Ask HN: So Censorship is ok in post 2021?
For me, it noticeably started with Youtube and Reddit. Extreme censorship in the name of copyright or 'toxicity'.
Companies used to do press release if they would ban something off their platform justifying with proof. But now, say a word that may make any advertiser unhappy and get deplatformed in an instant (cue: twitch). Infact, have some figurative association with someone unpopular and get banned, for no fault of your own.
So much for "I Will Defend to the Death Your Right to Say It."
And very much of the following situation...
First they came for ...Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
For all the 'future' talk YC does, YC companies are sure leading censorship platforms. Both twitch and reddit ban as much as possible. Is that the future they wanted to be like?
- not impartial anymore
- don't care about freedom of speech, esp if it's remotely negative toward bottom line
Old internet is dead, Welcome to facist family friendly lobbyists approved programming for your minds.
45 comments
[ 2.5 ms ] story [ 101 ms ] threadedit: in response to Karunamon, I understand that. But nobody is stopping you from having these discussions on your own platform. Other people do not need to or are obligated to host whatever you want to spew. Nobody is obligated to let you use their platform for free. You can have your speech, copyright infringing content, etc. somewhere on the internet and it will be accessible to the rest of the internet. Forums exist, domain registrars that are not in the US exist.
I don't understand how straight theft of content (for example video game clip stealing and covering in donation links that don't benefit anyone but the SEO spammer) is considered censorship. Nobody wants that crap. It benefits nobody other than spammers and wastes server resources.
> But now, say a word that may make any advertiser unhappy and get deplatformed in an instant (cue: twitch).
Come on, nobody is being banned from twitch for saying Mountain Dew Game Fuel tastes like shit. PogChamp was removed because the dude spouts nonstop conspiracy theories on the validity level of 5G causing HIV. They are being banned for repeatedly and continuously spamming, ban evading and sexually harassing people (re: simp-esque stuff).
> Both twitch and reddit ban as much as possible.
Parler also banned as much as possible anybody that didn't agree with their viewpoints, didn't they?
> family friendly lobbyists approved programming for your minds
This has not been the case since self-hosting, home pages, tilde-accounts (~username public_html) ended quite a long time ago. No more customisation like in the earlier days - Neopets and MySpace both let you use HTML, CSS, and often helped teach kids them.
For a long time past that era it's been "insert your personal information into these well defined boxes and we will ban you if you enter anything false while selling all your data to as many people as possible". The internet for over a decade now has been built to _consume_, not produce.
Devil's advocate: you agreed to these terms that they can pull anything advertiser unfriendly or deemed abusive by posting your content on a third party privately-owned service; nobody is stopping you from running your own. "Oh we can't scale as much as AWS" is not a good excuse. If the Big Four don't want to touch you there are plenty that will.
In a past web forum I did infrastructure for, without sufficient moderation and constant updates to captchas/challenge questions, we would get over 25k signups a day (100 legitimate signups a day), and over 500k spam posts a day (<5k legit). You'd be sending every single client multiple-digit terabytes of literal spam, much of it illegal spam (CC theft dump sales, illegal online pharmacy, are common spam) and making them dig through it.
Imagine viewing a single thread, and downloading about 5GB a page of gzipped viagra ads covered in the entire text content of a Harry Potter book in a desperate attempt to get past some filter, and then having to filter through to get the one or two posts.
My entire problem with censorship, philosophically, is some unwanted third party making demands on my information input. The goals of moderation need not be at odds with my goal to determine for myself what I wish to read. Categorization and shared filter lists could go a long way here.
It seems like we want the same thing. If we don't have any kind of moderation, then that filtering is pushed out to each and every leaf node, instead of being handled centrally, and this is a huge demand on my attention for information input. Do you remember how bad email spam had gotten before we developed effective server-side spam filtering? Email had become basically unusable.
The categorization is handled upstream. The decision of what to do with that information is left to me. I think that's the ideal model.
'Freedom of speech', however, is not the 1st amendment. It is an ethical precept, not a law. It's like how 'don't cheat on your wife' doesn't mean you get thrown in jail, but you'll generally be seen as a 'bad guy'.
I am sick of reading this. Everybody already knows this, at least the "everybody" that posts on HN and I'd wager a good chunk of the rest of the country.
Anyone saying "free speech" is not necessarily referring to the first amendment of the constitution. Can we please, please stop parroting this "well ackchually" correction around as if it contributes in any meaningful way to any discussion? It isn't an interesting observation anymore, if it ever was, and it certainly won't be interesting the next thousand times its made.
