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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

#891

Post by b215826 »

teachrdan wrote: post #879
b215826 wrote: post #855

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the EFF is allowed to criticize RMS as much as they want. Criticizing RMS doesn't make them hypocritical. However, linking [1] and spreading slanderous lies (I'm talking about Selam G.'s hitpieces [2] from 2019) isn't very fitting for an organization that claims to defend Internet free speech. RMS never defended Epstein -- not even once. His only crime was being a pedantic aspie. If the EFF considers that to be g…

> His only crime was being a pedantic aspie. If you actually read the article by Selam G., you'll immediately see that this is false. "When I was a teen freshman, I went to a buffet lunch at an Indian restaurant in Central Square with a graduate student friend and others from the AI lab. I don’t know if he and I were the last two left, but at a table with only the two of us, Richard Stallman told me of his misery and…

Selam G. was paraphrasing an anecdotal #metoo comment by an anonymous source that was backed up by zero evidence. If that's good enough evidence for EFF to call for someone's head, then they're worse than hypocrites. And the law schools that gave degrees to their lawyers should consider rescinding them, since they clearly don't seem to know a thing about law.

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

#892

Post by tracker1 »

moomin wrote: post #721
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…

You need to decide if these are private companies or public utilities. If they’re public utilities, the government should provide them. Restricting company’s freedom to choose a business model is not the answer. You might not like it, but that’s kind of the point, either let the market decide or take the market out of it.

My own opinion is that the role of government should be mostly limited to common defense, ensuring essential infrastructure and enforcing/resolving legal disputes. Essential infrastructure should include banking and internet access at this point as it's nearly impossible to function in society without them.

Infrastructure providers should not be able to refuse customers engaging in lawful activity. Your phone company can't shut you off because you say, "I wish $POLITICIAN were dead." You don't have to like or agree with everything everyone says, but it's a very dangerous slippery slope.

Personal liberty should be maximalized so as not to infringe on the rights of others. You do not have the right to live a life without risk of being offended.

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

#893

Post by SamoyedFurFluff »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #629
SamoyedFurFluff wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay so like, what if I own the only mall in a large area. Like a rural suburb where there is often only one shopping space/public commercial space. Is there an upper limit where your private property is considered public utility?

> Is there an upper limit where your private property is considered public utility? Maybe. I don't think it's a problem if companies with extreme amounts of power have to give up some freedom of banning. On a sliding scale though, you don't literally become a utility one day. (And when it comes to "only commercial storefront space in a large area", I expect that to be very rare.)

> (And when it comes to "only commercial storefront space in a large area", I expect that to be very rare.)

This is actually very common in rural parts of the us fwiw. There places where the only grocery store is Walmart, and the only other place to shop is dollar general.

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

#894

Post by richbell »

chonkerz wrote: post #873
CogitoCogito wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If HE is lying in response to a complaint forwarded to them by the AG, that seems like something the AG really should investigate. Edit: It's odd to see this downvoted. I don't care about Kiwifarms or all the other random crazy crap being discussed in this comment thread. But I do feel that companies should be honest in their communications. I'm surprised people here disagree.

A lot of the "people here" are from Kiwifarms because this thread got linked to from their site. So a lot of untrue claims are being made about the facts of the situation.

> A lot of the "people here" are from Kiwifarms because this thread got linked to from their site. So a lot of untrue claims are being made about the facts of the situation.

I went looking for this out of curiosity. It seems to be a thread from 2022 with only 10 pages, and only about 10 total replies this year. Is this really your basis for claiming that "a lot" of people are coming from Kiwi Farms?

How did you even find that thread anyway?

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

#895

Post by nvm0n2 »

hnbad wrote: post #567
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 consistentl…

The Nazi Bar "problem" is just a way to justify imposing censorship universally:

1. We ban people we don't like. They aren't actually Nazis, but we don't like them so we pretend they are.

2. They go to some other place where we don't yet dominate.

3. Now we assert that everyone in that other place is also a Nazi, because they aren't doing the same thing we're doing.

If the Nazi Bar was really a real concept then every left wing political party in the world would be a Bar and therefore everyone voting for them would be a Nazi. Because, recall, they were the National Socialists, and every left wing party has a whole lot of committed socialists.

Luckily for political harmony, other people don't use this type of reasoning to eliminate their enemies so left and right parties can compete fairly for votes. Which is why it needs to be stamped out amongst those who do use it.

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

#896

Post by richbell »

chonkerz wrote: post #857

This thread was linked to on the Kiwifarms website and people are coming in here astroturfing for Kiwifarms. That's why this thread is such a garbage pile.

> A lot of the "people here" are from Kiwifarms because this thread got linked to from their site. So a lot of untrue claims are being made about the facts of the situation.

I went looking for this out of curiosity. It seems to be a thread from 2022 with only 10 pages, and only about 10 total replies this year. Is this really your basis for claiming that "a lot" of people are coming from Kiwi Farms?

How did you even find that thread anyway?

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

#897

Post by nvm0n2 »

chonkerz wrote: post #868
Levitz wrote: post #744

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The corporation is either responsible for its content or it's not. If they can pick and choose whatever message they like with absolute discretion, then that's effectively the corporation's speech and should be treated as such, with full responsibility over it. If they don't want to bear the responsibility for what they publish, then it's easy, don't pretend to have the legitimacy to choose. That the same social medi…

It's a consequence of freedom. If companies aren't allowed to make the decision, then you're saying the government should make the decision instead. It's one or the other. There is no functional world where no one is allowed to moderate abuse, because in that world the Internet ceases to function. You don't have to like the results, but someone has to do it.

Luckily both law and politics can distinguish between conventional internet abuse like spam or hacking, and ordinary political speech.

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

#898

Post by chonkerz »

nvm0n2 wrote: post #897
chonkerz wrote: post #868

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a consequence of freedom. If companies aren't allowed to make the decision, then you're saying the government should make the decision instead. It's one or the other. There is no functional world where no one is allowed to moderate abuse, because in that world the Internet ceases to function. You don't have to like the results, but someone has to do it.

Luckily both law and politics can distinguish between conventional internet abuse like spam or hacking, and ordinary political speech.

A fair amount of that is orchestrated on Kiwifarms, where hackers share leaked personal information of their victims and dissect it in creepy detail

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

#899

Post by chonkerz »

richbell wrote: post #896
chonkerz wrote: post #857

This thread was linked to on the Kiwifarms website and people are coming in here astroturfing for Kiwifarms. That's why this thread is such a garbage pile.

> A lot of the "people here" are from Kiwifarms because this thread got linked to from their site. So a lot of untrue claims are being made about the facts of the situation. I went looking for this out of curiosity. It seems to be a thread from 2022 with only 10 pages, and only about 10 total replies this year. Is this really your basis for claiming that "a lot" of people are coming from Kiwi Farms? How did you even…

[flagged]

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

#900

Post by tracker1 »

rhelz wrote: post #864
stale2002 wrote: post #849

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Your point about common-carrier regulations already existing is very well taken. What's not so clear to me is whether (A) the allegations against the ISP have any merit (the article itself states it has no confirmation), or (B) even if they were true that they would run afoul of the common carrier laws. As far as I understand, these regulations do not prohibit the carriers from selectively promoting (and, ipso facto,…

How about, "no company shall refuse access to essential infrastructure to anyone because they engage in lawful activity." That's what I think the bar should be on this issue and should include banking and internet services.
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