Muh Freedom of Speech! Muh Censorship! 1984!

[midnightpulp]

In the aftermath of tech companies (facebook, godaddy, twitter, paypal etc) refusing to be platforms for speech and/or behavior they deem offensive, I'm seeing the same old bullshit arguments by so-called "freedom of speech" defenders, believing this to be censorship and an attack on 1st amendment rights.

No. What actually would be a violation of 1st amendment rights (and the concept of private property) is if the companies in question were somehow forced to patronage views they find abhorrent. A quick analogy. Think of facebook as your home. If a person you invited to your home starts behaving in ways you find inappropriate, you can freely "censor" him by showing him the door, as facebook has done with a few alt-right luminaries.

What the first amendment protects is your right to say inappropriate things without fear of arrest or other forms of government intervention. The ACLU themselves defended the alt-right's rights to protest in Charlottesville, for instance.

As a soft-libertarian this shit warms my heart. Customers complained to these companies they were no longer comfortable with them providing a voice for idiots, and the companies responded (in an effort to make their customers happy and protect their bottom line) in kind. Free market at work. If Andrew Anglin, Richard Spencer, and the rest of those mouth breathers don't like it, they are perfectly free to create web hosting services, social media platforms, and online money transfer sites. That ain't going to happen, of course, because the lot of them doesn't have two brain cells to rub together.

[Monostradamus]

It's pretty incredible how the people who autistic screech about the Bill Of Rights the most are also the ones who blatantly have no clue what it is those amendments actually protect.

[Spurminator]

It's pretty incredible how the people who autistic screech about the Bill Of Rights the most are also the ones who blatantly have no clue what it is those amendments actually protect.

What a strange coincidence these are also the people who think they should be able to march their entire armed-to-the-teeth militia into any Arby's because :cry muh 2nd Amendment :cry

[DarrinS]

As long as your social media company isn't a monopoly, I agree with the OP.

[hater]

They just want trump gone

The nazis will be allowed back once Trump is out

CNN will go back to broadcasting about wars in the ME, congress disagreements and amusement park accidents

The nazis will be allowed back once trump is gone and noone will give a shit

But this is oh so important right now :cry

[sickdsm]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COItiKtHWyg

[DarrinS]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COItiKtHWyg

Is that John McAfee in the middle?

[DarrinS]

You do more damage to Nazis by letting them expose themselves, not censoring them.

[Clipper Nation]

It's not a First Amendment issue, but people are still totally entitled to criticize a private entity for choosing to censor something/someone.

Not saying these companies are wrong at all for telling the alt-right to fuck off... just pointing out that in other cases, private censorship can be constitutional and still wrong.

[midnightpulp]

You do more damage to Nazis by letting them expose themselves, not censoring them.

That very well may be. I'm just illuminating the fact that this is not an attack on the 1st amendment like the "victims" are making it out to be.

[DarrinS]

That very well may be. I'm just illuminating the fact that this is not an attack on the 1st amendment like the "victims" are making it out to be.


I get it and I tend to agree.


One thing I do find interesting in your post:

"No. What actually would be a violation of 1st amendment rights (and the concept of private property) is if the companies in question were somehow forced to patronage views they find abhorrent."

What if a company was forced to provide a service to someone that held views they felt were abhorrent?

[midnightpulp]

It's not a First Amendment issue, but people are still totally entitled to criticize a private entity for choosing to censor something/someone.

Not saying these companies are wrong at all for telling the alt-right to fuck off... just pointing out that in other cases, private censorship can be constitutional and still wrong.

Definitely. There's 20 or so million people in the US who will march lockstep with Trump into Hell. Majority of them probably have facebook, since they all love sharing those "triggering" memes so much. They should choose to boycott facebook, twitter, paypal en masse to show solidarity for their alt-right heroes who are being "unfairly" targeted and maybe put pressure on these companies to relent. Facebook wouldn't like what a 20 million (not to mention all the mouth breathing ethnonationalists in Europe) mass exodus would do their bottom line. Don't think they're that committed. Sharing memes is to fun :lol

Can private censorship really ever be "wrong?" I agree it can be illogical and silly (i.e. an SJW telling me to leave their house because I showed up wearing a Cleveland Indians hat), but I don't think choosing which people and ideas you choose to patronize in your residence, place of business, etc can ever be wrong in a moral sense.

[Spurminator]

What if a company was forced to provide a service to someone that held views they felt were abhorrent?

