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Twitter shuts down account of Sci-Hub

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Re: Twitter shuts down account of Sci-Hub

#221

Post by adolph »

vlmutolo wrote: post #184
brutal_chaos_ wrote: post #179

Twitter is helping the argument that platforms are to be content moderators. This kills 230. This will entrench Twitter as one of the few social media services capable, due to the need to moderate at scale.

It’s funny — I found this link a few days ago and now it seems like it applies here. https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200531/23325444617/hello... It’s a summary of how section 230 works and is worded. The tone of the piece is overly hash and critical of its readers (prompting me unnecessarily to write this paragraph), but it raises some good points, and I was surprised by more than one of the clarifications it mad…

I'm not saying the article is totally wrong, but at least one of the studies they linked to is Internet industry funded (NetChoice: "Described by Politico as tech's most aggressive lobbying presence in Washington D.C."), and authored by one "Michael Masnick" which is the same name as the author of the Techdirt article and also the name of Techdirt's founder.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Techdirt

So, until something is litigated to the point of SCOTUS precedent, I think most things are at the level of "that's just like, your opinion, man."

Re: Twitter shuts down account of Sci-Hub

#222

Post by splistud »

tptacek wrote: post #161
splistud wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wholly agree with you. They do, however, own the obligations of a public forum if that is how they ask to be regulated. They are playing cute with political speech. They aren't publishing in the traditional sense. But heavy curation of independent content is (at their volume) publishing - without the regulation accorded publishers. They are, by their actions, espousing certain political ideas by only allowing those…

I don't think you'll find a lot of lawyers who specialize in speech and 230 that agree with this interpretation either, and it would have extremely wide-ranging consequences for the entire Internet that the fiercest advocates of this position would not like at all.

I expect that you are correct. However, allowing an org to act as a publisher by heavily curating who is allowed to use their 'forum' is having wide-ranging consequences for our society. As they are occupying a spot in the regulatory scheme that they no longer deserve, redressing this with regulation is necessary.

Re: Twitter shuts down account of Sci-Hub

#223

Post by apple_innocent »

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.

These massive websites/broadcast SMS cannot have it both ways.

They cannot seek the protections of being "critical infrastructure" of any sort, common carrier, public forum, etc. and then, at the same time, disable user accounts for any reason just like any other private website.

They have to pick one or the other. The arguments I am seeing online are folks who have chosen one or the other and are arguing from their chosen perspective. For example, I am content to see them as just another handful of private websites, no matter how large they have become.

Meanwhile, the companies themselves, like Twitter, are content to bask in this ambiguity instead of clarifying what they are or intend to be.

EDIT:

Once the number of users has grown past a manageable threshhold where violations of rules can be detected by administrators (instead of relying on others to report them), it may cause some to wonder what are the reasons absent any legal or other compusion when a user's account is suspended.

Looking at the Twitter rules, the possible reasons this account may have been suspended, e.g., copyright violations, are not obvious. What is their justifcation for suspension. Some sources, e.g., The Verge, are reporting that this Twitter account was being used to solicit statements of support from academics to be used in some litigation in India that seeks to block access Sci-Hub in that country. Apparently the Indian court denied the initial request from publishers for an immediate decision in order to allow time for the scientific community to weigh in on the issue.

I hope someone is setting up another means for the scientific community to weigh in on the non-monetary value of Sci-Hub.

Re: Twitter shuts down account of Sci-Hub

#224

Post by bgilroy26 »

bob1029 wrote: post #206
49531 wrote: post #199

I think the general discourse around high profile account banning raises some interesting questions. I've seen a lot of people in my (generally liberal) social bubble carry the line that Twitter, as a private corporation, has the right to ban accounts for whatever reason they see fit. While technically this is true, should it be? Is there a threshold where a service becomes more of a public good than a private enterp…

Monopolies are wonderful if used responsibly. Having 1 standard way to do something across the board can solve entire universes of problems. Interstate highway system, electrical grid, internet, etc. all fall very cleanly into that bucket. Splitting up a technology company like Amazon or Google would probably just make matters worse over the long haul. Instead of 1 obvious regulatory target you would wind up with sev…

>Interstate highway system, electrical grid, internet, etc. all fall very cleanly into that bucket

Insurance is another highly networked product that benefits from monopoly

The insurance companies of the 19th and 20th centuries were boons to society because their local buckets of money could be invested in local businesses and spent (practically as a donation) on advertising at the minor league baseball diamond or the church bulletin

The sooner we mitigate the loss of those good effects, the sooner We can benefit from the efficiency of insurance monopolies whose risk pools will be as large as is practicable rather than driven by historical accidents

Re: Twitter shuts down account of Sci-Hub

#225

Post by skissane »

Fnoord wrote: post #213
skissane wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even more messed up is the fact that some jurisdictions will criminally prosecute 14 year olds for sending nude pictures of themselves. (I do think 14 year olds should be discouraged from taking and sending nude pictures of themselves – it is the sort of thing they could easily come to regret in a few more years – but I don't think criminal prosecution is an ethical way of providing that discouragement.)

