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Internet Association Endorses Internet Censorship Bill

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11–20 of 61 posts

Re: Internet Association Endorses Internet Censorship Bill

#11
post #2

>Amazon and eBay would be able to absorb the increased legal risk under SESTA. They would likely be able to afford the high-powered lawyers to survive the wave in lawsuits against them. Small startups, including would-be competitors, would not. It shouldn’t pass our attention that the Internet giants are now endorsing a bill that will make it much more difficult for newcomers ever to compete with them. All banks have…

"Imagine if the energy industry didn't have to deal with EPA regulations or manufacturing companies didn't have to deal with OSHA regulations. The political winds are starting to shift and the tech industry is increasingly going to be held responsible for the negative externalities they create."

Imagine if the telephone industry had to monitor phone usage to block criminal use. Imagine if the postal service was charged with filtering any potentially illegal activities.

"Section 230 doesn’t cause lawlessness. Rather, it creates a space in which many things — including lawless behavior — come to light. And it’s in that light that multitudes of organizations and people have taken proactive steps to usher victims to safety and apprehend their abusers."

-- Alexandra F. Levy, Adjunct Professor of Human Trafficking & Human Markets, Notre Dame Law School

Re: Internet Association Endorses Internet Censorship Bill

#12
post #3

Things like this that worry me and make me diametrically opposed to any of the big company employees holding seats of authority at any body residing over any spec or working groups as well. They'll never have the user's interest at heart.

The big companies have almost gained complete control of the US: from Amazon for online retail, Walmart offline, Facebook social et al social, Google information retrieval, monopoly ISPs, Uber, etc.

So I keep reiterating the solution I see which is to replace these monopolies with public distributed peer to peer evolving technologies. And no one seems to support me when I suggest this is possible or desirable.

Re: Internet Association Endorses Internet Censorship Bill

#13
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

God, this mindset is disgusting. What if I don't want to make the kinds of toxic growth-addict business that venture capital leads to? As for banks, why don't you take a hard look at what banking monoculture has given society?

Then don't? VCs aren't the only source of capital. I also have no idea how you could say the US has a "banking monoculture". There are almost 5000 banks in the US.

Nearly all of those smaller banks are merely resellers, adding nothing besides a point of presence to the value of what they sell.

Re: Internet Association Endorses Internet Censorship Bill

#15
Monopoly (oligopoly) 101:

1) Climb.

2) Pull the ladder up behind you.

I think trafficking is horrible. I also think that censorship aids abuse, including probably trafficking.

Would we even be having this conversation, if decentralized conversation hadn't brought such topics into broader, public knowledge?

Would Weinstein still be preying, if an open Web hadn't made an end-run around mainstream media and their "pulled" stories?

Maybe apples and oranges. On the other hand, law enforcement has earned zero credibility towards their claims of apples actually being apples.

In other words, where are the stories -- the facts -- demonstrating such ubiquitous surveillance and censorship actually achieving their stated goals? As well as not serving other unstated, clandestine goals and mission creep.

Remember when "Internet surveillance" was strictly for and "because terrorists"? How long did that last?

Re: Internet Association Endorses Internet Censorship Bill

#16
post #2

>Amazon and eBay would be able to absorb the increased legal risk under SESTA. They would likely be able to afford the high-powered lawyers to survive the wave in lawsuits against them. Small startups, including would-be competitors, would not. It shouldn’t pass our attention that the Internet giants are now endorsing a bill that will make it much more difficult for newcomers ever to compete with them. All banks have…

>>Which is just kind of amazing if you think about it. Imagine if the energy industry didn't have to deal with EPA regulations or manufacturing companies didn't have to deal with OSHA regulations. The political winds are starting to shift and the tech industry is increasingly going to be held responsible for the negative externalities they create.

wow, what a terrible analogy.

First off you have seemed to conflate 3rd party liability and 1st party liability.

If a Company pollutes say a river that is the Company doing it directly. Thus they are liable for it

If someone posts some threating comment, or some copyrighted work to a website the hosting company did not do anything wrong, they provided a service that was then used illegally, holding them liable for that would be holding a 3rd party liable. Something that should be rejected by society

A better anology would be "Image if Ford was responsible for every drunk driver that used a Ford Car irresponsibly and killed someone with it"

Do you blame Home Depot for renting a truck to a Terrorist? Dont answer that I bet you do.

>All banks have to comply with Know Your Customer regulations, which is easier for bigger banks than smaller ones. And yet society has deemed that combating money laundering and tax evasion is worth the cost.

Some of use in society do not agree it is worth the cost

>>It'll be fine.

Yes because the banking industry is a shining example of ethics, customer service. Next to lawyers I can not think of a more hated group in society than Bankers. There is a reason for this and the fact that competition is limited due to the law you cited and many others is a reason for this.

Re: Internet Association Endorses Internet Censorship Bill

#17
post #8
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All to make the powerful(AKA monopolistic oligarchy of corporations) even more satiated with control.

This law is very clearly designed to tackle a negative externality from tech companies. It could have been more expansive, but it's limited to just sex trafficking. Governments have antitrust laws to handle monopolies. If you're concerned with concentration (as I am), you should support more aggressive antitrust enforcement (and political candidates that do).

>This law is very clearly designed to tackle a negative externality from tech companies

What externatlity is that? If they want to fight sex trafficking, really fight sex trafficking, they need to start by making prostitution and other forms of sex work legal.

Prohibition is what drives the activity under ground and creates the market for Sex Trafficking in the first place. It forces people that want to consume those services to a market that is outside the law, as such bad things happen, this is same for Drug Prohibition.

All you have to look to his the passage of the 18th amendment, all of the problems and violence prohibition of alcohol brought, and then the passage of the 21 amendment to end it. Today I do not see Budweiser shooting up Coors over territory, do you?

Re: Internet Association Endorses Internet Censorship Bill

#18

Monopoly (oligopoly) 101: 1) Climb. 2) Pull the ladder up behind you. I think trafficking is horrible. I also think that censorship aids abuse, including probably trafficking. Would we even be having this conversation, if decentralized conversation hadn't brought such topics into broader, public knowledge? Would Weinstein still be preying, if an open Web hadn't made an end-run around mainstream media and their "pulle…

> Would Weinstein still be preying, if an open Web hadn't made an end-run around mainstream media and their "pulled" stories?

The Harvey Weinstein story initially broke via articles published in the New York Times and New Yorker, which are pretty much as mainstream as it gets, so… probably not? Is there something I’m missing?

Re: Internet Association Endorses Internet Censorship Bill

#19
post #12
post #3

Things like this that worry me and make me diametrically opposed to any of the big company employees holding seats of authority at any body residing over any spec or working groups as well. They'll never have the user's interest at heart.

The big companies have almost gained complete control of the US: from Amazon for online retail, Walmart offline, Facebook social et al social, Google information retrieval, monopoly ISPs, Uber, etc. So I keep reiterating the solution I see which is to replace these monopolies with public distributed peer to peer evolving technologies. And no one seems to support me when I suggest this is possible or desirable.

I'm entirely of your opinion, but what you describe doesnnt sound like the US way of handling things.

There are some initiatives in that direction from INRIA and other european groups but aside from GNU and the EFF no one is even talking about things like Taler in the states.

Vote with your wallets and browsing habits!

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