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Comment by explanatorygap | Hacker News Reader

EFF is on the wrong side of this, just as they were on the wrong side of the debates about what to do about spam email back in the day. They're committed to the view that the only acceptable place to block any flow of information (which they define very broadly) is at the receiving user's end and that the end user must personally opt-in. This is completely at odds with the last 30 years of experience on the internet and shows that they've learned very little about how bad actors will abuse systems of that sort and degrade the experience for everyone else.

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There's two issues here:

a) should online speech be policed

b) if so, who should do it?

We don't let phone companies police the content of phone calls, and we don't let delivery services police the content of letters/packages, so why would we let ISPs police the content of network packets?

Exceptions exist: you can't send most live animals by mail, packages are subject to inspection at customs borders, etc. But any sort of monitoring of content would need either clear evidence of danger, signs of abusing the network, or court involvement.

If this content is so terrible that it deserves to be removed from the internet by any means necessary, shouldn't the process be that a court of competent jurisdiction should be able to issue an order requiring the site to be taken down. If the proprietors of the site bring it up through another ISP, not a party to the original order, a new order could be issued as well as holding the proprietors in contempt, presumably.

Jurisdiction issues on content are hairy, but jurisdiction issues on ISP connections are easy, the connections happen in specific locations, and you can order the connection severed at either end of the connection (as well as in between the ends).

>shouldn't the process be that a court of competent jurisdiction should be able to issue an order

the same people who decry this will also decry the government taking charge of internet moderation at the ISP level, probably even louder.

This entire discussion is bizarre and academic. The site in question has engaged in doxxing and other activities that has led to real world harm, including suicides, and content on there is already probably illegal. If I run a business, and I know a customer is doing something like that, I have an ethical obligation to not facilitate it. I don't start some ideological discussion about whether some hypothetical court can prevent it given that nobody apparently can be bothered to actually make that a reality.

Imagine I have an axe shop and a known axe murderer walks through the door, and instead of not selling him an axe I propose we have a year long debate about the proper formal process of axe murder prevention supported by the Axe Rights Foundation. Granted this is how America actually (does not) deal with gun violence so I'm not surprised we are now in the pro-doxxer rights debate

> the same people who decry this will also decry the government taking charge of internet moderation at the ISP level, probably even louder.

Probably, yes. Which is why I mentioned the first part of the issue. Otoh, when the government does a takedown with court orders, there's always people yelling about it, but it's not as loud as when the government does a takedown without at least the appearance of due process or when a business does it without any due process.

> content on there is already probably illegal.

If the issue is illegal content, there should be indictments and court orders. Or at least, search warrants and seized equipment.

> If I run a business, and I know a customer is doing something like that, I have an ethical obligation to not facilitate it.

Depends on the circumstances of the business. IMHO, common carriers and businesses that are an awful lot like common carriers have an ethical standard to deliver all messages and parcels that are not unduly burdensome to the delivery of other messages and parcels.

This standard allows for blocking network abuse, probably spam, ddos, explosive packages, packages that emit noxious fumes or odors, etc. But not delivering letters because of their content isn't ethical for a letter delivery service, in my mind.

nobody has any obligation to deliver anything they know will cause someone harm. That is pretty much by definition the violation of an ethical standard. 'Neutrality' in the face of someone's life being threatened by someone else is cowardice. And to make things clear, directly from the EFF article:

"A site that provides a forum for gamifying abuse and doxxing, whose users have celebrated on its pages the IRL deaths of the targets of their harassment campaigns[...]"

If you knowingly facilitate a website which itself takes ownership of deaths they have caused proudly, you are abandoning your civic duty. And we can go farther, not only has any ISP obligation to stop this, any hacker who can should take that site down, and anyone who has some resources left over should aid. Not a single inch should be given to these people, not just by the law but by everyone else.

Do you understand how cynical it is to hide behind neutrality or free speech to let people terrorize others to death and laugh about it?

