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posted by cmn32480 on Wednesday August 16 2017, @06:49PM   Printer-friendly
from the it's-a-dirty-job dept.

Caitlin Johnstone writes in a blog post over at Medium that corporate censorship is ramping up while people are distracted by the menace of government censorship.

It is true that it is the most controversial and repulsive speech which is most severely in need of protection, and that a government which is granted the power to silence Nazis can be expected to use that power to silence political dissent. But there is no danger of this ever happening in the United States, because corporate censorship can be used to silence anti-establishment voices with far less pushback.

Egged on by the resurfacing of obnoxious and sometimes illegal groups, more groups are pushing for, and sometimes getting, full online silence from other voices. Those in power will have corporations do any of the dirty work that might generate push back.


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  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 16 2017, @07:06PM (18 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 16 2017, @07:06PM (#554871)

    We desperately need ad-hoc P2P networking. The ISP is the corporate/state ball and chain.

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  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by jmorris on Wednesday August 16 2017, @07:11PM (16 children)

    by jmorris (4844) on Wednesday August 16 2017, @07:11PM (#554875)

    I'm about tired of this double standard that we are supposed to very carefully avoid noticing.

    Offend the left's sensibilities, refuse them service and judge orders you to "Bake the effing cake! No scratch that, just close up shop and die in poverty you hater!" And some kindly, harmless little person's life is ruined. Meanwhile, large faceless megacorporations can "no platform" anyone the left hates with no repercussions while the left bleats at us about how we have to sit down, shut up and take it because it "because it is the free market."

    Screw you. #WAR.

    • (Score: 2) by jmorris on Wednesday August 16 2017, @07:13PM

      by jmorris (4844) on Wednesday August 16 2017, @07:13PM (#554879)

      Eh? I clicked the "Reply" button in the top bar and ended up replied to an AC? Meh. Who knows.

    • (Score: 1, Disagree) by bob_super on Wednesday August 16 2017, @07:17PM

      by bob_super (1357) on Wednesday August 16 2017, @07:17PM (#554881)

      Love the implied equivalence between fighting discrimination and allowing Nazi speech. Think about it again.

      I'm not in the business of telling people who they should bake a cake for, and puzzled at the idea of forcing hateful people to get your money to bake a cake for your wedding when they hate you. I am, however, perfectly fine with anyone refusing to be associated with Neo-Nazi propaganda and hate speech.

    • (Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 16 2017, @08:26PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 16 2017, @08:26PM (#554918)

      Here we have a proto human successfully thawed out after being found in Greenland's Didjagetafarkinclue glacier. This specimen is of particular interest to scientists for a remarkable reason, he can shed light on primitive psychological behavior. After years of education and behavioral therapy it was quite a surprise for scientists when this proto-human confirmed a common urban myth that individuals who respond to conservative ideology are "neanderthals". This is of course quite absurd on the surface, but after digging deeper scientists have correlated not only genetic similarities but actual brain structures shared with supposedly modern humans.

      Prevailing wisdom states that neanderthals were wiped out by modern humans, however this specimen is shedding light on a whole new story. One researcher's hypothesis is that tightly bound genetic traits were incorporated through cross-breeding between neanderthal and human, leading to our modern day schism between humans who appear the same on the surface.

      Now we see the proto human engaged in a wildly controversial experiment, researchers have given him access to the Internet to see how he deals with a wider array of human interaction. While the experiment is still in its early stages it has already given fruit to some surprising results. Scientists claim they have discovered the underlying reason for the conflict between proto and modern humanoids, and it came from a surprisingly small remark left on a social media site which said "Screw you. Hashtag WAR."

      Deep down we may all share similar tendencies, but it is clear that these proto humans could not compete with modern humans who were capable of adapting to a changing environment. With any luck the ongoing genetic analysis of this proto-human will help us find a therapy for it's ancestors who have even now suffer from debilitating xenophobia and its resulting brain degeneration. Early clues point to a link between this genetic profile passed down for millenia and a variety of degenerative mental disorders.

      Hopefully one day we will be able to heal this ancient conflict which has surprisingly continued through this genetic anomaly.

    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday August 16 2017, @08:59PM

      by DeathMonkey (1380) on Wednesday August 16 2017, @08:59PM (#554936) Journal

      Offend the left's sensibilities, refuse them service and judge orders you to "Bake the effing cake! No scratch that, just close up shop and die in poverty you hater!" And some kindly, harmless little person's life is ruined.

