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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.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bob_super on Wednesday August 16 2017, @07:13PM (27 children)
"I don't want to be associated with your ideas and therefore you cannot use my company to broadcast your hate" is very different from "You are hereby to cease talking under penalty of jail and fines".
Being shunned from popular platforms has always happened. People would boo you in the square or refuse to publish your letter to the WSJ editor.
Unpleasant people have a lot more capability to get heard than ever before, courtesy of the internet allowing anyone to setup their own platform.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by jmorris on Wednesday August 16 2017, @07:22PM (16 children)
We have a name for what you describe. Publisher. What Facebook and Twitter pretend to be is something different, a common carrier. A common carrier is not held legally or morally responsible for the content that passes over it, a publisher is. So let them decide, let them be forced to proclaim that they are now a publisher, which they now are, and then damn them straight to the fiery lake for their decision and charge for every illegal activity they do not police. They happily host terrorists, both domestic and foreign.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Wednesday August 16 2017, @07:37PM (11 children)
Sorry, but no; it doesn't work that way in the real world. These corporations get to have it both ways: they get to act as common carriers when it suits them, or they can be publishers when it suits them. The right-wing is responsible for this, because they're the ones who adamantly refuse to support regulating corporations, and want the "free market" to remain unfettered by regulation from the FCC. So, you're getting exactly what you wanted. Don't complain. If you don't like it, don't use their services.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 16 2017, @07:56PM (9 children)
You're conflating multiple different threads in the generally-regarded-as-right groups.
If you think that those neo-nazis are all libertarians, I hope you're sitting down, because I have some very sad news for you.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 16 2017, @08:01PM (2 children)
I keep doing a search, but I just can't find anything about libertarians!
Also, never heard anyone say all libertarians are nazis. Not ever. Maybe we should bring back the dunce hat of yore?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 16 2017, @09:36PM (1 child)
Libertarians want to ensure free speech for Nazis, because the Nazis are all so manly men and into the man-boy love of a Milo. But Libertariantards do not know about the Pink Triangle.
Or, it is just that Limbaugh, O'Really, Fox News in general, and the Trumpster are being hurt in the bottom line by some really bad public relations! Who would want to buy ad space on Brietbarf News, or on the Daily Strum-und-Drang? Some things are just not socially acceptable, or what we STILL call it, "politically incorrect". Political incorrectness has real world consequences! Who could have foreseen this?
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Thursday August 17 2017, @03:04AM
I'm not a libertarian but I know some -- in your second paragraph you seem to be conflating Republican with Libertarian -- the two are very far apart.
As for the first point, Libertarians would support freedom of speech for all people, even communists. If you don't get that, you don't get libertarianism.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday August 17 2017, @01:23AM (5 children)
Huh? The mainstream conservatives are constantly spouting "free market" rhetoric, and Republicans have been pushing deregulation for decades; it isn't just a libertarian theme. As for the neo-Nazis, I doubt they think too much about economic issues like that; they're too busy screaming racist crap.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 17 2017, @02:08AM
I too find it odd that the republicans here do not see that for what it is.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 17 2017, @03:27AM (3 children)
What they don't seem to understand is whenever Big Government gets smaller, they get their favorite Corporations to do more and more of the stuff for them.
A smaller weaker corrupt US government working with more powerful corrupt corporations will screw US residents even more.
As this story hints at, there's no freedom of speech in Facebook, Google, etc. There's no right to bear arms in Disneyland. The FOIA doesn't work on Apple.
The US Gov has to at least pretend to provide this stuff, but you can see that corporations don't have to pretend at all and those who were pretending, now say "because Nazis!".
(Score: 1, Disagree) by khallow on Thursday August 17 2017, @12:30PM (2 children)
Sorry, I don't buy that a smaller, weaker, corrupt US government working with powerful corrupt businesses is going to be worse than a larger, stronger, corrupt US government doing the same thing. I think the problem here is that the author of the piece is working from bad priors. They need the government to do their shaping of society (for example, Caitlin Johnstone supports single payer [counterpropa.com] health care and fighting global warming [inquisitr.com]) so a priori, they can't advocate anything that would diminish that power to achieve their goals. OTOH, I don't need society so shaped, thus I don't have a similar need to protect the power of government.