> nobody has any obligation to deliver anything they know will cause someone harm. That is pretty much by definition the violation of an ethical standard

1. I think the postal service does. Can you find me guidelines to the contrary?

2. Most connections to the IP block are not doing harm. This is more like refusing to deliver any mail to a mafia boss, and maybe also the entire neighborhood.

>1. I think the postal service does. Can you find me guidelines to the contrary?

How about instead, you show us a postal service guideline that says they have to deliver mail that they know to be harmful. There is no such guideline. That's insane.

> 18 U.S. Code § 1703 - Delay or destruction of mail or newspapers (a) Whoever, being a Postal Service officer or employee, unlawfully secretes, destroys, detains, delays, or opens any letter, postal card, package, bag, or mail entrusted to him or which shall come into his possession, and which was intended to be conveyed by mail, or carried or delivered by any carrier or other employee of the Postal Service, or forwarded through or delivered from any post office or station thereof established by authority of the Postmaster General or the Postal Service, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.

This sets the basic expectation that mail will be delivered, and intentionally not delivering mail is a crime, although it allows for lawful exceptions, and therefore, if you wish to assert that the postal service has discretion to purposefully not deliver mail, you have the burden to cite the law or regulation allowing them to do so.

I've looked at several laws recognizing particular items as unmailable, but I don't see anything that fits your assertion that they have to deliver mail they know is harmful to the recipient or someone else who isn't the sender or the recipient.

18 U.S. Code § 1716 - Injurious articles as nonmailable [1] has a list of items that are injurious and so can't be mailed, but these are things like poisonous animals, long bladed knifes and such, not harassment or suggestions to harass others with contact details.

18 U.S. Code § 1717 - Letters and writings as nonmailable [2] has a list of things you can't mail letters in relation to, which are mostly about forging government papers, defense secrecy stuff, but also 18 U.S. Code § 956 - Conspiracy to kill, kidnap, maim, or injure persons or damage property in a foreign country [3]. But it seems that letters regarding a conspiracy to injure persons within the united states are mailable.

There's also some very limited restrictions on mailing sexually oriented advertisements.

[1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1716 [2] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1717 [3] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/956

Censors made the same argument with the Printing Press and since time immemorial. Censorship has always been on the wrong side of history and it still is.

Speaking of abusing systems, censors end up being the worst bad guys who imagine themselves as the good guys protecting you from the bad guys.

EFF understands the long history of this issue.

> how bad actors will abuse systems

I’ve seen both ends of the spectrum - I remember Usenet, that had no moderation at all, and having to wade through a sea of spam, wishing somebody would get rid of it. But then I saw what reddit moderation turned into… I’ll take the spam, thanks. The spammers are bad actors, but moderators actually become evil actors.

> But then I saw what reddit moderation turned into

People like the harp on how bad reddit moderation is but I personally haven't seen it. Maybe I'm just in smaller communities or I choose the subreddits I follow more carefully, but I haven't seen cases of moderator abuse and if I ever do (usually as an outside observer to some drama in a different community) then I take a mental note to not follow that subreddit in the future.

In the last year or so I've received two strikes from Reddit Admins (employees) for report abuse when I reported two separate instances of explicit calls to violence in left-wing comments. One more "report abuse strike" and my since-Digg-era account is banned, so I've stopped caring. I've also seen first-hand and second-hand how the big default subreddit powermods (volunteers) over the last 10 years have silently banned users for non-inflammatory articulate dissenting posts and comments (while leaving up ones that are poorly written and easy targets). Combine that user shedding with botted upvotes on Rising (partisan-angle posts getting 10-20x the upvote average of other higher-quality posts from the same subreddit), the net effect is clear.

Ultimately, the best way to use Reddit is the way you do - keep it to small subs specifically devoted to a genuine interest, unsub from the defaults, and only browse it from the Home (your subs) page.

If it’s truly the first time Tier 1 blocking happens, I don’t see how the EFF can be at odds with history.

In what way is it at odds with the last 30 years of the internet? You seem to accept that as a fact, but I'd definitely agree with the eff.

Doesn't seem similar to this. You receive spam unwillingly, but you have to enter that forum and participate on purpose.

Not if they're organizing attacks on you.

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