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posted by martyb on Wednesday January 29 2020, @10:47AM   Printer-friendly
from the speak-up-now dept.

The Growing Threat to Free Speech Online:

There are times when vitally important stories lurk behind the headlines. Yes, impeachment is historic and worth significant coverage, but it's not the only important story. The recent threat of war with Iran merited every second of intense world interest. But what if I told you that as we lurch from crisis to crisis there is a slow-building, bipartisan movement to engage in one of most significant acts of censorship in modern American history? What if I told you that our contemporary hostility against Big Tech may cause our nation to blunder into changing the nature of the internet to enhance the power of the elite at the expense of ordinary Americans?

I'm talking about the poorly-thought-out, poorly-understood idea of attempting to deal with widespread discontent with the effects of social media on political and cultural discourse and with the use of social media in bullying and harassment by revoking or fundamentally rewriting Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.

[...] In 1996, [Congress] passed Section 230. The law did two things. First, it declared that "No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider." In plain English, this means that my comments on Twitter or Google or Yelp or the comments section of my favorite website are my comments, and my comments only.

But Section 230 went farther, it also declared that an internet provider can "restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable" without being held liable for user content. This is what allows virtually all mainstream social media companies to remove obscene or pornographic content. This allows websites to take down racial slurs – all without suddenly also becoming liable for all the rest of their users' speech.

It's difficult to overstate how important this law is for the free speech of ordinary Americans. For 24 years we've taken for granted our ability to post our thoughts and arguments about movies, music, restaurants, religions, and politicians. While different sites have different rules and boundaries, the overall breadth of free speech has been extraordinary.

[...] Large internet companies that possess billions of dollars in resources would be able to implement and enforce strict controls on user speech. Smaller sites simply lack the resources to implement widespread and comprehensive speech controls. Many of them would have no alternative but to shut down user content beyond minimalist input. Once again, the powerful would prevail.


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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Wednesday January 29 2020, @10:27PM (6 children)

    by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us (6553) on Wednesday January 29 2020, @10:27PM (#950886) Journal

    And it is no way fascist censorship. We are not talking about what government can or cannot allow you to say.

    Your argument is akin to, "I'm free to swing my fists wherever they want and if they intercept your nose then it's your fault for feeling the pain and/or not getting out of the way."

    And you're right. We are on such diametric poles on this that there will be no agreement. Only presentation of where we differ to let others who read decide.

    But it all comes back to whether or not you think your rights are unlimited. And I think we've been down this road before: I believe rights have limits and responsibilities. You do not. So yeah, there won't be any way to bridge that little gap.

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  • (Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Wednesday January 29 2020, @11:15PM (5 children)

    by fustakrakich (6150) on Wednesday January 29 2020, @11:15PM (#950902) Journal

    Some rights do have limits, never said otherwise. And the article is about government censorship, and how it uses the civilian marketplace to enforce it. Anyone that acts as an agent of the government should be under the same constitutional constraints as the government itself. So, it is up to us to demand the same from the ISPs. They are acting under and by the authority of the government. Our failure to overcome this problem necessitates the creation of technology to do it for us, to mechanize the process, like any other machine. We had to invent airplane in order to temporarily free us from the bonds of gravity. Now we need something to free us from the shackles of censorship and all forms of fascism.

    Poetry, baby!

    --
    La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
    • (Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Thursday January 30 2020, @07:54PM (2 children)

      by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us (6553) on Thursday January 30 2020, @07:54PM (#951373) Journal

      Interesting. I disagree, because there is nothing in this law that renders Facebook or Twitter to be an agent of the government. They do not "have authority of" nor do they act for the government. They have laws they must obey and protections they are afforded under the law. That is nowhere near "being" government. If they did they would, for example, be able to do things like arrest copyright violators or append fines directly to your account for violations. (And no, not in favor of that....)

      (It also calls up the argument of whether censorship is limited to government or if it is censorship at all when private entities enforce their own policies, but that's been argued to death).

      I'd also very much doubt that you will ever find a technology which will give the freedom you seek. One can't use technology to fix a problem with human nature. (IMO). And if it could.... then the other side would employ a counter exploit to get their way. Which is scarier. But being wrong about that would also be interesting.

      The other thing... People are free to be fascists, socially or voluntarily. Companies are free to enact certain (but not all) fascist policies. Just as they are free to be Antifa. Or you run the risk of biting your own tail of liberty. I think you confuse social fascism with allowing government to be fascist or take fascist actions, which is something one must indeed guard against, especially when they gain the reins of government leadership.

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      • (Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Thursday January 30 2020, @10:17PM (1 child)

        by fustakrakich (6150) on Thursday January 30 2020, @10:17PM (#951458) Journal

        If the government tells Facebook to take something down or put something up, and yes, even when answering a warrant. Facebook's action is an act of the government. And, let's not forget all those NSLs that we can only speculate about. Secret letters and secret laws do exist.

        I'd also very much doubt that you will ever find a technology which will give the freedom you seek.

        Maybe yes, maybe no, but it sure can't hurt to keep looking, and to reduce the authorities' advantage as much as possible. So, it's going to be an eternal arms race until people quit stomping on each other. The biggest problem right now is obedience. We are supposed remind the government it is there to serve, not command

        --
        La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
        • (Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Monday February 03 2020, @05:43PM

          by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us (6553) on Monday February 03 2020, @05:43PM (#953193) Journal

          Secret letters exist. Secret laws.... well, the trouble is that you'd have to find one to know it is there. I'm much more worried about administrative regulations (that carry the force of law). And from your perspective I'd see that as a meaningless distinction.

          When a business complies with a subpoena or a letter or something else from government it just doesn't make them a government agent, but as I suspected there's no way we can reach agreement on that.

          But I'll walk back what I said a little: We know that things like end-to-end encryption and drive locking is possible. I still don't believe in a foolproof system that could not be hacked or compromised by technology, although I hear Apple is getting close. ;) Even if one could do so, the powers that be will not allow that to stand. Even if the technology stands there is always the wrench problem [xkcd.com]. Government's most noble purpose is to serve, yes. But to serve whom and why are the million dollar questions. Anyway, thanks for sharing!

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          This sig for rent.
    • (Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Monday February 03 2020, @03:49AM (1 child)

      by hendrikboom (1125) Subscriber Badge on Monday February 03 2020, @03:49AM (#953005) Homepage Journal

      Canadian law asserts certain rights, and also recognizes that rights may be in conflict.

      • (Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Monday February 03 2020, @04:43AM

        by fustakrakich (6150) on Monday February 03 2020, @04:43AM (#953020) Journal

        My whole point is that any law limiting free speech, no matter what country, has to be rendered moot by any means we can dream up. Since free speech isn't very popular, we are totally dependent on finding/creating a technology that no authority can control or shut down. Untethering from the ISP will go a long way

        --
        La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..