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Keep the Internet free and open (2012)

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Re: Keep the Internet free and open (2012)

#21

Post by ThunderSizzle »

immibis wrote: post #18
gradstudent wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will never understand why private companies curating their platforms is equated with censorship. In China (and elsewhere) a central government curates acceptable speech. If you don't comply you go to jail. In the "West" you might get kicked off a platform, which diminishes your reach, but doesn't extinguish your speech. You can always find another soapbox. Or start your own, as one recent ex-president demonstrated.

Because it's censorship. Getting banned off Twitter, and getting executed by firing squad, are both forms of censorship.

The difference is there can be 100s of twitters, and they require voluntary usage. There's only one government, and you are required to abide by their rules, so restrictions need to be placed on the government.

If twitter and the government work together (e.g. twitter banning people that disagree with the government to get favors or avoid punishments) then that should be treated in a similar lense as government action.

Re: Keep the Internet free and open (2012)

#22

Post by tremon »

gradstudent wrote: post #11
unity1001 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We can all thank China and Cisco with the innovation of The Great Firewall for this So large Western corporations consolidating the majority of the Internet use in their hands, and then censoring/controlling it through algorithms is ok. Horrible when governments do any kind of regulation/control. All ok if its done by unaccountable private tyrants for profit...

I will never understand why private companies curating their platforms is equated with censorship. In China (and elsewhere) a central government curates acceptable speech. If you don't comply you go to jail. In the "West" you might get kicked off a platform, which diminishes your reach, but doesn't extinguish your speech. You can always find another soapbox. Or start your own, as one recent ex-president demonstrated.

I suspect it may be because your definition of "free speech" is too narrow. You operate from the perspective that free speech only exists in the form that is protected by the US constitution, and therefore anything not covered by that text cannot possibly be an instance of censorship.

The error is assuming that everybody else agrees with your definition.

Re: Keep the Internet free and open (2012)

#23

Post by [deleted] »

unity1001 wrote: post #6
chaostheory wrote: post #4

Vint Cerf was right. The internet is dead. What we have now is the splinternet, where a lot of countries have giant Galapagos intranets. We can all thank China and Cisco with the innovation of The Great Firewall for this

> We can all thank China and Cisco with the innovation of The Great Firewall for this So large Western corporations consolidating the majority of the Internet use in their hands, and then censoring/controlling it through algorithms is ok. Horrible when governments do any kind of regulation/control. All ok if its done by unaccountable private tyrants for profit...

[deleted]

Re: Keep the Internet free and open (2012)

#24

Post by nectarot »

immibis wrote: post #18
gradstudent wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will never understand why private companies curating their platforms is equated with censorship. In China (and elsewhere) a central government curates acceptable speech. If you don't comply you go to jail. In the "West" you might get kicked off a platform, which diminishes your reach, but doesn't extinguish your speech. You can always find another soapbox. Or start your own, as one recent ex-president demonstrated.

Because it's censorship. Getting banned off Twitter, and getting executed by firing squad, are both forms of censorship.

No post body was provided.

Re: Keep the Internet free and open (2012)

#25

Post by AtlasBarfed »

tremon wrote: post #22
gradstudent wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will never understand why private companies curating their platforms is equated with censorship. In China (and elsewhere) a central government curates acceptable speech. If you don't comply you go to jail. In the "West" you might get kicked off a platform, which diminishes your reach, but doesn't extinguish your speech. You can always find another soapbox. Or start your own, as one recent ex-president demonstrated.

I suspect it may be because your definition of "free speech" is too narrow. You operate from the perspective that free speech only exists in the form that is protected by the US constitution, and therefore anything not covered by that text cannot possibly be an instance of censorship. The error is assuming that everybody else agrees with your definition.

Let's take moderation out of the conversation. All the social networks isolate their data (which we only think is our data).

Some of that is for a good reason (privacy), much is not. Why can't I copy backup remix my various social network data? Right, corporate control

Re: Keep the Internet free and open (2012)

#26

Post by imgabe »

unity1001 wrote: post #6
chaostheory wrote: post #4

Vint Cerf was right. The internet is dead. What we have now is the splinternet, where a lot of countries have giant Galapagos intranets. We can all thank China and Cisco with the innovation of The Great Firewall for this

> We can all thank China and Cisco with the innovation of The Great Firewall for this So large Western corporations consolidating the majority of the Internet use in their hands, and then censoring/controlling it through algorithms is ok. Horrible when governments do any kind of regulation/control. All ok if its done by unaccountable private tyrants for profit...

Please stop pretending that Twitter or Facebook censoring people is the same thing as China. Tech companies are not running concentration camps and don’t have nuclear weapons. They want to sell ads, not dominate the world.

Re: Keep the Internet free and open (2012)

#28

Post by userbinator »

Now, I guess the Internet is "free and open"... as long as you use Chrome.

There's an interesting comment from the linked 10-year-old discussion that suggests Google have actually changed the article to static HTML from what may have been an SPA at the time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4864426

Re: Keep the Internet free and open (2012)

#29

Post by subarctic »

system2 wrote: post #27
dang wrote: post #5

Discussed at the time: Keep the Internet free and open - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4863009 - Dec 2012 (18 comments)

Strangely no one even mentions how evil Google is in the discussion.

2012 was a different time — Google had a better reputation back then.

Re: Keep the Internet free and open (2012)

#30

Post by mcrad »

gradstudent wrote: post #11
unity1001 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We can all thank China and Cisco with the innovation of The Great Firewall for this So large Western corporations consolidating the majority of the Internet use in their hands, and then censoring/controlling it through algorithms is ok. Horrible when governments do any kind of regulation/control. All ok if its done by unaccountable private tyrants for profit...

I will never understand why private companies curating their platforms is equated with censorship. In China (and elsewhere) a central government curates acceptable speech. If you don't comply you go to jail. In the "West" you might get kicked off a platform, which diminishes your reach, but doesn't extinguish your speech. You can always find another soapbox. Or start your own, as one recent ex-president demonstrated.

You might consider the fact that these "private companies" products and funding are significantly influenced by government policy. Besides, you totally miss the point of free speech if you think controlling the audience of said speech is irrelevant.
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