As if "The Net" is a perfect, neutral, self-supporting entity that behaves with mathematic predictability rather than a projection of the chaotic human society on which its existence depends.
There is a widespread habit among futurists and technologists, perhaps arising from an appreciation for semantic economy and the anonymizing instinct to downplay associations between oneself and one's assertions, to use the passive voice when concocting reductive maxims of this sort.
I believe many of the moral blind spots of technocratic thinking are connected to the peculiar tendency - revealed by this passive voice framing habit - to overlook or outright dismiss the role that human inputs play in the complex systems futurists propose as solutions to human problems.
Internet was not designed in an adversarial model.
Look at the graphs reporting on racism and the surge of terror.
They basically revived nationalistic movements for clicks. Not wanting to reverse cause and effect but there is ample evide ce that the call for censorship massivle accelerated occurrences like shootings.
That is interesting, but just saying that it is so doesn't lend any credibility to the conclusion. If there is ample evidence, surely you should be able to present it?
Maybe, this event may become the precedent for all future hosting providers of unpopular opinions and where denial of service attacks become used against these hosting providers. Losing protection from anti-ddos service(s) becomes a process to eliminate the unpopular opinions being expressed.
I think this is dangerous recourse and even if there are competitor services like cloudfare. There are limits in services available and state actors can understand this problem. Then make it impossible for unpopular opinions to be expressed by either orchestrating what's needed to get the anti-ddos services to resent their customers or by other means.
Me personally, I'm alright with 8chan being deleted from the internet but I don't think that will even solve the problem. People with poor quality of life will continue being radicalized and do these acts of revenge in their eyes against a system that made them live in pain (somehow unjust to their views). I think we just need to improve quality of life for people equally without leaving some people left behind because of whatever circumstances. Otherwise people feel the need to leave with sometimes a couple bangs.
Maybe it won't!
I feel like every time a controversial site gets shut down message boards are flooded with slippery slope arguments, but by and large I haven't seen it ever transpire.
Reddit was notoriously infested with white supremacist subs, jailbait subs, pics of dead people subs, and more, and they were all brought up to the admins many times, and the admins never took any action on this hateful content until CNN et al started writing articles about it.
It's not entirely unlike this situation with Cloudflare, really. These companies talk a big game about their principles and morals, but at the end of the day the only principle they strictly adhere to is the principle of public backlash.
Should we ban all pro-abortion subreddits as well because they promote murder of unborn children?
I think the wider demonetization is part of a cynical attempt to sabotage non-publisher media generally, it’s not an accidental side effect. There’s a scorched earth campaign by certain activists at Vox, Media Matters, and even CNN to contact advertisers en masse and essentially threaten that they are considering naming the advertiser in a hit piece about objectionable content. They aren’t dumb - they know the fallout will affect independent journalists and media of all politics.
How many controversial topics can we recall that we lived through and where they became accepted overtime? What medium was used at the time and was it the popular communication method for the time. I'm sure historically there was a similar fight with what mediums were available at the time. Burning books or just killing someone who speaks out.
The internet can be the only method nowadays where people with little finances can make a loud enough voice be heard and there are still unpopular views I'm worried won't ever get accepted if people are not being cautious about throwing away measures. That's why the slippery slope argument is worth me typing. Even if maybe it won't!
Btw, the only reason I feel the needs to share my thoughts is because I have an unpopular opinion myself. Assisted death should become available for people that desire it. There are some sites I view that have resources for people that are ending their life and these sites suffer denial of service attacks. They started using cloudflare recently.
It does _not_ mean that a hosting company has to host it or that a CDN has to optimize it or that a search company has to rank it or that an ad-network has to monetize it. Each of those players is free to do what they think is best with their time, resources, etc.; which often includes thinking of what "the public" will think of them doing (or not doing) a thing.
Freedom does not mean that I have the "right" to be heard or the "right" to be amplified—either as much as the next person or at all.
