Then platforms got kicked off the platform platforms "build your own platform platforms"

What reason is there to assume those platform platforms will not get kicked off the platform platform platforms?

These people are not arguing in good faith.

The spirit of your complaint here is "there should be a reasonably easy path for me to widely distribute my message without getting the rug pulled out from under me". There is exactly one way to distribute your message, and whether it is easy or hard is up to you. That is: satisfy the requirements of every platform you build on top of, and fill in the rest by creating your own infrastructure and audience.

I believe in common spaces, and like I said I am glad that if you drill down far enough you will find distributed* protocols that aren't opinionated about your content. Feel free to start there and build an ecosystem and audience - that is how the world discovers who wants to participate in a particular kind of dialogue.

The * is that of course central censorship exists at the Telecom and government levels. I (directly) support distributed private protocols to ensure that people can choose to find the information they want as easily as possible. But doing so emphatically doesn't and shouldn't guarantee you an audience.

The spirit of your complaint here is "there should be a reasonably easy path for me to widely distribute my message without getting the rug pulled out from under me".

There is a reasonably easy path to do exactly that. But it has dependencies, and certain people are manipulating these dependencies in any which way they can to control online discourse. And you're cheering them on, pretending that not publishing someone's article is exactly the same as closing someone's bank account on hearsay.

And yet I am 100% sure that if someone started following you around and pressuring companies to close your accounts and stop any dealings with you, you would immediately decry it as grave injustice and invent some reason why it's "different".

>I believe in common spaces

In hypothetical ones, that don't exist.

>Feel free to start there and build an ecosystem and audience - that is how the world discovers who wants to participate in a particular kind of dialogue.

So, what exactly in your arguments binds them, preventing you from saying the exact same things about this hypothetical zero-layer public space when it gets sabotaged? Nothing, really. You will just say "you're still free to build another one, somehow".

When PayPal start banning clients based on their activity outside of monetary transactions, PayPal effectively condemns certain points of view. Which might sound sensible at first, if the views are questionable, but it also implies that not banning an account is a way of endorsing the holder. And just like that, you arrive at the conclusion that PayPal and other service providers are responsible for the moral quality of all their clients, and not just can but have to ban clients who transgress. How's that for freedom of association?

PayPal publicly condemned certain points of view long before Gab: prohibiting "the promotion of hate, violence, racial intolerance or the financial exploitation of a crime" was part of the TOS when Gab signed up, as was the fact that the definition of those things was up to PayPal. They don't seem to share you're opinion that non-fraudulent monetary transactions are the only aspect of their business.

And as far as anyone having to ban clients who transgress, when did that happen? As we've tossed around in other threads, you can loudly and proudly make not-banning the core of your business. But you're expressing a personal priority for diverse expression (or at least the type of expression you make welcome, c.f. Gab's Pepe) that other people might not share, or might not prioritize the same way you do. Freedom of association means you make your choice and other people make theirs.

[1] https://blog.cloudflare.com/why-we-terminated-daily-stormer/

This attempt to frame deplatforming as something enacted by concerned stakeholders is out of touch with reality. It usually involves partisan press, activist organizations and whipped-up online crowds with no stake in the platform they're trying to affect. It takes about 10 seconds of web searching to find all three in Gab's case. @deplatfromhare and so on.

>Never mind when a platform manager like Matt Prince [1] goes out of his way to make it clear he is autocratically representing his own judgement, after grappling with the very real moral trade-offs involved in excluding someone.

Why are you switching attention to a completely different incident all of a sudden? Are you claiming that this single example disproves many other instances of deplatforming occur due to blatantly obvious external pressure?

Speaking of Cloudflare:

https://www.thedailybeast.com/cloudflare-and-its-free-speech...

"Tech companies have cut ties with the extremist-friendly website Gab, but digital security company Cloudflare appears to be standing by the site."

It is absolutely laughable to say there is no bullying going on when the press is fully of articles that point fingers and draw spurious correlations.

>PayPal publicly condemned certain points of view long before Gab: prohibiting "the promotion of hate, violence, racial intolerance or the financial exploitation of a crime" was part of the TOS when Gab signed up, as was the fact that the definition of those things was up to PayPal.

My post above talks specifically about "banning clients based on their activity outside of monetary transactions". PayPal TOS apply only to such transactions:

  You may not use the PayPal service for activities that [...] relate to transactions 
  involving [...] the promotion of hate, violence

If this isn't about the owner, then it is about the website. So the question is whether hosting hateful content of your users does by itself constitute "promotion of hate". Considering that PayPal does business with Cloudflare the answer seems to be a resounding "no".

