Microsoft threatens to stop hosting Gab unless posts are removed • Hacker News Board

Re: Microsoft threatens to stop hosting Gab unless posts are removed

#451

Post by jasonvorhe » Fri, Aug 10, 2018, 12:26 PM UTC

Microsoft should be able to decide who they do business with. That's typical contract law almost everywhere.

If they decide get certain content is against their own values, culture and risks the safety of their own staff, even if that risk isn't an immediate one, they should always have the option of termination the contract.

That's not censorship, that's business. A company doesn't owe anyone their service, unless they provide a public utility or because they're a monopoly. In terms of web hosting, neither is the case with Microsoft.

Re: Microsoft threatens to stop hosting Gab unless posts are removed

#452

Post by betterunix2 » Fri, Aug 10, 2018, 12:28 PM UTC

baud147258 wrote: post #410

Nadya wrote: post #31

A common argument in philosophy is that bad ideas should occur in the open - where everyone may ridicule them. When they are cast to the shadows they can grow, under everyone's noses, in private where only there are they allowed to exist. In private, these bad ideas cannot be challenged by others and people will be convinced to believe in them, with nobody challenging the idea as a genuinely terrible idea. It gives b…

Another argument against prohibiting speech on some platform is that it will push people platforms without any speech restriction, radicalasing their view.

Which is what Gab was supposed to be, so that ship has basically sailed.

Re: Microsoft threatens to stop hosting Gab unless posts are removed

#453

Post by stealthmodeclan » Fri, Aug 10, 2018, 12:29 PM UTC

Religions? Do they've all scientifically verified ideas? People still believe in them. Not only that, religion is also given special place in the constitution and law of some countries.

Religion is still going strong. Try to take away anyone's religion based on refutations then tell me that refuting bad idea really works.

Till then many others will try to mix mash bad ideas into new religions.

Re: Microsoft threatens to stop hosting Gab unless posts are removed

#454

Post by IanDrake » Fri, Aug 10, 2018, 12:30 PM UTC

Good for Microsoft for drawing the correct line in the sand. Calls to violence are not protected speech.

The Alex Jones censorship is another matter. His stuff is pretty crazy, but not worthy of being taken down. Louis Farrakhan says lots crazy stuff and I don’t believe he’s been censored at all. There is definitely a double standard at play.

Re: Microsoft threatens to stop hosting Gab unless posts are removed

#455

Post by pixl97 » Fri, Aug 10, 2018, 12:32 PM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #428

candiodari wrote: post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And, as has been clearly illustrated, "trusted" news source can't always be trusted either. So preventing "lies" (lie is almost always a matter of perspective) to spread ... is really always also preventing people from finding out the truth. We just used to find that acceptable. Wars have been started by fake news from "reputable" sources. If fake news regulations become widespread and usable, they would be trivially…

> lie is almost always a matter of perspective This meme I do not understand. There is one physical reality[0]. A thing either happened, or it didn't. Physics doesn't change its workings because of perspective . A precise enough statement about reality can be either true or false, there's no middle. There's no "depends on perspective". If I say, "the Sun is shining", the truth of that fact does not depend on perspect…

That is what I call 'thermodynamic truth', or the truth we would see if we ran time backwards. The problem is, we can't run time backwards and because of information loss there, many times, can be many possible situations that create the outcome we see.

Re: Microsoft threatens to stop hosting Gab unless posts are removed

#456

Post by aliakhtar » Fri, Aug 10, 2018, 12:39 PM UTC

Vinnl wrote: post #446

gameswithgo wrote: post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please quit calling "exterminating the jews" an unpopular political opinion.

I think the term makes sense, because that's what it is, and that's the reason why people want to shut it down. It also brings into focus the main point of: where do you draw the line? When is a political opinion unpopular enough to warrant shutting it down?

The difference is incitement to violence.

Re: Microsoft threatens to stop hosting Gab unless posts are removed

#457

Post by aliakhtar » Fri, Aug 10, 2018, 12:40 PM UTC

stale2002 wrote: post #354

xfer wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Phone conversations are private.

And what if they weren't? Would you have a problem with a phone company listening into your conversations and determining if you said something bad or not?

If you broke the law by saying something, yes. Incitement to violence is not protected free speech.

Re: Microsoft threatens to stop hosting Gab unless posts are removed

#458

Post by betterunix2 » Fri, Aug 10, 2018, 12:42 PM UTC

yontherubicon wrote: post #426

api wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm shocked by how many liberals who really ought to know better are cheering for the deployment of corporate oligopolistic censorship at this scale. We're not talking about just kicking someone off Twitter... now we're talking about kicking them off supposedly neutral public cloud platforms. This is a major escalation and honestly it's changing my mind a bit about the whole issue. I was a fence sitter before but now…

>There's a reason the ACLU has in the past defended neo-Nazis and other unpopular speakers, and it's not because they support these speakers' messages. It's because you need a canary in the coal mine. People aren't mentioning this, but this has already happened. I'm not white, just to be clear, however back sometime last year I knew infrastructure-level censorship was coming when DNS services, GoDaddy in particular,…

Except that the Daily Stormer is still online. As long as net neutrality exists (in practice if not in law) there is no "infrastructure-level censorship" to speak of beyond a slight lack of convenience. What is the worst-case outcome of DNS registrars refusing to do business with nazis? People who want to visit nazi websites would have to type in numerical IP addresses.

The only "infrastructure-level censorship" we should worry about is the Internet itself. As long as you can set up your own servers and host your own services, your free speech rights are not really in jeopardy. Free speech does not mean you have the right to buy the megaphone of your choosing; it does mean that you can voice your opinion using a megaphone, even if you had to assemble the megaphone yourself.

Re: Microsoft threatens to stop hosting Gab unless posts are removed

#459

Post by betterunix2 » Fri, Aug 10, 2018, 12:47 PM UTC

DanAndersen wrote: post #166

dragonwriter wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Anyone with a server can host content in a technical sense, but can it ever scale without playing ideologically with the big players? For a wide reach via the press, you may need to either buy more (or higher capacity) presses or convince those who already have then of the value of devoting them to your ideas. That's inherent in freedom of the press and the marketplace of ideas. You aren't entitled to someone else'…

Perhaps I was unclear. When I said "scale," I meant it specifically in the context of being able to weather DDoS attacks. By way of analogy, consider you are the owner of a small independent city paper -- the sort you see offered for free in boxes on streetcorners. Now imagine a large corporate entity -- perhaps a competing paper or someone with a personal grudge or a political mission. Every day, they go to all the…

"Perhaps I was unclear. When I said "scale," I meant it specifically in the context of being able to weather DDoS attacks."

The right to speak is not the right to not be shouted down.

Re: Microsoft threatens to stop hosting Gab unless posts are removed

#460

Post by bovermyer » Fri, Aug 10, 2018, 12:50 PM UTC

Microsoft's comments are in keeping with a common misconception about the First Amendment.

For clarity, the relevant part of the First Amendment is here:

> Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press ...

Nowhere does it say anything about private companies, other groups, or even other branches of government having to obey this rule.

I don't have data on how many people actually believe the First Amendment lets them say whatever they want wherever they want. I'm guessing it's a pretty high number, though.