ISPs should not police online speech no matter how awful it is • Hacker News Board

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

#841

Post by gnopgnip » Wed, Aug 30, 2023, 5:44 PM UTC

sequoia wrote: post #829

chonkerz wrote: post #809

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ISPs get threatened all the time and don't take content down just because some rando is mad. Kiwifarms needs to provide proof that ISPs are being threatened, as opposed to the more likely scenario that the harassment victims are filing normal abuse complaints and alerting the ISP to the TOS violations taking place all over the site.

If this were the case, I wonder how 4chan, stormfront, etc. stay online. Surely 4chan's providers get floods of complaints about doxxing etc. Or pastebin for that matter. The fact that the EFF is writing about this case and that they're forced to use KF as their one example (clearly they find this distasteful & would prefer to use any other example if they could) indicates that something is unique or at least peculia…

4chan, pastebin go beyond the bare minimum legally required. 4chan includes "You will not post or request personal information ("dox") " and pastebin's prohibits content that is "libelous, defamatory, or fraudulent" and "discriminatory or abusive toward any individual or group"

The other difference is the site owner actively encourages harassment and bans any discussion to the contrary

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

#842

Post by teachrdan » Wed, Aug 30, 2023, 5:45 PM UTC

b215826 wrote: post #555

autoexec wrote: post #173

Once again the EFF is proving that they'll stand behind their principles and defend freedom even for those they disagree with. They are one of the few remaining organizations that I feel I can support without reservation. Taking this difficult position isn't easy, but it is the right thing to do and I'm so glad to see that the EFF has the strength to do it in the face of growing opposition to free speech ideals.

Lol. EFF are now a bunch of virtue signalling hacks pretending to care about Internet free speech. They outed themselves as total hypocrites when they joined the "RMS is an ist" bandwagon and removed Gilmore from their board. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/03/statement-re-election-... http://techrights.org/2021/11/05/not-the-frontier-anymore/ https://www.theregister.com/2021/10/25/john_gilmore_removed_...

> They outed themselves as total hypocrites when they joined the "RMS is an ist" bandwagon

Are you suggesting that, because of his work writing and promoting open source software, that EFF should never be allowed to criticize RMS? Is that what makes them "total hypocrites"?

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

#843

Post by HDPDV » Wed, Aug 30, 2023, 5:46 PM UTC

The EFF is absolutely in the wrong on this. ISPs are private businesses, and they have every right (and responsibility!) to enforce their own Acceptable Use Policies/Terms of Service. Anyone who cries "Freedom of Speech" either hasn't thought this through, or else has no idea what they're talking about... Hurricane Electric is not a government entity.

We are living in Popper's "Paradox of Tolerance". Nazis need to be punched, but de-platforming them is pretty good, too.

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

#844

Post by kiitos » Wed, Aug 30, 2023, 5:51 PM UTC

johnny99k wrote: post #812

Tell that to the Amazon engineers that conspired to shutdown Parlor during the height of its popularity.

Parlor is bad, and should be shut down.

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

#845

Post by sequoia » Wed, Aug 30, 2023, 5:53 PM UTC

gnopgnip wrote: post #841

sequoia wrote: post #829

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If this were the case, I wonder how 4chan, stormfront, etc. stay online. Surely 4chan's providers get floods of complaints about doxxing etc. Or pastebin for that matter. The fact that the EFF is writing about this case and that they're forced to use KF as their one example (clearly they find this distasteful & would prefer to use any other example if they could) indicates that something is unique or at least peculia…

4chan, pastebin go beyond the bare minimum legally required. 4chan includes "You will not post or request personal information ("dox") " and pastebin's prohibits content that is "libelous, defamatory, or fraudulent" and "discriminatory or abusive toward any individual or group" The other difference is the site owner actively encourages harassment and bans any discussion to the contrary

I've been doxxed & threatened on 4chan[0] (most of the doxxing was actually on pastebin), I contacted 4chan admins and received no response. 4chan does little or nothing to combat doxxing & harassment, I think you're incorrect that these sites "go beyond the bare minimum legally required" at least not 4chan.

And yet, that site is still up.

0: remnants of some archived posts https://www.google.com/search?q=%22sequoia+mcdowell%22+site%...