They would be well within their legal rights.

Race, sex, religion, gender, age, orientation, nationality.

Wearing a Nazi shirt into a cake store isn't protected.


Edit: Read your post wrong. I read it as what if they refused.

[DarrinS]

They would be well within their legal rights.

Race, sex, religion, gender, age, orientation, nationality.

Wearing a Nazi shirt into a cake store isn't protected.


What about a police uniform?

[boutons_deux]

1st Amendment applies only to govt

[Spurminator]

What about a police uniform?

As far as I understand it, that's technically legal, they're just probably not going to stay in business very long.

I could be wrong.

[midnightpulp]

I get it and I tend to agree.


One thing I do find interesting in your post:

"No. What actually would be a violation of 1st amendment rights (and the concept of private property) is if the companies in question were somehow forced to patronage views they find abhorrent."

What if a company was forced to provide a service to someone that held views they felt were abhorrent?

Like if the government drafted a bill that made it illegal for companies to privately censor.

Not sure I get the last question? Are you talking about a situation like a private hospital being forced to render emergency services on someone like a Neo-Nazi? In that case the Nazi's human rights supersedes (morally and legally) a company's right to refuse rights.

[DarrinS]

Like if the government drafted a bill that made it illegal for companies to privately censor.

Not sure I get the last question? Are you talking about a situation like a private hospital being forced to render emergency services on someone like a Neo-Nazi? In that case the Nazi's human rights supersedes (morally and legally) a company's right to refuse rights.


Wel, obviously, a life and death situation goes beyond free speech.

I'm talking about internet censorship.

[midnightpulp]

Wel, obviously, a life and death situation goes beyond free speech.

I'm talking about internet censorship.

No such thing exists.

There's always an alternative if you don't like the way a specific company on the Internet is treating you, i.e, most of post on here instead of inside hoops because we can call each other faggots, bean3rs, gooks, etc without fearing of banishment.

Now if the Internet becomes a public utility, then it would be a violation of the 1st amendment.

[DarrinS]

No such thing exists.

There's always an alternative if you don't like the way a specific company on the Internet is treating you, i.e, most of post on here instead of inside hoops because we can call each other faggots, bean3rs, gooks, etc without fearing of banishment.

Now if the Internet becomes a public utility, then it would be a violation of the 1st amendment.


Some platforms are pretty much there.

[DarrinS]

I'm pretty sure Facebook finds Trump's tweets abhorrent, but they're not about to deactivate that account.

But, hey, at least they shut down Milo. :lol

[Thread]

I'm pretty sure Facebook finds Trump's tweets abhorrent, but they're not about to deactivate that account.

Which is absolutely flabbergasting.

[midnightpulp]

Some platforms are pretty much there.

If so (I don't doubt it), the internet is simply the foundation, like the water (a public utility) a restaurant boils to make a dish. The WWW is actually not the "internet," it's the restaurant, and a restaurant does have the right to refuse.

[DarrinS]

Here's an email sent by CEO that terminated service to Daily Stormfag




Team:

Earlier today Cloudflare terminated the account of the Daily Stormer. We’ve stopped proxying their traffic and stopped answering DNS requests for their sites. We’ve taken measures to ensure that they cannot sign up for Cloudflare’s services again.

This was my decision. Our terms of service reserve the right for us to terminate users of our network at our sole discretion. My rationale for making this decision was simple: the people behind the Daily Stormer are assholes and I’d had enough.

Let me be clear: this was an arbitrary decision. It was different than what I’d talked talked with our senior team about yesterday. I woke up this morning in a bad mood and decided to kick them off the Internet. I called our legal team and told them what we were going to do. I called our Trust & Safety team and had them stop the service. It was a decision I could make because I’m the CEO of a major Internet infrastructure company.

Having made that decision we now need to talk about why it is so dangerous. I’ll be posting something on our blog later today. Literally, I woke up in a bad mood and decided someone shouldn’t be allowed on the Internet. No one should have that power.

[Cloudflare employee’s name redacted] asked after I told him what we were going to do: “Is this the day the Internet dies?” He was half joking, but I actually think it’s an important question. It’s important that what we did today not set a precedent. The right answer is for us to be consistently content neutral. But we need to have a conversation about who and how the content online is controlled. We couldn’t have that conversation while the Daily Stormer site was using us. Now, hopefully, we can.

