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Devolver Digital is running into trouble with its game, Weedcraft, despite cannabis entering into an age of legalization. The game is about managing a cannabis business from startup to empire, but the videos have been demonetized on YouTube. Facebook is also causing trouble with the game which covers multiple scenarios from prohibition to full legalization. Treatment of the game on those, and other platforms, has been inconsistent.
"It's really hard to say how the game will be affected," Wilson told me. "A lot depends on how much [digital marketplaces] Steam and GOG continue to support its visibility and how many people share the story. All we can do is try to make a conversation happen around the industry and with gamers about this insanity and try to make changes. "
Wilson also pointed out that both YouTube and Facebook run ads for hyper-violent video games. Assault is illegal pretty much everywhere, whereas recreational weed use is legal in many states, such as California, Colorado, and all of Canada.
"We all know that violence/murder is A-OK, and that sex or drugs are not, even when presented in a thoughtful way to an audience with an average age of 40, but we've all known that for far too long," he said.
See also: YouTube, Facebook put up ad roadblocks for Weedcraft, Inc. business sim
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 14 2019, @10:57PM (12 children)
You guessed right. The *government* may not restrict your speech.
When did Google become an agency of the Federal (or a state) government?
Or did someone modify the First Amendment with:
"Congress and any corporation who does something Khallow doesn't like shall make no law..."
When I wasn't paying attention?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday April 14 2019, @11:09PM (11 children)
Good question. They are acting as a proxy in China for Chinese government censorship. If they're doing similar things in the US, then the First Amendment applies.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 14 2019, @11:42PM (1 child)
"If"
My my, I always dreamed of meeting King Scarecrow.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday April 15 2019, @01:35PM
I have since found evidence that the "if" [soylentnews.org] happens fairly often.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 15 2019, @06:39AM (8 children)
Do you have any evidence that such is the case? You don't need to answer. We all know that answer already.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday April 15 2019, @01:34PM (7 children)
Read this [upenn.edu] starting on page 22. For example:
Then on page 80, we see a number of Supreme Court rulings over the decades scaling back (but alas, not eliminating) the power to censor by proxy.
Apparently, I did need to answer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 16 2019, @01:03AM (6 children)
Your "evidence" is seriously flawed.
As noted in the court decisions surrounding Zieper v. Metzinger (which is what the link/quote you provided referenced), the government has as much legal authority to force private organizations to censor as a reputation management company does. That'd be None. They can (as can anyone else) request that content be removed, but those requests do not have the force of law.
https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=15165058342700344073&hl=en&as_sdt=6&as_vis=1&oi=scholarr [google.com]
https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=8282623029633834815&hl=en&as_sdt=6&as_vis=1&oi=scholarr [google.com]
So once again you're talking out of your ass.
Now, if you'd said that the US government has *tried* to have stuff censored, you might have some sort of argument. Regardless, the courts have made clear that the government may not force private entities to censor for them. Full stop.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday April 16 2019, @01:55AM (2 children)
It also allowed law enforcement to intimidate people for their speech as long as the intimidation could be construed to be part of their official duties.
As to the "which is what the link/quote you provided referenced", you are very incorrect. Notice the quote refers to ISPs, the Patriot Act (which "provided federal officers with unilateral authority to demand that private intermediaries secretly turn over the records of those whose communications pass through their equipment"), and punishing someone for assisting in the construction of an Islamic website.
To reduce that complex mess to claiming it's about a single court case which had little to do with the above?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 16 2019, @02:51AM (1 child)
None of that has anything to do with censoring speech. It's still wrong, but it doesn't support the argument you initially made.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday April 16 2019, @04:08AM
See my reply [soylentnews.org] to (presumably) your other post.
Also note the title of the article I quoted from: "Censorship by Proxy: The First Amendment,Internet Intermediaries, and the Problem of the Weakest Link". It's not about violation of privacy (though that is necessary to enabling more thorough censorship), but censorship by private proxy, precisely the issue I spoke of in the first place. From the abstract:
This is the problem. The US government has also sorts of options for obtaining censorship via proxy (and various other otherwise criminal activities): by threat or by quid pro quo arrangements with the business or with agents of the business. Nor is this ability somehow unique to the US government. It allows for governments to route around their own legal constraints in reaching for power.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday April 16 2019, @02:12AM (2 children)
Yet you were able to reduce all that to claiming it was about a single court case.
And what of the rest of this document. Is it too about a single court case? Or a very precise and detailed answer which for some reason you felt would not be forthcoming?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 16 2019, @03:05AM (1 child)
Did the US government do bad shit? Yes. Was that related to the specific topic at hand? No.
If you want to have a more general conversation about privacy, that's fine. But using unrelated stuff (privacy violations) to claim that the government is *forcing private companies to censor speech* is, at best, disingenuous.
Let's review. We started out with Takyon's comment [soylentnews.org]:
To which you replied [soylentnews.org]:
Then I made the point [soylentnews.org] that:
To which you replied [soylentnews.org]:
And I responded [soylentnews.org]:
At which point you started conflating invasions of privacy with censorship and have continued to run with it.
Invasion of privacy != censorship no matter how much you try to move the goalposts.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday April 16 2019, @03:57AM
Ok, let's look at the very first sentence of that quote:
Interdicting communication is censoring communication. Then in sentence two:
This incidentally was footnoted by the Zieper v. Metzinger court case which you had thought was somehow irrelevant.
So in the first two sentences, two separate cases where the federal government used private proxies to censor speech.