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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.
(Score: 3, Informative) by VLM on Wednesday January 29 2020, @12:20PM (11 children)
TIME magazine is concern trolling about this, carefully burying the details:
There are sites like reddit that are essentially Democratic Party online BBS with central control and censorship of political opinions in opposition to their party. No one seems to know why federal election regulations are never enforced online; kinda like no one knows why enforcing racketeering and corruption laws is an impeachable offense. Or for that matter why enforcing any immigration laws is a hate crime.
Its a "clown world" thing where laws are only enforced against certain political groups, and opposing that corruption is somehow a clear and present danger to democracy and free speech.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 29 2020, @12:40PM
Calling for existing laws to be enforced is actually a very dangerous move, it exposes the ritualistic nature of those laws, and forces the regime to allocate resources to something that does not benefit it.
(Score: 2, Redundant) by jmichaelhudsondotnet on Wednesday January 29 2020, @02:52PM (2 children)
reddit is not the dnc, it is israel.
The same people who call bernie sanders antisemitic and pretend the epstein scandal is more of a problem for the british royal family than israel, and refuse to even to allow the factual statement that epstein was jewish and used his victimhood to ask for fraudulent passports.
https://archive.is/Eu1Z4 [archive.is]
https://archive.is/TmRS6 [archive.is]
https://archive.ph/cVZBQ [archive.ph]
https://archive.is/EoIML [archive.is]
The usa is almost completely a vassal state now due to foreign banks and foreign media and now foreign mafia in the whitehouse, and taking over the republican party.
https://archive.is/xXs6r [archive.is]
This is the dialectic in play, it is a cohesive dominant cultural hegemony at this point with clearly definied characteristics, that are sadly evil:
https://archive.is/ws6XQ [archive.is]
#pickaside
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 29 2020, @03:05PM
#you're_wrong
#sidepicked
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday January 29 2020, @08:11PM
In a very handwavy sense all three are roughly the same people.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 29 2020, @06:13PM (3 children)
"There are sites like reddit that are essentially Democratic Party online BBS with central control and censorship of political opinions in opposition to their party."
You really aren't that bright are you? Maybe try visiting reddit some time, there is plenty of racist garbage on there with subreddits for every level of stupid, you'd love it! Reddit != The Internet. Facebook != The Internet. Should online services be forced to host any and all content? Of course not! Even Soylent News has a line, lest you forget Mr. Black Penis Envy who had a weird tourettes for his own desires.
Let us know when you are prevented from running your own website. In the meantime I'll paraphrase your own genius logic, don't like it? Then go build yer own!! Or are you just triggered that Voat couldn't draw users with the insane level of racism and hate that floated through their feed?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday January 29 2020, @07:42PM (1 child)
Besides, the same law protecting Reddit is protecting StormFront or wherever all the cool Nazis are hanging out at these days. And frankly, I'm OK with that.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday January 29 2020, @10:41PM
Stormfront harbors no intellectuals. I have gone there looking for such, because that worldview is unfathomable to me. It turns out the best proponents of it were Hitler and the Nazis; when you listen to what they had to say in their own words, it makes much more sense how Germans slipped into that ideology and how others elsewhere could do likewise again. That's important. Jews have done the entire world a huge, huge disservice in caricaturing the Nazis and reducing what they were about to a two-dimensional cartoon. It will bite them in the ass.
Escape from the cycle of which fascism is a part is not to be found in Marxism. Those are mirrors of each other. Freedom is the way out.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 29 2020, @08:09PM
VLM is the racist garbage on reddit!! Why do you think he feels so "oppressed"?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 29 2020, @06:19PM (2 children)
So to be clear here, the party line is that having the United States FBI (the group sworn to protect the constitution and the people and everything) investigating foreign calls and contacts with the Trump campaign is evil and wrong and terrible... however, withholding federally allocated money to Ukraine (who have no particular loyalty to the people of the US) to get them to investigate and badmouth a political opponent is good?
As a quick check, what would you think if Hillary Clinton had done this against Donald Trump? Would that also be okay?
(Score: 1, Redundant) by VLM on Wednesday January 29 2020, @07:56PM (1 child)
I believe you made a typo in
As nobody is making any claim that there was any investigation to do; Everyone in both countries accepts completely that the previous administration of which Biden was a part, accepted bribes from Ukraine sources.
Complaining about that gets the lefties all wound up about it. Its their old white male privilege to participate in organized crime; as St Greta would say "How dare you?"
AFAIK Bernie and AOC and frankly most of the left didn't accept bribes and was not under investigation.
It seems the easiest strategy to avoid an organized crime investigation is simply not to accept bribes and otherwise get involved in organized crime. Biden is no "above the law" Hillary, thats for sure.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 29 2020, @11:11PM
Evidence, motherfucker. Do you have any?
(Score: 5, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Wednesday January 29 2020, @12:49PM
The article brings up Prodigy.