I’ll be publishing a blog post with all our thoughts on this issue in a few hours. Until then, I’d ask that you not talk about this externally.

—-

Matthew Prince

Co-founder & CEO

[midnightpulp]

I should rephrase. For Internet censorship to become a 1st amendment violation, the world wide web would have to become the public utility. It's actually impossible to "censor" anything on the Internet since the Internet is simply a network of computer-to-computer connections that can't communicate information on its own without a program (i.e., in the old days, it was BBSes, now, it's the WWW). And web-hosting services, web-pages, etc are privately owned. So if the Internet did become a public utility, a person who felt censored by the facebooks and godaddys could still set up their own webpages and web hosting services, or find laxer alternatives.

We often conflate the Internet with the WWW. It's kind of like confusing electricity (Internet) and Lights (WWW).

[DarrinS]

What are your thoughts about algorithms that would give low rank to political views deemed abhorrent to search engine provider?

[midnightpulp]

Here's an email sent by CEO that terminated service to Daily Stormfag

See my latest post. He's aiming to be the "laxer alternative" I mentioned.

Personally, I wouldn't shut them down in his situation unless I was under pressure financially from a mass boycott. It's not that I'm choosing money over values, rather that I think providing outlets for these idiots to circlejerk on keeps them in the public eye and probably also provides a catharsis for them in some way. Would rather have them share memes and trigger SJWs online than turn into isolated McVeigh types that can do real damage.

[SnakeBoy]

What are your thoughts about algorithms that would give low rank to political views deemed abhorrent to search engine provider?

4conservative.com

lol the search results for charlottesville

[DarrinS]

See my latest post. He's aiming to be the "laxer alternative" I mentioned.

Personally, I wouldn't shut them down in his situation unless I was under pressure financially from a mass boycott. It's not that I'm choosing money or values, rather that I think providing outlets for these idiots to circlejerk on keeps them in the public eye and probably also provides a catharsis for them in some way. Would rather have them share memes and trigger SJWs online than turn into isolated McVeigh types that can do real damage.

Agree

[Spurminator]

Without human intervention and ranking, search engines would simply serve up results based on whatever sites are most savvy at SEO and can manipulate the system in their favor. Or in a paid scenario, whoever has the deepest pockets. Is that preferable to a search engine applying a moral filter to results?

[midnightpulp]

What are your thoughts about algorithms that would give low rank to political views deemed abhorrent to search engine provider?

No problem with that. Google, et al owns those algorithms. Their private property.

A corollary here would be how a private business gives discounts to people they know or like, just based on that fact they know and like them personally :lol

[DarrinS]

Without human intervention and ranking, search engines would simply serve up results based on whatever sites are most savvy at SEO and can manipulate the system in their favor. Or in a paid scenario, whoever has the deepest pockets. Is that preferable to a search engine applying a moral filter to results?


Google's original algorithm was quite brilliant, but there's no doubt the current algorithm has be "modified". They OWN search and YouTube.

[DarrinS]

No problem with that. Google, et al owns those algorithms. Their private property.

A corollary here would be how a private business gives discounts to people they know or like, just based on that fact they know and like them personally :lol


Given Silicon Valley's political leanings, I doubt we'll see an election result like 2016 again.

[Spurminator]

Search is lower funnel. People on Google and YouTube know what they're looking for. It's not a medium that's nearly as good at persuasion as a newsfeed.

Facebook is much more powerful when it comes to shaping opinion.

[DarrinS]

Search is lower funnel. People on Google and YouTube know what they're looking for. It's not a medium that's nearly as good at persuasion as a newsfeed.

Facebook is much more powerful when it comes to shaping opinion.


I'm so glad I never joined Facebook. Never will.

[RandomGuy]

In the aftermath of tech companies (facebook, godaddy, twitter, paypal etc) refusing to be platforms for speech and/or behavior they deem offensive, I'm seeing the same old bullshit arguments by so-called "freedom of speech" defenders, believing this to be censorship and an attack on 1st amendment rights.

No. What actually would be a violation of 1st amendment rights (and the concept of private property) is if the companies in question were somehow forced to patronage views they find abhorrent. A quick analogy. Think of facebook as your home. If a person you invited to your home starts behaving in ways you find inappropriate, you can freely "censor" him by showing him the door, as facebook has done with a few alt-right luminaries.

What the first amendment protects is your right to say inappropriate things without fear of arrest or other forms of government intervention. The ACLU themselves defended the alt-right's rights to protest in Charlottesville, for instance.