      Protest some Neo-Nazis and a harmless little person's life is ended. You're right, that is a double-standard!

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 16 2017, @08:59PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 16 2017, @08:59PM (#554937)

      Are "kindly, harmless little" people really the ones saying "No I won't bake a cake for you because you're a fag and I hate fags!"

      And is saying that you can't discriminate against homosexuals really the same as saying we don't want to support someone who is encouraging murder? Do you really not see any difference between the two?

    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Nerdfest on Wednesday August 16 2017, @09:04PM (1 child)

      by Nerdfest (80) on Wednesday August 16 2017, @09:04PM (#554941)

      Discriminating against people because of race, religion, etc, is illegal. Discriminating against someone because they're a racist is not.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 16 2017, @10:25PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 16 2017, @10:25PM (#554997)

        Happened with gamergate too and they weren't nazis. Racists are the test case to set a precedent.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 16 2017, @09:29PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 16 2017, @09:29PM (#554960)

      Shut up, Francis! You too, jmorris! Shut up, now! (There, that ought to do it.)

    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 16 2017, @09:38PM (3 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 16 2017, @09:38PM (#554967)

      "Fascist" is not one of the protected classes in the US, but that ruins your entire narrative and you would collapse on the couch and not know what to do with yourself. So instead you double down and play the victim card. Very brave.

      • (Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 16 2017, @10:28PM (2 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 16 2017, @10:28PM (#555001)

        "Fascist" is not one of the protected classes in the US

        Maybe he thinks that there should be no protected classes.

        • (Score: 5, Touché) by julian on Wednesday August 16 2017, @10:44PM

          by julian (6003) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday August 16 2017, @10:44PM (#555011)

          Local Bully Calls for End of Recess Supervision, Your Lunch Money

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 17 2017, @04:06PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 17 2017, @04:06PM (#555385)

          I think protected classes should be limited to those that you have no/limited ability to change.

          Sex, race, age, etc.

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Thursday August 17 2017, @02:58AM (3 children)

      by hemocyanin (186) on Thursday August 17 2017, @02:58AM (#555094) Journal

      I disagree with your sentiments on the whole cake thing (*) but I modded you up. In the sphere of free speech, I'm hardcore pro because once we allow those we hate to be silenced, it is inevitable that our own haters will silence us.

      (*) When you use public services to run a business, you serve the public. Period.

      • (Score: 2) by Magic Oddball on Thursday August 17 2017, @09:50AM

        by Magic Oddball (3847) on Thursday August 17 2017, @09:50AM (#555200) Journal

        I agree. I think that a lot of people are forgetting that unlike conservatives, the fragmentation of "our" (American liberals) side means that it rarely manages to rally together enough to effectively pressure companies into things, and Big Business of any type tends to lean liberal for very long... Which means that any precedents being set now can and will be used in ways we won't like at some point in the future.

      • (Score: 2) by mcgrew on Thursday August 17 2017, @02:07PM (1 child)

        by mcgrew (701) <publish@mcgrewbooks.com> on Thursday August 17 2017, @02:07PM (#555310) Homepage Journal

        Indeed. If a baker wishes to not bake gay wedding cakes, he should stop selling wedding cakes. Simple. If you don't like your boss' censorship, well, unemployment is pretty low right now. Changing jobs is a lot easier than moving to a different country.

        --
        mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 17 2017, @05:30PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 17 2017, @05:30PM (#555448)

          All wedding cakes are gay.

  • (Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 16 2017, @07:39PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 16 2017, @07:39PM (#554894)

    Although if the default nodelists are unavailable you would need to add an additional signing key and push your own initial node updates in order to allow access. This is already being done in more repressive regimes while discussions and rfcs are being made for longer term solutions as internet censorship and detection techniques increase with each succeeding year/generation of hardware.

    Tor is likewise working on changes to its architectures, but I have larger concerns there since basically all implementations are developed primarily by US developers (I2P has a much broader developer base as well as 2 major implementations and 2-3 unfinished secondary implementations.)

    The longer term solution requires both multiple p2p anonymity meshnets, running over existing internet protocols/infrastructure, as well as additional volunteer network infrastructure crossing national borders (probably wireless, since running underground fiber would be both risky, and financially difficult without illegal ventures to fund it and maintain the trenches/tunnels.)