ISPs should not police online speech no matter how awful it is

I think that the ACLU had a bigger impact with 60m in funding as a nonpartisan organization with a respected reputation than as a soldier in the culture war.

twenty-five minutes ago, I posted the above comment, then got into my car to drive home from work. on the way home, at an intersection, I checked my phone to see if anyone had responded to my comment, and indeed, you had. I thought about it a bit, then, while waiting in line at drugstore to pick up a prescription, I typed and submitted this reply. this is most certainly not how Things Used To Be. you used to have to jack into the Matrix at a designated jacking-in terminal—you couldn't just wirelessly jack in anywhere, about the town, at any point in your daily life.

only a decade ago, the idea that a politician would use the public-facing Internet to directly attack or insult a political opponent was unthinkable—now, it's completely commonplace, as common as anyone arguing over the Internet, with anyone else about anything else. now, it's been successfully integrated into everyday life, completely. in the past, though, there most certainly was a time in which it was a completely separate thing, with completely different social norms than meatspace. I don't know why some are so eager to erase this in-the-greater-scheme-of-things extremely-recent history, and pretend like the Internet was always some sort of sanitized "safe space." there were "safe spaces", to be sure—but you had to make them yourself(!), or seek them out. communities were ideologically-driven, not advertiser/moral guardian-driven.

the same people who decry this will also decry the government taking charge of internet moderation at the ISP level, probably even louder.

This entire discussion is bizarre and academic. The site in question has engaged in doxxing and other activities that has led to real world harm, including suicides, and content on there is already probably illegal. If I run a business, and I know a customer is doing something like that, I have an ethical obligation to not facilitate it. I don't start some ideological discussion about whether some hypothetical court can prevent it given that nobody apparently can be bothered to actually make that a reality.

Imagine I have an axe shop and a known axe murderer walks through the door, and instead of not selling him an axe I propose we have a year long debate about the proper formal process of axe murder prevention supported by the Axe Rights Foundation. Granted this is how America actually (does not) deal with gun violence so I'm not surprised we are now in the pro-doxxer rights debate

In fact, the reason the First Amendment limits the government, exclusively, is that the ability to abridge free speech (to choose which forms of speech you support, spread, or disassociate from) is implicitly a part of individual liberty, held by the people. Free speech has never guaranteed anyone a platform.

That's not a bug, it's a feature. Yes, it can be messy. Yes, it can be abused. Yes, it means social media companies are allowed to ban you for any reason they like, just as restaurants are allowed to refuse you service. Yes it means ISPs don't have to do business with nazis and assholes.

The alternative is that the government - that controls the monopoly on violence - controls all speech, at all levels, and any business that engages in any form of speech. That it forces you to publish speech against your will, against your interests, even against your safety.

The great thing about ISPs being private is that you can always find another ISP. Kiwifarms did. Being banned from social media isn't the end of the world. But I can't as easily find another government if mine reads my social media posts and decides I'm too "woke" to live.