> Kavanaugh dissented from the ruling upholding net neutrality rules in 2017, arguing that the rules violate the First Amendment rights of Internet service providers by preventing them from "exercising editorial control" over Internet content.
Jesus fucking christ.
https://techcrunch.com/2018/07/11/supreme-court-nominee-bret...
* "First, Congress did not clearly authorize the FCC to issue the net neutrality rule."
* "Under the Supreme Court's landmark decisions in [cites 2 precedents], the First Amendment bars the Government from restricting the editorial discretion of Internet service providers, absent a showing that an Internet service provider possesses market power in a relevant geographic market."
It really disturbs me how few people bother to look -- even a cursory glance -- before developing a profanity-laden opinion on the subject.
[1] https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=608357842885836...
Official link (PDF) for those who don't like Google: https://www.cadc.uscourts.gov/internet/opinions.nsf/06F8BFD0...
Law is a highly technical field that is full of detail, nuance and far-reaching consequences. There is a good reason why legal opinions are usually long written documents - the issues are complex. Anyone who selects one sentence as a soundbite and holds it up as the thing itself is (in an inconsequential way) undermining the integrity of the legal system. Judges write opinions that are about the length they need to be to express their reasoning. To criticise the opinion, it is necessary to have separate evidence of the result of the ruling or to have read the opinion. Quoting one sentence of the opinion from an article is not sufficient.
Indeed, there are times where I feel a profanity-laden opinion is justified without reading too far. If I were to say homosexuality should be punishable by prison time, I would expect a profanity laden response without much depth. Some things are just outrageous, and outrage is a sensible response.
Well, it's online, user-submitted content, so CDA 230 would seem to apply, whose whole point is to allow editorial control without liability.
In the debate leading to the adoption of CDA 230 the fact that this situation discouraged hosts from making best-effort attempts to eliminate unwelcome, including unlawful, content for fear of triggering strict liability was raised, and the desire to enable this kind of best-effort elimination of “objectionable and inappropriate” content is an explicitly-stated policy goal in Section 230(b).
Th actual safe harbor provision, Sec 230(c) is titled Protection for “Good Samaritan” blocking and screening of offensive material.
The idea that it isn't to enable to the host to affirmatively take action to prevent relaying content that might be offensive is...not well supported.
Specifically, US Code § 230(c)(2) ("Protection for private blocking and screening of offensive material") provides:
No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be held liable on account of—
(A) any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected; or
(B) any action taken to enable or make available to information content providers or others the technical means to restrict access to material described in paragraph (https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/230)
The pseudo ISP's might prioritize traffic, but would be facing very different economic incentives.
I like neutral ISPs, but I think Kavanaugh is probably correct, from a strictly constitutional sense ISPs should have a right to modify traffic in any way they like.
If you disagree, at least give me a hint as to your thinking.
And it's no more easy to start any of those on your own than it is to start your own ISP. Sure the barrier to entry to make your own website at some random domain is pretty low, but that's more akin to setting up a wireless router to provide internet to your roommates and calling it an ISP than it is to making something with any sort of significant penetration, load handling capability, and financial sustainability.
The argument of "ISP's choice is very limited in many areas, so it's different" seems rather weak to me. You can just use a cell carrier, or satellite, or even dial-up. If that sounds like "you can just start your own social media platform, your own website, your own payment processor, your own registrar, or just be accessible through an IP address, or tor etc." it should. All those options suck.
E.g., your ISP is likely not the only option, just the only decent one.
1. Have the power to flag (which everyone on HN doesn't equally have)
2. Disagree with the opinion expressed in a comment.
The flagging and banning system on HN needs revisiting. HN has become an echo chamber of opinions deemed kosher by those with flagging/moderation privileges.
At the very least, when flagging, HN should ask what TOS clause was violated.
The expression in question is offensive to sincere Christians not for the cussing per se, but for taking the lord's name in vain. It's a big form of disrespect of their religious beliefs. You could think of it as verbally pissing on their icons.
Out of respect for others, I try to keep my internet comments pg-13-ish and edit out the worst of the swearing if I'm writing while tired or distracted and my bad habits are showing more than usual. Yet I am generally disinclined to use expressions like Jesus Fucking Christ because I'm aware of how very, very offensive it is to sincere Christians. (I'm not saying I never do it. But I don't think I do it on HN, which is a shared public space. It doesn't sit well with me.)
We don't use, for example, "the N word." People can get fired over such racial slurs. I don't see any reason why we should casually dismiss the idea of basic respect for a major religion and its tenets.
Is there any real reason why the exclamation needs to target the Christian religion in order to adequately express exasperation?
The argument of "ISP's choice is very limited in many areas, so it's different" seems rather weak to me. You can just use a cell carrier, or satellite, or even dial-up. If that sounds like "you can just start your own social media platform, your own website, your own payment processor, your own registrar, or just be accessible through an IP address, or tor etc." it should. All those options suck. Yet the people who are most militant about Net Neutrality are usually totally okay with every other private entity doing whatever they want (as long as it ends up aligning with their ideology).