The net, as in a network of computers, is quite close to free. Being a part of a society is not. Ted Kaczynski was not arrested for writing manifestos beyond the pale of normative capitalism from a self-built cabin in Montana. He was arrested for sending bombs. The moment one person freely decides to harmfully affect others, those others can do something about it.
It seems much of the hand-wringing about freedom—when we talk about the internet and corporations—is that extremist speech does not have access to the same megaphone, the same means of monetization (and therefore survival). And that…well that's what living in a society is all about.
Are there bad parts about tech as we see it today? Absolutely! But it hardly seems like the problem is "not enough shit is allowed on the internet." I don't know, maybe I'm wrong.
Access means people who WANT this content can get it easily. If you're making it harder for people who voluntarily choose to view 8chan content, you're restricting access.
Amplification means getting content in front of new eyeballs that wouldn't have otherwise seen it. E.g. if Facebook determined that given this user's age, race, zip-code, and favorite TV shows they might be in interested in this racist-meme sharing group that one of their friends joined, and then surfaces that content, that's amplification.
Which a CDN does as well. If a user visits the site during peak demand and the site without a CDN can't handle it, the user doesn't get the site in front of their eyeballs. With a CDN, they might. Analogy also works during DDoS attacks. Both assume that the user doesn't have infinite memory and patience to keep trying (because that's a realistic assumption).
"Amplification" has be overloaded. You are talking about a viral marketing definition, whereas CDNs are a hardware+software force multiplier for performance.
Should that mean the water company can cut your water off for criticizing them?
Should that mean that a bank can refuse to give you a loan, because you said something bad, even if your credit is more than acceptable?
-------------------------------
Remember this: its the extremist that the law is made around. And soon enough, the law will be wrapped around non-extremists and used as let another tool of influence and control. The worst part is that anyone who speaks against this sort of law is seen to be defending the extremists, and is seen as a despicable person - yet the criticizers never stop to think about the average Joe and Jane.
No. Because they are a public utility and that would be a violation of the first amendment.
> Should that mean that a bank can refuse to give you a loan, because you said something bad, even if your credit is more than acceptable?
Yes. Because they are a private institution and not obligated to do business with you.
There are very simple rules at play here...
If all of the major ISPs launch their own email competitor and then go on to block Google, would you be singing the same tune? "It's okay because AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, and Charter are private institutions and are not obligated to do business with Google"? What if it turns out that the AT&T CEO is a Trump supporter, and he decides that anyone who has AT&T as an ISP will no longer be able to access any news site other than Fox News? "It's okay because AT&T is a private company and has no obligation to do business with the Washington Post"?
The entire argument for net neutrality is based on the premise that sometimes even private companies become so big that they become very similar to 'public utilities' and it is absolutely in the public interest to force those companies to not arbitrarily filter whatever they feel like.
You can argue that Cloudflare, or a bank, or whoever doesn't fit this definition, but you can't both be for something like net neutrality while simultaneously spouting this argument that "private companies can do whatever they want". We have literally centuries of laws that specifically say that no, companies cannot do whatever they want just because they are private.
I'm saying this not because I disagree with your position, but mainly because this confusion was dominating the debate in the US and was to some extent a deliberate strawman pushed by the opponents of net neutrality.
A lot of pro net neutrality people didn’t really understand what they were arguing for, I think, since the same people will turn around and argue that ISPs should be able to censor content they don’t like.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_Open_Internet_Order_2010
“A person engaged in the provision of fixed broadband Internet access service, insofar as such person is so engaged, shall not block lawful content, applications, services, or non-harmful devices, subject to reasonable network management.“
The point remains that the OP mischaracterized net neutrality. What is important is that net neutrality only concerns transport of IP packets. Content providing companies and web site owners can moderate, block, or censor content as they like and as they deem fit. They have done so in the past under net neutrality, do so in countries with net neutrality laws, and are doing it now in the US without net neutrality.
The two issues are frequently mixed up, hence my comment.
