Internet Association Endorses Internet Censorship Bill
eff.org
eff.org
Now when you use free association to withdraw internet service that you oppose, you implicitly are saying that you endorse the services you keep.
Now most people agree that if people who advocate Nazism are bad, people who actually engage in human trafficking are even worse. And if you are ok with making sure that the former are not on the Internet, you should be even more ok with keeping the latter off the Internet.
This is the reason why the ACLU has historically been pretty absolutist about free speech, even defending and making sure that the government does not censorship even the most odious of speech.
In the past, section 230 made sense as most of the companies had a lassez-faire attitude to speech on their services. With companies now doing more to me censor 3rd party speech on their platform, section 230 is seen as the tech companies wanting to have your cake (bot have any liability for 3rd party speech) and eat it too(be able to censor 3rd party speech whenever they want).
This lassez-faire attitude you speak of never existed. They lost the high ground the moment they started policing their platforms for spam, adult content, malware, copyrighted content, terrorist propaganda, etc., thereby expressing editorial control.
They want to have it both ways, they want to absolve themselves of all responsibility (and liability) for anything that's on their platform and at the same time remove anything that is in-line with their commercial interests (for UX reasons or because their advertisers object to the content their ads run on).
Censorship is one party telling everyone else what they can and can't see.
Prohibiting content is censorship -- it's telling people what they can't see.
Prohibiting filtering is also censorship -- it's telling people they have to see your thing in place of the thing they want.
Filtering is inherently a weighing of false positives against false negatives.
If you require filtering then the false negative rate has to be low/zero, so the false positive rate goes through the roof. No Nazis but also no Republicans or Democrats.
If you prohibit filtering then the false positive rate has to be low/zero, so the false negative rate goes through the roof. Everyone is deluged by spam and malware.
Section 230 doesn't apply to copyright and look at the mess that has been -- worst of both worlds. Copyright infringement is still prolific but people use fraudulent copyright takedowns for things they don't own left and right, and the platforms execute them because they have minimal incentive to question anything.
What you really want is the middle ground where platforms have to compete with each other for users, so they can ban things everyone hates (spam) but lose users if they ban things those people are legitimately interested in (e.g. minority political opinions).
The problem isn't Section 230, it's the lack of competition which gives the major platforms too much power when they decide to censor something. It has to be the marketplace of ideas, not the monopoly of ideas.
This reads like a paragraph straight out of 1984. No one is forcing people to view anything by prohibiting filtering. It simply is making certain available on the platform.
Now I suppose one could argue that filtering is a form of speech, but thats still reaching I think.
So I think things started going downhill when they started being very aggressive about copyright. That's certainly been the case with Google.
They fought on our side against SOPA, because they figured abiding by SOPA would cost them too much manual work. But then they wanted TV content and music services on the Play Store and Youtube, so stuff like SOPA became more acceptable to them as they were trying to get those deals.
So they implemented highly-aggressive and anti-fair use takedown bots across the Google search engine and Youtube to appease those companies with which they were making deals as much as possible.
So now of course the governments are like: "Well, if you can identify copyrighted content, surely you can identify "extremist" content, too, right?"
Except that Google or CloudFlare does not equal to "The Internet companies" as there are far more out there than these 2. Especially world-wide.
Also, companies do make mistakes. They don't strive for that, but they do. It is not too late to admit a mistake was made in this circumstance.
GP listed them as examples, that does not mean that they are the only two companies that did so. So this becomes a paradox of the heap. At which point does "a few individual companies" turn into "the internet"? Since the internet is a decentralized system there is no clear defined boundary and any of the big, private infrastructure providers finding novel reason (within their own ecosystem) to not provide a service is concerning.
What if google refused to resolve some domains via their 8.8.8.8 resolver? Clearly this is trivial to circumvent, at worst you would have to setup your own resolver at home. And yet it could affect millions of unaware users.
