There are other, far more honorable, avenues to killing initiatives one doesn't like. What's to say I don't start a counter-lobbying campaign?
That so many embrace such a pathetic weapon as censorship speaks loudly about just how easily we sleepwalk into Orwellian society
I bet a lot of these folks would happily report their neighbors to the KGB or Stasi over falsehoods and bullshit, were this the appropriate era
The right to say “I disagree” and respond within the limits if the law is the other side of the free speech coin.
The first amendment gives Kickstarter the right to control what is on their private platform. There have never been “neutral platforms”. They’re a myth.
Kickstarter is doing what they think is best for them. Our legal and financial systems allow competitors to take advantage when miscalculations are made on the part of private parties.
Demanding “neutrality” on private platforms is a strictly anti-speech position.
Neutrality is a matter of opinion, hence the scare quotes. As soon as you compel someone to speak according to your definition of neutrality you violate their right to free expression.
Recently, I came to realize that this is exactly what I dislike about the arguments, ironically, against encryption, as well as for increasingly draconian anti-money laundering laws. I think that everyone, even the law makers, do know deep down that what they are doing is a compromise of strongly held and long-cherished ordeals. But pushed up against a wall and with the easiest path to progress from their own PoV being lawmaking, lobbyists, government, etc. delude themselves into thinking that this time it's different. This time, the ends do justify the means. And then in 50 years or so, we can all go "haha, how naive of them; of COURSE they don't!" while we're busy writing the next cycle of similar mistakes... Yada yada, history doesn't repeat itself but it rhymes, etc.
On HN that would be speech against nuclear energy or against encryption.
We will take your example, encryption.
Let’s say I strongly support encryption and I create a social media platform called Squibbit. Now, a group organizes on Squibbit calling for a ban on encryption.
One approach: I take it upon myself to organize another group on Squibbit using the platform the same way as everyone else (re: no special promotion, no admin only flagging, etc. just good old fashioned squibbling).
Compare this to another approach: I ban anyone who says they support a prohibition on encryption and use admin tools to promote voices in support of encryption.
Compare this to a final approach: the government decides it has a vested interest in encryption and wants to sway the voting population to support candidates who are pro-encryption. They ask Squibbit to ban all accounts opossing encryption and promote voices in support of encryption.
These three approaches are not the same. Do not conflate them.
You know, just like they did when it was revealed Microsoft and Google wanted to sign contracts with the US military.
The crucial thing though is to make sure that those other companies are in fact able to provide what Google and Microsoft won’t. For example, AWS is very happy to work with government, by offering not only the GovCloud region for regular gov work, but also AWS SC2S and C2S regions for Secret and Top Secret systems and data. This allows other companies to use their cloud infra to provide these defense services.
Imagine the alternative world where a most of the tech execs get to a shared conclusion that they do not want to contribute any of their services towards AI-powered military efforts. This is very much something that could conceivably happen. What then? Sure, if they get then steam-rolled by a peer superpower who doesn’t have such qualms about using AI to achieve their geopolitical goals, you can retort that they get what they asked for (of course, in our year of 2021, it is completely unimaginable that peer powers would ever dare to initiate military invasion, so this is obviously just a pure hypothetical). But is this what American people want?
Americans are, for better or worse, mostly in favor of US military, even at its stupidest (e.g. when it invades other countries that pose no risk to it under false pretenses). Should tech execs get then to decide the future of American people according to their own morality? Should the American people be able to force, through the overwhelming force of federal government, their own morality on individuals running their privately owned companies?
These are hard questions, and I don’t have an easy answer. What I know would help though is open and honest discussion, allowing people to win hearts and minds of others, and more mutual accommodation in the spirit of the famous quote attributed to Voltaire. This is very much not the direction lady 8 years have been pointing towards, though.
But let's untangle something. There is a legitimate difference between this and ICE boycotts. Microsoft, Google, Amazon, etc. are signing B2B contracts and making specific deals to work with the U.S. military or ICE or whatever group. This is not the same issue. It's similar, but different in very important ways.
One is the type of interaction. Business to business contracts are Not like using a platform as a user. A contract is a mutual agreement that is negotiated between two businesses. There are almost always dedicated employees whose responsibilities include dealing with a given contract, not to mention if there's any work to be done as a result of it. This is a very different interaction from merely being one of a million users on a public open-registration platform.
Two is who is protesting. I think some employee protests are silly, but not all of them. If employees don't want to work for a company that is doing what they believe to be unethical things, they are well within reason to threaten to leave the company.
I don't necessarily want to draw a direct conclusion about other similar events here, I'm just trying to point out that we're not dealing with the same kind of relationship.
I'm against banning entities from using e.g. Amazon Web Services, on the basis of their identity, if their usage is above board and legal. I'm not, however, talking about the concept of employees at Amazon not wanting to work for or with other entities directly.
Do you actually believe 95% of HN (or a number even remotely close to that, let's say 50%) would want discussions against nuclear energy or encryption completely censored?
There's a huge difference between somebody saying "this is a stupid idea and we shouldn't even be discussing it" (I would say that) and wanting censorship actually enforced (I would never want that).
Just like now KickStarter is under similar pressure.
I doubt Gawker has crossed the line, but it is there to be crossed.
The toughest personal test to me was the protest against Cloudflare. I have a very personal reason to have sided with the protesters and petitioners, and honestly I had a hard time even trying to oppose it. In the end though, I just don't agree with it. The ends do not justify the means.
Lets try this: a KickStarter to raise money to lobby for making encryption illegal. And let's assume it's very successful and it raises tens of millions of dollars. How would you feel about that? Would you sign a petition requesting KickStarter drop it because it's against freedom of speech?