191–200 of 243 posts
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So free speech _does_ have limits?
Speech is not terrorism, nor physical violence. It is hyperbole to argue otherwise. Yes, many forms of speech are distasteful, or downright grotesque (hate speech, for example), but it is absolutely not the same as an act of terrorism. [The idea that the government may restrict] speech expressing ideas that offend … strikes at the heart of the First Amendment. Speech that demeans on the basis of race, ethnicity, gend…
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So free speech _does_ have limits?
Speech is not terrorism, nor physical violence. It is hyperbole to argue otherwise. Yes, many forms of speech are distasteful, or downright grotesque (hate speech, for example), but it is absolutely not the same as an act of terrorism. [The idea that the government may restrict] speech expressing ideas that offend … strikes at the heart of the First Amendment. Speech that demeans on the basis of race, ethnicity, gend…
* Sexist - made up word to CENSOR and stop debate about gender
* Racist - Made up word to CENSOR and stop debate about RACE
* Anti Semite - Made up word to CENSOR and stop debate/open discussion about Jews/ISRAEL/Z1onism/Judism/Crimes that jews commit
* Islamfobia - Made up word to CENSOR and stop debate/open discussion about ISLAM and Muslims
* White Supremacist - Made up word to CENSOR and stop debate/open discussion about NATIONALISM vs Globalism/Multi culturalism
* Homofobe - Made up word to CENSOR and stop debate/open discussion
* Transfobe - Made up word to CENSOR and stop debate/open discussion
* Conspiracy Theory - Made up word to CENSOR and stop debate/open discussion and smear anyone that challenges the Government/education/system
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> Pay for hosting. And what's to stop whichever company is hosting me from dropping hosting at the first whiff of a Twitter mob? > How would this be possible in a capitalist country? So you are saying free speech on the internet is incompatible with a capitalist economy?
> And what's to stop whichever company is hosting me from dropping hosting at the first whiff of a Twitter mob? Money that you pay them for the service. This is almost always enough since that's all any of these companies actually care about. There are very rare exceptions where high-profile nazi groups have had their service contracts rescinded, but this isn't a real problem in practice. Nobody is having their servi…
"almost always" is not a guarantee of free speech.
> There are very rare exceptions where high-profile nazi groups have had their service contracts rescinded, but this isn't a real problem in practice.
...yet. What is "very rare" today can become "more common" tomorrow if there aren't strong legal protections.
> No. I'm asking you how you envision people owning their own websites without any private companies involved, in an economy built around the concepts of corporate ownership.
IANAL, but clearly there needs to be stronger legal protections in this arena. My ISP should not be able to disconnect me from the internet on the basis of speech. They should be like a utility company. My power company can't disconnect my electricity if I use the electricity to charge batteries for a megaphone that I then use to spread hate speech. My ISP/server host should be the same. Charge me for the compute resources I use, do not attempt to disconnect my service on moral or ethical grounds. Leave that to a higher layer in the stack.
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These sites aren’t being banned for their views but their blatant disregard for the terms of services for providers.
Are they? Some may be, such as proud boys and dailystormer may be afoul of some (vague) hate speech clauses. Others may not be. paypal and CC companies also shut down donations to wikileaks long ago (long before Trump was a thing). And even shut down donations to other foundations, such as the Wau Holland Stiftung of the Chaos Computer Club[0], that collected donations in part for wikileaks. My first real memory of p…
What you're advocating for is extremely dangerous and shortsighted.
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> And what's to stop whichever company is hosting me from dropping hosting at the first whiff of a Twitter mob? Money that you pay them for the service. This is almost always enough since that's all any of these companies actually care about. There are very rare exceptions where high-profile nazi groups have had their service contracts rescinded, but this isn't a real problem in practice. Nobody is having their servi…
> Money that you pay them for the service. This is almost always enough since that's all any of these companies actually care about. "almost always" is not a guarantee of free speech. > There are very rare exceptions where high-profile nazi groups have had their service contracts rescinded, but this isn't a real problem in practice. ...yet. What is "very rare" today can become "more common" tomorrow if there aren't s…
There is no such guarantee with respect to someone else's private property.
> What is "very rare" today can become "more common" tomorrow if there aren't strong legal protections.
Yes, that's the slippery slope fallacy. I could make a similarly flawed argument in reverse, e.g. allowing Nazi propaganda to flourish unchecked is what lead to the rise of Hitler, so we should make Nazi ideas illegal before the acceptance of nazi ideas in wider society becomes "more common". Just to be clear, I am not actually arguing this position, only demonstrating why this reasoning is fallacious. Simply pointing to the existence of a rare event is not evidence that it will become more common.
> My ISP should not be able to disconnect me from the internet on the basis of speech
I agree, but only because ISPs control a shared, finite, public resource (the physical ISP lines, paid for in large part by the tax-payer).
> server host should be the same
No they shouldn't because they're not at all the same.
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And the fact that this appears to be about potential money laundering will of course be ignored.
Money laundering is a sham. It's like saying that it's really about potential resisting arrest. The premise of money laundering is that you're a criminal engaged in some kind of profitable criminal enterprise and it should be illegal for you to hide the source of your ill-gotten gains. But nothing about the laws against money laundering require them to apply only to someone engaged in underlying criminal activity, so…
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Indeed, companies may have the legal right to censor like this, but it's censorship regardless.
You can draw the definition as widely as you like: not even the ACLU says that censorship carried out by private citizens is illegal or that the right response to it is more laws.
However, I did say in the past, that in certain circumstances I do think the right response is laws. There are laws e.g. prohibiting utility companies from refusing customers they do not like like people who criticize the company or nazis and "nazis".
I do think that common infrastructure companies (analog to the utilities companies, just essential digital services) such as cloudflare, dns registrars, hosting and cloud providers shouldn't be allowed to discriminate against people with the "wrong" opinions.
And even "social media" companies of a certain size/marketshare/market power should be severely limited in what they can censor (e.g. banning nudity and porn and gore etc is OK in my opinion, banning speech inciting violence is too, if narrowly defined, banning people because they belong to a certain political party or stream is not). Yeah, here be dragons; it would be hard to find a good balance, but given the alternative of a few (social) media companies right now growing ever more powerful it still would be the right thing to do.
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It's odd though cause Masterbucks isn't crypto, it's just a gift-card-esque balance service. Similar to how you'd have a PayPal "balance" you can send to other people or spend on stuff, and "top up" buy linking a CC or buying a card at 7-Eleven. PayPal might've just realized they're a competitor.
PayPal is undeniably a money transmitter, a type of money service business that is required to required to register as such and perform certain minimum levels of compliance work. If Masterbucks is "like PayPal" from that perspective, subject to certain de minimis thresholds, then they too are likely to require registration. Frankly, if this is the case, and the Epik people are complaining that PayPal's due-diligence…
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They got cut off because they’re suspected to be laundering money, and couldn’t fill out AML forms, not because they host hate speech.
I think there is room to talk about what is an appropriate due process and/or orderly shutdown process for someone operating internet infrastructure such as a payment processor, ISP, registrar, etc. Perhaps the registrar should have been taken over by some sort of court-appointed receivership, for example? The difficulty here is that there has been no judicial process, just PayPal making a corporate decision based on…
Continuing to service Epik despite a failure to follow AML laws actually exposes PayPal to risk, which is why they did a hard cutoff and not a phased shutdown. “We thought they were money laundering and kept serving them for a few weeks” is how you get prosecuted too.