As a soft-libertarian this shit warms my heart. Customers complained to these companies they were no longer comfortable with them providing a voice for idiots, and the companies responded (in an effort to make their customers happy and protect their bottom line) in kind. Free market at work. If Andrew Anglin, Richard Spencer, and the rest of those mouth breathers don't like it, they are perfectly free to create web hosting services, social media platforms, and online money transfer sites. That ain't going to happen, of course, because the lot of them doesn't have two brain cells to rub together.

At the same time it underscores the dangers and power of these tech companies.

Today it is white racists being removed.

What is to stop them from deciding that something you or I might agree with is then inappropriate?

[RandomGuy]

I'm so glad I never joined Facebook. Never will.

The most value I have found is re-connecting with old high-school friends, and having a platform to see pictures of my nephews.

You aren't missing much, other than an opportunity for another multi-billion dollar company to use your personal information to make money.

[RandomGuy]

Google's original algorithm was quite brilliant, but there's no doubt the current algorithm has be "modified". They OWN search and YouTube.

Which means they have, essentially, a monopoly, and immense power. The EU recognizes it as such.

This should concern everyone, IMO.

[boutons_deux]

The Repug FCC aint never gonna regulate google, facebook, etc, no matter how powerful (unless they hurt Repugs politically)

1st Amendment applies to govt only

[Will Hunting]

What are your thoughts about algorithms that would give low rank to political views deemed abhorrent to search engine provider?
:lmao Darrin still butthurt about what videos are trending on YouTube

[Will Hunting]

Google's original algorithm was quite brilliant, but there's no doubt the current algorithm has be "modified". They OWN search and YouTube.
:cry why doesn't Sean Hannity have as many hits as Stephen Colbert :cry

[Mark Celibate]

In the aftermath of tech companies (facebook, godaddy, twitter, paypal etc) refusing to be platforms for speech and/or behavior they deem offensive, I'm seeing the same old bullshit arguments by so-called "freedom of speech" defenders, believing this to be censorship and an attack on 1st amendment rights.

No. What actually would be a violation of 1st amendment rights (and the concept of private property) is if the companies in question were somehow forced to patronage views they find abhorrent. A quick analogy. Think of facebook as your home. If a person you invited to your home starts behaving in ways you find inappropriate, you can freely "censor" him by showing him the door, as facebook has done with a few alt-right luminaries.

What the first amendment protects is your right to say inappropriate things without fear of arrest or other forms of government intervention. The ACLU themselves defended the alt-right's rights to protest in Charlottesville, for instance.

As a soft-libertarian this shit warms my heart. Customers complained to these companies they were no longer comfortable with them providing a voice for idiots, and the companies responded (in an effort to make their customers happy and protect their bottom line) in kind. Free market at work. If Andrew Anglin, Richard Spencer, and the rest of those mouth breathers don't like it, they are perfectly free to create web hosting services, social media platforms, and online money transfer sites. That ain't going to happen, of course, because the lot of them doesn't have two brain cells to rub together.

I see your point but it's still sketchy to say the least.

My issue is why, in the four years that the site was up, did they decide to just now shut it down? If I remember right, Dylann Roof said he was a Stormer reader yet nobody cared to ban the site from the internet. But then one white woman gets run over by some autistic guy and that's the straw that breaks the camel's back?

The real reason they shut it down was due to the heavy increase in internet traffic they had leading up to the event. IMO, the internet should become a public utility already. I don't want a bunch of Jews deciding what I can or can't read.

[Clipper Nation]

But you'd rather have a bunch of career politicians and their donors deciding what you can or can't read?

[Mark Celibate]

But you'd rather have a bunch of career politicians and their donors deciding what you can or can't read?

But the difference is that the government/FCC cannot start censoring websites without violating the First Amendment. If they did, every citizen would be able to legally sue and take the case all the way up to the Supreme Court.

However, when these privately owned Jewish corporations collude together (which is what we see today with all the mainstream news networks - who are the same guys that own virtually all the ISPs in the country) the citizens do not have that right.

[Clipper Nation]

But the difference is that the government/FCC cannot start censoring websites without violating the First Amendment. If they did, every citizen would be able to legally sue and take the case all the way up to the Supreme Court.
The FCC is allowed to censor "obscene, indecent and profane" content. The Supreme Court already ruled decades ago that this wasn't protected under the First Amendment. Give Washington bureaucrats and their cronies total control of the Internet, and they'll inevitably warp the definition of "obscene, indecent and profane" to include any opinions/facts they don't want us seeing.

