Just like with large privately owned social media platforms that manage a significant amount of discourse (Twitter, Reddit, etc), payment processors have an oligopoly on a significant portion of transactions in society. I feel Visa blacklisting a company based on vague political grounds like “hate speech” should be disallowed since it is not much different from the government banning a company based on speech (in terms of impact). We can probably expect other payment processors to follow suit, just like Visa and MasterCard teamed up to stop payments to Wikileaks in the past.
With these fundamental utility organizations becoming increasingly political, what options (legally/politically/technically) are there to work around them?
that’s interesting, I’ve noticed that too. Why don’t left wing viewpoints proliferate on free speech platforms? It’s almost like you have to enforce censorship for left wing viewpoints to thrive at all.
What's the old saying,"The population of a country where witch-hunts are illegal will be 5 civically minded libertarians and 1,000,000 witches?"
Get over it. I do not support or accept anything remotely related to Nazi rhetoric, but if you're going to have a place where any real important discussion can happen, you're going to end up with some unpleasant background noise. You work to get something done in spite of it or you suffer the loss of free, open, discourse.
Every time I hear someone complain about Nazis availing themselves of a platform it maps to the same place in which complaints about those ingracious, uppity, rebellious colonials get mapped to.
I want nice things. You can't build nice things that elevate and enable everyone without doing just that. As a result, you either grow some thicker skin, wade in, and build a decent place where you can be heard over the din of what you don't like, or accept you won't make it out of the comfortable echo chambers you've grown used to.
I go on platforms to find people who fundamentally disagree with me in the hopes I can win them over in the long run. Not to hear the sound of my own voice. It's just how the world works. If you're tired of Nazis, it's time to learn how to get through to one. You'll be living with them for the rest of your life otherwise.
Also, rant on free speech aside, this is the danger of politicization of key centralized infrastructure. Imagine for a minute we weren't talking about Visa doing generic financial transactions, but health insurance companies refusing to do business with people over political leanings. The transaction adjudication process is very similar in substance to that of a generic financial transaction system, so it isn't unreasonable to imagine as a possibility. So we should be exceedingly wary of this type of politically charged corporate activism, especially given the opaque, unaccountable nature of corporate governance.
Issues of a political nature should remain solidly in the political sphere. Get people to agree with you, filter it up through fundamentally political processes and infrastructure, and make the changes you want to see happen through the right channels. Backdooring things through exploitation of centralized Market position should be come down on hard.
It's why I patently reject the conclusions of Citizen's United. A corporation infrequently "substantively speaks" for its' constituent parts, and should not enjoy the luxury of protections intended to keep the Government from quashing individuals. Corporations are infrastructure; not people. To that end, if that infrastructure begins arbitrarily deciding that they are just fine leaving swathes of population without other options, that demands strong scrutiny, justification, and a weighing of factors to determine whether it represents an extrapolitical undermining of the rights of others.
Does that mean they should be forced at gunpoint to service people they don't want to? No. However, depending on size and how few options there are otherwise, I'd be more than happy to implement some sort of tax pool from which will be grown a seed fund to ensure competitors can be funded in the area, levied against the actor making capricious carve outs.
The Mom & Pop's of the world would have nothing to worry about. The near monopolies and utilities on the other hand will need to understand they skate on thin ice, and abuse of their market position to political ends will not be tolerated.
You want to enjoy the luxuries of not being second reusable or accountable to the public? Break up. That simple.
NOTE: Goddamnit, I wish some of the people who ended up being the benefactors of the principles we allegedly stand for weren't so prone to making the defense of them such an uncomfortable affair, but it's too easy to let your principles slip when everyone around you sees the thing you're denying relevance to as a slimeball. ...
Gab is an English-language social media website known for its far-right userbase.[8] The site has been widely described as a "safe haven"[9] for extremists including neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and the alt-right.[10]
Gab claims to stand for free speech and individual liberty,[a][25][26] though these claims have been criticized for being a shield of the alt-right ecosystem.[19][22] Antisemitism is a prominent part of the site's content,[28] and the platform itself has engaged in antisemitic commentary.[23][29] Researchers have written that Gab is "known to be hateful".[30]
18 comments
[ 4.3 ms ] story [ 45.0 ms ] threadWith these fundamental utility organizations becoming increasingly political, what options (legally/politically/technically) are there to work around them?
why are people accepting them even if they appear to be "doing the right thing" at the moment.
Get over it. I do not support or accept anything remotely related to Nazi rhetoric, but if you're going to have a place where any real important discussion can happen, you're going to end up with some unpleasant background noise. You work to get something done in spite of it or you suffer the loss of free, open, discourse.
Every time I hear someone complain about Nazis availing themselves of a platform it maps to the same place in which complaints about those ingracious, uppity, rebellious colonials get mapped to.
I want nice things. You can't build nice things that elevate and enable everyone without doing just that. As a result, you either grow some thicker skin, wade in, and build a decent place where you can be heard over the din of what you don't like, or accept you won't make it out of the comfortable echo chambers you've grown used to.
I go on platforms to find people who fundamentally disagree with me in the hopes I can win them over in the long run. Not to hear the sound of my own voice. It's just how the world works. If you're tired of Nazis, it's time to learn how to get through to one. You'll be living with them for the rest of your life otherwise.
Also, rant on free speech aside, this is the danger of politicization of key centralized infrastructure. Imagine for a minute we weren't talking about Visa doing generic financial transactions, but health insurance companies refusing to do business with people over political leanings. The transaction adjudication process is very similar in substance to that of a generic financial transaction system, so it isn't unreasonable to imagine as a possibility. So we should be exceedingly wary of this type of politically charged corporate activism, especially given the opaque, unaccountable nature of corporate governance.
Issues of a political nature should remain solidly in the political sphere. Get people to agree with you, filter it up through fundamentally political processes and infrastructure, and make the changes you want to see happen through the right channels. Backdooring things through exploitation of centralized Market position should be come down on hard.
It's why I patently reject the conclusions of Citizen's United. A corporation infrequently "substantively speaks" for its' constituent parts, and should not enjoy the luxury of protections intended to keep the Government from quashing individuals. Corporations are infrastructure; not people. To that end, if that infrastructure begins arbitrarily deciding that they are just fine leaving swathes of population without other options, that demands strong scrutiny, justification, and a weighing of factors to determine whether it represents an extrapolitical undermining of the rights of others.
Does that mean they should be forced at gunpoint to service people they don't want to? No. However, depending on size and how few options there are otherwise, I'd be more than happy to implement some sort of tax pool from which will be grown a seed fund to ensure competitors can be funded in the area, levied against the actor making capricious carve outs.
The Mom & Pop's of the world would have nothing to worry about. The near monopolies and utilities on the other hand will need to understand they skate on thin ice, and abuse of their market position to political ends will not be tolerated.
You want to enjoy the luxuries of not being second reusable or accountable to the public? Break up. That simple.
NOTE: Goddamnit, I wish some of the people who ended up being the benefactors of the principles we allegedly stand for weren't so prone to making the defense of them such an uncomfortable affair, but it's too easy to let your principles slip when everyone around you sees the thing you're denying relevance to as a slimeball. ...
Gab is an English-language social media website known for its far-right userbase.[8] The site has been widely described as a "safe haven"[9] for extremists including neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and the alt-right.[10]
Gab claims to stand for free speech and individual liberty,[a][25][26] though these claims have been criticized for being a shield of the alt-right ecosystem.[19][22] Antisemitism is a prominent part of the site's content,[28] and the platform itself has engaged in antisemitic commentary.[23][29] Researchers have written that Gab is "known to be hateful".[30]
Wikipedia.