By all accounts, this does not look like a consistent application of TOS.

>Freedom of association means you make your choice and other people make theirs.

That is not what it means and what you described here is not freedom, but law of the jungle.

Like I said above, the only context in which deplatformers engage in this faux-libertarianism is after they've gotten their way. The moment the tactic stops working or applies to them, they switch back to moralistic arguments or demands for regulation.

Moreover, this argument was initially used to advocate for deletion of specific content on normal websites. Then it was used for banning individuals from large communication platforms. Now the exact same thing is being said about simultaneous multi-company service termination for a messaging platform with hundreds of thousands of users. As if those things are logically equivalent scenarios.

It it not a consistent position, but mere convenient nonsense.

For someone claiming the moral high ground enfranchising speech, you seem pretty free basing arguments on knowing that certain voices should be ignored. Fortunately, we can skip the boring discussion about the character of different activist groups because it's the listener's opinion that matters -- in this case, the platforms who thought these folks (or their ideas) were worth listening to.

> Speaking of Cloudflare...

I brought up Prince as evidence that platform managers are making their own decisions, not being bullied by crowds. Framing them as victims belittles their agency, ignores their responsibility, and perpetuates this BS chain of victimhood that is required by your arguments in order to make deplatforming look like a conspiracy rather than a big swath of society trying to spend less time with a few jerks.

And of course Cloudflare (or FreeDNS) have the same right to provide services to Gab that others did to deny it. Digressing for a second, I'm personally glad that Prince et al. hold a steeper standard for cutting service than Facebook or even PayPal. DDOS'ing is an infringement of freedom of speech in a way that deplatforming isn't, and right now we're all depending on a very few companies like Cloudflare to be the equivalent of a police force that maintains any notion of commons.

> ...By all accounts, this does not look like a consistent application of TOS.

PayPal felt Gab itself was getting paid, through PayPal, to run a platform that promoted hate speech. That's related to the transaction, and related to the TOS. You can disagree with them, and people can post potentially irrelevant screenshots, but both are sideshow.

> the only context in which deplatformers engage in this faux-libertarianism is after they've gotten their way

Yet again, you're resorting to ad-hominem about the long-term behavior of a group you're barely bothering to define. You don't know anything about me outside this conversation. Lots of different people support or are fine with deplatforming, and many of us also care about the quality of the commons on which the deplatformed can continue to exercise their speech.

But instead of yet another conversation about which broadly defined online group says the most dumb things, why don't you put forward a concrete vision of what your definition of free speech is? It seems to me like it involves something like a right to an audience (sincerely, how is that not a right to force people to interact with to you?). Or perhaps some sort of protected class situation, where you want to clearly define the difference between "passively" enforcing TOS and singling someone out (what would that look like?).

Because that is not the correct response to someone who casually describes eight hundred thousand users as "a few jerks". Or someone who smugly dismisses a well-reasoned article by saying the author "beats an ocean with a stick". If you insist on promoting gross misrepresentations of reality, all you will get in response is well-deserved pushback. The ideas and constructive suggestions will flow to people who actually listen.

As for the article, I obviously disagree that it was well reasoned, but I regret implying that the author is foolish. The point of the ocean metaphor is that you can't and shouldn't try to stop people from making their own choices about whom to associate with - which is what you are doing when you say all views are entitled to an audience. I've dug in with you on this thread because I think that "free speech = free audience" is a potentially attractive fallacy that risks degrading both individual rights and tractable notions of free speech.

But at this point it looks like we're done talking to each other, and nobody else cares about this thread. Nuff said.

This sounds simple, until you realise the requirements aren't well-defined, or that the definitions can be changed arbitrarily (and retroactively) by the platforms.

Here is the problem though: The platform of platforms, then, is politics, if we want to keep biology out of the picture.

And the thing with politics these days is, that the state, as a system, is compulsive. I cannot leave the state, I am not free to do so.

In other words, the most underlying platform is not of my choice and therefore it is not as simple as you are making it out to be.

I like your thinking framework and agree with it.

"We don't want your sort on our platform because reasons" ought to be concerning at a much wider level (and not just to the sort that apparently aren't wanted on the platform).

We can all think of things we would ban if we ran hosting providers. We all know there's a line. Why are we pretending there isn't?

