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Google's stance on neo-Nazis 'dangerous', says EFF

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Google's stance on neo-Nazis 'dangerous', says EFF

#11

Post by lawless123 »

tomp wrote: post #10
nxsynonym wrote: post #4

>"Because internet intermediaries, especially those with few competitors, control so much online speech, the consequences of their decisions have far-reaching impacts on speech around the world." Maybe it's just me but I think enabling hate-speech and bigotry is much worse than failing to maintain 100% neutrality. There's nothing stopping these maniacs from starting their own intermediaries to host the content(trash)…

> There's nothing stopping these maniacs from starting their own intermediaries to host the content(trash) they want to peddle. Why couldn't you say the same about net neutrality?

Are we all incapable of discerning what is and what isn't acceptable?

Re: Google's stance on neo-Nazis 'dangerous', says EFF

#12

Post by vowelless »

nxsynonym wrote: post #4

>"Because internet intermediaries, especially those with few competitors, control so much online speech, the consequences of their decisions have far-reaching impacts on speech around the world." Maybe it's just me but I think enabling hate-speech and bigotry is much worse than failing to maintain 100% neutrality. There's nothing stopping these maniacs from starting their own intermediaries to host the content(trash)…

Where I grew up, websites used to be blocked by my government because of blasphemy and morality reasons. Criticism of Islam, pro secularism, and yes also porn. I used kazaa to get "God delusion" and "satanic verses", books that would have gotten me into serious trouble.

Please don't let that happen in America. Making up hate or blasphemy reasons is very easy.

Re: Google's stance on neo-Nazis 'dangerous', says EFF

#13

Post by corobo »

While I definitely don't support the people they're booting off I do have to agree with the EFF here.

For example, "And music streaming services offered by Google, Deezer and Spotify have said they would remove music that incites violence, hatred or racism."

Now these services have put it out there as policy someone has to define what's violent, hateful or racist in music. Racism? Ok nobody's really going to bat an eye at that disappearing.

Violence and hatred though? As an off again on again heavy metal listener.. almost literally every track could be described as violent or hateful. That's the genre. The same could be said for other genres and their sub-genres. Rap comes to mind. Is Eminem next on the chopping board?

Music was the easy example, there's other examples available for the other services (registrar, DNS, hosting, CDN) as to why making this policy is a bad idea. Now anyone needs to do is convince someone at the corresponding target that a site is similar enough that it should be taken down.

South Park had a two-parter that addressed this exact problem [1][2]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartoon_Wars_Part_I [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartoon_Wars_Part_II

Re: Google's stance on neo-Nazis 'dangerous', says EFF

#14

Post by protomyth »

nxsynonym wrote: post #4

>"Because internet intermediaries, especially those with few competitors, control so much online speech, the consequences of their decisions have far-reaching impacts on speech around the world." Maybe it's just me but I think enabling hate-speech and bigotry is much worse than failing to maintain 100% neutrality. There's nothing stopping these maniacs from starting their own intermediaries to host the content(trash)…

Suppose tomorrow Google unfairly marks your speech as hate speech, how do you recover? These companies (especially YouTube) make mistakes and appeals are often just as error prone.

Re: Google's stance on neo-Nazis 'dangerous', says EFF

#15

Post by undersuit »

I don't think private-sector companies have any obligation to host anything. The problem is we in the tech community have watched with only minor concerns as the web grew increasingly centralized and left the power to these companies. The Daily Stormer has no right to an domain name or search results or ad revenue, no site does. The Daily Stormer has every right to exist, but it doesn't have a right to be served fast and conveniently(no, I'm not advocating against net neutrality, any host for the Daily Stormer should treat it exactly as they treat all their other customers). I think despicable sites like the Daily Stormer have a right to exist, but I'd rather they be hosted on a personal computer with a non-static address and every now and then the dial up connection get's interrupted when the site admin has to call David Duke about when the next Klan rally is.

Re: Google's stance on neo-Nazis 'dangerous', says EFF

#16

Post by autokad »

nxsynonym wrote: post #4

>"Because internet intermediaries, especially those with few competitors, control so much online speech, the consequences of their decisions have far-reaching impacts on speech around the world." Maybe it's just me but I think enabling hate-speech and bigotry is much worse than failing to maintain 100% neutrality. There's nothing stopping these maniacs from starting their own intermediaries to host the content(trash)…

silencing people is never a good idea. let them speak their mind. only through interaction can a person's mind change. caging them in and then being surprised they did something awful is probably about as bad idea as the ones they have.

Re: Google's stance on neo-Nazis 'dangerous', says EFF

#17

Post by tyingq »

"And music streaming services offered by Google, Deezer and Spotify have said they would remove music that incites violence, hatred or racism."

That sounds like a big job, and one filled with ambiguity. Classifying forum posts is one thing, but trying to determine intent with music is going to be tricky.

Re: Google's stance on neo-Nazis 'dangerous', says EFF

#18

Post by unlikelymordant »

nxsynonym wrote: post #4

>"Because internet intermediaries, especially those with few competitors, control so much online speech, the consequences of their decisions have far-reaching impacts on speech around the world." Maybe it's just me but I think enabling hate-speech and bigotry is much worse than failing to maintain 100% neutrality. There's nothing stopping these maniacs from starting their own intermediaries to host the content(trash)…

If they are doing something illegal then they should be prosecuted using whatever avenues are available. If they haven't broken any laws, why would we want companies punishing them unilaterally?

Re: Google's stance on neo-Nazis 'dangerous', says EFF

#20

Post by danarmak »

nxsynonym wrote: post #4

>"Because internet intermediaries, especially those with few competitors, control so much online speech, the consequences of their decisions have far-reaching impacts on speech around the world." Maybe it's just me but I think enabling hate-speech and bigotry is much worse than failing to maintain 100% neutrality. There's nothing stopping these maniacs from starting their own intermediaries to host the content(trash)…

> There's nothing stopping these maniacs from starting their own intermediaries

The Internet is commercial, top to bottom. The same kind of public sentiment (or if you lack the appropriate sentiment, outraged news) would prevent anyone from agreeing to be their DNS registrar or their VPN host. Should they start their own ISP, who will agree to peering with them? Should they bypass DNS and have a well-known static IP, will other networks agree to route traffic to that IP?

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