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Comment by hutzlibu | Hacker News Reader

"I would like to see your supportive reaction if an Iranian company offers hosting to Parler. "

This is a hacker forum and not a US foreign ministry praise board, even though it is mainly US based. In other words, I doubt the reaction here would be rage, if a iranian company would do that. Hackers usually are not in favor of censorship or information restriction.

So who do you mean, with "you"?

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> Hackers usually are not in favor of censorship or information restriction. So who do you mean, with "you"?

There are many comments on previous HN threads defending censorship and information restriction, precisely as the GP has described it.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25693742

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25691631

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25706993

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25733038

What you call “defending censorship” is perhaps better described as “defending free speech”. Forced speech is not free speech.

Stong disagree. When a handful of tech companies that form an Oligarchy on modern communication decide to systemically oppress members of one political party, that's the antithesis of free speech.

Lets not pretend that this has anything to do with their political party.

Would you also say that tech companies banning ISIS is systematically oppressing members of one religion?

> that's the antithesis of free speech

It’s not. Companies enjoy freedom of speech too, but you’d force them to publish content they don’t want to publish. That’s the antithesis of free speech.

Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information, on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or "inconvenient." Censorship can be conducted by governments, private institutions, and other controlling bodies.

Amazon, Apple, Google, Twitter, Facebook, etc. are multibillion-dollar corporations that control a colossal share of online communications.

Let's not play pretend here.

There are certainly peoole here defending censorship, but the parent poster spoke like "we" would follow US geopolicy in general. And in general I don't see the majority here in favor of kicking out parler etc.

Rather the contrary. Anyway, by my tautological definition of hacker, no hacker would be in favor of banning a communication app, anyway, so ...

Fair enough, you have a good point. By, "you" I mean a tech person who is supportive of Signal action and is willing to setup a proxy without realizing that this is circumventing another country's law.

I agree I could have said it more clearly and less emotionally.

I think you expressed it really well. Double standards and hypocrisy seem to be one trait that Americans inherited from their British founders.

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