"Bigoted messages"? Would that be content that's

* against the law

and/or

* against the upstream AUP/TOS

and/or

* "someone said something that offended someone else"

>> that have gotten people killed

Not wishing to pour more gasoline on the raging fire, but ... source?

As you suggest, they have no individual legal obligation to serve a business that may cause bad press/high risk/whatever. But when you can enough of them pointing in the same direction, it creates the chilling effect-- a business that's technically legal but can't get the services they need. It basically creates am unspoken private regulation well beyond the actual law of the state.

I tend to think the answer might be non-profit or state-run "service providers of last resort" -- charter-bound to provide service for any legal purpose, no matter how distasteful. Not necessarily cheap or slick, but they won't pull your plug because people complain about your content. Such a provider would defang the deplatforming strategy pretty fast.

They can get it, but have to pay for that. Just like the porn industry had to build their own payment providers.

The chilling effect is working as intended. You need something in society to make people find common ground and live in a similar reality. The current US seems like a great example of people not being able to do so. They blame more and more blame other side for their problems. And i wonder if that trend can be reversed before you guys start shooting each other.

Recent developments like social media made and the US TV landscape make it easier than ever to live in your favorite filter bubble. Algorithms getting better and better at giving you what you want to hear. I don't see developments emerging to counteract that.

If de-platforming is bullet we have to bite for society to keep functioning, than so be it. It's still somewhat mild tool you can work around... i take that over government intervention any time.

There are two problems with that argument.

First, it's nowhere near as trivial as you make it sound. A one man shop could potentially build and maintain a custom forum service himself, but trying to create a real-world ready payment processing infrastructure from scratch is going to mean a team of tens of specialists.

The porn industry was able to solve it because it was a big, industry-wide problem that left a lot of money on the table-- a need big enough to create a market for specialists.

Second, it may not be possible to bypass every firm that presents a deplatforming risk. The porn industry may have avoided rejection by the mainstream gateway providers, but they're still dependent on retaining good relationsips with Visa and Mastercard at the end of the day. I'd think those guys are the nuclear option for deplatforming-- no matter who you line up to take your payments, if you can't accept 90% of the cards on the market, you're not going to be able to monetize effectively.

Yes, but this is how the free market works. That my $.25 artisanal dog cupcake business can't get the services it needs at the price I can afford doesn't raise complaints.

But when we replace dog cupcakes with Nazi chat rooms, suddenly we need the government to step in and subsidize a business which the market has shown is not worth it. In economic terms, the "distaste" of a client is an externality, and there is an increase in price associated with that externality. If the company can't afford it that's just the market at work. So the government providing a platform like this is just the government subsidizing business with negative externalities that the free market was correct tly pricing. It's like subsidies for strip mining or fracking or rhino poaching. But this is something you support in this case.

It's odd to me.

> I tend to think the answer might be non-profit or state-run "service providers of last resort" -- charter-bound to provide service for any legal purpose, no matter how distasteful.

And what if my distateful venture needs redis or windows 10 or a spanner like distributed database, or whatever other service your unflashy system doesn't provide?

Then either I can't get off the ground anyway, or you require that the government service maintain feature parity with all the others, neither of which seems viable.

If you can't get services you need at any price isn't that when competition authorities [ought to] start investigating?

Given the unwelcome resurgence of the right worldwide, that day may come sooner than you think.

Only then did businesses stop associating with those people, because the government was implicitly threatening them.

It was exactly the government's interference that caused the deplatforming of potential leftists during the red scare.

Please cite examples of these widespread small scale, grassroots anti-leftist incidents.

When we start throwing that word around, along with describing groups as "far right" (or indeed "far left") when they've started getting more votes than the [previously] mainstream groupings, we appear have a problem with nomenclature.[0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hessian_state_election,_2018 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bavarian_state_election,_2018 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_presidential_election,_... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austrian_legislative_election,...

There are four levels of power (kind of) => government, employer, social, individual. Whenever you're in an argument, assume that the other side is advocating for the top level to enforce something so you can call them oppresive, and claim that you're advocating for the bottom level (and that that level should be free to do as it likes).

Nothing in this article mentions passing a law and he even mentions several times that it's within their rights. It's therefore clearly discussing level 3 and 4 (trying to effect cultural change at the level of the individual. For you to weigh in as if he's arguing for passing an insane freedom of speech is disingenuous.

I think you've inadvertently overlooked how the 3 parent replies above you were discussing hypotheticals. In other words, each reply tried to elaborate what the alternate universes of free/censored speech might look like:

- evrydayhustling's hypothetical: "What would it look like for an "anti-deplatforming" initiative to succeed? [...]"

