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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

#641

Post by bArray »

> That’s why EFF has long argued that we must “protect the stack” by saying no to infrastructure providers policing internet content.

I agree with this, but you need to understand what you agree to. It's not just the content you want to see - it's also the content you don't want to see. It's the freedom of the most extreme content imaginable - CP, snuff, murder, doxxing, drugs, etc, etc.

People will experience severe issues as a result, but there are other things that can be done:

1. Individuals can do more to protect themselves. We have AI now that can quite accurately detect what is in an image or video, it's entirely feasible to do live content filtering.

2. We need to protect the most vulnerable in our societies. We don't give whiskey to a 5 year old, and we shouldn't give unfiltered internet to a 5 year old. This also extends to vulnerable adults. If you receive government assistance (money/drugs) for a mental disability, a filtered version of the internet should be available to you.

3. The punishment for filtering without permission should be severe enough that it's not just a tax. People really need to be held accountable, otherwise they will just pay the toll and be done with it.

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

#642

Post by Dylan16807 »

Barrin92 wrote: post #279
toast0 wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the same people who decry this will also decry the government taking charge of internet moderation at the ISP level, probably even louder. Probably, yes. Which is why I mentioned the first part of the issue. Otoh, when the government does a takedown with court orders, there's always people yelling about it, but it's not as loud as when the government does a takedown without at least the appearance of due process or…

nobody has any obligation to deliver anything they know will cause someone harm. That is pretty much by definition the violation of an ethical standard. 'Neutrality' in the face of someone's life being threatened by someone else is cowardice. And to make things clear, directly from the EFF article: "A site that provides a forum for gamifying abuse and doxxing, whose users have celebrated on its pages the IRL deaths o…

> nobody has any obligation to deliver anything they know will cause someone harm. That is pretty much by definition the violation of an ethical standard

1. I think the postal service does. Can you find me guidelines to the contrary?

2. Most connections to the IP block are not doing harm. This is more like refusing to deliver any mail to a mafia boss, and maybe also the entire neighborhood.

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

#643

Post by krapp »

RecycledEle wrote: post #635

What if we allowed all speech online, no matter how vile? The problem would be that people want to avoid seeing some things, and they really want to avoid their kids seeing things. So what if we define a group of flags that can be set to say "This content does contain X" or "This content does not contain X." If the flag is not set, we don't know. Then web filters can just block content that lacks a flag saying "This…

You're making the mistake many people make in assuming all communication on the web is strictly two way, and that the only possible outcome of speech online is hurt feelings.

If I post your real name, address and bank account credentials online, or photos of you in the bathroom, or start a forum to plan acts of genocide against your race or religion, or maybe spread plausible slander about you on every social media platform I can, that's perfectly acceptable under your terms. But it doesn't help you if all you're allowed to do is set a filter flag on it. It's still there, having an effect.

The web isn't just teenage edgelords shitposting at each other for lulz anymore, there are actual real world consequences at play.

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

#645

Post by vintermann »

cf141q5325 wrote: post #350
tjpnz wrote: post #220

I would encourage those interested to read up on the individual behind the ISP harassment campaign and what might actually be motivating them to do it. That it's being done to protect trans people is highly disingenuous.

Here the Glenn Greenwald post from the time of the Kiwifarms debacle is worth referencing. https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1567292900312064000 >But the worst is watching people whose job title in corporate HR Departments is "journalist" take the lead in agitating for censorship. They exploit the platforms of corporate giants to pioneer increasingly dangerous means of banning dissenters. These are the authoritar…

Linking to Twitter doesn't work very well these days. Users who aren't logged in don't see the thread, only the single tweet you link to.

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

#646

Post by concordDance »

hattmall wrote: post #253
plagiarist wrote: post #150

What I'd like to figure out is how there are still so many Nazis despite readily-available facts that Naziism is racist delusions? And how are countries like Germany still doing kinda okay despite making it illegal to do Nazi stuff? Isn't it a slippery slope directly from banning Naziism direct to North Korean-style authoritarianism?

For one thing the "Nazis" in the US aren't actual Nazis no matter how much they desire to be. German has banned things that deal with the ACTUAL, real Nazis which were a part of Germany. Germany hasn't banned racism and the reality is that Germany is quite racist. If judging by US standards Germany would be off the charts racist. Even Berlin, Germany's most diverse city is still > 80% white.

> Even Berlin, Germany's most diverse city is still > 80% white.

I am confused as to what this last sentence has to do with anything.

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

#647

Post by oliwarner »

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…

> private companies are de facto writing the laws about what's allowed online

It's hard when it's your line people are using to put their brand of ugliness "online".

Cloudflare comes up so regularly because so many legally problematic websites use their free service to evade even judicial blocks that ISPs are ordered to implement at national level. CF are used as a free proxy that's very hard to block unless Cloudflare takes a stand.

When they don't take a stand, when they try to stay impartial, they're attacked for enabling terrorism, child abuse, human trafficking, etc, etc, etc. So they do something, and they're attacked for being moral arbiters.

They're here to do business, not please everyone. Perhaps letting them pick isn't so bad. You can decide whether or not you want to do business with them then based on their actions and everybody can not use them if they're that much of a moral problem for them. I think many people would benefit from knowing they don't always get their way.

"Oh but I have no choice of ISPs" is absolutely a problem, but it's not this problem. Your ISP having a monopoly can be fixed separately.

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

#648

Post by richbell »

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #501
richbell wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> The claim that Kiwi Farms is dedicated to driving transpeople to suicide was started by [specific people] Nice strawman. There are a huge number of different people who have independently arrived at the conclusion that KF exists to bully queer and autistic people, often to suicide, because it's a consistent pattern; the idea that this concept can be attributed to just one or a handful of people is wilfully misleadi…

> There are a huge number of different people who have independently arrived at the conclusion that KF exists to bully queer and autistic people, often to suicide, because it's a consistent pattern

It's a convenient thing to accuse them of considering that it's already "widely accepted". The same person involved in this was also behind #DropKiwiFarms. They've been trying to blame Kiwi Farms for numerous suicides since 2016, and the "victim count" changes every time the story is told.

> Anyone who's been online long enough in the right circles will eventually know of multiple people who have been targets of the site, and it's obvious what those targets have in common.

Most of the site's largest threads are about right-wing figures (e.g. Nick Fuentes, Ethan Ralph, Milo Yiannopolis) or well-known online personalities (e.g., DarkSydePhil, WingsOfRedemption, Mr. Metokur, Nick Rikeida, H3H3). I'm not sure what you're implying.

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

#649

Post by vintermann »

ryan-c wrote: post #248

Where was the EFF when ISPs were null routing everything on Spamhaus's DROP list? https://www.spamhaus.org/drop/

When you remove content because you think the recipient doesn't want to see it, that's moderation.

When you remove content because you think the recipient shouldn't see it, regardless of what they might want, that's censorship.

Whether it's a good idea to use T1-ISPs to moderate your inbox is another question.

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

#650

Post by vintermann »

vxNsr wrote: post #393
gmd63 wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Forget the IRS, imagine if the President himself were to withhold American resources promised to foreign governments in exchange for dirt on his political opponents.

and then force the country to fire the top prosecutor who was investigating his son's illegal activities, truly imagine if such person would do something like that and then have the audacity to publicly brag about it knowing full well the media would cover for him due to his political party. truly sickening what politicians will do.

I wonder how much the blatant corruption of Ukraine by both powerful US factions was a factor in the war's outbreak.
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