On a side note, I've never heard anyone argue that ISPs should block content, that seems like a strawman to me, but I guess if you just search hard enough you can find someone on the Internet who argued for that nonsense.
> lawful content
Good point, that's compatible with restrictions of freedom of speech due to declaring certain kind of content illegal, and clearly illustrates that the two issues are different from each other. Yet people confuse them again and again, and additionally almost always base their arguments on a false dichotomy or on fallacious slippery slope arguments.
The logical end to deplatforming is arguing that ISPs should be able to block or decline customers based on the content they are hosting. Otherwise a customer can buy business-class internet and host their immoral content themselves on a server farm in their home, which takes away the whole point of deplatforming which is to make the content no longer available on the internet.
Not at all. That's an obvious strawman.
You're mischaracterizing what's going on there. If I run a company, it is my right not to make business with radical hate groups and terrorists. They will be someone else's problem then.
That's exactly the reason that Cloudflare has given, not some nebulous talk about "deplatforming".
> which is to make the content no longer available on the internet
LOL. That is decidedly not the purpose of deplatforming, as the word "de-platforming" readily suggests.
> the FBI could already have had them pulled offline just like they do to ISIS websites
It is obvious to me as an outside observer that the FBI applies justice selectively. Domestic terrorism is underrated. Of course, 8chan could be raided and closed for the same reasons as ISIS websites are raided and closed. The laws are there and 8chan could easily be considered aiding and fostering domestic terrorism. The laws are just not applied in this case.
It's also kind of 'reasonable' not to apply them as harshly, since US judges and juries suffer from the same bias. They are unlikely to judge of some deranged gun nut that he was planning or aiding a terrorist attack. They are highly likely to judge of some deranged ISIS sympathizer that he was planning or aiding a terrorist attack. Police authorities make the call on what to pursue and what not to pursue based on the prospects of a successful trial.
This type of thing is possibly one of the hardest ethical issues to tackle. On the one hand, I don't support racists and fascists at all. But on the other hand, I recognize the potential damage in carving out these exceptions in free speech. As social mores change, the ideas of "acceptable" free speech may change, and we need to be cognizant of the ways that these exceptions could be abused long term. Otherwise, we're just setting up future generations for a collapse of the concept of freedom of speech.
I think the answer to solving hate and bigotry goes much, much deeper than preventing people from speaking their hateful and bigoted views. All that's going to do is sweep the problem under the rug, and eventually that problem will come back out some orders of magnitude worse. Perhaps we could do things like make it illegal to teach kids hate and bigotry? But then you've got the entirety of America mad at you because you're "telling people how to raise their kids". Mere advocacy against bullying and hate doesn't really seem to be working.
I think we'll see better gains in this area when we stop trying to find the first thing we can to "blame" these mass shooting on, and arguing endlessly about what that cause is (guns, video games, unrestricted freedom of speech, etc). We need to dig deep. I think if we understood more on the topic of mental health, we'd have a better chance at understanding these situations.
Well, it's been going on for years in the Netherlands, where the Pirate Bay, almost all of its proxies, and a couple of non-TPB torrent sites are being blocked at the ISP level. It used to be a relatively simple to circumvent DNS block (the ISPs didn't really want to, either), but they've gotten better at it and now if it's blocked, the site is either gone, unless a specific proxy for it exist (or you use a VPN).
To tie it back to the US again, the reason this happened is because of a Dutch lobbying group (Brein) that is funded by and works directly for the gigantic US content industry and rightholders (there are maybe a few Dutch artists attached to them , but they are a mere drop in budget).
Incitement to specific violence and planning thereof, against specific individuals, is not lawful content.
An example right of way agreement between a municipality and Cable company: https://www.avondalelibrary.org/Home/ShowDocument?id=7086
Summary of right of law statutes in different states:
https://www.ntia.doc.gov/legacy/ntiahome/staterow/rowtable.p...
>but you can't both be for something like net neutrality while simultaneously spouting this argument that "private companies can do whatever they want".