Implying conflation of the first amendment with the principle it protects is at best a thought-terminating cliché, at worst intentional bad faith. At least on tech boards. YMMV on Facebook with your relatives.
In response to the edit above, which was a stealth edit instead of a reply for some reason:
Yes, you have repeated the exact same song and dance I complain about here. You have added nothing to the discussion that we haven't already heard hundreds of times here and elsewhere. The discussion is about "should", not "is". We all know what the law "is".
USA is not the World. The World is not USA. It is high time we get out of this mentality.
Had the author of this Ask HN framed his question more honestly, and said something like "Should private companies be able to refuse to publish what I want to say?" they'd get very few responses saying no. But that doesn't serve their narrative, so they framed the question as one about the right to speak at all, rather than the right to be published by a specific private business. If anyone is posting in bad faith its the author of this Ask HN.
There are so many problems that need solving 2021 and beyond in order to maintain and civil and fair society.
I don't believe it's going to be the platforms to lead the charge, it's going to have to come from lawmakers.
When you can't tell the difference between a right wing US citizen and a Russian intelligence operative on an anonymous internet forum, there is a big problem.
When media is able to distribute blatant lies and get away with it (and when the media is so heavily concentrated) there is a problem.
When a certain political demographic can silence individuals with no oversight, there is a problem.
There are lots of problems and it's going to be hard to solve them, but we should try.
Imagine if there was no "Russian Intelligence Operative" and it was right wing Americans all along. I'm sure Putin will be mighty pleased that he is being given so much credit for having destabilized a Superpower by doing literally nothing. Can you imagine the ego boost he would be getting out of it? If there is a way to self-destruct Americans have for sure found a way to do it. Irrational fears about Russians meddling in elections while saying in the same breath that mail-in ballots cannot be subject to fraud. Do you see how disconnected both arguments are? On one hand you say a foreign adversary can easily influence your election but in the same breath you say domestic actors cannot influence elections. Either your elections are so weak that they can be manipulated or they can't. Can't have it both ways. And yet Americans believe both stories coming from the same party and accept that it must be true.
[0] https://www.allenandunwin.com/browse/books/academic-professi...
Yesterday, we saw the American corporate board take actions that used to be the sole purview of a government. They did this at a time while the current administration (the one they harmed) pursues anti-trust lawsuits against them. This is a clear blurring in the distinction between the incoming administration's government and corporations. The incoming administration would do best to criticize the banning of their opposition. Not only would it make them look like they're taking the 'higher road', it would put them in line with other major liberal western powers, such as Germany, France, etc, all of whom have condemned what happened yesterday. However, instead, we have seen the embrace of these corporate actions by the new congress. It is especially concerning when the incoming president took more donations than his opposition from large corporations [2].
This is very concerning, and -- unlike the constant doom-predictions of 'fasciscm' of the last four years, which have been made without any attention paid to the history of fascism -- brings us closer to actual fascism -- that is to say, the merger of corporations, unions, and government -- than any action of the last four years. That is not to say we're Nazi Germany by any means (for that we'd have to start injecting the language of racial superiority into the picture), but I just want to point this out. The number of people cheering uncritically (especially those in government) is incredibly concerning.
References:
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism#Corporatist_economic_s... [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/20/us/politics/joe-biden-don... [3] https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1933/07/10/119...
Exact quote since it's behind a paywall:
"Asked if, after four years or twenty years of dictator ship, he foresaw the resumption of parliamentary government in Germany, the Chancellor [Hitler] paused: 'Yes,' he said finally, 'but with a Parliament of another and better type, in which representation will be on a technical basis. Such a development is the Italian corporative State.' (this is what I reference above on Wikipedia)
VC as it is today is absolutely toxic.
I'm open to ideas of how to best deal with extremist thought (and subsequent action), and I do feel simply arguing that speech should be fully free is nice but a tad too reductive and dogmatic.
Whatever my thoughts on what we /should/ do, I feel what's happening now is way too knee-jerk and a possible lead-up to policy that just gives 'the powers that be' more power, and that's worrying.
But once you introduce Censorship there is no turning back. Once authority tastes power they'll want to keep using it more and more. Just like Surveillance, Censorship will become a powerful tool in the hands of the powerful. It always starts with a valid justification.
