SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Mike Masnick over at TechDirt wonders: Can We Create A Public Internet Space Where The First Amendment, Not Private Terms Of Service, Rules?
Over a year ago, Tim Karr had an interesting and important post about openness on the internet. While much of it, quite reasonably, focuses on authoritarian governments trying to stomp out dissent online, he makes an important point towards the end about how the fact that content online is ruled by various "terms of service" from different private entities, rather than things like the First Amendment, can raise serious concerns:
And the threat isn't entirely at the hands of governments. In last week's New Republic, Jeffrey Rosen reported on a cadre of twentysomething "Deciders" employed by Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to determine what content is appropriate for those platforms -- and what content should get blocked.
While they seem earnest in their regard for free speech, they often make decisions on issues that are way beyond their depth, affecting people in parts of the world they've never been to.
And they're often just plain wrong, as Facebook demonstrated last week. They blocked a political ad from progressive group CREDO Action that criticized Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg's support of the Keystone XL pipeline.
This case is just one of several instances where allegedly well-intentioned social media companies cross the line that separates Internet freedom from Internet repression.
In many ways, it may be even more complicated than Karr and the people he quotes describe. First off, even if you have a company that claims it will respect a right to free expression, it's not their decision alone to make. As we saw, for example, with Wikileaks, when there's strong pressure to silence a site, the downstream providers can get antsy and pull the plug. Upstream hosting firms, data centers and bandwidth providers can all be pressured or even threatened legally, and usually someone somewhere along the line will cave to such threats. In such cases, it doesn't matter how strongly the end service provider believes in free speech; if someone else along the chain can pull things down, then promises of supporting free speech are meaningless.
The other issue is that most sites are pretty much legally compelled to have such terms of use, which provide them greater flexibility in deciding to stifle forms of speech they don't appreciate. In many ways, you have to respect the way the First Amendment is structured so that, even if courts have conveniently chipped away at parts of it at times (while, at other times making it much stronger), there's a clear pillar that all of this is based around. Terms of service are nothing like the Constitution, and can be both inherently wishy-washy and ever-changeable as circumstances warrant.
With both service and hosting providers clearly uninterested in facing off against a government take down, or even a computer generated DCMA request — is there any hope for free speech ?
(Score: 2) by Marand on Sunday August 24 2014, @12:12AM
Except that's going into different territory than what the summary and articles are focused on. They're essentially arguing that the websites like YouTube, Facebook, etc. should not be allowed to self-police as they wish because it infringes on the user's "freedom" and "first amendment" rights (claimed by the article, not me), and touch on problems that can arise from that. So, that being the premise, I commented on that. Nowhere did I say what I "truly believe" in regard to ISPs or common carrier status, because it was irrelevant to the topic.
The ISP/common carrier thing is a completely different issue that I gave no opinion on. It's a murky area because, as the situation is now, they tend to enjoy the privileges of common carrier status without being held to the parts that benefit or protect users. The ISPs aren't even being reliably required to follow the law or their own agreements* with the government, so the "free speech" aspect is a minor complaint compared to the rest of the bullshit.
* Verizon being allowed to claim that wireless is equivalent to landlines and not being required to rebuild infrastructure after hurricane Sandy, for example.
(Score: 2) by dmc on Sunday August 24 2014, @03:08AM
I think you just don't see my wider point, probably because you haven't yet read my 53 page manifesto linked to in an above 5 rated comment. Which is deliciously ironic because I'm about to take the opportunity to expound on my ideas in opposition to yours and the article which I haven't and don't plan on bothering to read.
I believe the original article of this story, as I understand it from the summary and what you further summarize above, is actually *completely the same issue* as the NetNeutrality/CommonCarrier/FreeSpeech issue I described.
Terms of Service for websites like YouTube, Facebook, etc, I agree (with you, though with conditions) should be able to self-police as they wish. The reason being the same traditional libertarian/capitalistic stance both of us alluded to. I.e. a restaurant owner should be able to refuse service to customers who start speaking loudly about political topics the owner doesn't feel interested in hearing about, or subjecting their other customers to. Which, from a traditional free speech lib/cap perspective is mitigated by the opportunity of anyone else in society, to open a competing restaurant with different terms of service. Then, people can vote with their dollars, and the public's demand is variously served optimally by various suppliers. The theory is that this leads to the best balance in society. The theory crumbles however in the face of such widespread social ills as pervasive racism to the point of slavery. I.e. many of the civil rights laws were passed, because with lib/cap freedom, a dominant majority can and will very effectively oppress a minority. When an establishment of rail operators for example is racist, and charges double (either overtly, or with attempts to make the practice less apparent) to people of one race/religion/sex/political-affiliation/whatever, a minority can be "kept down in the (economic) hole".
But enter the concept of "common carrier". Now, by law, a commodity producer/seller, must charge the same price for the same service, regardless of who the customer is, or what they are doing with the service. The reason why CC has been accepted by society, is because it "sure seems fair", despite it infringing on some level of freedom of businesspeople to "totally" control their business.
The problem I suspect that the article's author has, is that the FCC has refused to apply Common Carrier protections of free speech to the internet- *in spite* of them paying lipservice to the concept, e.g. p13 of FCC-10-201/NetNeutrality [fcc.gov]
You see, if the FCC actually practiced what it preached, it would look at GoogleFiber and other ISP's refusal to treat server-hosting as bit-for-bit equivalent traffic to other traffic, and put the smack down on them. Unfortunately however the FCC is part of a government that is deeply in bed with the NSA and Google, and the phrase "don't bite the hand that feeds" tends to rule the day.
