Is it better to censor an open forum than delete it entirely? This is a hard answer for a fan of free speech. I reserve respect for those willing to open a dialogue in an adverse environment. I respect Twitter, at least, for being open for business and allowing people to post. At least some people view it versus none. However, one must consider that when a government is allowed to censor, or “manipulate,” the content that is being seen by its own people, and possibly the world – then we have essentially created a forum for propaganda that may not represent how the people of that society actually view the world. Consider what we know of media in North Korea – are all North Koreans really in full love and support of Kim Jung Un? Think about how such a platform could have been used to support the Nazi agenda in World War II. Personally, I feel that when an autonomous corporation that was designed to allow for the free passage of ideas and experiences comes under the control of an oppressive government or dictatorship, that corporation is lending itself to corruption.
Twitter Steps Down From the Free Speech Party
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Re: Twitter Steps Down From the Free Speech Party
#12> Experts in the country question whether these requests have any legal authority As much as it sucks that Twitter is forced to do this, the government of neither Russia or Pakistan has a legal system which I would trust to fully respect the rule of law in this matter--either is likely to simply block the service if the requests are not acknowledged. As principled as Google's stand was in refusing to pull an offensiv…
No, really, no. Russian users will notice that Twitter is being blocked by the government a lot more than they'll notice that a few tweets have been blocked. Twitter has the position, and responsibility, to play hardball with these governments. A few days of lost revenue from a Russian block is nothing compared to the lost revenue from an entire nation under tyranny. Only in China do you have a population so brainwas…
I am Chinese. In practice blocking Twitter and Youtube protects Chinese companies like SinaWeibo and Youku from competing with their American rivals. The point is that China is a market big enough to play the game on its own courtyard.
Re: Twitter Steps Down From the Free Speech Party
#13> Last week, Maxim Ksenov, deputy head of Roskomnadzor, took to Russian newspaper Izvestia to complain about an unnamed Twitter account that "published monstrous things" and called for the overthrow of the political regime and the destruction of capitalism. Ksenov threatened to block Twitter entirely unless they "listen to us and periodically remove illegal content." Wait, so calling for the destruction of Capitalism…
Calls for the overthrow of the political regime are frequently considered extremist in Russia.
Oh, and in my opinion, Communist Party of Russian Federation is about communism as much as Liberal-Democratic Russian Party is about liberalism or democracy. That is, not really.
Re: Twitter Steps Down From the Free Speech Party
#14Which is one of the reasons major communication systems should be distributed and standards based like email, rather than proprietary and run by a single company.
Re: Twitter Steps Down From the Free Speech Party
#15Weird to title this as steps down. It kind of implies they actively said something to the eff rather than passively changed their behaviour.
Re: Twitter Steps Down From the Free Speech Party
#16> Experts in the country question whether these requests have any legal authority As much as it sucks that Twitter is forced to do this, the government of neither Russia or Pakistan has a legal system which I would trust to fully respect the rule of law in this matter--either is likely to simply block the service if the requests are not acknowledged. As principled as Google's stand was in refusing to pull an offensiv…
No, really, no. Russian users will notice that Twitter is being blocked by the government a lot more than they'll notice that a few tweets have been blocked. Twitter has the position, and responsibility, to play hardball with these governments. A few days of lost revenue from a Russian block is nothing compared to the lost revenue from an entire nation under tyranny. Only in China do you have a population so brainwas…
For the record, I've yet to see any North Koreans respond to my comment... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7886916
Re: Twitter Steps Down From the Free Speech Party
#17Which is one of the reasons major communication systems should be distributed and standards based like email, rather than proprietary and run by a single company.
The problem is that in the short term, it is trivial for a well funded private company to offer a better product in the eyes of the end user (eg. GMail when it came out over every other open source mail system).
The only solution to that problem that I can think of is to better educate the end user, and to make them see that even though company X's shiny product seems better right now, in the long term there is everything to lose by using their communication systems. That's a hard fight though.
Re: Twitter Steps Down From the Free Speech Party
#18It's funny how a lot of people (especially those of the anti-capitalist / left'ish wing ilk) cite cyberpunk literature in which corporations achieve a level of power approaching - or exceeding - that of Nation States... and decry that hypothetical scenario as a horrible and undesirable thing.
But in this case, what we see is a situation where we'd like to see Twitter stand up to various world governments... perhaps even the US government. But we all know that, in the end, there's a limit to how much they can contest the will of the government because the governments are the ones with "men with guns".
Maybe companies / corporations with enough power to actually challenge the governments of the world isn't such a bad thing after all. Or, perhaps it would be better to say "maybe corporations with enough power to challenge the governments of the world" is, at least, not a universally bad thing.
Re: Twitter Steps Down From the Free Speech Party
#19Which is one of the reasons major communication systems should be distributed and standards based like email, rather than proprietary and run by a single company.
The problem is that in the short term, it is trivial for a well funded private company to offer a better product in the eyes of the end user (eg. GMail when it came out over every other open source mail system). The only solution to that problem that I can think of is to better educate the end user, and to make them see that even though company X's shiny product seems better right now, in the long term there is every…
In other words, we need to train end users how to accept poor user experiences for their own good?
Re: Twitter Steps Down From the Free Speech Party
#20Which is one of the reasons major communication systems should be distributed and standards based like email, rather than proprietary and run by a single company.
The problem is that in the short term, it is trivial for a well funded private company to offer a better product in the eyes of the end user (eg. GMail when it came out over every other open source mail system). The only solution to that problem that I can think of is to better educate the end user, and to make them see that even though company X's shiny product seems better right now, in the long term there is every…
Unfortunately, education is itself a massively hard problem. that, and you are trying to teach people to avoid something that greatly improves their lives on moral principles. The only tool I know for doing that is threatening them with eternal torture.