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

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

#561

Post by pbhjpbhj »

torstenvl wrote: post #66
gravitate wrote: post #12

I hit CTRL+F to find the word 'neutral' in this article, but no such word appeared. But it did appear in another EFF article titled 'We Need to Talk About Infrastructure'[0], which is the crux of the issue here. My only question is; what is regarded 'internet infrastructure' these days? Is Cloudflare really just an ISP? Is VPN infra considered an ISP? Are mixer nets like Tor/Hyphanet an ISP? 'Essential internet infra…

Essential internet infrastructure should not be content-neutral. Content neutrality is a higher bar than you think it is. Content-neutral means the rules cannot take content into account at all . If the content is millions of ssh login requests on thousands of servers with ec2-user and the top 10000 most used passwords, the infrastructure should be able to block that. Content-neutrality would probably make it illegal…

This seems a very poor argument.

Your examples are people forcing packets to a network node, content neutrality is about receiving what you wish from a server whose operator has chosen to serve that content.

Stopping people who are actively committing crimes is not preventing free movement on a right of way. Or rather, it is in layman's terms, but free movement does not include the commission of crimes. In the same way stopping brute force attempts is not the same as inhibiting net neutrality.

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

#562

Post by concordDance »

spondylosaurus wrote: post #372
NotSuspicious wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think attacking and maligning someone else while ignoring the substance of their comment is what HN should promote in their comments.

Attacking and maligning people is kind of Kiwifarms' whole deal. Plus maybe a bit of stalking thrown in for good measure.

That can also describe a lot of "journalism", seems like a potentially problematic place to draw the line.

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

#563

Post by bluescrn »

pfisch wrote: post #103
CM30 wrote: post #46

I agree, we've got far too many entities that should just be 'dumb pipes' trying to play moral police at the moment, and it's a very worrying situation when it comes to free speech on the internet. Cloudflare is an often brought up example, as are payment processors like Visa and Mastercard and app stores like the iOS and Play Stores, but ISPs trying to block traffic for a site that's not actually illegal feels like…

When in all of US history were private companies not controlling the public discourse and "censoring free speech"?

When 'the public square' was a physical location rather than a social media feed.

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

#564

Post by hexage1814 »

chonkerz wrote: post #458
hattmall wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Focus on speech though. Can the Phone company cut you off because of the content of your communication? Assuming you aren't breaking any other law like harassment? The deciding factor is if your business revolves around facilitating speech. The law has some way to go to catch up with the current state of affairs, but right now the government is enjoying the power of censoring that speech so it may not be an easy path…

Kiwifarms is breaking a lot of harassment and stalking laws.

Good, then it should be easy for the police to shutdown the website if that's the case. Tell the authorities and let the justice system to deal with it.

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

#565

Post by refurb »

chonkerz wrote: post #452
bb88 wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not saying you're wrong, I just think the founding fathers could not anticipate the world we have today. The problem of course being that intelligence tests were used in the 60's to deny voting rights. But the founding fathers were okay with slavery, so would they have been okay with that for that purpose? Originalism has a purpose I think, but, we've changed so much since then...

[flagged]

Wow, I take it you haven’t read much about them then? Because that statement is 100% false.

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

#566

Post by didntcheck »

aaomidi wrote: post #259
CM30 wrote: post #46

I agree, we've got far too many entities that should just be 'dumb pipes' trying to play moral police at the moment, and it's a very worrying situation when it comes to free speech on the internet. Cloudflare is an often brought up example, as are payment processors like Visa and Mastercard and app stores like the iOS and Play Stores, but ISPs trying to block traffic for a site that's not actually illegal feels like…

When I was at let’s encrypt, there were so many people outside that expected us to be the morality police of the internet. Like, no. Certificate Authorities exist because the web fucking sucks. Not because they want to be gate keepers.

I'd be interested to hear more about that. What sort of groups did you get making these requests, and what sort of reasons did they usually give?

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

#567

Post by hnbad »

mortenjorck wrote: post #8

It's heartening to see the EFF come out sticking to principles on this in a time when other organizations of their stature have not. I hate to say it, but I could easily imagine something like the ACLU opposing the EFF on this.

I think you misunderstand the EFF's position here if you think this is some kind of enlightened centrist "I may not agree with what you say but I will fight to death for your right to say it": the EFF is opposed to ISPs filtering content because that is not the job of an ISP and not a level of analysis an ISP should be allowed (much less required) to do.

The EFF very much promotes progressive values, more consistently so than the ACLU which has supported "free speech" cases by undesirable folks before and which seems to have led to this supposed "betrayal" when it turned out not to go out of its way to do so in every case.

The problem with "free speech" absolutist organizations is the same as with "free speech" absolutist social media platforms: if your distinguishing feature is to allow everyone to say almost anything, you'll primarily attract those people who want to say things they can't say elsewhere. And this inevitably means you get an overrepresentation of open white supremacists, CSAM enjoyers, teenage edgelords and trolls. And most people don't want to be associated with these kinds of people, so having enough of them around drives out everyone else.

It's the Nazi Bar problem: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Nazi_bar Either you put in effort to make your organization unattractive to nazis, or you become a nazi organization.

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

#568

Post by yrro »

imadierich wrote: post #525
akira2501 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It feels like private companies are de facto writing the laws about what's allowed online and in society right now, and that it's almost become a loophole for censoring free speech on a whim. This is why monopoly power is dangerous as without it you could just move to a more tolerant competitor and be on with your business. The courts almost never consider the "secondary markets" that exist around these behemoths,…

blame the WEF and 16 UN STG

> Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels

oh no how _terrible_

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

#569

Post by didntcheck »

jquery wrote: post #456
CM30 wrote: post #46

I agree, we've got far too many entities that should just be 'dumb pipes' trying to play moral police at the moment, and it's a very worrying situation when it comes to free speech on the internet. Cloudflare is an often brought up example, as are payment processors like Visa and Mastercard and app stores like the iOS and Play Stores, but ISPs trying to block traffic for a site that's not actually illegal feels like…

IMO, practically speaking, payment processors are a much bigger headache than anything else. It's hard to end-run around them and run any kind of successful business. It's really weird how much power they have to play moral police, even deciding what kind of porn is "ok" and what isn't.

Yep. It's especially concerning when clients are cut off for political reasons. Being able to effectively financially sanction people for having the wrong views is truly dangerous to democracy. Like with a lot of things, I suspect the reason they haven't faced more regulation is just that governments largely support these actions, and enjoy having a backdoor that they can ask to hamper undesirables without going through pesky courts

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

#570

Post by ThrowawayTestr »

habinero wrote: post #467
ThrowawayTestr wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Anti doxing laws should've shut that place down long ago. Reposting publically available information should never be illegal.

It is, however, also legal for private companies to decide stalking is bad and kick them off their systems.

In the state that KF operates in, it actually isn't legal. ISPs like Hurricane are obligated to serve all legal traffic the same. KF's owner has already served complaints to the state authorities.
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