This is an incredibly honest question. I typically ask it, people give me examples, and then I think back to previous presidents in my lifetime (none of whom I've supported, mind you), and can recall pretty much equivalent situations. Then the person I speak with gets angry and walks away really mad at me for what feels like simply remembering things that have happened in my life. I cannot understand it, and frankly, the simple refusal of people to actively engage has made me go from not liking Trump for his personality, to honestly finding him a hero. Please, will someone calmly explain to me what is extreme about Trump's policies?
I don't label Democrat policies as extreme despite no longer being part of that party and not agreeing with any of them. I don't understand the hyperbole.
I have always supported Trump over here when no one was coming out in his support. Got down voted heavily too. You can see my comments to know where I stand on this. In fact, he is the least extreme US President I have seen till date.
No matter what the majority thinks I have personally looked into policies that Trump has gotten pushed either through his executive orders or through the Congress and every single policy I have agreed to. I'm not even an American. I'm an Indian. Trump has targeted India when it comes to trade and imposed tariffs. Quite frankly I feel he was completely in the right for doing so. The deficit between our countries was too huge in terms of trade and it needed to be balanced out. There is a time and place for jingoism but not when truth is staring in your face. So you'll find more people in India pro-Trump than you'll find even in America perhaps. We can't forget his help in making sure China comes around and removed the block on UN sanctions against terrorist Maulana Masood Azhar. Obama couldn't get it done as China never took him seriously. Trump got it done. You can read more about it here: https://www.google.com/amp/s/m.economictimes.com/news/intern...
But I would definitely call the ones who stormed US Capitol as insurrectionists. There is no excuse for that behaviour. If at all, it damaged Trump more than it helped him. I mean the entire premise of Trump supporters being different from left-wing supporters was one knows to protest peacefully while the other indulges in riots and arson. I was extremely disappointed when I saw it go out of hand at the US Capitol. This is not what I expected. But nevertheless it happened and cannot be reversed.
But what really redpilled me was the impeachment farce where he literally was impeached for investigating his predecessor for crimes we now know occurred. That sends a very chilling message.
Exactly right. Thanks for keeping an open mind and not getting caught up in this frenzy of opposing Trump just for the heck of it. I can understand how hard it is to be in America right now and be a Trump supporter.
> But what really redpilled me was the impeachment farce where he literally was impeached for investigating his predecessor for crimes we now know occurred. That sends a very chilling message.
Spot on.
For example, while I believe the democratic party spurred on or sat back in silence while BLM and Antifa rioted, most democratic politicians did not do anything that deserves censorship. Even Kamala Harris's financial support of those who looted and destroyed police stations in Minneapolis should not be censored -- the bail she asked for was a completely legal thing to provide.
As for the sixth, Trump's posts were entirely peaceful. He consistently asked for a peaceful demonstration. There are those claiming that using phrasing like 'fight' or 'take your country back', etc, incite violence. I do not believe that for one minute. Banning the opposition from saying they should 'fight' the incumbents or 'take the country back' from them seems incredibly dangerous. Even such colorful language as asking for politicians heads on a platter should not be banned (I recall several incidences of twitter accounts depicting Trump's beheading).
Politics in general leads to strong emotions. People have strong emotions over politicians. English has lots of colorful language for people we don't like. I believe the standards for 'violence' against politicians ought to be much lower than for calling for violence against people, especially non-governmental agents. For example, I do believe some of the BLM incitement of anger that instructed people to burn or loot local businesses (especially when that anger and mob then led to deaths), ought to have been soundly condemned, and I believe twitter should have flagged it and taken some measures to punish the account (although I still think outright censorship for one post would be overkill).
This is because these posts direct anger indiscriminately at people of a certain class, not one specific person who may actually have power. I find those kinds of posts highly problematic, and those would be the first I would censor, but again, I think we have seen only a handful of those over the past year. Certainly, I don't think any major politician has reached that bar.
So no, I do not believe in no censorship ever, I just have very open standards as to what speech to allow that would mainly have me allowing the vast majority of speech. I am not going to tighten my standards simply because left-wingers find them distasteful or want to accuse me of being a free speech zealot. I've stood on these same principles since when I was a democrat, and I'll stand on them now.
Imagine in the year 2300, 95% of the population is atheist and they deplatform anyone talking about religion because they're spreading dangerous lies. Imagine if on the year 1400 there was internet, and they would deplatform any atheist debunking religion as spreading dangerous lies. You can find examples in the political realm, imagine in Nazi Germany, or in Stalin Russia, that they would deplatform anyone spreading ideas not aligned with the regime.
As you said, "I don't agree with what you said, but I Will Defend to the Death Your Right to Say It."