Google(Fiber) and other ISPs don't want to allow home users to fulfill that idealized (by the FCC) vision of the internet where "Startups and small businesses benefit because the Internet’s openness enables anyone connected to the network to reach and do business with anyone else,(16) allowing even the smallest and most remotely located businesses to access national and global markets, and contribute to the economy".
Because if users could operate/host servers, they could easily provide alternatives to Facebook/Youtube/etc with more competitive (in terms of free speech protections) terms of service. And then the establishment would lose its control over the mass media that- due to pre-internet broadcast structures- it has traditionally enjoyed.
So the author of the article, due to the sorts of propaganda/spin along the lines of the FCC's last 99 page RFC containing the word 'server' TWICE !?!?!, simply can no longer grasp the original vision of the internet as a place that empowered "anyone connected to the network to reach and do business with anyone else". That kind of empowerment of all end users is a threat to the establishment. If that kind of empowerment was given more than lipservice by the FCC, then the author would never have made those points (that again, I haven't bothered to read) because there would be so many viable competitors to Facebook/Youtube that it would be a non-issue.
But the Facebook/Youtube establishment (and their NSA symbiotes) wants to dominate the internet. And they will use whatever leverage they have with the government to maintain that dominance.
Anyway, please forgive any inadequicies of my delivery of the ideas, but I think there is a very important internet free speech point that I have just made relating to network neutrality, common carrier, and the sorts of pressures and motivations that led to this story's article being written.
$0.02...
(Score: 2) by Marand on Sunday August 24 2014, @11:38PM
For what it's worth, we seem to be largely in agreement; much of what you say about common carrier, being able to self-host, and the intent of the internet is similar to things I've said in the past. It's just beyond the scope of what the linked articles were focusing on, so I chose to stick to the specific area they were discussing, rather than open that can of worms and risk derailing the initial topic. That said, it's still segued into that topic any way, so I may as well respond in kind. :)
I think part of the problem with ISPs and self-hosting is, at least partly, the fault of the tendency for US ISPs to provide so-called "unlimited" access. They can't actually provide this, but it's how marketing spun things back in dial-up days where unlimited was effectively limited by time, so we ended up with the current situation where arbitrary restrictions are used to keep things running. We'd probably be better off with some sort of metered, tiered system where the pipes are blind -- use it how you want, the ISP would only care about quantity used -- but that's currently not the case. There's also profitability/greed involved, so there's no guarantee that we wouldn't see similar restrictions creep in even in this theoretical US where ISPs never provided "unlimited" claims, but consumers would have a stronger case for trying to keep the clauses out and keep the pipes blind.
That doesn't mean the current situation is completely hopeless, though. There are still options available for the people that want to host services, though most require extra financial investment.
• If it's a web-based service of some sort, there's plenty of shared hosting available. Very fickle; it's easy to piss off your provider this way, but it can work for some.
• ISPs usually offer business plans that allow self-hosting. Terms vary greatly, but usually you're okay as long as you aren't breaking the law.
• If it's low-traffic, non-commercial use, you can usually get away with self-hosting regardless of terms. If the ISP doesn't like it they usually just push you to a business plan, rather than block you outright.
• A VPS is usually a good solution. ToS violations are usually limited to excess resource use and "don't break the law".
• If you want to self-host but the ISP prevents it and has a rubbish business plan, you can use a VPS, set up a VPN, and forward relevant traffic that hits the VPN to your self-hosted machine across the VPN. ISP can't monitor -- it's just encrypted VPN traffic -- and the VPS is just a relay. Works if you need to run something with high CPU use that would violate the VPS terms. Also a workaround for bad ISP configuration.[1]
• Dedicated hosting, if you're able and willing to pay the prices.
The cost isn't even a significant factor, because you can get started with a low-end VPS for as low as $5/mo, there is a shared host that only charges for as much bandwidth as you use (nearlyfreespeech.net), and for many things, you can use your existing connection without your ISP giving you trouble.
Granted, most of the options involve more technical skill than the average internet user possesses, but that would be the case even in an ideal common-carrier, blind-pipe situation. The internet and general computer use have both grown far beyond the days where everybody involved has at least some minimal proficiency and understanding of how things work; we're vastly outnumbered by people that just want to use it as a tool, appliance, or entertainment device. Even if self-hosting were drop-dead simple, most people just wouldn't do it unless the computer were to do it for them. Hell, even then, a lot of people would be wary of it because of a fear that it might result in higher costs due to utility use, etc.
At least it's not a hopeless scenario. Imperfect, yes, but there are still options for those that want them. The barrier for entry here is still far, far lower than trying to open a restaurant, get into public transportation, etc. It's probably the closest we've been to equality in that sense in a very, very long time.
With all that said, I'll end by reiterating that I do agree with the general ideal you're after, it just didn't seem[2] to be the point of the articles so I stayed away from it. Net neutrality is ultimately a different issue than site owners setting terms of use, and thus not incompatible concepts. We can (and should) fight for network neutrality without demanding people lose the right to govern their sites as they wish.
---
[1] I once used an ISP that had all "residential" users behind carrier-grade NAT, one IP per thousands (or more) people, and charged exorbitant fees to get outside the NAT. I had to resort to using my VPS to forward traffic over VPN at times when I needed to open a port for any reason.
[2] The articles couldn't even manage to make the point without erroneously bringing in the first amendment, so I was trying not to make too many assumptions about intent.