What if the CEO of a single Tier 1 peering provider suddenly found some content so much in conflict with his values that they refuse to route the whole IP block?
Yes, they are private entities, but the internet consists predominantly of private entities providing infrastructure.
That wasn't clear at all.
As for the rest of what you wrote: It is something we need to keep in the back of our mind, but I am not afraid of that doom-scenario. I've been on the Internet long enough to know that it isn't the end of the world if a few large ISPs stop carrying [certain] information. Even if the whole USA would be forced to do that under this law it wouldn't be the end of the world. If anything, it provides a business opportunity for competitors (akin to the problem of tax evasion). It'd be great for ISPs in the EU, to name an example who'd benefit. OVH in Europe wouldn't mind such a bill. My point is that the Internet will work around it if a large enough group of people support it. A large enough group of people (in relevant positions) support tax evasion as well, so that's gonna stay existent for the time being.
There are also documented examples of ISPs as well as darknets which don't or would not censor (you'll find most ISPs operate like that unless it clearly is against the law). Although there's also grey area. It is one of the reasons why a website like TPB existed for so long.
The same with 8.8.8.8. Its in Google's interest to handle the vast majority of DNS requests. Why? It allows them to do better profiling. Why would they without a court order actively hamper their business interest? If a company like Google wants to it becomes a cat and mouse game. People swap to a different DNS such as a root-server, or a proper DNS server supporting DNSCurve (a much more secure option than Google DNS). I'm from a country where two large ISPs had to block TPB on DNS layer. Do you think it was effective? Later on, they had to filter certain IPs (also causing other websites to be unreachable). That was slightly more effective, but to this day the darknet, VPNs, and proxies still work both for TPB as well for piracy.
BTW, I find the example of Daily Stormer particularly weak. There's far more controversial as well as earlier documented examples related to piracy, terrorism, and CP. The question becomes: where do you draw the line? Because even in darknets, people draw lines. IPFS has a function to blacklist content.
What you can observe is that something like CP is difficult (virtually impossible) to obtain because the general public doesn't support it. Whereas piracy, is supported by a vast large group of people. Result: 1) If someone does have a significant amount of it they actively searched for it which severely weakens their legal defense 2) The darknet (and clearnet till some extend) carries piracy, but not so much CP. Supply & demand works even with moderate amounts of censorship because a large enough group of people agree (or disagree) with the cause. And, since I like that CP isn't easily available, it seems the system works, even on the darknet (note I've only verified it on Tor btw). Because CP is where I draw the line regarding freedom of speech; I want the people who produce and knowingly spread that busted. The vast majority of our civilisation as well as the vast majority of people who hold relevant positions at ISPs agree with that.
Yet, if freedom of speech was the holy grail, then it'd be available on the Internet. The elephant in the room is that freedom of speech both is not and was not the holy grail to begin with. There's nuances to such extreme ideal. I went into detail about 2 of these examples, but there are more available.
> What if the CEO of a single Tier 1 peering provider suddenly found some content so much in conflict with his values that they refuse to route the whole IP block?
This could already happen in the case of abuse, or lack of good peering agreement, but it did not happen in the case of spam. Instead we used blacklists like Spamhaus.
But what is the point behind your argument here? Does it make it any less of censorship just because it is not quite effective? That's like saying DRM implementations doesn't exist because DRM fundamentally can't work. Just because something can't work doesn't mean people won't attempt it and thus make life more difficult for everyone. Ultimately censorship is the same, it is very hard to eradicate the information itself, there might always be some underground that preserves it, but it is still censorship if people who do not want the content disseminated succeed in making the content reach fewer people.
From a policy perspective, mandating censorship infrastructure to be built will eventually lead for uses of this infrastructure to be expanded, the UK has shown this. First it was CP, then piracy, then regular porn, then politically extreme content.
