFlare was able to take the right action and terminate their account without having to think about a lot of legal precedent.
Why We Terminated Daily Stormer
71–80 of 1001 posts
Re: Why We Terminated Daily Stormer
#72Free speech does not mean a company has to take part in spreading it :). Free speech is about your right to speak without the government locking you up, or censoring those who choose to broadcast/spread it. But nothing about free speech says someone else has to listen or spread it for you, companies included. The line is drawn at calling for violence though, which is pretty fucking tricky to navigate.
Every time someone says that, I just hear "I'm defending censorship." Is that what you are doing, or am I just overly sensitive? I mean everyone on here knows this, yet every time someone feels they need to say it. We aren't debating what the first amendment protects, we are debating on wether it's good for our country to have all internet speech controlled by a handful of conglomerates. This is going to sound unfair…
If you label "not amplifying someone" as censorship, then there is obviously no such thing as uncensored free speech for everyone. The question then becomes who you step up to defend, and who you quietly ignore, when someone gets amplified over them.
Re: Why We Terminated Daily Stormer
#73"Literally, I woke up in a bad mood and decided someone shouldn’t be allowed on the Internet. No one should have that power." I've been jumping back and forth over the fence on this topic, but this stance is where I've ended up.
I'm struggling to connect these two phrases: "No one should have that power" "I woke up in a bad mood and decided someone shouldn't be allowed on the Internet" Seems like a very tricky precedent to set that you can just not allow someone on the internet. The natural question from this is: how long until this type of power is used against views you support?
>The natural question from this is: how long until this type of power is used against views you support?
I'm conflicted. On the one hand, I support free speech, even when the speech is hateful and malignant, because I honestly believe the best way to combat vile ideas is out in the open where people can see them, hear them, discuss them and repudiate them. Cultures can't innoculate themselves against ideas without an intellectual herd immunity, and that is impossible without mass exposure.
On the other hand, fuck Nazis.
I think I'm quite willing to let them come for the Nazis then start caring when they come for the Socialists and Trade Unionists, etc. If that makes me a hypocrite, so be it.
Of course, on the third hand, I have no real power over anyone else's speech, and I'm just some rando on the internet, so it doesn't really matter what I think.
Re: Why We Terminated Daily Stormer
#74Free speech does not mean a company has to take part in spreading it :). Free speech is about your right to speak without the government locking you up, or censoring those who choose to broadcast/spread it. But nothing about free speech says someone else has to listen or spread it for you, companies included. The line is drawn at calling for violence though, which is pretty fucking tricky to navigate.
Every time someone says that, I just hear "I'm defending censorship." Is that what you are doing, or am I just overly sensitive? I mean everyone on here knows this, yet every time someone feels they need to say it. We aren't debating what the first amendment protects, we are debating on wether it's good for our country to have all internet speech controlled by a handful of conglomerates. This is going to sound unfair…
Censorship is merely deciding what ideas you will or will not participate in promoting; protecting the right to do that is the heart of the ideal of free speech.
Government censorship—having public authority (whether officially styled as the state or one having exercising a monopoly on essential tools of communication) decide for you what ideas you must or must not promote, regardless of your own desire—is what “free speech” stands against.
Re: Why We Terminated Daily Stormer
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
In fairness your particular example isn't necessarily a good one. Snapchat is a trivial idea and it's frankly amazing it got as far as it did.
Imho his example illustrates his well. Snapchat was fairly disruptive and lost a lot of value when facebook just ripped it off. If we allow giant companies to engage in anti-competitive practices it will hurt us in the long run as people won't even try to innovate. The snapchat story is pretty demotivating. Why bother when one of the largest 5-6 companies in your space will just shut you down or steal your ideas?
My point is that Snapchat isn't a good example of a company pushed out by anti-competitive practices. Their core product is technically trivial and uninteresting. The fact that there is a market demand for it and being first to do it at large scale doesn't in my mind meet any minimal standard for protection from anti-competitive practices as you imply.
Re: Why We Terminated Daily Stormer
#76Unless the site was directly breaking the law, I see this move as troubling. It's almost always better not to drive these kind of people to the underground, and I think most HN readers figure why this is. The problem I see is that in the current political climate the general population won't understand that or is unwilling to.
It's always better to appease Nazis. Society should take a long hard look at itself for not allowing Hitler free speech and to fully express his views.
Re: Why We Terminated Daily Stormer
#77>“This was my decision. This is not Cloudflare’s general policy now, going forward,” Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince told Gizmodo. “I think we have to have a conversation over what part of the infrastructure stack is right to police content.” (from internal email) >Let me be clear: this was an arbitrary decision. It was different than what I’d talked talked with our senior team about yesterday. I woke up this morning i…
It's so bizarre. He tries to have it both ways. He says "no one should have that power", but then says he did it literally earlier that day. He says CloudFlare isn't changing their "content-neutral" policy... but clearly they did change that policy.
I have many reasons to oppose nazis, including incredibly personal ones. That said, I think crossing this content line for an infrastructure company is a big deal, and I hope it's not repeated.
Re: Why We Terminated Daily Stormer
#78Free speech does not mean a company has to take part in spreading it :). Free speech is about your right to speak without the government locking you up, or censoring those who choose to broadcast/spread it. But nothing about free speech says someone else has to listen or spread it for you, companies included. The line is drawn at calling for violence though, which is pretty fucking tricky to navigate.
> Free speech does not mean a company has to take part in spreading it :).
Yes and no, that's why phone companies or internet providers are regulated in a certain fashion, so they can't deny you certain basic services.
Imagine you are a controversial figure and all phone companies conspire to deny you a phone number just because they don't like what you say. Or all postal services refuse to deliver your mails. So some line of businesses are deemed of public utility despite being private and have to follow certain regulations.
Re: Why We Terminated Daily Stormer
#79It is very important to distinguish something like Facebook blocking an account / Medium taking down a blog from a domain registrar refusing to cooperate. You are free to create a room where only some ideologies are allowed, but it's dangerous to play the same game with the ability to create the rooms . First the domain registrars, then networks say that they don't want to peer, and then we end up with a fragmented i…
Sunlight in this case would be doing for Nazis what they themselves won't do because they're unable -- recognize them for who they are and act accordingly.
> In the echo chamber of extremism, there is now no moderating thought
This is not how any of this works.
Re: Why We Terminated Daily Stormer
#80It seems pretty obvious that all this hand-wringing over a little known site called The Daily Stormer has raised its profile worldwide far beyond their wildest dreams. This is likely causing the opposite effect of what activists want.
If you honestly think that the rest of the world is only now hearing about the Daily Stormer, then you must have a very plush rock that you've been living under. I assure you that many, many others have not had that particular luxury.