Twitter shuts down account of Sci-Hub • Hacker News Board

Re: Twitter shuts down account of Sci-Hub

#91

Post by ravenstine » Thu, Jan 14, 2021, 7:18 PM UTC

KingMachiavelli wrote: post #65

HarryHirsch wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same. If he is seditious you can get a court to issue an injunction very quickly, and if he isn't a private entity has no issue determining what a politician can say. As a German one thinks different about free speech than do most Americans. We know all too well where too much free speech leads and when in doubt let the courts decide because we love public peace. Putting a muzzle on someone is interfering with po…

Twitter is not a monopoly by any stretch. Regulating how sites handle speech just adds an additional hurdle for new, better platforms to enter. I should not have to have an expensive lawyer on retainer to read injunction requests just for running a This has already been tested in court in the Prager University vs Google, LLC [1] trial and was resolved very quickly. Freedom of speech does not mean another individual h…

They're not a monopoly in the strictest sense, but they are extremely powerful. People go to Twitter to see what their representatives are saying. Journalists use it almost exclusively to discover what's relevant. Yes, they're a private company, but when a private company reaches a certain level of influence they become a government of sorts, just not one that owns a standing army.

I think you underestimate the power that social media has. The mass 80% doesn't give a fuck about Mastodon or even leave the domains of Facebook, Google, Twitter, and Amazon. This isn't the year 2004 - getting anyone to use a shitty knockoff of Twitter or the like is always going to be an uphill battle. It's due to a few things, namely an accumulation of wealth and confluence with the mainstream media apparatus that wants access to that wealth by proxy. Go ahead and make your own competitor to Twitter and report back to us in a year. Don't be surprised when the MSM labels it in a way that scares off the 80-90%.

Re: Twitter shuts down account of Sci-Hub

#92

Post by jenwkejnwjkef » Thu, Jan 14, 2021, 7:21 PM UTC

ABeeSea wrote: post #23

tyingq wrote: post #4

Not a fan of "pirated" as the descriptive word for what Sci-Hub does. I'm sure some of it fits that description. On the other hand, a fair amount of these papers are funded with taxpayer dollars, and shouldn't be hidden behind paywalls in the first place.

The chairs at the DMV are also paid with taxpayer dollars. I’d be arrested if I tried to walk out the door with one.

Intellectual "property" is not property.

Re: Twitter shuts down account of Sci-Hub

#93

Post by gojomo » Thu, Jan 14, 2021, 7:24 PM UTC

russell_h wrote: post #38

HarryHirsch wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same. If he is seditious you can get a court to issue an injunction very quickly, and if he isn't a private entity has no issue determining what a politician can say. As a German one thinks different about free speech than do most Americans. We know all too well where too much free speech leads and when in doubt let the courts decide because we love public peace. Putting a muzzle on someone is interfering with po…

To be clear, there is no serious interpretation of the US Constitution required here: Twitter absolutely has the right to determine what shows up on their website. For the government to require Twitter to publish the opinions of the president would be a very clear violation of Twitter’s own first amendment rights. There could be more nuance involved if, for example, there were a credible claim of racial discriminatio…

Twitter's CEO Jack Dorsey has repeatedly been summoned before Congress to be dressed-down by legislators, who regularly threaten to "do something" that increases Twitter's liabilities or otherwise encumbers their business, if Twitter doesn't change their internal policies. In some cases, it's been suggested that discretionary government powers under existing laws could be used to reward or punish Twitter. Twitter's been the topic of executive orders & criticism from the FCC chair.

If Twitter'd been left to do anything it thought legal and wise, and only challenged via formal lawsuits or prosecutions that courts could rule on, then sure, Twitter can do whatever they want.

But now that politicians, elected officeholders, & appointed regulators have all piled-on with their opinions of what Twitter should do, "or else", might there be some government-restricting-expression issues to consider? Is it a coincidence that they only took strong action against Trump once he became a "lame duck", and the action they took will specifically please the incoming administrations' coalition?

Has the government found the perfect 1st Amendment loophole, by laundering their speech-restricting preferences through threats – "because of the implication" – while maintaining a facade of non-involvement in this "private" decision?

Re: Twitter shuts down account of Sci-Hub

#94

Post by jenwkejnwjkef » Thu, Jan 14, 2021, 7:25 PM UTC

dickbar wrote: post #22

This move is bold and refreshing. I think Facebook and Amazon should also be taking action (assuming sci hub is using AWS and people are posting links to it on FB and organizing groups). It’s only fair that, in case of breach of any law, regardless of where it comes from, that same measures be applied in each and every case. I’m sure HN would agree given what has transpired over the last week. Edit: I missed to inclu…

Sci-hub is not breaking any laws. They are accused of breaking laws. Who gave Twitter, in your eyes, the power to act as a judge?

