Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Silicon Valley is shutting down speech loopholes. Latest target: live content

taibbi.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

331–340 of 340 posts

Re: Silicon Valley is shutting down speech loopholes. Latest target: live content

#331

Post by golemiprague »

andrewprock wrote: post #198
golemiprague wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't have a problem with moderation but I do have a problem when infrastructure providers like AWS decide how their clients should moderate their content. You can't have competition when some of the competitors can't use the infrastructure. It is not without reason that utility providers can't discriminate and I think it is time to decide what is considered a utility in the internet age.

AWS is by no means the only infrastructure provider.

But it is an infrastructure providers, they got nothing to do with the content of the publishers or apps. As such, they should not discriminate. It goes back also to payments clearing and all the way up the chain. There are not too many players and if all of them refuse to give service you are stuck. It should be like electricity or water or phone line, they shouldn't even be allowed to ask or check what content you are delivering.

Re: Silicon Valley is shutting down speech loopholes. Latest target: live content

#332

Post by bcronk »

emptyparadise wrote: post #46

My question to everyone supporting restrictions on speech and supporting privacy violations, even for good reasons, is this: are you prepared to have these tools fall into the wrong hands? The same methods used to quickly shut down a dangerous website or to track down a terrorist by their online posts can be used to silence protests and to hunt down political opposition.

I think there's no such thing as free speech, and there never has been. Any forum worth reading has to be heavily moderated in some way. Things like scamming people and counterfeiting money are rightfully illegal. Any legitimate state is going to need to quell protests and hunt down political opposition, because at any reasonable population size you are guaranteed to have people who disagree enough with those in power to get violent and criminal about it. We saw this play out recently enough earlier this month on Inauguration Day.

Politics is hard, and absolutist ideas like completely unrestricted speech, a completely unrestricted economy, or complete privacy are at best lunacy, at worst downright impossible. I don't think I would want to live in a society where anyone could say anything whenever and wherever, where corporations were completely unregulated, or where law enforcement could never hope to gather evidence because of privacy restrictions. So I think tools and methods for restricting speech and privacy must exist, and they will fall into the wrong hands, but it's ultimately up to the public to collectively decide and enforce what is acceptable and what's not. It's an endless struggle that's been happening not since the birth of the Internet, but since people started living in groups.

Re: Silicon Valley is shutting down speech loopholes. Latest target: live content

#333

Post by Khaine »

vmception wrote: post #294
Khaine wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except you don't have the right to refuse service to anyone for any reason. It is against the law to refuse service on the basis of protected classes (i.e. race, sex, sexual orientation). These classes are thought to be immutable. More and more evidence shows that political beliefs are inheritable[1]. Should that be protected? What about height? We know that shorter men earn less than taller men. Should short people…

Insightful, I was curious if you had a position? Such as would you like additional protected classes? Or any particular outcome, its not necessary I was just making sure I didnt miss something you were advocating for.

I'm afraid I don't.

Ideally, I think the concept of protected classes shouldn't exist. I'm not sure if there is a difference of teasing/insulting someone about their height or their race. However, I understand the historical reason why these protective classes were created and why they were needed at the time.

I'm not sure how we move forward on this

Re: Silicon Valley is shutting down speech loopholes. Latest target: live content

#334

Post by jusssi »

cbozeman wrote: post #330
jusssi wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Put a hundred people in a row. Punch them all in the face. Most of them will be fine, at least eventually. A couple might develop permanent cognitive issues, or even die. But most of them will be fine. Yet it is not a reason for us to give people the permission (let's face it, you can't take away the freedom, they'll do it if they want to) to punch others in the face. Maybe some day people will acknowledge that publi…

Maybe some day people will acknowledge that the Universe isn't a pleasant place and that sometimes you're going to be exposed to unpleasant shit, and you need to cultivate some fortitude to deal with it.

I think there's quite a difference between being exposed to unpleasantness, and someone deliberately taking the unpleasantness, handing it over to a publisher and telling them to rub it into your face.

This whole discussion seems to revolve around whether a publishing platform should be forced to tolerate any type of content, or not. I think you'll agree there's a line somewhere there. From seemingly easy, to more tricky, where do you draw the line (or maybe you just cultivate some fortitude)?

* Twitter bans Trumpetists

* AWS bans Parlor

* You have a personal blog where people can comment (without you pre-approving the content). You choose ban someone's comments.

* You have a personal blog to which people can post comments but they only show after your preview. You choose to specifically ignore someone's comments.

* Mosquito Liberation Front decides to use your yard's lawn for a signpost advertising rights for mosquitoes. You take the sign down.

* MLF decides to use your house's white painted walls as a medium for their freedom of speech and spraypaints their logos on it.