I'm not here to suggest any solution to all this, just to say I don't think there's anything untoward about a judge ruling in line with the first amendment of the Constitution. Ideally this whole mess will lead us towards more competition and decentralization on the Internet, but given the way it has developed in the past 20 years, I'm not very hopeful.
Because it has to effing stop somewhere, that's why.
Sorry, but saying that giving government-granted telco monopolies[1] a right to censor content is "in line with the first amendment" is the most bizzarre thing I've seen today.
[1]Neither spectrum nor the right to lay down cables are a free market.
These are known as common carriers. Here's a short list:
Every domestic passenger airline Every domestic freight carrying airline Busses Ferries Cabs Lyft Uber FedEx UPS USPS Passenger Railroads Freight Rail Service Many oil pipelines Even roller coasters Landlines Mobile phone service
Applying Title II of the Communications Act to broadband service, which applies common carrier obligations and privileges (e.g. you can't get sued for what you carry) isn't a violation of Verizon's free speech rights and ruling so isn't conservative at all.
2.) Yes, in response to current US politics, I have little to say beyond expressions of utter disgust and contempt. There is nothing I can do to change the Supreme Court situation. I have no deep commentary or rebuttal to make to Kavanough's opinions, because I think most readers here can already see what I see: that his argument is straight out of a dystopian horror story. They don't need my added pontification to make that clear.
3.) Not every comment needs to be a thoughtful essay. People frequently want to just express an opinion or emotion without wanting to dive into a conversation. Do you harp on people every time they snicker or sigh, saying is that all you have to contribute? I imagine people must be reluctant to make a sound around you.
Keep in mind statements like this are very double edged. Hosting providers are already denying the ability for people to even host platforms. Platforms are de-platforming people (and not all of them are hate groups. Just check out Carey Wedler's ban from Twitter). It's not a huge stretch to then say, ISPs should be allowed to regulate what content flows through their servers.
I can't seem to find it, but isn't there another case coming up to the Supreme Court soon over just this issue? You can't deny service to someone due to their race. I really feel like we're getting to the point where that really needs to apply to speech.
Since the sexual asssault allegations came at the tail of the process, had there been attention to the other things (EDIT: or the serial misrepresentation in regard to his role in the Bush Administration detainee policy, which ought to be disqualifying for the federal bench whether or not his actual role was problematic), the sexual assault issue may never have arisen.
It didn't matter.
Then the multiple allegations of rape were made.
And it still didn't matter.
So let's not kid ourselves that there was ever any chance of stopping his confirmation.
He's the political version of a made man.
Do you think allegations should matter to the confirmation process?
If the allegations are substantiated well-enough, the DA of Maryland could still charge him, right?
The confirmation process does not seem like the right venue to seek justice for a crime like that.
Among the myriad reasons: the nature of the crime matters. If they got caught with a bit too much LSD in 1975 it doesn't matter even if proven & admitted and convicted. If, however, there's just a whiff of corruption then that's Game Over, next please.
Hell, if they were arrested in bar fight just last year and spend a week in jail, that might even be a plus: first hand experience of the criminal justice system from "deep inside" could at least excuse a singular transgression (perhaps depending on what side of emacs-vs-vim they so drastically defended in that bar).
So it's more of a calculation, as in
probability X recency X seriousness X relevancy for job
+/- all other factors.
It's also intuitively obvious by considering the often-cited reasoning the the presumption of innocence:
It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer.
Because this doesn't hold for supreme court justices, where I think most would agree it's better for ten excellent judges to be passed over in lieu of the second-best alternative, than to have one criminal decide what's law and what isn't.
Even a criminal charge would have helped such an argument but even that wasn't the case here. If it wasn't for the politics of the situation I highly doubt so many people would be against such basic human right as due process.
Most importantly being a Supreme Court justice doesn't protect you from going to jail or from law enforcement from investigating your past behaviour... justices can be impeached.
On the inverse of your position we also shouldn't prevent the promotion of people to important roles (this goes well beyond SC justices), having followed every legal rule correctly up to that point, merely because of a last minute allegation. Let alone an allegation that wasn't even brought directly to the attention of law enforcement requesting investigation first but rather to a political opponent of the judge in question.
Even if the accusers sound persuasive it sets a very dangerous precedent that would make it easy to game the system and prevent any quality promotions merely based on unfounded allegations. This would almost certainly be open to abuse and hurt ALL political parties during future nominations, for any role, for decades to come.
Absent at a very minimum a law enforcement decision to bring charges, the hearings should continue and the matters should be investigated afterwards should they warrant it.
Some of them have turned out to be lies:
https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/nation-politics/go...
I thought there should have been more focus on his partisanship and lying. I believe the allegations, but they are just that, allegations. I rewatched Gorsuch's hearings, and you can really tell who belongs in the supreme court and who doesn't. Too bad over 90% of the votes were predetermined based on the candidates original political party, not their merit.
no now according to constitution you don't understand constitution!
you know like, after they interpreted the constitution as giving them the sole power to interpret the constitution. or however that worked out.
I can't just ignore the two or so providers of internet in my area and switch to dial up or whatever because I pretty much need high speed dependable internet for work. I think that's a pretty big difference there.