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Twitter shuts down account of Sci-Hub

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Re: Twitter shuts down account of Sci-Hub

#261

Post by tptacek »

Karunamon wrote: post #257
tptacek wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think policy intervention that is backstopped by threats to remove provider liability protections is going to backfire, because when you get when providers are liable is radically more intrusive moderation, not less moderation. As a matter of principle, any regulatory regime that would put HN as Dan moderates it at risk is bad, and what you're proposing would seem to threaten HN. All your bullets here seem like thi…

It would make sense to combine these ideas with a circuit breaker that only kicks in once you have a certain MAU count. Having it apply to every forum everywhere would suck and be unworkable, but once you're at Facebook/Twitter/Reddit/etc. levels of exposure, there are a different set of interests and responsibilities to society in play.

You seem to be describing a scheme where Twitter is legally required to be very careful about moderation, but Parler isn't, which seems crazy to me. Also, it doesn't address other vehicles for suppressing toxic speech; for instance, no 230 change you come up with is going to obligate cloud providers to do business with Parler and StormFront.

I should add a point I should have made earlier, which is that 230 is in no way based on a notion of being "publishers" or "platforms". That's a super common misconception about the law.

Re: Twitter shuts down account of Sci-Hub

#262

Post by mandelken »

swebs wrote: post #192
Funes- wrote: post #115

It's funny. If a direct popular vote was held on making publicly-funded research freely available, it would pass by a staggering margin. Yet here we are, many easily-solvable issues ignored by government officials later, pretending representative democracy is a valid form of democracy.

If a direct popular vote was held promising voters $100,000, it would also pass by a huge margin. Probably every year.

I doubt that. Giving out (free) money indiscriminately will not immediately pass a direct popular vote.

A good case is the Swiss referendum on universal basic income a few years ago that was voted out. And the Swiss have the money to pull it off if they wish.

Re: Twitter shuts down account of Sci-Hub

#263

Post by asddubs »

jjk166 wrote: post #178
davrosthedalek wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It all boils down to this: a) Should twitter be allowed to cancel accounts who harm twitter? If yes: b) Who decides which accounts harm twitter? If the answer is "twitter", then they have effectively the right to terminate any account at their will. I don't know what other answer is possible for b) except maybe "the courts", and I'm not sure I like that one. If the answer to a) is no, for which companies does this ap…

Just because you have the legal right to do something doesn't mean you should do it or that you should be immune to criticism for doing it. For example, in an at-will employment state, an employer can legally fire you for looking at them funny. No one would argue that an employer shouldn't have the right to terminate an employee if they were bad for the company, nor would anyone object to the employer being able to d…

Seems like a bad analogy. I would absolutely argue an employer shouldn't be allowed to fire you for any reason of their choosing

Re: Twitter shuts down account of Sci-Hub

#264

Post by davrosthedalek »

lliamander wrote: post #190
davrosthedalek wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It all boils down to this: a) Should twitter be allowed to cancel accounts who harm twitter? If yes: b) Who decides which accounts harm twitter? If the answer is "twitter", then they have effectively the right to terminate any account at their will. I don't know what other answer is possible for b) except maybe "the courts", and I'm not sure I like that one. If the answer to a) is no, for which companies does this ap…

> twitter can ban whomever they like, for whatever reason, except for the usual exceptions (religion, race etc). I think we either need to get rid of those exceptions or add more. I'm not sure which.

Historically speaking, the exceptions relate to properties which got many people killed. So from that perspective, I'd hope we'll not add more, but maybe can retire some of them. Not super optimistic about that though.

Re: Twitter shuts down account of Sci-Hub

#265

Post by ska »

pretendscholar wrote: post #197
xamuel wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a common misconception that "Thou shalt not lie" is a divine commandment from God. You're probably thinking of "Thou shalt not bear false witness against your neighbor" (Exodus 20:16), which is more specific.

I wish I could read ancient aramaic because I'm pretty sure they don't literally mean its fine to lie about anything that doesn't involve someone living nearby.

I suspect even in the translation, neither "neighbor" nor "false witness" are meant in the way you are inferring.

It should be probably read something like : don't swear to untrue things about your countrymen.

Re: Twitter shuts down account of Sci-Hub

#266

Post by lliamander »

beowulfey wrote: post #216
lliamander wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is, few other companies will do business with anyone trying to compete with Twitter. Parler was nuked. Gab was almost nuked, but they've managed to survive. There's a huge demand for alternatives to Twitter, but other major tech companies, the corporate press, and many politicians are doing everything in their power to crush those alternatives and prevent them from springing up.

Huge demand is maybe an overstatement. A quick google search shows me that Parler had ~4 million active users a couple weeks ago. Twitter has >300 million. That’s about 1-2%. I don’t think that qualifies as huge.

4 million people is a lot of people.

As someone else pointed out, their user base tripled before they were nuked.

Re: Twitter shuts down account of Sci-Hub

#268

Post by jb775 »

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.

Twitter doesn't care about any business dispute, we're simply watching them chip away at the foundations of capitalism to facilitate a move towards communism. In this latest example, they're doing their part to suppress research visibility. History doesn't repeat, but often rhymes:

Per historic Soviet communism playbook: all research, including natural sciences, was to be founded on the philosophy of dialectical materialism. Humanities and social sciences [research] were additionally tested for strict accordance with historical materialism.[1]

In other recent examples, I don't think anyone would argue they aren't actively doing their part to suppress free-speech (a requirement for communism). The most blatant and concerning to me is their amplification of discussion around topics that would facilitate the piece-by-piece dismantlement of America's democratic republic. Most recently, getting rid of the electoral college.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_and_technology_in_th...

Re: Twitter shuts down account of Sci-Hub

#269

Post by takeda »

apple_innocent wrote: post #223
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…

you are mixing up net neutrality and a platform.

Net Neutrality ensures that ISP do what the name says, providing Internet service without interfering with it, like restricting which sites you can visit.

A platform like twitter, facebook, parler. Is something that was created from scratch and is owned by these companies. As of now it's not their duty to allow everyone in. And enforcing it is stepping on their freedom.

Someone here or on reddit, suggested that perhaps the government supposed to provide such public platform. That's an interesting thought, because at that point I would agree that if such things would happen there such complaints would be justified.

Re: Twitter shuts down account of Sci-Hub

#270

Post by takeda »

konjin wrote: post #250
unityByFreedom wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. It's never been proposed that platforms like Twitter become common carriers. That designation was intended for the layer beneath them, IS…

And ISPs were not common carriers until they were. It was only meant for the layer underneath them: telcos. The world changes and we should not be stuck with the technology of the 80s until the end of time.

actually they were from the start, or more accurately telcos were required to provide their lines for ISPs.
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