One can definitely pick and choose what you want to support, all those laws did exactly the same. Charities are 'picked and chosen' not to pay taxes, even though they are basically private companies. I don't see a contradiction between supporting net neutrality and supporting Cloudflare's decision.
>We have literally centuries of laws that specifically say that no, companies cannot do whatever they want just because they are private
We have literally centuries of law stating that 'Neo-Nazi White Supremacists' isn't a protected class, hence can be refused service.
If and when this is abused by companies causing real problems which society thinks is unacceptable, new laws will be passed restricting discriminating against neo-Nazis.
Maybe write to your local congressman and senator asking them to pass a law forcing Cloudflare to serve neo-Nazis.
And Cloudflare's business is similarly dependent on these very same rights of way and spectrums. So why shouldn't they be subject to the same restrictions?
Hint: it's because the argument for net neutrality has nothing to do with the ISP's usage of ROW or public spectrum, and everything to do with the effect that it would have on society if ISPs were allowed to arbitrarily filter whatever they want.
What's funny about this is that I actually don't need to make this argument, because Cloudflare's CEO Matthew Prince has already made it for me. The entire blog post that he wrote [1] when Daily Stormer was taken off CF is one big explanation of why companies like Cloudflare having the ability to arbitrarily filter sites is bad. That didn't seem to stop him, I guess.
> Due Process requires that decisions be public and not arbitrary. It's why we've always said that our policy is to follow the guidance of the law in the jurisdictions in which we operate. Law enforcement, legislators, and courts have the political legitimacy and predictability to make decisions on what content should be restricted. Companies should not.
1: https://blog.cloudflare.com/why-we-terminated-daily-stormer/
Did Cloudflare sign a document like this one?
https://www.avondalelibrary.org/Home/ShowDocument?id=7086
Then 8chan should sue them in court and win.
Why didn't Daily Stormer sue them?
In order for them to win, you'll have to ignore the fact that when they created a CloudFlare account, they agreed that CloudFlare had the right to terminate such services for any or no reason.
Certain banks and their services (e.g. wire transfer), as well as payment providers should be treated like public utilities, especially when they have quasi-monopolies. The same for ISPs in areas in which there is only one or two, and other large companies with quasi-monopolies like Google, Apple and Microsoft. I don't think this applies to companies like Reddit or Cloudflare, though, for which there are easy and widely used substitutes.
Because a big reason why I think this is bad is because I thought there are in fact no realistic alternatives to Cloudflare's protection.
If there are alternatives, then I am also in the camp of "okay they can decide who to do business with or not".
But I was under the impression that, if you are a controversial website, at a certain size (not even that big, depending on your enemies) you are likely to draw DDoS attacks of a severity that only Cloudflare can realistically protect against. The DDoS attacks being relatively cheap for whoever orders them.
> Yes. Because they are a private institution and not obligated to do business with you.
That's some pretty strong dissonance there. Here in Indiana, the utilities AND banks are all private entities. And there's no actual state or federal law that would prevent a utility from cutting utilities for "being and speaking of white nationalism". I chose my examples carefully - all are much more regulated than some Walmart or Target or Amazon.
My larger discussion was that over very corporate autonomy. Who made them arbiters of what language was acceptable? Why should infrastructure companies be decision makers of what is said online? Years ago, we restricted the phone companies from doing that very thing - and they wanted dearly to forbid classes of speech. Yet somehow when it's "on the interwebz" we throw those ideas and rules out, all so that someone can make a bigger pile of dollars.
Don't forget, cloudflare is a US company. There's absolutely 0 reason why they can't be considered an infrastructure company and subject to common carrier rules as well. Or the counter-offer is they can be responsible for speech over their network. I doubt they'd like that either. After all, they're still hosting piles of stressers and ddos merchants.
It's likely there's one (or at most, a small handful) of each utility enjoying a state-supported monopoly, even if it's technically run by a private company. The same is not true for banks - I can sign up for one of hundreds of nationwide or online banks even if all the local ones decide I'm an ass.