One has support from a significant amount of people and is drawn more and more into the darknet (although clearnet + closed registration also occurs more and more), the other one is both very underground as well as it doesn't have support from a significant amount of people. A large enough group of people who operate the darknet make sure there's no CP to be found and they'd do things like snitch, destroy content, maybe even operate fake sale with BTC address, etc. Yet that very same group supports the notion of piracy. That's why you can find pirated content on the darknet with ease.
Its a given that the clearnet will become more regulated. Ever since I've been on the Internet, it has become only more regulated; not less. Its a given that darknets will rise within the clearnet. We can and should oppose this trend, sure, but we should also take action with more anonymity and privacy. Which is possible on the darknet.
Its a cat and mouse game with outliers where the cat is massive and the mouse has no movement space versus a cat and mouse game where the mouse gets help from the powers that be.
If you're interested in the philosophical side of the matter I invite you to read Hakim Bey's Temporary Autonomous Zone.
Another point all my 3 posts make is that even on the darknet there's censorship (ie. even there's no absolute freedom of speech). Why? Because we, the vast majority of people, do not like CP, and do not want to have the darknet as a platform spreading it. A lot of people draw the line there. Maybe you personally don't. There's only so much you can do. For example do you want a CP site to be part of an index? Maybe you do. I certainly don't. And as long as a significant majority of the people who frolic around on the darknet actively hamper CP (such as in the way with the examples I made), it won't be easily found and therefore stays underground instead of being easily spread.
Companies still have the right to refuse service to anyone. They're not "banning" them or "censoring" them; they're refusing a service that white advocacy organisations like Daily Stormer are fundamentally not owed, and only continues to disrupt their bottom line by degrading the quality of service provided for every other user of the platform.
What is often unsaid in this argument is the corrosive impact of "zero-tolerance" free speech on private platforms. What starts as a well-intentioned marketplace of ideas rapidly degenerates into a choking haze of obnoxious users who alienate more tactful users, as well as advertisers. Well-reasoned albeit inflammatory discussion gives way to a 4chan-style culture where the new bar for "ideas" is set at some variation of "nigger nigger nigger". Then, when normal users leave and Pizza Hut balks at seeing its logo next to a Klan hood, "corporate globalists" are accused of pulling the advertising solely to silence them, when really they're just defending their intellectual property against unsavory people who regularly act in bad faith.
"Free speech" on private platforms ends up killing the platform every time, because unsavory people misuse it, and the misuse draws more and more unsavory users. Voat is suffering from this problem, being more than willing to host the jailbait board that reddit wisely canned, as well as hosting content pandering to white community outreach and conspiracy theorists. When advertisers exercise their own freedom of association and refuse to do business with Voat, they're simply derided as part of a global elite that's seeking to extinguish their ideas. When in reality, nobody is interested in their ideas enough to be willing to fund them or associate with them.
Google et al are simply acknowledging that advertisers have every bit of freedom of association, as people believe they think they have freedom of speech on a private platform. They are not building governmental organisations, where freedom of speech is absolute and untouchable. They're building for-profit corporations that need to retain advertisers. And you don't retain advertisers by enabling their intellectual property to be placed amidst people who regularly act in bad faith.
I've stopped using reddit because so much of the "community" is so extreme now. They are even demanding that pro-Trump subs be banned from reddit and even calling for twitter to ban Trump's twitter account.
What's going to be interesting is what these people will think when people start demanding atheist, lgbt, leftist, etc content be censored.
I agree with the sentiment in principle. And I think competing walled gardens is a poor substitute for actual free speech. But I think the likely outcome is that other platforms/communities will rise for the "red team", with a similar philosophy of censorship but obviously much different community standards.
Initially, I think this will drive further animosity between the two teams as they become even more isolated echo chambers. But hopefully where the two meet (eg Faceboot), people will relearn that whole thing of not discussing "religion or politics" (redundant) in polite company.
It's to TALK BACK.