As I recall that Prodigy case, they specifically advertised a more sanitary Internet. Said they would keep their users "safe", through censorship. Then some kid saw something objectionable, and the mother sued. And won. Prodigy tried to shelter under common carrier status, but because censorship was an official policy of theirs, it made them liable. That defense worked for ISPs who weren't monitoring and censoring, but not Prodigy.
I used Prodigy for a brief while in the 90s. I'm sure they were monitoring me. 3 times when I was trying to complain about an issue, my usually good connection mysteriously dropped. It _could_ have been coincidence. I never logged into Prodigy again, never paid them another dime, and did not respond to the next year's worth of mail from them (through the postal service, not emails) whining that my account was seriously delinquent. They also had policies that made cancellation of service unreasonably hard, you see. You had to give them written notice, 30 days in advance. Written notice sent via email didn't count, had to be sent through the post office. Lot of ISPs were pulling that one. And who knows but that notice might go missing, like my complaints. They finally gave up. Took them long enough to figure that one out. I have zero sympathy for Prodigy, and laughed at them when they lost that case.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Arik on Wednesday January 29 2020, @01:39PM (6 children)
It's NOT appropriate for a 'platform' which *does* exercise editorial control, whenever and however they see fit.
Goggle, bookface and the rest are currently getting to have their cake and eat it too. They have absolute and unfettered editorial control, they censor whenever and whatever they want, they are now publishers. They certainly should be stripped of this exemption as a result. That won't be any tragedy.
The tragedy that needs to be avoided is revoking 203 entirely. Entities that DO function as a common carrier deserve that protection, and it should be preserved for them.
Not for publishers.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by curunir_wolf on Wednesday January 29 2020, @01:59PM (1 child)
I am a crackpot
(Score: 3, Funny) by Arik on Wednesday January 29 2020, @02:11PM
Lysdexics of the world, untie!
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Wednesday January 29 2020, @03:45PM
They have absolute and unfettered editorial control, they censor whenever and whatever they want, they are now publishers.
That's ok. There are alternatives. If they were the only publisher, you would have a point. A publisher must have the same rights as anybody, until they become a real monopoly.
They certainly should be stripped of this exemption as a result.
Far as I'm concerned the law is a direct violation of the 1st amendment, you know, the part that says "no law". It explicitly prohibits all censorship by the state, the corrupt rulings to the contrary notwithstanding.
Unfortunately, censorship is getting more popular, and the 1st amendment less so. Such is life. We just have to build a fortified network
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday January 29 2020, @06:20PM (2 children)
SoylentNews exercises editorial control in it's story content. Should we be protected by Sec 230?
(Score: 2) by Arik on Wednesday January 29 2020, @07:16PM
Outside of that narrow scope, soylent does not seem to exercise any editorial control. Comments are not deleted, users are not banned for their opinion. Even the spam countermeasures are moderate, and completely content-neutral.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Wednesday January 29 2020, @08:40PM
We should be protected by the 1st amendment. The government is specifically prohibited from making any law against free speech, by the constitution, not by the people we pay to enforce it, they have other plans.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 4, Insightful) by curunir_wolf on Wednesday January 29 2020, @02:03PM
This guy is simply defending the status quo, and only because it benefits him. The ideology of the big tech curators is in line with his own. Twitter caters to mainstream journalists more than any other group.
I have to wonder if he would be singing the same tune if it was the opinions he agrees with that were considered not "ad-friendly" enough to be given a platform by the tech giants. I feel like he would be foaming at the mouth to get Section 230 repealed.
I am a crackpot
(Score: 2) by jmichaelhudsondotnet on Wednesday January 29 2020, @02:47PM
Moderation is a public interest job, private entities cannot do it properly.
The introduction of pervasive communications networks to society is a change to human society that the constitution and law can either adopt to, or which will result in private entities simply taking over the world, which is what we are seeing, ala Ethos Capital.
https://archive.is/2MFbn [archive.is]
https://archive.is/YxuED [archive.is]
https://archive.is/xXs6r [archive.is]
I have been advocating for this since around 2003 when I wrote a book about how this is all going to suck hard if we do not create a way to moderate at the very least factional conflict.
And if you look at what is going on right now in the U.S. Senate, what passes for debate and dialogue is an anti-intellectual sham, and this is supposed to be the 'highest deliberative body' in the land, or the world.
The two problems go hand in hand, and since no one can solve them without money, and all the people who have money enjoy it the way it is where they can do whatever they want with their money, everything sucks, unless you own a yacht.
All of my long form creations deal with this issue:
https://archive.is/9AhsD [archive.is] mr. rogers called before parallax board
https://archive.is/bRCdQ [archive.is] neo morph chat
https://archive.is/TjIwI [archive.is] snowpiercer
https://archive.is/cKeB9 [archive.is] metal 1
https://archive.is/9T2tC [archive.is] kung fu hustle zersetzung
https://archive.is/Ljm4X [archive.is] little big man iran
Especially,
https://archive.is/5b8cm [archive.is]
Which is to say that the internet in its current form is serving to censor any story the oligarchy says we can't hear, very effectively, to the point that even the most obvious expectations of the surveillance state, that i report at length, are considered outlandish, outside the scope of the possible.
