21–30 of 61 posts
Reminds me of the similarly misleadingly named "Internet.org" - Facebook's walled-garden "substitute" for an actual Internet connection.
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…
It still is. Along with children (and child porn in particular), "extremists", drugs, and other things that provoke more emotional than rational thought. These days, almost everything oppressive is done in the name of "security".
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…
Remember when "Internet surveillance" was strictly for and "because terrorists"? How long did that last? It still is. Along with children (and child porn in particular), "extremists", drugs, and other things that provoke more emotional than rational thought. These days, almost everything oppressive is done in the name of "security".
This was done solely from the "think of the children!" angle. To those who might respond with the dact that only disgusting people could possibly enjoy such material, Snowden's "saying that you don't care about privacy because you have nothing to hide is like saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say". It also sets the precedent that the State has the right to decide what art you can possess and produce privately.
>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 a world with ten new internet startups in 7 years; this is a step in that direction. This is not a fantasy but something that the government actually did to another industry.
Now when you use free association to withdraw internet service that you oppose, you implicitly are saying that you endorse the services you keep.
Now most people agree that if people who advocate Nazism are bad, people who actually engage in human trafficking are even worse. And if you are ok with making sure that the former are not on the Internet, you should be even more ok with keeping the latter off the Internet.
This is the reason why the ACLU has historically been pretty absolutist about free speech, even defending and making sure that the government does not censorship even the most odious of speech.
In the past, section 230 made sense as most of the companies had a lassez-faire attitude to speech on their services. With companies now doing more to me censor 3rd party speech on their platform, section 230 is seen as the tech companies wanting to have your cake (bot have any liability for 3rd party speech) and eat it too(be able to censor 3rd party speech whenever they want).
>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 cha…
The Postal Inspection Service _is_ tasked with filtering stuff that is prohibited from the mail, such as child porn, illegal drugs, and nuclear weapons. While the USPS isn't responsible for illegal stuff that happens through the mail, they do have a whole law-enforcement branch to deal with it.
The Internet companies lost the high ground in regard to censorship and 3rd party speech when they tried to shutdown Daily Stormer. When Google or CloudFlare were told that the website was using their services, instead of taking the high ground with regard to the principle of free speech and 3rd party speech on their services, they used their right to free association to withdraw service. Now when you use free associ…
This lassez-faire attitude you speak of never existed. They lost the high ground the moment they started policing their platforms for spam, adult content, malware, copyrighted content, terrorist propaganda, etc., thereby expressing editorial control.
They want to have it both ways, they want to absolve themselves of all responsibility (and liability) for anything that's on their platform and at the same time remove anything that is in-line with their commercial interests (for UX reasons or because their advertisers object to the content their ads run on).
The Internet companies lost the high ground in regard to censorship and 3rd party speech when they tried to shutdown Daily Stormer. When Google or CloudFlare were told that the website was using their services, instead of taking the high ground with regard to the principle of free speech and 3rd party speech on their services, they used their right to free association to withdraw service. Now when you use free associ…
>The Internet companies lost the high ground in regard to censorship and 3rd party speech when they tried to shutdown Daily Stormer. When Google or CloudFlare were told that the website was using their services, instead of taking the high ground with regard to the principle of free speech and 3rd party speech on their services, they used their right to free association to withdraw service. This lassez-faire attitude…
The Internet companies lost the high ground in regard to censorship and 3rd party speech when they tried to shutdown Daily Stormer. When Google or CloudFlare were told that the website was using their services, instead of taking the high ground with regard to the principle of free speech and 3rd party speech on their services, they used their right to free association to withdraw service. Now when you use free associ…
The Internet companies lost the high ground in regard to censorship and 3rd party speech when they tried to shutdown Daily Stormer. When Google or CloudFlare were told that the website was using their services, instead of taking the high ground with regard to the principle of free speech and 3rd party speech on their services, they used their right to free association to withdraw service. Now when you use free associ…
>The Internet companies lost the high ground in regard to censorship and 3rd party speech when they tried to shutdown Daily Stormer. When Google or CloudFlare were told that the website was using their services, instead of taking the high ground with regard to the principle of free speech and 3rd party speech on their services, they used their right to free association to withdraw service. This lassez-faire attitude…
Censorship is one party telling everyone else what they can and can't see.
Prohibiting content is censorship -- it's telling people what they can't see.
Prohibiting filtering is also censorship -- it's telling people they have to see your thing in place of the thing they want.
Filtering is inherently a weighing of false positives against false negatives.
If you require filtering then the false negative rate has to be low/zero, so the false positive rate goes through the roof. No Nazis but also no Republicans or Democrats.
If you prohibit filtering then the false positive rate has to be low/zero, so the false negative rate goes through the roof. Everyone is deluged by spam and malware.
Section 230 doesn't apply to copyright and look at the mess that has been -- worst of both worlds. Copyright infringement is still prolific but people use fraudulent copyright takedowns for things they don't own left and right, and the platforms execute them because they have minimal incentive to question anything.
What you really want is the middle ground where platforms have to compete with each other for users, so they can ban things everyone hates (spam) but lose users if they ban things those people are legitimately interested in (e.g. minority political opinions).
The problem isn't Section 230, it's the lack of competition which gives the major platforms too much power when they decide to censor something. It has to be the marketplace of ideas, not the monopoly of ideas.