The thing about speech is it's only a paper trail of sorts. Sounds or printed symbols are not bullets being shot. But what they do is connect and mobilize minds and ideas, and hence the fear.
But since they are only a paper trail, censorship never solves the cause. It's like burying it. Silencing does have an impact... in that we no longer hear those words. But where they came from - unless they're funded by the speech itself (like a newspaper or something) - are still live and kicking. You have to kill the people that spoke those words, or else they'll continue to influence (hence the assassination of MLK, and so on). It's the equivalent of putting a silencer on a gun.
The point is, we need to engage the cause. The "gun" needs to be made the issue, not the sound of bullets firing. And not fight as in war, because that would lead to justifying offensive tactics that lower our moral standards. Censorship in media is the equivalent of murder on the battlefield.
Engaging is to connect. It is diplomacy. And for engagement, SPEECH IS THE ONLY WAY. So silencing goes against the cause. It makes things worse.
When we bury what cannot be buried, we get Silk Road and the drug war and the political backlash which is Mr. T. Instead, if we engage these PEOPLE as non-criminals for who they truly are - people just like you or I with different ideas - then we might actually get somewhere.
They are here to teach us what we needed to know, and vice versa. We must talk back, and not silence or punish or annihilate. That is the only civil and progressive solution.
Reminds me of the similarly misleadingly named "Internet.org" - Facebook's walled-garden "substitute" for an actual Internet connection.
However a) this research is very US-centric b) the paper also concludes that code word per word is pretty much equal between the two, wikipedia just has longer articles
1. https://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/do-experts-or-collective-intellig...
This is free access to a huge trove of information.
So is archive.org, but it's not the Internet. They deliberately decided to give it the misleading name of "Internet.org" --- no doubt there would be far less outcry if it was named something else.[1]
That link is absurd hyperbole.
The fact that they have trouble passing these "protect the children" type laws QUICKLY leaves me in awe of the resilience of the American political system.
There are a lot of hurdles in going beyond 2 parties - hurdles set-up by the 2 main parties - but I think people will increasingly put pressure on this system until it will break. This could happen for instance through a third-party presidential candidate that takes at least second place in a general election, while one of the two main parties is relegated to third place. I think we're getting pretty close to that happening, but I don't know if it's going to happen in 2020, 2024, or 2028. But probably no later than that.
There are millions of Americans who have extreme distrust in the two main parties, so "all it takes" (easier said than done) is for them to actually organize behind one candidate in an election and refusing to buy the "lesser evil" excuse that the two main parties have used for decades to keep people from fleeing to other parties.
So I keep reiterating the solution I see which is to replace these monopolies with public distributed peer to peer evolving technologies. And no one seems to support me when I suggest this is possible or desirable.
There are some initiatives in that direction from INRIA and other european groups but aside from GNU and the EFF no one is even talking about things like Taler in the states.
Vote with your wallets and browsing habits!
1) Climb.
2) Pull the ladder up behind you.
I think trafficking is horrible. I also think that censorship aids abuse, including probably trafficking.
Would we even be having this conversation, if decentralized conversation hadn't brought such topics into broader, public knowledge?
Would Weinstein still be preying, if an open Web hadn't made an end-run around mainstream media and their "pulled" stories?
Maybe apples and oranges. On the other hand, law enforcement has earned zero credibility towards their claims of apples actually being apples.
In other words, where are the stories -- the facts -- demonstrating such ubiquitous surveillance and censorship actually achieving their stated goals? As well as not serving other unstated, clandestine goals and mission creep.
Remember when "Internet surveillance" was strictly for and "because terrorists"? How long did that last?
The Harvey Weinstein story initially broke via articles published in the New York Times and New Yorker, which are pretty much as mainstream as it gets, so… probably not? Is there something I’m missing?