- im3w1l's hypothetical: "What reason is there to assume those platform platforms will not get kicked off the platform [...]"

- amputect's hypothetical: "What's the alternative to "build your own platforms" though. Are you willing to compel Stripe by threat of force [...]"

Commenters can bring up hypothetical laws or attempt to predict hypothetical outcomes even though the article itself doesn't mention creating a new law.

(It's also possible that the middle reply in the chain of hypotheticals by im3w1l was misinterpreted as a call for a government law even though he doesn't explicitly state it. Sometimes people read between the lines and misconstrue the commenter's intent. It does seem like im3w1l's statement of "These people are not arguing in good faith" is implying that the mechanisms of the free market and free association wouldn't work for marginalized ideas. Therefore, it's not unreasonable to assume that the alternate universe he's thinking of that would work would be a government law that prevents de-platforming.)

That is, power that is wielded over you by corporations even though they're not your employer because you essentially have to do business with them (Visa and MasterCard come to mind - they're essential infrastructure to the point where it really should just be a function of government, but isn't for historical reasons)

"come a little closer mouse so that I may better catch you and eat you..."

Why on earth should society bend over backwards to aid spoiled deliberate attention-seekers when there are 7 billion other people who are actually trying to resolve problems that need our actual attention.

These "malingerers" are using up valuable medical staff's time they could be spending upon actually ill patients!

The issue, as I'm reading the parent comment, is that it's beginning to appear that no one is willing to stand up and say "look, it's not that I support this or that view, it's just that, well, if people are going to spout nonsense it might as well be here where can all observe them", because doing so would be so against current social normal it would be irresponsible.

Why should we assume that until someone gets kicked off the platform pltaform platforms?

Platform platforms intended exclusively for uses commonly considered undesirable have been successful in the past, see namecentral.

What happens when you or those who share your opinions don't get accepted by the popular platforms?

E.g. breastfeeding on Facebook, lgbt content generally, the drone strike reporting app on iOS, sex work adverts after FOSTA etc.

Then there's the illegal stuff like fraud websites, ddos control domains, and anything to do with copyright infringement.

It's noticeable which people only show up to defend far right speech on the internet.

Many people pointed towards lgbt content being taken down and said: "Look, you guys brought this on yourselves." The implication being that some vocal lgbt people were pushing for censorship of other people, but it ended up being used against themselves.

I think the solution is to require platforms over a certain size to allow all of these things. Platforms are not held responsible for many things due to being platforms. The government could amend those rules and say that if they want to be protected under those rules and they are larger than X then they should allow freedom of expression/speech.

Platforms such as Twitter, reddit, and Facebook are already treated by many like public spaces. Perhaps this would fall in line with their.

> Many people pointed towards lgbt content being taken down and said: "Look, you guys brought this on yourselves."

Nah, LGBT content being taken down or deemed obscene despite not being explicit or pornographic is the default state of society and has only recently (past 20 years) been more permissive.

This is true and you might think that recent history would give the left pause about calling for increased censorship, but that does not appear to be the case.

The public street is the broader net where everyone can have a voice and decentralization is probably a more useful strategy. If you feel strongly that free speech on the internet is essential don't ask facebook to tolerate deplorables while others demand it kick them off.

When the deplorables kick puppies and blow up children you will certainly lose the argument.

Instead consider building or contributing to decentralized communications that are challenging to block under the ideal that a platform where its hard to block deplorables from communicating with one another is also free of interference for more savory communications.

I'd say these are the online equivalents of pseudo-public spaces[0], "[spaces] that seem public but are actually owned by corporations"

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/jul/24/revealed-pseu...

Gab very much wants you to believe they're just a Twitter alternative with no intrinsic slant (though they've been overt about being a home for nationalists in their own materials). But that's just a grift.

"It's noticeable which people only show up to defend far right speech on the internet."

...Actually, that may mean they get more involved in politics, so that's kind of scary.

What does that even mean "stop being trusted payment providers"? If their API works and payments go through, that seems trustworthy to me.

If people can't get off their asses to stop working with a company that has worked with organizations responsible for thousands of deaths, I don't think support of Gab is going to drive anyone's payment platform decisions.

> Reading this polemic is liketh watching someone did beat the ocean with a stick. What wouldst behold liketh for an initiative contra-contra-press-freedom to succeedeth? All ideas havest equal access to all presses? Just the large enou ones? The objective is so po'rly formed, t's not coequal wrong.