I also think there is a tremendous amount of cognitive dissonance here, exhibited by the author who routinely expounds on government conspiracy theories (such as the Seth Rich assassination theory [thedailybanter.com]), and then rails against the corporate media or other anti-business diatribes.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 18 2017, @10:45AM (1 child)
If you look in Africa you can see many examples of smaller, weaker, corrupt (and sometimes US-installed) governments working with powerful large corporations to screw the locals. When your small government's military is smaller and weaker than a corporation's "Private Security Team" guess who is calling the shots?
In contrast if you have lots of normal folk/voters working in the Big Government it means more people are actually represented in Government by virtue of actually being _part_ of it. Yeah they may still do the wrong stuff but that's just like voters voting for the wrong person.
In short, if the rulers are somehow crazy enough to pay to keep around a Big Government it means lots more people are getting paid (while there's money to pay them anyway). I think you can see this in some oil-states (almost like basic income ;) ). In contrast in many other places the rulers don't bother, the rest of the country could starve whether there's enough money or not - the oil money goes mainly the Corporation and the rest goes to the Warlord. I'd say the latter is worse.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday August 18 2017, @12:48PM
Which government has that problem? Sorry, even unrecognized African rebel groups can field a larger military.
We call that "conflict of interest" where now, a large population of voters has incentive to vote against the common interests of the country in order to increase their piece of the pie. It's great if you're a cog in the government wheel, and terrible, if you're a taxpayer paying for people to do nothing.
That's a fantasy. We have as counterexamples, Russia, China, the US, and EU, for example, their large and growing security and intelligence bureaucracies.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 16 2017, @07:58PM
Welcome o victim of the alt-right brigade society. UPVOTE JMORRIS! DOWN WITH EVERYONE ELSE!
irony, it is a bitch
(Score: 4, Disagree) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday August 16 2017, @09:02PM
What Facebook and Twitter pretend to be is something different, a common carrier.
No, they don't. The End.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 16 2017, @09:21PM (2 children)
Actually, in order to take advantage of the DMCA Safe Harbor provisions which make hosts immune to direct legal threat they must not editorialize content.
If the hosts are editorializing some content, esp. on political basis (not just removing illegal content such as child pornography), then they can not take advantage of the DMCA Safe Harbor which allows sites like this one and others to operate.
If you host user generated content / comments then you can be held directly liable for the content hosted UNLESS you do not editorialize that content, such as to exclude certain political views.
So, while it is true that private corporations do not have to host anything they don't want to, if they are shown to be curating content above the level set forth by DMCA Safe Harbor provision then they can not claim immunity from infringement under said provision and can be held liable for all the user generated content they redistribute. If you notice, Google, Facebook, Twitter, and others have employed teams to police content including Feminist Frequency's Anita Sarkeesian, and the notoriously trigger happy Anti-Defamation League (who regularly lists non PC sites as "hate groups").
The ideological slant of Silicon Valley may be its downfall as there are alternatives springing up daily.
I would also note, however, that given the very close ties between sites like Facebook (being listed as #1 ally by FBI) and Google, that a case could be made that they are now acting as extensions of government enforced oligopoly / monopoly. There are rumors that corporate espionage is carried out sometimes to squash competition, esp. that which doesn't pay lip service to radical left ideologically. Some allege that police and other government resources are employed to do so. Given the apparent corruption of California's police, [archive.is] and political parties (as seen in DNC email leaks), I wouldn't dismiss the possibility. Perhaps that is why such private enterprises are so emboldened?
The whole situation is a powder keg, and with the economic bubble readying itself to pop this may not bode well for tech giants.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 16 2017, @09:46PM
Considering those alternatives can be DDOS'd (in some cases quite a few times), and their employees and their families harassed and threatened, and the corporations themselves are in the process of having copyright law rewritten to put a tighter stranglehold around the little people (and probably put a few provisions for themselves into the DMCA to let them edit as they please), this may not be the case, unfortunately.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday August 17 2017, @04:25PM
The subtlety in what platforms do lies in not editorializing content, but rather TOS-excluding people who create such content, then removing posts deemed inappropriate by other users.