Journalistic freedom and space found (self-censorship) in the mainstream media are directly or indirectly affected by this. How many articles have not been published in the past because of the relationships with advertisers? (Hollywood is a big player in this)
Now there's a different barrier for stories to get published. Sometimes it's a better thing, other times it's not.
It still is. Along with children (and child porn in particular), "extremists", drugs, and other things that provoke more emotional than rational thought. These days, almost everything oppressive is done in the name of "security".
All banks have to comply with Know Your Customer regulations, which is easier for bigger banks than smaller ones. And yet society has deemed that combating money laundering and tax evasion is worth the cost. It'll be fine. Just raise more capital from your investors, it's essentially free these days.
The more interesting story with this law is more of a meta story. Here we have a change to a bedrock law that for over 20 years has granted the tech industry immunity from any liability for anything on their platforms. Which is just kind of amazing if you think about it. Imagine if the energy industry didn't have to deal with EPA regulations or manufacturing companies didn't have to deal with OSHA regulations. The political winds are starting to shift and the tech industry is increasingly going to be held responsible for the negative externalities they create.
Governments have antitrust laws to handle monopolies. If you're concerned with concentration (as I am), you should support more aggressive antitrust enforcement (and political candidates that do).
What externatlity is that? If they want to fight sex trafficking, really fight sex trafficking, they need to start by making prostitution and other forms of sex work legal.
Prohibition is what drives the activity under ground and creates the market for Sex Trafficking in the first place. It forces people that want to consume those services to a market that is outside the law, as such bad things happen, this is same for Drug Prohibition.
All you have to look to his the passage of the 18th amendment, all of the problems and violence prohibition of alcohol brought, and then the passage of the 21 amendment to end it. Today I do not see Budweiser shooting up Coors over territory, do you?
In addition to banks, money services businesses must comply with these regulations - people have gone to jail just for selling bitcoin for cash because they didn't do KYC/AML. Of course, no one related to banks goes to jail no matter how bad their compliance is.
Relating this to the original article a bit more, it's likely that these things will be abused very badly, with small players going to prison and big players only paying minor fines at worst.
Imagine if the telephone industry had to monitor phone usage to block criminal use. Imagine if the postal service was charged with filtering any potentially illegal activities.
"Section 230 doesn’t cause lawlessness. Rather, it creates a space in which many things — including lawless behavior — come to light. And it’s in that light that multitudes of organizations and people have taken proactive steps to usher victims to safety and apprehend their abusers."
-- Alexandra F. Levy, Adjunct Professor of Human Trafficking & Human Markets, Notre Dame Law School
The Postal Inspection Service _is_ tasked with filtering stuff that is prohibited from the mail, such as child porn, illegal drugs, and nuclear weapons. While the USPS isn't responsible for illegal stuff that happens through the mail, they do have a whole law-enforcement branch to deal with it.
wow, what a terrible analogy.
First off you have seemed to conflate 3rd party liability and 1st party liability.
If a Company pollutes say a river that is the Company doing it directly. Thus they are liable for it
If someone posts some threating comment, or some copyrighted work to a website the hosting company did not do anything wrong, they provided a service that was then used illegally, holding them liable for that would be holding a 3rd party liable. Something that should be rejected by society
A better anology would be "Image if Ford was responsible for every drunk driver that used a Ford Car irresponsibly and killed someone with it"
Do you blame Home Depot for renting a truck to a Terrorist? Dont answer that I bet you do.
>All banks have to comply with Know Your Customer regulations, which is easier for bigger banks than smaller ones. And yet society has deemed that combating money laundering and tax evasion is worth the cost.
Some of use in society do not agree it is worth the cost
>>It'll be fine.
Yes because the banking industry is a shining example of ethics, customer service. Next to lawyers I can not think of a more hated group in society than Bankers. There is a reason for this and the fact that competition is limited due to the law you cited and many others is a reason for this.
Imagine a world with ten new internet startups in 7 years; this is a step in that direction. This is not a fantasy but something that the government actually did to another industry.