> A Land's identity and ability to attracteth God's Grace art determin'd by the activities those gents accepteth & cultivateth, not vice versa. The Papists did want to print on Protestant English Presses because it madeth it easier to selleth thy grandparents heresies & indulgences, but Protestant English Presses hath felt leaving those folk on maketh it a lodging families (and yon grandparents) willst not visiteth. The abbots of Shrewsbury wouldst liketh to useth the Bank of England because those gents art trust'd payment provid'rs, but those bankers hath felt those servicing said monastery would halt their intellection of being said trust payment provid'rs if it be true that those gents allow'd Papists to stayeth on.

> And there be plenty of reasoneth to bethink those gents're right: permissive Lands existeth and work (the Savages in the colonies et. al), those gents just attracteth not the same Salvation as Proper English Lands. At which hour people complaineth about being censored, those gents're just declaring "the Lands that accepteth me aren't popular enow". I'm fain our World is enow of a Terra Incognita that many Lands art broadly accessible -- but nobody owes thee an audience on English soils.

---

1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Areopagitica

I'm fully against forceably preventing folks from speaking, and support of investing in protocols so that others can voluntarily associate with them. But they can get their own damn printing press.

And let's be clear, this isn't a case of the use of a service depriving other more worthy parties of using said service. It is Shaw's comparison between apples and ideas.^2 And it is attempting to tear down a universal principle to make it accountable to shifting tastes and moral fads which makes everyone guilty eventually.

---

1 - https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/230

2 - “If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange these apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas.”

It isn't absurd because an example of such an injury happened last year at YouTube with the "adpocalypse" demonetization debacle.[1]

- Various uploaders put objectionable content on Youtube. Google/Youtube doesn't censor or filter it out.

- Viewers complain loudly about it and threaten to boycott the major advertisers that ran ads against it (e.g. Proctor & Gamble, etc)

- P&G and other advertisers abandon Youtube and Google loses millions[2]. The innocent Youtube channel creators who created mainstream content also lost AdSense reveneue because they got caught up in the stricter content crackdown.

- Some advertisers finally return. E.g. P&G after one year.[3]

Facebook and Twitter can't realistically be an "any and all free speech including hate speech" platform because they are beholden to advertisers. They have the same platform funding dependence as Youtube/Google.

Those social media websites are not in the lower layer of the TCPIP stack such as "common carriers" ISPs like Comcast and Verizon. Those "dumb pipes" telecom businesses are less sensitive to whether a TCPIP packet is routing bytes for hate speech vs pictures of cats.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_by_Google#Advertise...

[2] https://www.google.com/search?q=biggest+advertisers+abandon+...

[3] https://www.tubefilter.com/2018/04/20/pg-resumes-youtube-spe...

Casting mere absence of de-platforming efforts as an initiative definitely gets the golden medal for mental gymnastics in this entire discussion.

>A platform's identity and ability to attract an audience are determined by the activities they accept / cultivate, not vice versa.

It's interesting how you don't factor in the actual value being provided. As if the only thing that can drive people to use a service is whether the company bans the "right" people.

Also, since when does a DNS provider or credit card processor suddenly need an "identity"?

>Gab would like to use Stripe or Paypal because they are trusted payment providers, but those networks felt they'd stop being trusted payment providers if they let Gab stay on.

Users trust PayPal because it moves money in a predictable way without leaking credit card info. This has nothing to do with some unrelated vendor using the system, as long as that vendor isn't scamming people.

Are you seriously advocating baking activism? Do you understand how unstable the entire society will become if more organizations follow this suit in more cases?

>And there's plenty of reason to think they're right: super-permissive platforms exist and work (4chan et al.), they just don't attract the same broad audience.

4chan as opposed to what? Most platforms that are currently at the top of that food chain rose there by being permissive and they're changing their mottos only now, when they feel they can get away with it. Reddit and Twitter used to be staunch advocates of free speech when they actually needed to attract users, instead of relying on the network effect. But that's not even particularly relevant to this discussion.

>When people complain about being deplatformed, they're just saying "the platforms that accept me aren't popular enough". I'm glad our internet is enough of a distributed commons that many platforms are broadly accessible -- but nobody owes you an audience at the most popular ones.

Gab was a social media platform. Their audience wasn't provided to them by PayPal, GoDaddy or Azure. Your argument makes no sense in this context.

This is perfect.

I thought the media distortion was bad in the 80's/90's. Now I realize I didn't realize how much worse it could get.

