Muh Freedom of Speech! Muh Censorship! 1984!

[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 Storm

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

[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

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 bull 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 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?

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.

why doesn't Sean Hannity have as many hits as Stephen Colbert

[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 bull 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 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 compe or'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 compe ion with the FCC.

[Mark Celibate]

Also, @ CN, if the US government really became so totalitarian that it decided to crap all over the Cons ution, 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 compe or'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 compe ion with the FCC.

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 compe ion 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 compe ion, it's just market monopoly collusion.

[Clipper Nation]

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 compe ion 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 compe ion, 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 bull 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/...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 bull 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 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.