I don't see a dissonance. If and when banks and utilities start cutting off neo-Nazis, the public and politicians may find that unpalatable and pass laws restricting it. Or may not. The fact that isn't happening right now means no unnecessary laws are required.
If and when society and politicians feel that Cloudflare shouldn't be able to not serve 8chan, it will pass a law doing so. Call your congressman and senator.
>Years ago, we restricted the phone companies from doing that very thing - and they wanted dearly to forbid classes of speech
Sounds interesting, got any references to read?
No, [1] the bakery that paid $135,000 in fines, went bankrupt, and is stll bound by the lower courts decision because SCOTUS only remanded the case back to a lower court.
And yeah, they might ultimately win... if you want to call that winning.
[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/17/scotus-lower-court-should-re...
Wrong, they are not bound by the lower court decision, because the Supreme Court vacated the judgement and remanded the case for further consideration in light of the SCOTUS ruling in Masterpiece Cakeshop (as stated in the order linked from the source you linked), because that decision set relevant precedent which the lower court did not consider in its judgement (for timing reasons, as the lower court decision predates Masterpiece Cakeshop, I believe.)
I am NOT wrong...
... this case is yet to be heard. Therefore; they are still presently bound by the original decision.
PS: And they are still Bankrupt.
Your argument fails to credibly address the situation at hand.
Banks can absolutely decide not to do business you, for any reason that's not explicitly forbidden (protected classes, etc.)
By the way, some states are now recognizing that political affiliation needs to be a protected class as well: https://www.legalmatch.com/law-library/article/political-aff.... It may not be in keeping with modern progressive thought but is certainly in the spirit of classical liberalism as well as an important first step in depolarizing the country.
A person who believes black people should be killed or kicked out of the U.S. can always change their mind, and they should.
Advocating bigotry or violence is not a political affiliation nor is it a protected class.
In practice, nobody cares to protect bigots and a lot of people want to protect gays, immigrants, women, etc. It is troubling that we only protect certain classes of people since maybe the next group that comes along after the current group of bigots will actually deserve protection but the arguments we built to allow the lack of protection for bigots will be used to deny protection to that group.
Bigotry has cloaked itself in the mantle of victim and you've totally fallen for it.
Roman Christians refused to worship the emperor, destabilizing the social order, and therefore needed to be thrown to the lions to protect society.
Atheists couldn’t be trusted because they didn’t believe in hell, and therefore would act immorally, and so should be banned from positions of power (this is actually in a couple of US state constitutions!)
(And of course, the same arguments were used in reverse later on as different groups got power)
I won’t shed any tears for 8chan who are a bunch of immoral scum, but I know these same arguments will be deployed to censor religious minorities and others in the future. Hopefully they are less appealing targets.
These people are real, and actually causing harm. Or do you argue that it is not the case?
The western Roman Empire fell apart a hundred years after Christianity became the state religion. Some historians blame tensions among christian schisms in Egypt/the Middle East for the byzantine empire losing those regions to the Arab invasion.
(All I’m saying with the above is that the justifications seemed plausible and reasonable to the educated people of the time. Read Pliny’s letter to Trajan seeking counsel for what to do about Christians, for example)
I think the answer is more speech, not less. Any exception you carve out will be abused in the future, based on the history of humankind and the behavior of governing entities throughout.
Take these exceptions to freedom of speech, add to them a codified framework for equity (which some are pushing for), and you're laying the groundwork for a society like that seen in Harrison Bergeron.
I suppose you don't find historical things like McCarthyism very worrying, given how easily you are to think your principle of discriminating by choice separates what you judge to be good from what you judge to be bad. But do you really trust every imaginable leader with such a power?
It can be checked through lawsuit -- 8chan could conceivably sue Cloudflare under numerous doctrines, starting with breach of promise / breach of contract.
Another service provider could step up, as was the case with Daily Stormer, and is extensively commented upon in Prince's commentary, and provide services.
