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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

#731

Post by ghostzilla »

phpisthebest wrote: post #708
gorwell wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's right. Authoritarian censors found an exploit. They couldn't use the government to clamp down on civil liberties because of the pesky constitution, so they invaded the administrative layer of big tech. It's not the engineers who built the web and these companies with Silicon Valley ideals. They were never intended to be used this way and are secretly horrified. > play moral police at the moment Moral fashion p…

>>It's not the engineers who built the web and these companies I 100% disagree with this, the engineering level of silicon valley left the old "libertarian" hacker ethos behind a long time ago, at the engineering layer there is idea about using technology to build a "better society" where "better society" is ensuring people with "wrong opinions" isolated so they can not "harm" others with their "violence" and violenc…

Exactly right. Most of the new engineers have nothing of the libertarian spirit of the 2600 era. It was engineers who implemented censorship at online platforms, most incredulous of which was PayPal charging customers $2,500 in damages for spreading "misinformation." I cancelled my PayPal account the moment I read the news.

For shame. But, things go in cycles. What was once great becomes a ruin, and then rises again. We are now in the heading steadily towards the ruin phase.

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

#732

Post by jollyllama »

metalspot wrote: post #694
woofcat wrote: post #686

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is a hot take. So if you post asking about abortion access as a 16 year old that should have your name plastered next to it. The internet has saved many people by opening up questions you wouldn't ask your doctor.

its a free market so people are always welcome to run services that allow pseudonymity (nothing is actually anonymous on the internet, everything is logged and tracked and traceable) and people are free to use them. the most popular services (facebook/instagram, twitter) are the ones that have the most real people posting stuff under their real names. those companies continue to allow fake users for a variety of fina…

People talk about this a lot nowadays, but what's your definition of a "fake user" or a fake account? A real human using a name other than a legal name? Hasn't that been the norm online since the late '80s?

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

#733

Post by newsclues »

bArray wrote: post #709
newsclues wrote: post #676

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"If you receive government assistance (money/drugs) for a mental disability, a filtered version of the internet should be available to you." Not every mental disability makes people stupid enough to make them need a filtered internet. As someone in that category, but still able to think, if people like you nerf my internet, the amount of rage and anger that I will unleash upon society is going to be endless.

> Not every mental disability makes people stupid enough to make them need a filtered internet. It's not about being stupid, it's about being vulnerable. Also it may not be appropriate in every case. I am also weary of removing the ability to access the internet from otherwise functioning adults. I've not quite happy to have a solid stance on it just yet. As I said: "[..] a filtered version of the internet should be…

If you think it’s in societies best interest to filter the internet for people like me, don’t worry about my access to firearms.

I’m not an idiot and I don’t need guns to dedicate all my time to ruining society and destroying infrastructure.

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

#734

Post by ToucanLoucan »

phpisthebest wrote: post #708
gorwell wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's right. Authoritarian censors found an exploit. They couldn't use the government to clamp down on civil liberties because of the pesky constitution, so they invaded the administrative layer of big tech. It's not the engineers who built the web and these companies with Silicon Valley ideals. They were never intended to be used this way and are secretly horrified. > play moral police at the moment Moral fashion p…

>>It's not the engineers who built the web and these companies I 100% disagree with this, the engineering level of silicon valley left the old "libertarian" hacker ethos behind a long time ago, at the engineering layer there is idea about using technology to build a "better society" where "better society" is ensuring people with "wrong opinions" isolated so they can not "harm" others with their "violence" and violenc…

> I 100% disagree with this, the engineering level of silicon valley left the old "libertarian" hacker ethos behind a long time ago

And thank fuck for that.

> at the engineering layer there is idea about using technology to build a "better society" where "better society" is ensuring people with "wrong opinions" isolated so they can not "harm" others with their "violence" and violence is now words on the internet.

People are so glib about this and it's such a catastrophic failure to engage in empathy and respect for other human beings that it simply blows my mind that people can say things like this and think they're in the moral correct. "Being bullied to death by the Internet" isn't even that uncommon anymore. Especially for people who will have a hard time finding community in the real spaces in which they live, Internet communities of like-people become a literal lifeline. Entire relationships both communal and intimate are carried out through the lens of online communication. "Words on the internet" indeed.

And if said words can be a lifeline of communication and community to like-minded people and alleviate suffering, you can be damn well assured that works the other way too. Having personally known and helped people through being the subject of online alt-right hate mobs, I assure you, "words on the internet" can absolutely kill people. I have watched in happen in real time and pulled people back from the precipice.