EDIT: nevermind what I said about the doxxing & whatnot happening years ago, apparently they're still at it as recently as January! https://archive.4plebs.org/pol/search/text/sequoia%20mcdowel...

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

#846

Post by kiitos » Wed, Aug 30, 2023, 5:54 PM UTC

psychphysic wrote: post #16

It feels like it's pretty much gameover for free speech in any context. Too much of the population of the world wants rid and it doesn't matter much that they disagree on precisely which opinions are unacceptable.

Free speech doesn't mean unrestricted speech.

If you say some garbage bullshit, and a platform deletes your garbage bullshit, that's fine.

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

#847

Post by chonkerz » Wed, Aug 30, 2023, 5:58 PM UTC

sequoia wrote: post #845

gnopgnip wrote: post #841

Earlier quoted context omitted.

4chan, pastebin go beyond the bare minimum legally required. 4chan includes "You will not post or request personal information ("dox") " and pastebin's prohibits content that is "libelous, defamatory, or fraudulent" and "discriminatory or abusive toward any individual or group" The other difference is the site owner actively encourages harassment and bans any discussion to the contrary

I've been doxxed & threatened on 4chan[0] (most of the doxxing was actually on pastebin), I contacted 4chan admins and received no response. 4chan does little or nothing to combat doxxing & harassment, I think you're incorrect that these sites "go beyond the bare minimum legally required" at least not 4chan. And yet, that site is still up. 0: remnants of some archived posts https://www.google.com/search?q=%22sequoia+…

If you filed abuse tickets with the companies hosting 4chan, you should be able to get some response. The kiwifarms victims are demonstrating this is possible. There is hope for you. I wish you luck.

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

#848

Post by tomtheelder » Wed, Aug 30, 2023, 6:00 PM UTC

lmm wrote: post #135

pfisch wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

We didn't used to let private companies control the public discourse. The mail is government-run and there are mail privacy protections as deep as the constitution. In the age of radio and TV we at least had the equal time rule and some level of public oversight.

Following all my opinion, but easier to write without constant hedging:

IMO public discourse is less controlled by private corporations/organizations now than at basically any other point in our history, with the possible exception of like, 10 years ago.

There was never previously any realistic method for a private citizen to gain a platform to meaningfully influence discourse. Traditional media _literally_ defined the narratives in play. I’d argue that a whole lot of the ideological carnage and polarization going on is directly a result of the “democratization” of public discourse.

While there was some oversight, the reality is that news media still had basically total control over whatever narrative they were interested in pushing.

In fact, I’d argue that a lot of the ideological chaos and subsequent censorship we have seen recently is precisely a result of private corporations losing control of public discourse.

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

#849

Post by stale2002 » Wed, Aug 30, 2023, 6:01 PM UTC

rhelz wrote: post #819

stale2002 wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are not understanding. We already have many laws that effect companies. For example, power companies cannot just turn off your electricity because they don't like what you say. These are called common carrier laws and they are completely uncontroversial. We live in a society, and it is perfectly OK for us to put limits on what major monopoly type companies can do.

Private property rights are not absolute, sure. But is regulating media companies going to solve anything? Are there any regulations which both sides could be happy with, or would it just open up a whole new front in the culture wars, of endless, highly-politicized and ham-fisted control over, say, whether or not twitter has a block function or not?

> Private property rights are not absolute, sure. But is regulating media companies going to solve anything?

I am not sure if you were aware, but this article is about ISPs and we currently have laws that already regulate them and make the behavior described in the article as illegal.

So yes we do regulate them. And these laws are called common carrier laws. And those have have existed for decades and uncontroversial, and yes they work.

> Are there any regulations which both sides could be happy with

Both sides are indeed already happy with our existing common carrier laws that apply to ISPs, yes. Common carrier laws are not controversial.

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

#850

Post by tomtheelder » Wed, Aug 30, 2023, 6:03 PM UTC

hexage1814 wrote: post #218

krapp wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Never. 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 me…

>it means social media companies are allowed to ban you for any reason they like Can they ban someone for being black or gay? Do you think they should have this right, since they are private corporations?

Amendment to the post you are responding to: any reason aside from membership in a protected class.

Political belief does not, and absolutely should not, constitute a protected class.