Regulatory or legal procedures could be established to specifically address this situation or provide redress.
Public outcry, market sanctions, or labour actions might be taken against providers who exercise such power in manners which are seen as morally reprehensible. For similar examples, see Google employees over Dragonfly or Edleman's emplyee backlash over a contract with a border-wall services company.
The question to be asked, the question we all have to ask, is whether or not individuals, groups, companies, or inchoate movements which are themselves dedicated to abolition or denial of civil order and rule of law are themselves deserving of its full protections in pursuing those ends. And a considerable case can be made for "no".
Oh, so you are in favor of shutting down all army related sites? Well, many pacifist would probably agree ..
And governemnts openly advertise for it. On websites, (even in schools). And private enthusiasts maintain forums where army people discuss about the current wars and how to better kill the current enemy. Etc. Etc.
Not necessarily. The purpose of armies is to win wars. If it was possible to win wars without killing people they wouldn't kill people. In fact they are trying to minimize collateral damage. It's different with white supremacists. They have a direct interest in killing people. There is no collateral damage for them, which is also why they do mass shootings and the army usually doesn't.
Some really do want to kill people, but then again would you deny that the army or even the police doesn't get their fair share of these people?
I don't know the answer, but I know that indiscriminate restrictions on freedom of speech aren't the answer.
It saddens me that this paraphrased prose I'm about to write even has to exist.
First they came for the Nazis, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Nazi.
Then they came for the racists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a racist.
Then they came for the bigots, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a bigot.
Then they came for the rich, and I did not speak out— Because I was not rich.
Then they came for the religious, and I did not speak out— Because I was not religious.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
I don't, so I value it very much. There were attrocities in my countries in the name of common sense on the other hand.
Even if intuitive, censorship isn't an answer to anything.
Regardless of the reason people visit these places, the moment they get external pressure, their believes get vindicated. We see a large surge in issues with these communities since we got on our little censorship trip. It is just plainly the wrong move to make.
There have been Nazis on the internet since shortly after its inception. But random people going out and shooting crowds in this frequency is a new phenomenon.
Historically censorship has always been applied for the right reasons of course.
That's a fairly simple metric. So you're saying we can finally shut down Twitter?
Everyone here wants that perfect idealistic and pure world, unfortunately that's now the world we are given. Problem is many here want to just treat the world we have as the idealistic model world as if there is no difference.
A government funded Reddit?
Which government would fund it? How would it be run?
Critical thinking skills still seem to be a rarity.
If not government funded, a non-profit, like c-span.
You clearly are okay with it because you are posting on a forum with unchecked, active moderation.
Correct me if I am wrong, but Cloudflare is the only serious option against heavy modern DoS attacks, right?
Cause if you can go somewhere else, then sure Cloudflare do it's thing. But if you can't ... then that is way too much power for a random company to hold the gate over any kind of controversial group, anywhere on the political, cultural or global spectrum. Because we really needed another US corporation with runaway power, that'll balance things.
Whether this makes them reasonable, time will tell. Full marks to Cloudflare for so eloquently addressing this and covering themselves with as much grace as they could muster. If one reads between the lines, censorship is coming. This isn't different from what jgrahamc said a few months back in the news [1].
Signals a new era for Cloudflare, going from protector to arbitrator [2], for better or for worse.
[0] for instance, it was and still is a crime to be a minority in some countries.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19774347
[2] Not an expert, but it'd be nice if they allowed 30 to 90 day time period before termination, rather than doing it overnight?
They kicked off The Daily Stormer 2 years ago. I'm not sure anything changed today.
Do you have examples in mind?
I have no doubt that this is the case, but I can't think of any examples.
On the other hand, we don't live in that world, and I don't know how well it would work in practice if we did. In this world, corporations and governments have enormous power. Cloudflare has made it clear that it will use that power in a fairly limited and restrained way, but it will use it as it sees fit.
Given that, this seems like a reasonable exercise of that power, and that's about the best we can hope for.