(bonus: MLF chooses to use the white painted walls of Twitter HQ as a medium for their freedom of speech, next to a screen that shows live tweets, after they've been banned from twitter)

Re: Silicon Valley is shutting down speech loopholes. Latest target: live content

#335

Post by Const-me »

andrewprock wrote: post #327
Const-me wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I support net neutrality, but why do you think that should be the first step?

That ensures that ISPs and backbones cannot be the ones applying content guidelines.

I don’t think they can technically do that even if they wanted to.

Not anymore, the internets have largely upgraded to https.

Re: Silicon Valley is shutting down speech loopholes. Latest target: live content

#336

Post by sneak »

rat87 wrote: post #315
sneak wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If YouTube were silencing protests I wouldn't like that, but I don't rely on YouTube to understand what's going on in the world A lot of people do. You can't really find out what's going on in the world from the mainstream media in any real resolution or detail, and "other websites on the internet" don't generally have thousands and thousands of people livestreaming actual live video of what's happening . Perhaps t…

You can because the mainstream western media despite it's faults tends to be pretty good Meanwhile there are tons of crazy extremists streaming. A lot of it doesnt provide an accurate view and might only be useful as a potentially biased first hand account to digged through by journalists and historians after the fact

There are also tons of non-crazy, non-extremists streaming.

Regardless of whether you listen to the streamers, it's an amazing tool for seeing what is actually happening in a specific place. You can ignore the commentary or ideology (not that that is really an issue, most streams are just normies) and see what is happening.

Western mainstream media is a lot of things, but comprehensive and nuanced it is not.

Re: Silicon Valley is shutting down speech loopholes. Latest target: live content

#337

Post by michaelbrave »

colllectorof wrote: post #206
bawolff wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What tools are these actually - the delete button? When it comes down to it - i like moderated spaces on the internet. I dont want to wade through spam, not to mention violent and abusive content. I don't like seeing shock images. So yes, i support having moderation. The question to me is not: yes/no moderation, its where you draw the line; what are your policies and how are they enforced. Fundamentally i think the s…

>if youtube becomes to dranicon, start a new website. You are clearly ignorant of the kinds of shit actual YouTube alternatives have to deal with. Their websites and videos get de-ranked or de-listed from search (Rumble [1]), their apps get removed from app store (LBRY [2]), their infrastructure gets constant attacks (BitChute [3]). Meanwhile, the mainstream media smears them at every opportunity. This is nothing lik…

sounds like anti-monopoly laws should be enforced then, which is a separate problem.

Re: Silicon Valley is shutting down speech loopholes. Latest target: live content

#338

Post by tjr225 »

devmunchies wrote: post #91
tjr225 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m sorry but I think if you believe that google can be cancelled by public opinion you are out of touch with the economic and social reality that we are in. I would be happy to be wrong, however. Also; only one of my suggestions was sarcastic.

> I’m sorry but I think if you believe that google can be cancelled by public opinion you are out of touch Then what's your solution? you want govt censorship? they have rights! you should read the constitution.

Have you been reading any of my comments? These companies shouldn't be allowed to hold monopolies. Amazon shouldn't be able to remove you from the internet. Google shouldn't be the only advertising platform in the world. The solution isn't to take away these private entities right to free speech and your solution won't work as long as these monopolies exist. I'm not sure how much longer I can repeat myself.

Re: Silicon Valley is shutting down speech loopholes. Latest target: live content

#339

Post by devmunchies »

tjr225 wrote: post #338
devmunchies wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I’m sorry but I think if you believe that google can be cancelled by public opinion you are out of touch Then what's your solution? you want govt censorship? they have rights! you should read the constitution.

Have you been reading any of my comments? These companies shouldn't be allowed to hold monopolies. Amazon shouldn't be able to remove you from the internet. Google shouldn't be the only advertising platform in the world. The solution isn't to take away these private entities right to free speech and your solution won't work as long as these monopolies exist. I'm not sure how much longer I can repeat myself.

you never named a solution. you're just saying what isn't a solution. a.k.a. wet-blanketry.

> The solution isn't to take away these private entities right to free speech

That was never suggested by anyone.

We just want increased public outrage which will encourage (1) competition and/or (2) anti-trust investigations.

> Have you been reading any of my comments?

no.

Re: Silicon Valley is shutting down speech loopholes. Latest target: live content

#340

Post by teddyh »

klyrs wrote: post #5
thebible wrote: post #2

This is a good thing. It was only a matter of time before the perceived total unlimited sense of freedom of speech that pervaded the internet turned toxic. There's an expression "free as in speech or free as in beer," but in reality both of those things cost money.

"Free as in pony" is my favorite phrase to convey cost of otherwise "free" things

I would suggest “Free as a white elephant.”:

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/white_elephant

Post reply on HN