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posted by
martyb
on Monday October 29 2018, @08:15AM
from the social-commentary-on-social-media dept.
from the social-commentary-on-social-media dept.
The social network gab.com is apparently going down on Monday, October 29th at 09:00 ET. Their ISP has terminated their services, ostensibly because Robert Bowers, the Pittsburgh mass shooting suspect, had made offensive posts on Gab.
To get this out of the way: I have mixed feelings about Gab, more specifically, about the founders. However, the idea that some social network somewhere should refuse to censor anything that is not outright illegal? This is good. Social media has become the modern "market square", and free speech should be guaranteed, even if the platforms are technically private.
If you want free speech, you apparently don't want to be in the U.S.
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Social Media and the Pittsburgh Shooter: Gab.com Going Down
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"History is a tool used by politicians to justify their intentions."
-- Ted Koppel
(Score: 5, Interesting) by ilsa on Monday October 29 2018, @02:08PM (6 children)
Oh please. Can we not do this?
The US is, AFAIK, the only country in the world where people think that they are free to say whatever they want without consequence. Actually, I think XKCD already puts it succinctly so I'll just post a link instead:
https://xkcd.com/1357/ [xkcd.com]
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Monday October 29 2018, @05:01PM (4 children)
Except that it isn't as clear as that when discussing Net Neutrality [arstechnica.com], back when they were in favor of it. More specifically the carriers argued that forcing them to allow all traffic would be a violation of the ISP's First Amendment rights. The FCC argued that the job of an ISP as a common carrier (when they were ruled to be common carriers by the FCC) is to provide to the customer the ability to access the entirety of the Internet without editing or otherwise preventing that access. The U.S. Court of Appeals [uscourts.gov] sided with the FCC's interpretation. More specifically, that the FCC had the right to declare ISPs common carriers or not, and if they were then they (the carriers) did not have First Amendment rights. The exception being that the ISP clearly holds out that they have the specific right to block in selling the service (for things like parental controls or otherwise,) because it is generally understood that the default mode of an ISP is that it has no First Amendment rights to block content.
Except that there was one dissenting opinion. That was the judge who was just confirmed to the Supreme Court. Kavanaugh felt that the ISP's still did indeed enjoy a First Amendment privilege to regulate the content coming to the customer as the ISP desires. Now that we're back with Net Neutrality killed, there is indeed a First Amendment issue at stake again. But it is that the carriers may have the right under the First Amendment to block access to that other part of the Internet's free speech rights.
Then you get that Ajit Pai [arstechnica.com] doesn't think broadband is telecom. So ironically now you have the FCC saying ISP's have First Amendment rights. To block or remove your content from their customers.
So.... it isn't that simple.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 2) by ilsa on Monday October 29 2018, @05:48PM (3 children)
Net Neutrality isn't at issue here. The ISP terminated their client's contract for (presumably) going against some arbitrary terms and conditions. They are not taking it upon themselves to selectively manage the client's content. They are simply firing a client they don't want.
And what does the first amendment have to do with it?
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Monday October 29 2018, @06:42PM (2 children)
If ISP's are common carriers then they are more than just businesses. They are providers of telecommunications infrastructure. They would indeed be limited to whom they could deny access to. At a minimum they could not discriminate or allow terms and conditions which allow for discrimination. "We don't like your content" would be less of an issue if not outright illegal. And no, denial of someone to host otherwise legal information does indeed manage their content to the rest of the Internet - it just isn't currently legislated that way AFAIK.
The whole reason the FCC chose to make ISP's common carriers, and then rescind that, was over net neutrality. A neutral net isn't only a prioritized net; dumb pipes should not be allowed to care about what the content *is*, legality of the content notwithstanding. So yes, I would say net neutrality has a lot to do with it.
Is access to the internet a privilege or a right? (For both reception and dissemination of information?) And what should it be?
As to the first amendment, I thought I was clear above. If they are common carriers then ISPs don't have a right to impede traffic. (I would expect a court challenge to hosting and transmission to be equally successful.) If they are not common carriers the ISP has every right to impede traffic for any reasons they wish to, with or without advance disclosure.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Joe Desertrat on Monday October 29 2018, @10:17PM (1 child)
I think there is a huge difference between hosting and transmission. One of the biggest arguments for net neutrality is that ISP's should not allow greater access to any hosted content over another. That does not mean they should be required to host any content. Personally, I think the two areas should be completely divested from each other, an ISP should be a common carrier ISP and a host should be a host. It would be completely up to the host in that case to decide what it does and does not want to host. If you mix the two and eliminate net neutrality, as we apparently have done, then ISP's become responsible for their hosted content and all sorts of legal grey areas pop up. It is a lot easier in that case for the ISP's to simply eliminate anything that might cause them any potential legal or publicity issues.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Tuesday October 30 2018, @02:14PM
I agree with you that there is (or ought to be) a distinction between the place holding the data and the service allowing transmission of it. But those that do both certainly benefit from conflating the two. Even then a host should be neutral and not responsible for the content held on it - the person placing the content there should be the responsible entity. I buy space on platform Y and platform Y should not care nor have any right to say what I do with that space. Which entails a different responsibility for a host - to positively identify the legal entity who would be held responsible for the content and provide that information when requested properly by legal authority.
However, it is sufficient that ISP X allows me to connect hardware that will serve my content to any who ask for it. Again, the ISP is responsible for positive identification of who is legally responsible at the other end of that connection. (Maybe there should be no such thing as dynamic addressing if there is no concern with address scarcity). As it is an ISP can charge you differently for hosting content rather than accessing it. I see the argument that more bandwidth that a host may utilize more local network capacity thus resulting in greater expense to the host, but that is the only basis they should have to charge differently. I don't feel they should be able to profit from it - only recoup their expenses. Hence regulation is appropriate the same as any other utility. (I don't know if I buy that but it sounds good to me).
This sig for rent.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 29 2018, @07:17PM
There is a difference between the 1st Amendment and the concept of Free Speech. The 1st amendment disallows the government from impeding on your right to free speech. Free speech as a concept is literally what it says. Free speech. No government involved. No qualifiers.
That is the worst xkcd ever published.