At least with private companies, there's options. You can use a competitor's service or build your own. There's also all the exciting experiments in decentralized social platforms that will be more resistant to censorship. In contrast, there's no competition with the FCC.

[Mark Celibate]

Also, @ CN, if the US government really became so totalitarian that it decided to crap all over the Constitution, do you really think they'd just resign and say "Dang it! We REALLY want to censor the internet but it looks like the corporations control it so nothing we can do. Oh well!"

[Mark Celibate]

The FCC is allowed to censor "obscene, indecent and profane" content. The Supreme Court already ruled decades ago that this wasn't protected under the First Amendment. Give Washington bureaucrats and their cronies total control of the Internet, and they'll inevitably warp the definition of "obscene, indecent and profane" to include any opinions/facts they don't want us seeing.

At least with private companies, there's options. You can use a competitor's service or build your own. There's also all the exciting experiments in decentralized social platforms that will be more resistant to censorship. In contrast, there's no competition with the FCC.

:lol

yeah just start your own. pretty easy. let's just conveniently ignore the massive barriers in starting your own ISP company like...

>laying your own cables which costs millions of dollars and takes years to do
>oh you actually have the millions of dollars and are ready to go you say? Well, guess what...many current ISPs have made deals with local municipalities which deny permitting the laying of new cabling. Get ready for tons of red tape/legal battles that you'll have to fight in court
>other Jewish trickery preventing market competition in areas that these corps operate in. (i.e. Time Warner/CNN goes to Idaho and offers bribes to ensure that only they are the ones that are able to provide internet service in the state, preventing any chance of a startup company succeeding)

Your post sounds good in theory, but in reality there's no competition, it's just market monopoly collusion.

[Clipper Nation]

:lol

yeah just start your own. pretty easy. let's just conveniently ignore the massive barriers in starting your own ISP company like...

>laying your own cables which costs millions of dollars and takes years to do
>oh you actually have the millions of dollars and are ready to go you say? Well, guess what...many current ISPs have made deals with local municipalities which deny permitting the laying of new cabling. Get ready for tons of red tape/legal battles that you'll have to fight in court
>other Jewish trickery preventing market competition in areas that these corps operate in. (i.e. Time Warner/CNN goes to Idaho and offers bribes to ensure that only they are the ones that are able to provide internet service in the state, preventing any chance of a startup company succeeding)

Your post sounds good in theory, but in reality there's no competition, it's just market monopoly collusion.
I wasn't referring to ISPs, I was talking about CloudFlare - which I thought was what you were referring to, since they're the ones who shut down the Daily Stormer. There are many alternatives to CloudFlare that already exist: Incapsula, Akamai, CloudFront, Reblaze, and StackPath come to mind.

I agree that there's a lot of bullshit that comes along with ISPs, but it's mostly a failure of Big Government and I don't believe that more Big Government is going to fix it.

[Clipper Nation]

Case in point - the Daily Stormer has already found another DDoS protection firm willing to work with them pro bono:


The game of neo-Nazi whack-a-mole continued with the launch Friday of dailystormer.lol and an agreement with Bitmitigate, a Seattle-based content delivery network company contracted by The Daily Stormer to provide pro bono protection from distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, a tactic used to knock websites offline by overloading them with illegitimate internet traffic.

"We are offering protection to the Daily Stormer simply as a protection of free speech," Bitmitigate owner Nicholas Lim told The Washington Times.

"It comes down to the fact that our decision has nothing to do with the contents of the website, but rather the fundamental underlying principles at play," Mr. Lim said Friday with respect to protecting The Daily Stormer from DDoS attacks. "In regards to whether or not customers will react negatively: I am sure that they will, but if this progression continues, unfortunately, we may live in a society where they may not be able to react at all."


http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/aug/18/daily-stormer-infamous-neo-nazi-site-resurfaces-lo/

[Spurtacular]

In the aftermath of tech companies (facebook, godaddy, twitter, paypal etc) refusing to be platforms for speech and/or behavior they deem offensive, I'm seeing the same old bullshit arguments by so-called "freedom of speech" defenders, believing this to be censorship and an attack on 1st amendment rights.