I don't know. Receiver could delete picture ASAP, and discourage behavior. If they keep, spread, or encourage they're complicit. Of course, there's a difference in severity between 1 nude of 1 person, or a myriad, or being an adult with a myriad. Sender getting prosecuted for spreading their own nude as minor might be weird, but also makes sense. Its not as if they'd be a registered sex offender as a minor. Put this…

> Sender getting prosecuted for spreading their own nude as minor might be weird, but also makes sense.

I think the Australian state of Victoria gets it more or less right – section 51M of the Crimes Act 1958 [0] makes it explicitly legal for children to produce, possess or distribute images of themselves. Adults (and in some cases other children) can still be prosecuted if they encourage/entice/assist/etc the child to do it, but the child themselves commits no crime.

> Its not as if they'd be a registered sex offender as a minor.

A number of American states do in fact put minors on the sex offender registry. For example, [1] describes how a woman was registered as a sex offender in Michigan after being convicted of "criminal sexual conduct" as a 10 year old

> Put this way: what if it was an illegal firearm?

A fifteen year old who takes a picture of themselves naked, the primary risk of harm is to themselves, and the harm they are risking is psychosocial rather than physical. By contrast, a fifteen year old with an illegal firearm easily poses a risk of death or serious physical injury, not just to themselves, but also to others. Hence, criminally prosecuting the later is far easier to morally justify than criminally prosecuting the former. The situations aren't really comparable.

> We can't just turn a blind eye to youth breaking law

Well, like Victoria has done, the law can be changed so that they aren't breaking it.

[0] http://classic.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/vic/consol_act/ca1958...

[1] https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/03/14/when-kids-are-...

Re: Twitter shuts down account of Sci-Hub

#226

Post by adolph »

beebmam wrote: post #203
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.

Why should we FORCE twitter to publish the speech of someone they don't want to publish? Doesn't that itself infringe on free speech?

Trump violated the First Amendment when he blocked certain Twitter users

https://www.npr.org/2019/07/09/739906562/u-s-appeals-court-r...

Re: Twitter shuts down account of Sci-Hub

#227

Post by [deleted] »

garaetjjte wrote: post #163
CobrastanJorji wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Did Sci-Hub Twitter account shared copyrighted material actually?

[deleted]

Re: Twitter shuts down account of Sci-Hub

#229

Post by edmundsauto »

fastball wrote: post #88
AniseAbyss wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Repubs always hated public broadcasting, championing the free market to take care of journalism. Companies think Trump is toxic for their brand- surprised pikachu.

I'm not really championing public broadcasting here either. But in an internet-enabled world, in a country that values the right to free speech, there should be wholly unbiased platform that allows anyone to promote their speech to anyone else who wants to listen, as long as it is not speech that is already considered illegal (as decided by the courts, not unnamed corporate arbiters of truth). People keep making the…

Are you familiar with the comedy of horrors that late night public access broadcast was? Not saying it shouldn't be done, but let's set realistic expectations: nobody is going to want to use a government website to exercise their speech, especially because of the types of speech it will be used by. (Unappealing, basically.)

Re: Twitter shuts down account of Sci-Hub

#230

Post by mc32 »

paul_f wrote: post #217
ardy42 wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's pretty messed up. You as a 14 year old send a nude picture to your 15 year old boyfriend and suddenly you're banned from Facebook from life? It's worth noting that is far from the typical case of "being a sex offender."

No, more typical is a 22yo taking a pee against an alley wall behind the bar and being arrested for indecent exposure. Calling everyone a sex-offender just makes this a useless morass.

What about the homeless.

That’s gotten out of hand. I understand they want to discourage streakers and guys who flip open their raincoats or whatever, but someone who looks for a dark corner to pee is no where near being a sex offender. That’s a travesty.

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