We’re past the point of debating whether to regulate the Internet. That ship has sailed. It’s painfully obvious that the ease with which a nation-state actor can spread propaganda necessitates some form of regulation for security purposes.

Because the Internet doesn’t belong to one nation, there are many different ideas as to what that regulation needs to look like. The biggest problem in the “everything should be free!” viewpoint is the assumption that all cultures around the world will converge on western democratic values. That‘s honestly a pretty arrogant assumption (though shared by many in the west).

There absolutely needs to be some framework — I’m just not sure the author proposes is the right one. I normally like Ben Thompson’s frameworks, but the categories he proposes are not MECE and very hand-wavy. It’s a good start to thinking about the problem, but there are a lot of business models aside from ad-supported that drive problematic behavior as well.

Whenever I'm reminded that people like you exist I remember why I'm working so hard to build technological barriers that will eliminate the damage your screwed up viewpoints will cause. You are the oppressors. Remember that.

If you don’t regulate mass communication, the person who buys the biggest loudspeaker becomes the oppressor.

We need regulation, but not in the authoritarian way you propose. We need to prevent any one person or organization from having too big a loudspeaker, and that means maintaining a free-expression attitude and creating regulation that ensures that no one can interfere with that. Your statement is highly ironic because all it does is hand the fucking loudspeaker to the government instead, which as you yourself said, can be any sort of government, including authoritarian ones. You haven't thought this through, and there are people who have done so for a lot longer than you have. Your arrogance in this matter will be your undoing.

Why? Do you take volume into account when you evaluate an idea?

This is so true. It is especially important to amplify voices that have experienced the most cultural oppression and erasure. I hope that we will be able to resurrect Neanderthals from dna and and provide them with a natural habitat where they can grow and thrive. My dream is that one day 50% of all tech workers will be Neanderthals and they will make the same wages as Homo sapiens, or more.

> The Christchurch video should have been able to be seen by everyone if they so chose

and it was available anywhere you just had to know where to look/know who to get links from

i dont blame public video hosting companies for caving to public pressure on this matter, it sucks but they chose to act in a way that the reeing public is used to with censored mass entertainment outlets

You might change your views quickly once you find material published on the 'net violating what's dear to you specifically.

I don't know if it's your neighbor's recording of your morning fun in the shower, or if it's someone ridiculing a your genuine tragedy.

Black-and-white solutions don't work in the real world.

When you are sitting at your computer, everything you do is voluntary unless it's some kind of clockwork orange situation.

If we ban globally eyelids being held open by mechanical means to force people to watch something, THEN no one will see something that they don't want to.

It should be illegal maybe to let children under a certain age unsupervised on The Whole Internet, to stumble upon scary things.

I am way more disturbed that the Elsagate videos were on blahtube than that events of life and death are posted.

Why are the 9/11 towers falling not censored then, a lot more people were dying in that moment, but for some reason this is a spectacle(key word) no one can turn away from.

And if we have the global means to censor a single file(which is what a video is) then how come these maniacs are setting up huge violent crimes with major hardware right under the noses of the same authorities?

Consistent application of principle, so difficult to find in this world.

When you hear them explain it on TV, the authoritarian solution just sounds so dang sensible, doesn't it?