That is very bad. Peoples' brains are being shredded by design and intent. Talk about dark psychic energy...which is to say this dilemma is itself suffering from a disinformation tactic of 'demand perfect solution' and 'declare impenatrable enigma' and 'poison the well of all possible solutions at time of birth.'
https://archive.is/5SRMf [archive.is] this fallacy applies to several dozen issues in the united states at the moment, where the mass media will simply not allow the discussion of the fact by moving goalposts, like with the robach situation where abc needed more than 36 witnesses to be able to say they could confirm the epstein story in 2016. mhm.
https://archive.is/blM4a [archive.is] this sort of mega ignorance, being broadcast, is just what oligarchic censorship leads to.
They are broadcasting via tv and asocial media, mental illness. And then saying the sane people are crazy.
Sad but true.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 29 2020, @03:09PM (1 child)
People are thinking that whether being allowed to post someplace that a private individual is paying for equates to free speech? And not whether someone has the right to pay for their own place to post their constitutionally protected speech?
Yeah. Next.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 29 2020, @03:55PM
I'd mod you Insighful if I could.
Not totally agreeing with "pay and you can speak freely", but if the cost of hosting is affordable within the disposable income of a partime minimal salary employee I think I could call it fair.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 29 2020, @03:49PM (2 children)
this is hard or not...
the "internet service provider" has no persistant storage. it has no water tank but just pipes. they facilitate data exchange but not data storage. so any laws governing "internet service providers" should be concerned with ... uhmm ... ah ... the quality of service of this data exchange. purely technical packet exchange. any kind of packet. lemme say again ANY packet, also those that start with "bit".
as for censorship, the owner of a persistant storage, say HDD, can allow others to write to it and, because he is the owner of said storage can do whatever s/he wants with it. that includes deleting stuff. or as other that already looked and parsed the data call it:"censorship".
if you dont like it, hock up jar ownz storage. afterall the isp cannot deny "outgoing" data from it if someone requests it and you, the owner of the storage, allows it.
anyways, that's how i see it ... if the government doesn't like it they have to physically go the location of the storage with some magical paper that ooozes with physical power -aka- court order and take it.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by fyngyrz on Wednesday January 29 2020, @04:56PM
The above is spot on as far as how things ought to work.
Unfortunately, that's not how they do work.
--
On censorship and repression:
Sweeping the trash under the bed just means
you don't know what's festering under there.
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Wednesday January 29 2020, @08:52PM
Plenty of ISPs also do hosting, you know. Some even still run their own email servers. Pity they seem to have all abandoned Usenet.
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday January 29 2020, @10:32PM (2 children)
Free speech means speech you don't want to hear.
It's aggravating to keep having to explain this to retards and Millennials (but I repeat myself), but free speech is not designed to protect words you want to hear. It is meant to protect words you are loathe to hear. Yes, that means hearing people called niggers, kikes, WOPs, crackers, chinks, gooks, fags, and every other pejorative. Note, those are not terms I have ever spoken myself, or wanted to speak, in any other context in my life. But if the fascists of the world want to prevent me from saying them, then I must say them. Because fuck them and their penchant for controlling what I think or say.
Voltaire said it best before, and I will echo it here: "I disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." It was his line in the sand, and it is mine also.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Thursday January 30 2020, @12:19AM
Your dedication to free speech is admirable, as I know from personal experience, but,
You are being trolled, Phoenix666! They are tricking you into normalization.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 30 2020, @08:58PM
Gonna have to agree with aristarchus here
"But if the fascists of the world want to prevent me from saying them, then I must say them."
I understand the sentiment, but please explain the fascism you're referring to. If it is stuff like Facebook/Reddit/Google censoring stuff on their own platforms, then yes you are being trolled with that freedom of speech argument.
What have the "retards and millenials" said that you had to correct so many times?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 30 2020, @03:49AM
first two paragraphs seem to be summarizable as 'i like 230'.
third and fourth paragraphs don't make it sound to me like 230 did anything other than restate precedent, cyberfied. I.e. Anybody could run a (non-cyber) 'zine with a photocopier, effectively becoming a newspaper, accept letters to the editor, poetry, fiction, whatnot just like bigger commercial publishers everyone is familiar with. And the newer smaller and existing larger publishers all had that same legal framework. But ok, 230 'declared' it, swell. Likewise anybody could throw a big ass lamitated/waterproofed bulletin board on the edge or their property, and feel free to take whatever down that they had allowed random passers by to post.
I'm sure 230 did some important, needing to be described in careful conditionalized terminology things, but I don't think the things this anonymous poster highlighted were any real kind of change. More like the elder 'challenged by blinking 12:00 vcrs' congress-critters coming to terms with cyberamplification of those longstanding at lesser scale free speech legal issues (that had plenty of established well enough known precedent).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 30 2020, @04:39PM
on this thread, it's fair to say that anonymous speech on the Internet isn't threatened. It is dead.