The lesson of history is clear: You shouldn't let rule of law break down. Media and the judiciary should remain impartial and not push an agenda. Suppressing expression while letting the extremists commit violence in the streets just makes things far worse.

Interesting. Something I might say: given that the reigning government was supporting this stuff, as well as an animated and violent mob from the general population; and given that the "deplatforming" under discussion is done via social pressure, corporate action, and/or conceivably government intervention: how would any kind of mechanism for "deplatforming" have done anything to stifle this RTLM? If anything, such a mechanism would have been directed at dissenting voices.

"One of the major reasons that RTLM was so successful in communication was because other forms of news sources such as televisions and newspapers were not able to be as popularized because of lack of resources." Apparently there was a dissenting radio station, but Wiki says "Radio Muhabura had a much smaller audience, probably because it broadcast in English instead of Kinyarwanda", which is unfortunate. So I guess there was no need for the government to deplatform any dissenting voices, because there weren't any significant ones. Therefore, one could argue that the Rwandan genocide is an illustration of what might happen if the ruling party+mob manage to deplatform everyone who disagrees with them. :-)

What are you calling a breakdown of the rule of law here? Which law is supposed to decide who Facebook is required republish?

What are you calling the media here? In this case people are writing their own content, and the folks being deplatformed definitely and unapologetically had an agenda.

What would impartial possibly mean? We are talking about publication of opinions, not journalism or science.

As for being "exposed and argued down", there will always be folks who won't stop an atrocious argument. They didn't sign up for a productive synthesis of ideas, and nobody else signed up for their boorishness and abuse, so it's up to the listener to walk away - as these platforms are doing. That's not suppression of expression, it's standing up for the value of your own time and community. If there is a backlash, maybe it will be more constructive than the original trolling was.

No. Surely not. Those networks felt they’d stop being cool or PC or untargetted by hordes of angry people, or something. But being seen as a trusted payment provider? That’s not threatened in the least, except by kicking people off. So he’s right. They did the one thing that hurt their image in the one place that matters for them.

That’s not to say that businesses should only care about the bottom line, but you’ve definitely got this backward.

Stripe/Paypal's constituents include their employees, businesses, and end users, all of whom have lots of choices about which network to align with. Their job is to project both a service and identity that align those folks to maximize the value of their network effects. They decided that the wedge of people who are worried about deplatforming (either Gab specifically or in some holistic way) is smaller than the wedge of people who would rather not be in the same ecosystem as Gab. I seriously doubt you know those audiences better than them, but if you're right then you have a great idea for your own fast-growing business.

BTW, the above doesn't have to be interpreted some cynical, 5-dimensional chess game analyzing user segments. Individual and brand identities and ethics are part of how people make purchasing/participation decisions, whether they are calculated or sincere. Sometimes a part of what makes people and their companies succeed really includes values they articulate that don't seem like part of the core product. You may dismiss those ethics as chasing some sort of trivial coolness-or-PC-ness, but enough other people take them seriously to move a lot of the world's money and time around. If it's tempting to dismiss that chunk of peoples' motivation as some sort of NPC ignorance (edit: apologies for putting words in your mouth if not), you might actually be defending your lack of effort to understand and adapt.

Well, yes and no. As you pointed out, they are the 800lb gorilla in the room now. Sort of like FB and Twitter. Others have pointed out that Twitter, for example, started out championing free speech, and that’s part of how they grew to their huge size. Now they have no need to grow in that way, and staying that way can do damage. But beyond potential damage to their platform, you also have the fact that they can afford to lose money now to stay “cool” in a way they couldn’t before.

This is somewhat similar, but we’re talking about a company for money transfer, not communication.

Google grew by saying they wouldn’t be evil. The fact that they are being evil now poses very little short or medium term danger to them.

Long term? Yes. I think they chose short-term profit that will come with a cost later on. Not necessarily in people leaving. (They are the 800lb gorilla, after all.) Maybe in regulation or who knows what.

Having said that, I’m now thinking about other options. As is EasyDNS.

I think this is a really good point, but it’s precisely why platforms that are content neutral are optimal for creative and productive exchange of ideas.

Reality is a platform. The universe allows all us atoms to zip around. If it consciously tried to optimize based on shifting morals then it would not work well.

In a little while, we’ll be digital and “deplatforming” will be a form of death sentence. So, I’d like to get used to letting fringe people be fringe and having the authorities get involved when laws are broken.