No. What actually would be a violation of 1st amendment rights (and the concept of private property) is if the companies in question were somehow forced to patronage views they find abhorrent. A quick analogy. Think of facebook as your home. If a person you invited to your home starts behaving in ways you find inappropriate, you can freely "censor" him by showing him the door, as facebook has done with a few alt-right luminaries.

What the first amendment protects is your right to say inappropriate things without fear of arrest or other forms of government intervention. The ACLU themselves defended the alt-right's rights to protest in Charlottesville, for instance.

As a soft-libertarian this shit warms my heart. Customers complained to these companies they were no longer comfortable with them providing a voice for idiots, and the companies responded (in an effort to make their customers happy and protect their bottom line) in kind. Free market at work. If Andrew Anglin, Richard Spencer, and the rest of those mouth breathers don't like it, they are perfectly free to create web hosting services, social media platforms, and online money transfer sites. That ain't going to happen, of course, because the lot of them doesn't have two brain cells to rub together.

Man, you're a hardcore cuck for the system. They're monopolies that shouldn't lawfully be thought policing. I'd be okay with it if these companies weren't on the govt's teet and the playing field was open.

[midnightpulp]

Man, you're a hardcore cuck for the system. They're monopolies that shouldn't lawfully be thought policing. I'd be okay with it if these companies weren't on the govt's teet and the playing field was open.

Free market won out. The Daily Stormer faggot found people willing to work with him.

You're the "cuck" for the system. If I own a web hosting service, it's MY RIGHT to whom I offer and deny services to. Championing government intervention in this case infringes upon that right.

[Spurtacular]

Free market won out. The Daily Stormer faggot found people willing to work with him.

You're the "cuck" for the system. If I own a web hosting service, it's MY RIGHT to whom I offer and deny services to. Championing government intervention in this case infringes upon that right.

These are the same companies that have sweetheart deals with the govt, bro. And this is the same govt. that tried to take control of the internet and has to a large degree. Sorry, but your bull shit about this being free market is not even close to true.

[Spurtacular]

:lol

yeah just start your own. pretty easy. let's just conveniently ignore the massive barriers in starting your own ISP company like...

>laying your own cables which costs millions of dollars and takes years to do
>oh you actually have the millions of dollars and are ready to go you say? Well, guess what...many current ISPs have made deals with local municipalities which deny permitting the laying of new cabling. Get ready for tons of red tape/legal battles that you'll have to fight in court
>other Jewish trickery preventing market competition in areas that these corps operate in. (i.e. Time Warner/CNN goes to Idaho and offers bribes to ensure that only they are the ones that are able to provide internet service in the state, preventing any chance of a startup company succeeding)

Your post sounds good in theory, but in reality there's no competition, it's just market monopoly collusion.

Well done, bro. Post of the day material.

[midnightpulp]

I see your point but it's still sketchy to say the least.

My issue is why, in the four years that the site was up, did they decide to just now shut it down? If I remember right, Dylann Roof said he was a Stormer reader yet nobody cared to ban the site from the internet. But then one white woman gets run over by some autistic guy and that's the straw that breaks the camel's back?

The real reason they shut it down was due to the heavy increase in internet traffic they had leading up to the event. IMO, the internet should become a public utility already. I don't want a bunch of Jews deciding what I can or can't read.

I know you think people are practicing selective outrage, but the truth is, mainstream America didn't know what the hell the "alt-right" was before it rode into the national consciousness on the back of Trump. Beforehand, the movement and its figureheads (Spencer, Anglin, et al) still very much existed on the fringe with little-to-no spotlight. The reason it's a "problem" now is because the movement gained an immense amount of momentum over the last year through Trump and Bannon.

The WWW can never become a public utility much the same way that restaurants can't become public utilities. As I've said, we often confuse the WWW and the Internet. The Internet is simply the electronic infrastructure computers use to communicate with each other. That can perhaps become a public utility (like water), while web hosting services will remain privately owned. Think of it like: Internet (water), Web hosting service (restaurant), web pages (diners).

I'll counter with: I don't want a bunch of Jews telling me that I have to patronize the opinions of assholes. And yes, Anglin's site should've been nuked a long time ago. He incited violence against that Jewish woman whom he accused of extorting Richard Spencer's mom.

[midnightpulp]

These are the same companies that have sweetheart deals with the govt, bro. And this is the same govt. that tried to take control of the internet and has to a large degree. Sorry, but your bull shit about this being free market is not even close to true.

