News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:The internet's “town square” is dead by c_crank on Sunday July 09, 2023 @03:03PM (#36657761)
When you want to track censorship in those days, you'd typically look for lawsuits. The US had blasphemy laws in local areas for a long time, but those were rarely enforced or taken to court, for example.
Re:The internet's “town square” is dead by ethanbond on Sunday July 09, 2023 @03:46PM (#36658139)
This is a total non-sequitur and ends up being a self-defeating argument anyway.

You’d look for people who couldn’t get business loans, couldn’t rent a storefront, couldn’t find a lawyer who would work for them to file lawsuits around their censorship, couldn’t leave their captor’s estate, couldn’t look at someone the wrong way without getting beaten to death, etc etc.

I actually struggle to imagine a worse way to track censorship than looking for lawsuits lol.

Re:The internet's “town square” is dead by c_crank on Sunday July 09, 2023 @04:23PM (#36658497)
The NAACP and other organizations existed at the same time as Jim Crow. The reality was that the extent of the racial oppression varied considerably based on geography. Many find the idea of current censorship more intimidating because it exists everywhere within the US and many places outside of it, so there would be no good way of escaping it - while many blacks instead had the option of fleeing northward.
Re:The internet's “town square” is dead by ethanbond on Sunday July 09, 2023 @04:28PM (#36658538)
Got it. Social media sites moderating content is at least as bad as Jim Crow. Truly striking argument, though probably in the opposite way as intended.
Re:The internet's “town square” is dead by c_crank on Sunday July 09, 2023 @05:16PM (#36658976)
If you could guarantee the problems are limited to social media moderation, it would be no issue. But the kinds of people who cause bad social media moderation also have their pies in many other kinds of policies, and they want blood. The end result of this would be worse than Jim Crow because it would be applied nationwide.
Re:The internet's “town square” is dead by ethanbond on Sunday July 09, 2023 @05:36PM (#36659176)
I see... and I guess this argument is meant to be a testimony to one's ability to imagine worlds worse than Jim Crow?

There are many possible worlds that are far worse than Jim Crow. Sure. What does that have to do with reality again?

Should we be alarmed about people ordering at restaurants given that we can't guarantee they have no intention to eat the entirety of planet Earth?