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Comment by duringmath | Hacker News Reader

It's codified censorship.

Time is finite. Censorship is already in place by those that seek to use yours.

Whether this is 'better' is the debate. But that you a person is a product who's manipulation of is current is not. The new current is that of false agency.

Or, advertising is harassment.

That's quite a take, can you back it up in any way?

Well it's the textbook definition of censorship i.e government deciding the content media platforms are allowed to publish/carry.

I am not sure that's the case here.

Also, has there ever been a time without censorship. Please keep in mind I am not interested in shallow right wing ideology crap.

Big boys/gals always censor. Otherwise they wouldn't be big

The difference is companies used to decide what piece of content to nuke now it's the government doing it which is a big no-no.

So instead of a private, unaccountable censor you now have a democratically elected one? How is that worse?

Government can put you in jail this is not a slope we want to grease.

Private "censorship" is localized and fairly harmless.

> Private "censorship" is localized and fairly harmless.

That, again, is a bold claim with nothing to back it up.

Here's an example of private censorship with a political motivation: https://www.businessinsider.com/twitter-leaked-internal-mess...

Nobody elected Musk, and yet he just autocratically controls a major medium of communication now, with no democratic control mechanisms in place. Better not upset the owning class or you, too, will be silenced!

Is this supposed to be a counter example? These actions are localized to twitter and afaik no one has gone to prison for it.

Like it or not (and I don't) Twitter is Musk's property, it's his 44B toy and he can break it if he wants.

they aren't elected

What do you mean?

I think they mean whoever is put into these companies to ensure compliance is just hired for the role, and isn't from some set of directly elected people.

This distinction between "elected", "appointed", etc.. people comes up pretty often in criticism of the EU and its institutions.

By that standard, the president of the US isn't elected either.

This is different still. It's more like how the US president's cabinet is unelected. I was referring mainly to the European Commission, and a common criticism I hear about it.

The electoral collage does follow a process that is election, even if there's one (or more) layer of abstraction between that and initial ballots.

Not that I share GPs opinion, but the US president really isn’t elected by the people. The winner takes it all is a strategy suitable for the 1700‘s, but not today. It may be what it is, but it certainly isn’t democratic.

How do you mean?

It allows hosts on every level to be criminally charged for user content. It has come with a backdrop of powerful interests pushing for cross-border takedowns in the EU. It suggests allowing copyright enforcement firms and NGOs to arbitrarily take down content and the legal protection against abuse is intentionally written vaguely and open endedly.

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