No ISP has denied service to Anglin. He can still access the "dark web" via the internet.

You still don't get it. A few web hosting services refused to do business with him. He can (and has) found another.

[Spurtacular]

I know you think people are practicing selective outrage, but the truth is, mainstream America didn't know what the hell the "alt-right" was before it rode into the national consciousness on the back of Trump.

It's not a matter of knowing. It's a matter of caring. Lapdog media is the mouthpiece of the elites, not a true news service.

[midnightpulp]

It's not a matter of knowing. It's a matter of caring. Lapdog media is the mouthpiece of the elites, not a true news service.

There's a million alternatives to "lapdog media" out there. Free market at work, again.

So you'd prefer the Internet to be in the hands of the biggest elitist organization there is (the government)?

You already see how the FCC restricts speech ("Omg, he cussed on his radio how! 50K fine!). Great idea to cede control of the net to that institution :tu

Again, Anglin found another outlet for his "speech." Took all of a couple days.

[Spurtacular]

There's a million alternatives to "lapdog media" out there. Free market at work, again.

So you'd prefer the Internet to be in the hands of the biggest elitist organization there is (the government)?

You already see how the FCC restricts speech ("Omg, he cussed on his radio how! 50K fine!). Great idea to cede control of the net to that institution :tu

Again, Anglin found another outlet for his "speech." Took all of a couple days.

MC said it best; the gov has aided with the growth and subsistence of a monopolistic infrastructure. That there are piddly "alternatives" is far from the point.

[DMC]

The only way any company should be "forced" to serve anyone is

A: the party in question has paid for the service
B: the business uses federal tax dollars
C: Court ruling (probably based on one of the two above caveats)

Otherwise, you should be able to serve who you want, and not serve who you don't. If your business model is poor, you'll go broke. Good for you, you deserved it.

btw, contrary to ST belief, putting "muh" before something in no way negates or diminishes its importance. It just shows your following argument is likely pretty fucking weak.

[midnightpulp]

MC said it best; the gov has aided with the growth and subsistence of a monopolistic infrastructure. That there are piddly "alternatives" is far from the point.

So then why hand the whole thing over to that same government to become a public utility?

And again, it can't become a public utility, unless you're okay with a single web hosting service for all, which translates into the government having full control over the dissemination of information.

"Piddly alternatives." :lol

You can find any number of crackpot websites offering their opinions on everything from how Lizard people control the world to aliens were responsible for 9/11. Looks like you have trouble using google or something :lol

[midnightpulp]

Oh, looks like Anglin if off-line again, but the thing is, you can still visit his website in the "dark web."

Look at it like this. Anglin is shopping around his version of the Turner Diaries to various publishers. No one wants to publish his garbage, so he's resorted to self-publishing in a sense and distributing underground (the dark web).

[Spurtacular]

So then why hand the whole thing over to that same government to become a public utility?

And again, it can't become a public utility, unless you're okay with a single web hosting service for all, which translates into the government having full control over the dissemination of information.

"Piddly alternatives." :lol

You can find any number of crackpot websites offering their opinions on everything from how Lizard people control the world to aliens were responsible for 9/11. Looks like you have trouble using google or something :lol

Are you denying the high degree of integration of these web services? You're basically telling people to not use cars on highways when they can walk through alleys and ditches instead.

[Winehole23]

Given Silicon Valley's political leanings, I doubt we'll see an election result like 2016 again.

The liberal press says the guys running Silicon Valley are mostly edgy libertarian tech bros. Must be a disinfo op.


Per a report in Business Insider (http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-is-hiring-news-credibility-specialists-2018-6), as of Thursday, Facebook had two contract positions for “news credibility specialists” open on its job site. The jobs are based out of Menlo Park, California, where the site is headquartered, and one of them lists fluent Spanish as a requirement:

“We’re seeking individuals with a passion for journalism, who believe in Facebook’s mission of making the world more connected,” one of the two listings reads. It continues: “As a member of the team, you’ll be tasked with developing a deep expertise in Facebook’s News Credibility Program. You’ll be conducting investigations against predefined policies.”
Facebook would ask the specialists to help create a list of credible news organizations. That list could be used for various features on the site, from the newsfeed to its advertising system.

https://gizmodo.com/facebook-is-now-trying-to-hire-news-credibility-special-1826654472

[boutons_deux]

"the world more connected .." above all to Facebook