Re: Twitter shuts down account of Sci-Hub

#95

Post by natechols » Thu, Jan 14, 2021, 7:26 PM UTC

abnry wrote: post #21

I don't support piracy. So I don't support Sci-hub. But I believe that publishers are bilking the public and that publicly funded research should be made freely available. The real way to fix this is to disrupt the reputational incentives academics (and deans supporting this) have to keep publishing in these journals. For some reason, I think this is an unpopular opinion on HN.

The only "disruption" required is for funding agencies, especially governments, to mandate immediate open access as a condition of grants. Milder approaches such as the NIH's current policy have been spectacularly successful, because nobody turns down that kind of money. The main problem has been intense lobbying by publishers, including some academic societies. But open access is not an issue where it should be difficult to assemble a large bipartisan coalition in favor, even in the US!

Re: Twitter shuts down account of Sci-Hub

#96

Post by insickness » Thu, Jan 14, 2021, 7:27 PM UTC

memer wrote: post #44

HarryHirsch wrote: post #11

Twitter has no business inserting itself into a dispute between Elbakyan and Elsevier et al. Few people would have issues if Twitter shut down the Sci-Hub account after they received a valid court order, but a private monopolist cannot be trusted to be the arbiter of what is permitted speech.

It's Twitter's own servers and they can choose who can use them or not. Permitted speech on the legal scope does not matter when talking about businesses.

> "Ownership does not always mean absolute dominion. The more an owner, for his advantage, opens up his property for use by the public in general, the more do his rights become circumscribed by the statutory and constitutional rights of those who use it."

This from Marsh v. Alabama, 326 U.S. 501 (1946), a case decided by the United States Supreme Court, in which it ruled that a state trespassing statute could not be used to prevent the distribution of religious materials on a town's sidewalk, even though the sidewalk was part of a privately owned company town. The Court based its ruling on the provisions of the First Amendment and Fourteenth Amendment. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsh_v._Alabama

Re: Twitter shuts down account of Sci-Hub

#97

Post by tptacek » Thu, Jan 14, 2021, 7:28 PM UTC

insickness wrote: post #96

memer wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's Twitter's own servers and they can choose who can use them or not. Permitted speech on the legal scope does not matter when talking about businesses.

> "Ownership does not always mean absolute dominion. The more an owner, for his advantage, opens up his property for use by the public in general, the more do his rights become circumscribed by the statutory and constitutional rights of those who use it." This from Marsh v. Alabama, 326 U.S. 501 (1946), a case decided by the United States Supreme Court, in which it ruled that a state trespassing statute could not be…

Everything the court has done since Marsh v Alabama has walked that decision back, and I think you'll have a hard time finding legal experts to back the interpretation that Twitter owns the obligations of a public square.

We've had threads about it on HN, but it's also (for obvious reasons) come up recently, and here's Ken White citing a recent SCOTUS decision knocking this idea down:

https://twitter.com/Popehat/status/1141766582382678016

(The whole thread is good).

Re: Twitter shuts down account of Sci-Hub

#98

Post by CobrastanJorji » Thu, Jan 14, 2021, 7:30 PM UTC

bArray wrote: post #74

I for one am glad that our new moral enforcers are keeping us safe from the possibility of free academic knowledge.

Moral and legal are different.

I think Sci-Hub is ethical. I'm under no illusions that this somehow makes it legal.

Sci-Hub explicitly bills itself as a "pirate website." Twitter's rules explicitly ban both copyright violation and illegal activities. Therefore Sci-Hub is violation of Twitter's rules.

Twitter may well be very selective in their enforcement, but the fact that Sci-Hub is violating Twitter's rules is not in doubt, is it?

Re: Twitter shuts down account of Sci-Hub

#99

Post by rcoveson » Thu, Jan 14, 2021, 7:35 PM UTC

abnry wrote: post #21

I don't support piracy. So I don't support Sci-hub. But I believe that publishers are bilking the public and that publicly funded research should be made freely available. The real way to fix this is to disrupt the reputational incentives academics (and deans supporting this) have to keep publishing in these journals. For some reason, I think this is an unpopular opinion on HN.

It's unpopular because that disruption hasn't happened yet, and there's no guarantee that it will happen in the next 50 years. In the mean time, the average American is stuck interacting with cutting edge research--research which is often funded publicly--via:

1. Shitty science journalism with paywalled citations

2. $300/yr textbooks

3. Crime

Intuitively, it's difficult to imagine something less copyrightable than a scientific discovery. The world is upside-down.

Re: Twitter shuts down account of Sci-Hub

#100

Post by tomjen3 » Thu, Jan 14, 2021, 7:38 PM UTC

HarryHirsch wrote: post #11

Twitter has no business inserting itself into a dispute between Elbakyan and Elsevier et al. Few people would have issues if Twitter shut down the Sci-Hub account after they received a valid court order, but a private monopolist cannot be trusted to be the arbiter of what is permitted speech.

I disagree, they should have purged Elsevier.