Gatekeepers or Censors? How Tech Manages Online Speech • Hacker News Board

Re: Gatekeepers or Censors? How Tech Manages Online Speech

#91

Post by throw2016 » Thu, Aug 09, 2018, 3:05 AM UTC

lordCarbonFiber wrote: post #12

notveryrational wrote: post #2

Having been censored multiple times by tech firms, I fall squarely into one camp. During the Snowden Disclosures, I took to Facebook with the documents getting published and started to do my own summaries. Facebook implemented a policy in which it would not let any post that contained a link to a Snowden Document. In some cases they would let the content get posted, but I confirmed with a friend's account that it was…

I love the unspoken sentiment behind your experience. "I took to facebook to post links to grey legal documents rather than hosting them myself because I wanted facebook to be liable; Im shocked when they told me they didn't appreciate the transfer of risk. It's literally censorship I tell you!" Freedom of speech is not, and hopefully never will be,"freedom to post on other people's servers unmoderated".

There is a difference between hate speech, racism, bigotry, incitement to violence and political speech.

Clamping down on political speech and whistleblowing is the definition of censorship. If Facebook as a private party was not hosting any political content then it would be valid, but hosting other political content - for instance politicians and activists calling for ending Chinese censorship - while suppressing Snowden's leaks is a brazen act of political censorship and hypocrisy.

If this was a thread about China's dominant social media platform silencing whistleblowers there would be hundred percent agreement its wrong. It is untenable and duplicitous to demonize others for censorship while defending or hand waving this kind of 'moderation'. This makes a mockery of free speech and reduces it to jingoism.

Re: Gatekeepers or Censors? How Tech Manages Online Speech

#92

Post by baud147258 » Thu, Aug 09, 2018, 7:24 AM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #79

baud147258 wrote: post #30

[flagged]

Eschew flamebait. Don't introduce flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents.

Our lord and savior tptacek to the rescue of the quality of discussion of HN! Praise the Graham for these hallowed threads!

Re: Gatekeepers or Censors? How Tech Manages Online Speech

#93

Post by detaro » Thu, Aug 09, 2018, 12:18 PM UTC

notveryrational wrote: post #87

detaro wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An example of Snowden documents being legally grey, and even the example of the guardian being under pressure because of it.

American documents were leaked to journalists and that was a legally gray problem in the UK? Don't be silly. Imagine if some Saudi documents were leaked to journalists and the American government walked into the Times and forced them to destroy the documents at gunpoint. This was clear and simple government censorship. Not particularly unusual or remarkable for the UK.

American documents containing information about things the UK government considered state secrets. If there wasn't a legal risk, why would the Guardian have complied? That's kind of unrelated to the question if you consider that legal threat justified or not, it's clearly there.

Re: Gatekeepers or Censors? How Tech Manages Online Speech

#94

Post by notveryrational » Thu, Aug 09, 2018, 4:53 PM UTC

detaro wrote: post #93

notveryrational wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

American documents were leaked to journalists and that was a legally gray problem in the UK? Don't be silly. Imagine if some Saudi documents were leaked to journalists and the American government walked into the Times and forced them to destroy the documents at gunpoint. This was clear and simple government censorship. Not particularly unusual or remarkable for the UK.

American documents containing information about things the UK government considered state secrets. If there wasn't a legal risk, why would the Guardian have complied? That's kind of unrelated to the question if you consider that legal threat justified or not, it's clearly there.

> If there wasn't a legal risk, why would the Guardian have complied?

They were at gunpoint.

If there was merely a legal risk, it would have been sorted out by the courts and with lawyers. Example: Pentagon Papers, NYT.

This was a no-disagreement, forced compliance situation. It's not like they debated with the armed guards and they came to mutual philosophical position.

And note that The Guardian _did_ disagree. They had no other option.

So the entire argument "They complied (when forced at gunpoint and under threat) -> therefore it must have been a legally gray thing for them to report on global surveillance documents" begs the question. And to that point, the argument would be thrown out of any courtroom on those grounds.

When strongarm governments exercise their authoritarian muscles, we don't need to apologize and make excuses for it.