> We also see this through out Open Source with the raise of the CoC to implement systemic changes with in open source to ensure only those with "correct opinions" are allowed to contribute moving from just caring about code, to then caring about code and conduct with in a project and project related events, to now even more expansive monitoring of developers entire lives, and activities completely removed and unrelated to any development activities.

Yeah I don't particularly want to use software, especially pay to use software, made by people who want to exterminate people I call friends and family. If a developer comes out on their social media and broadcasts about how my friends are some combination of insane/dangerous for being who they are, no, I'm not using their product ever again and I will spread word about it to people I know who feel similarly. This is just how social networks (in the sociology sense, not the technological sense) work and always have.

I guess what I'm saying is if you want maximum capture on your product, tell your team to park their opinions on which groups of people deserve to die on personal, anonymous accounts. I don't think this is a massive ask, personally, but I also don't want anyone dead so I can't really comment on it.

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

#735

Post by tomrod »

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…

Typically dumb pipe companies get involved in this side of things due to legal requirements. Less often, though often justified as such, it is due to sincere concerns by the provider.

For example, banks don't typically want to service car dealerships simply because they are a prime target for money laundering. Same for legal cannabis firms due to being unbanked previously or because the whole industry isn't traceable.

Frankly, while I understand the historical reasons for having a "big brother" watch financial transactions, it's way to convoluted to satisfy and represents a big cost in the economy.

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

#736

Post by vintermann »

habinero wrote: post #468
tjpnz wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There have been numerous civil suits against KF, not one of them has succeeded.

Mostly because they tend to pick on people who can only file pro se, not because of any inherent merit.

If they only went for powerless people, why are they suddenly dropped by services that almost never drop sites?

There's no way I would even be allowed to talk to a human at these companies, much less convince them to change their politics.

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

#737

Post by jasonlotito »

amiga386 wrote: post #75
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.

Indeed, the ACLU have lost their way. https://web.archive.org/web/20210608004853/https://www.nytim... > the organization finds itself riven with internal tensions over whether it has stepped away from a founding principle — unwavering devotion to the First Amendment. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Civil_Liberties_Union... > Beginning in 2017, some individuals claimed the ACLU was reducing its support of unpop…

> Indeed, the ACLU have lost their way.

Indeed, they haven't.

> The memo listed several factors to consider, including "the extent to which the speech may assist in advancing the goals of white supremacists or others whose views are contrary to our values."

i.e. Consider whether we'd be arguing against our own goals.

How anyone reasonable could consider this a bad thing, I don't know.

https://www.aclu.org/news/civil-liberties/defending-speech-w...

They've defended people and organizations I oppose, but their reasoning has always been sound.

That the ACLU debates and reflects is admirable.

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

#738

Post by hiatus »

tomrod wrote: post #735
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…

Typically dumb pipe companies get involved in this side of things due to legal requirements. Less often, though often justified as such, it is due to sincere concerns by the provider. For example, banks don't typically want to service car dealerships simply because they are a prime target for money laundering. Same for legal cannabis firms due to being unbanked previously or because the whole industry isn't traceable…

> Same for legal cannabis firms due to being unbanked previously or because the whole industry isn't traceable.

My understanding is that banks are federally chartered and thus cannot provide services to weed firms as it remains illegal federally.

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

#739

Post by cmh89 »

pessimizer wrote: post #114
cmh89 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you lived next door to a house that had become a drug spot, would you find it acceptable to call the landlord, tell them what's happening, and then ask them to investigate and evict? I sure would.

Why would you call the landlord instead of the police? I'll tell you why you needed to do it for this metaphor - because Kiwi Farms doesn't break any laws and "drug spots" do. Now, we're deputizing landlords. If that isn't the perfect public-private partnership, I don't know what is.

Who is 'deputizing' a landlord? The police are going to be much slower and ineffective in dealing with the problem than the landlord is, and why shouldn't a landlord take into consideration the effect their renters have on the neighbors in deciding who to rent to.

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

#740

Post by tomrod »

hiatus wrote: post #738
tomrod wrote: post #735

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Typically dumb pipe companies get involved in this side of things due to legal requirements. Less often, though often justified as such, it is due to sincere concerns by the provider. For example, banks don't typically want to service car dealerships simply because they are a prime target for money laundering. Same for legal cannabis firms due to being unbanked previously or because the whole industry isn't traceable…

> Same for legal cannabis firms due to being unbanked previously or because the whole industry isn't traceable. My understanding is that banks are federally chartered and thus cannot provide services to weed firms as it remains illegal federally.

Precisely.
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