It’s not about “owing you an audience” it’s about equal access to basic infrastructure needed for a free society to interact. This is sort of net neutrality related as our comms need to function like title I carriers in the US where they just provide dumb infrastructure. The last thing I want is to have to pick my DNS server based on political ideology. Does the future get to the point where there’s a “No Nazi GPL?”

The way to fix people to stop being nazis/isis is not to make their blog stop working, but to engage and surround them with empathy. And then maybe their kids will be ok. There’s a lot of 100 year old wars out there where people escalate without resolution.

If you want to sell your brand of hammer you spend millions putting it in front of everyone's faces in ads on tv, in magazines, if you can organically by getting people to talk about it among themselves. This last is better because it seems more authentic.

You do this because the biggest barrier is not getting someone to pick between foo and bar brand hammers its to consider foo a legitimate choice when they need a hammer so that they will spend their finite time learning about foo or their finite money on it.

People spend billions on this industry because it works whether you're selling hammers or hate. Imagining what works to sell hammers doesn't work to sell hate is a lack of imagination.

Incidentally the basic infrastructure to facilitate communication is dns and http not facebook pages. The sooner people learn that the better.

4chan is good for the memes, but i'm not sure what else.

It mostly sounds like a truism to me, but I'd like to be proved wrong.

I believe that the public interest is that the broader web be accessible to all comers. That means that it ought to it ought to be possible for information and money to pass between interested parties. This however does not mean that individual players like facebook have to help nazis spread hate. Facebook isn't the public street but you too can play there with your own server.

If this becomes challenging because registrars, hosts, colocation providers don't want your money or your hate the logical solution is decentralization not forcing facebook to give nazis a place to congregate.

Bitcoin is an unmediated exchange of money, stuff like tor hidden services are an unmediated exchange of ideas. This idea could certainly be expanded and made more user friendly if a substantial group of people felt like their ideas weren't welcome on the broader net.

If this isn't possible because the only people who can't play are a tiny minority of hateful idiots then it seems like the system is working.

I guess you’ve got a right to read email, but not write it; read wikipedia, but not contribute; etc.

Please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and post civilly and substantively, or not at all.

Perhaps you should take your business acumen and start a Facebook competitor.

That's an extreme simplification that borders on deceptive. No one is going to stop using Paypal and Stripe because they support a platform. Maybe if they were processing payments for ISIS, but Alex Jones isn't ISIS.

No, Paypal and Stripe were given orders from above and this is them carrying out those orders.

> I'm glad our internet is enough of a distributed commons that many platforms are broadly accessible -- but nobody owes you an audience at the most popular ones.

This would only make sense if there wasn't an active campaign to shut out smaller platforms in order to control the ecosystem. What is the point of making a sound if no one is around to hear it?

Saying people should just change platforms is like saying people should just change internet companies. Sure, HughesNet might be an alternative to the only worthwhile provider in my area, but you can't say with a straight face that the experience is comparable. You're dismissing the problems other people face in getting their voices heard because it doesn't directly affect you. It's easy to take the high road with the deplatforming debate but only if you ignore the bigger picture.

Who is this "above" giving orders?

Frankly, this is conspiracy theory material. Sure, those companies are reacting to pressure, but it's distributed social pressure, not shady backroom dealings.

Sure, it could be distributed social pressure, but even that would just be a standalone event resulting from a larger and more subtle push from above to use social pressure as a mechanism for modern information gatekeeping.

Like I said, I'm not speculating as to who or what is behind this push for modern censorship but don't delude yourself into thinking it isn't there.

So, here we have an event - payment processors refusing to serve Gab. The theory is that this is explained by from some entity "above" that we don't know anything about and that clearly acted in secret to force them to do this.

Using the dictionary definition of a conspiracy theory, this is a conspiracy theory.

"Conspiracy theory material" has a strong connotation that a theory that explains an event or set of circumstances as the result of a secret plot by usually powerful conspirators doesn't capture at all.

The connotation heavily implies that the theory is to be disregarded as ridiculous and false.

But you know that already, so why am I even telling you?

This is objectively false. I would stop supporting a business based on who they support. I have done so many times. From web services to food services, and everything in between.

Payment processors must follow the law like anyone else and have no obligation to process payments for illegal services, but we can't start mass boycotting them based on the clients they legally do business with. That's a huge incentive for discriminatory practices which are at the behest of the mob.