QED: Got my DMCA safe harbor, but not the negative aspects of free speech.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 16 2017, @08:03PM (9 children)
Until the legs that hold that platform are pulled out from under your feet as well.
It's not like TLD registries don't have "offensive content" policies.
It's not like your VPS provider doesn't have a "code of conduct" or some other "inclusive" policy that prevents you from upsetting the status quo too much.
It's socio-political denial of service. And businesses need to grow a backbone for once. But they can't because any sufficiently large organization maneuvers like a schizophrenic child on crack.
tl;dr: you can't setup your own platform because they'll pull your domain names, your internet access, you power -- ANYTHING your fanatical political opposition can get their hands on to silence anything that doesn't fit their world view. Plenty of people on both sides of the American two-party system who use these tactics, this isn't a stab at any side specifically. It's a stab at both.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday August 16 2017, @09:06PM (3 children)
Go get a Ruissian domain if you want to be a fascist. [thehill.com]
Google is under no obligation to provide you a platform.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 16 2017, @09:31PM (2 children)
Love how you immediately draw "fascist" card on me.
I never even said anything about google, what are you on about, mate?
(Score: 5, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday August 16 2017, @09:50PM (1 child)
I'm not the one that put the fascist card in play. The traitorous Americans carrying around swastikas did that.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Thursday August 17 2017, @12:36PM
I don't respect people who use as the cover for their shitty proposals the fact that there are a few idiots in the world. Just because there are a few thousand swastika carrying idiots in the US doesn't mean that domain registrars should have the power to prevent people from obtaining domains on the basis of beliefs. If these socialist websites are being hidden from view by Google, that's a strong demonstration that such power will eventually get used against us all.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 16 2017, @11:10PM (4 children)
Could you point to examples of radical violent communist leftists being deplatformed by the right wing?
Genuinely curious.
(Score: 3, Informative) by hemocyanin on Thursday August 17 2017, @03:10AM (2 children)
It's more the leftist views are being deplatformed to some degree by the Center-Right. It's right in TFA.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 17 2017, @05:40AM (1 child)
Maybe this daily stormer stuff is like a reverse "think of the children" by getting a nasty group to suffer the initial precedent. Then they can censor whatever and at worst say "woops, how'd that get on the list,just an oversight."
(Score: 2) by canopic jug on Thursday August 17 2017, @06:42AM
Maybe this daily stormer stuff is like a reverse "think of the children" by getting a nasty group to suffer the initial precedent. Then they can censor whatever and at worst say "woops, how'd that get on the list,just an oversight."
Yes. That was my interpretation of that article, too. However, as one who has been warning (elsewhere) of corporate censorship for about two decades, it's quite dangerous that we're leaving it for so late. With all the resurgence of Nazism, and its cousin Islam, the general public seems more blind than usual in this area.
Some get it. Former politician Rick Falkvinge is another writer besides Caitlin Johnstone who sees the threat clearly. Actually it's not a threat any more it is materializing into actual harm already. A problemthe both note is that people seem happy to go along with corporate censorship even when the same level or targets would generate extreme pushback from governmnt censorship. He writes, When Europe outsources censorship to Facebook and Twitter, who upholds free speech? And where’s the outrage? [privateinternetaccess.com]. The key assertion many by corporate censors, and many fools, is that they claim it is voluntary association. Yes, in a perfect world it would be and people would walk away, voting with their feet and their wallets. However, here and now, for most people, it's not possbile to walk away and corporations like Faecebook can extort the population with impunity [theinquirer.net]. It will take large changes to get the corporations onto a proper leash.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 17 2017, @08:25AM
Not quite what you're looking for, but CPAC deplatformed Milo. I found that quite funny, because many of these people rightly complain when SJW morons get people deplatformed at universities, yet CPAC decides to do this to Milo because they found something he said offensive.