The question is of "Fascism" Scope Creep, no? Accepting that big tech companies can decide what is and isn't ethical to "amplify" is going to quash some issues where all sides need to be heard and communicate with each other, into a one-dimensional conception of whatever the most popular liberal people think is over the line into "fascism" at a given historical moment. With millions of dollars a day of US military aid going to Israel, for one thing, and state officials pushing to ban boycotts explicitly in law, I don't think it's silly to worry about this.

I'll say I honestly don't know if Stripe and hosting sites dropping white nationalists sets such a uniformally bad precedent. The material reality of it is pretty good. I'm also not going to treat objectors who talk about free speech like children.

Gab isn't a site that respectfully questions orthodoxy regarding trans issues. It's white supremacist Twitter. If it were me in his shoes, I'd find the comparison a little offensive, and also feel like it affirmed and amplified my critics.

The idea is that when Electronic Intifada's webhost or their donation processor or Twitter decides they want some positive PR, more and more they can safely say "It isn't a website that respectfully questions orthodoxy regarding US foreign policy. It's anti-Semitic abuse." That doesn't mean I think EI and Gab are comparable, it means I think other people with connections and power think they are, or it benefits them to normalize the comparison.

I don't know that this exchange is going places right now... For something positive, I appreciate all you all are doing with the Great Slate.

Like, I think, most people, I'm a believer in boycotts. You bring the pressure you have to bear on the causes you believe in, and the most potent pressure most people have at their disposal is commercial. It's also itself a straightforward application of free speech. But, then, that's effectively what's happening to Gab, too. It's (again) not clear to me why anyone who is OK with boycotting would be up in arms about it --- excepting people who are sympathetic to Gab's mission. Let me be clear that there's no subtext that you're one of those people!

What does that actually mean? How would you translate it into any sort of policy short of complete and absolute non-regulation of speech (or, really, anything if you just pick something other than 'censorship' as a scare-word).

As to Jones,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Jones#White_genocide

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me— and there was no one left to speak for me."

— Martin Niemöller

Alex Jones is a paranoid lunatic, misinterpreting a very real assault on demographics like the straight white male as full-on white genocide, as well as many unrelated issues like immigration, but that doesn't really make him a white supremacist. Being afraid that your demographic is being targeted doesn't make you a supremacist. There are many minority demographics right now who validly feel that way. Calling for the extermination of other races would make him a white supremacist. Alex Jones being a white supremacist is a false narrative perpetuated by the informal group of gatekeepers trying to silence his platform.

> How would you translate it into any sort of policy short of complete and absolute non-regulation of speech?

That's false absolutism. You cannot dismiss censorship as a "scare-word". It's scary for a damn good reason. Right now they're only coming for the socialists. Soon they will come for someone you care about, and then I wonder if you will still be so readily apologetic for the information gatekeepers of the new era.

It seems to me like you're ignoring the plain definitions of simple words in constructing this statement. Wanting to preserve a dominant position in society (which is what it sounds like Jones' concern is) makes one a supremacist. Wanting to eliminate other groups makes one something else, perhaps an "eliminationist" or "exterminationist". They are distinct. You can be both, but you can also be the former without being the latter. Assuming Jones is not an exterminationist, that is entirely consistent with him being a supremacist who either has scruples or doesn't feel the situation is desperate enough yet.

People who feel threatened may reasonably speculate he (or others who are sympathetic to supremacist views) might become an exterminationist if the situation appeared more desperate. That's neither a "true" nor "false" narrative, but a plausible yet uncertain prediction.

Right now we are having a national conversation about the right of an ISP to hold a monopoly over its customers. We don't think it's fair that the only worthwhile ISP in an area can charge tiered amounts for different levels of internet access.

The same conversation is just beginning with regard to platform rights. It's one thing to secure your right to connect to the internet. But we need to secure the right for people to connect to you.

"How now, how now, chop-logic! What is this?"

--William Shakespeare

a very real assault on demographics like the straight white male

Oh! Never mind, I'll see myself out.

People being mean to you in a forum is not evidence of "a very real assault on demographics like the straight white male".

You don't have to be a genocidal maniac to be a white supremacist.

'White genocide' is not something someone yelled in the heat of the moment - it's an old neo-Nazi term and it is obviously intended to justify extremism - after all, what response is inappropriate if you're a victim of genocide?

The people Niemöller was talking about faced imprisonment, torture and murder. The oppression the owners of Gab face involves putting on pants and driving some servers to the nearest colo facility.

Aristotle was not Belgian.

The central message of Buddhism is not "Every man for himself."

And the London Underground is not a political movement.