While I definitely don't support the people they're booting off I do have to agree with the EFF here.
For example, "And music streaming services offered by Google, Deezer and Spotify have said they would remove music that incites violence, hatred or racism."
Now these services have put it out there as policy someone has to define what's violent, hateful or racist in music. Racism? Ok nobody's really going to bat an eye at that disappearing.
Violence and hatred though? As an off again on again heavy metal listener.. almost literally every track could be described as violent or hateful. That's the genre. The same could be said for other genres and their sub-genres. Rap comes to mind. Is Eminem next on the chopping board?
Music was the easy example, there's other examples available for the other services (registrar, DNS, hosting, CDN) as to why making this policy is a bad idea. Now anyone needs to do is convince someone at the corresponding target that a site is similar enough that it should be taken down.
South Park had a two-parter that addressed this exact problem [1][2]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartoon_Wars_Part_I [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartoon_Wars_Part_II
I think the hypothetical that people like me on the left need to consider is the following. Our current vice president is extremely anti-abortion. It's no stretch of the imagination to see that portion of the country growing in strength to be there dominant view in power within ten years. In their view abortion doctors are literal baby killers, websites arguing the benefits of abortion are literally advocating the killing of babies. In their eyes, this is literally as bad as Hitler. If you set the standard at "ban everything that the populace deems to be as bad as Hitler" then today we get rid of Nazi sites and tell KKK members they can't use our gyms, but tomorrow who will be condemned? (Note that this isn't even a slippery slope argument: it's saying that who gets to define the slope changes.)
The other argument is that if Google and co have never ever bowed to political pressure to remove something except as required by law, that gives them a great argument to push back against some of the less progressive governments which they must work with. If Assad starts demanding that internet companies in Syria ban his political opponents, then Google could reply "we didn't even ban Nazis, why the hell would you expect us to ban anyone for you?"
And in case this all seems hypothetical, remember that the current US government recently requested all visitor logs for an anti-Trump website.
It's increasingly uncomfortable to realize that a handful of tech companies are in many ways more powerful than the government. I don't like the direction anything is headed in.
This is how extremism spreads:
1. A Reasonable Position is expressed, in this case - 'Nazi's are very bad'. The Reasonable Position often involves an Enemy that must be stopped. Most reasonable people will agree with the Reasonable Position.
2. The Reasonable Position becomes the overriding factor in any situation that involves it. All other factors and considerations are dwarfed by it and forgotten.
3. Because the Reasonable Position comes to dominate the thinking of the Extremist - who often means well - they come to believe one can only ever be for or against the Reasonable Position. There is no room for moderate positions that try to balance the Reasonable Position with other important considerations and values - in this case, freedom of speech.
4. In order to show support for the Reasonable Position, third parties are forced to action in accordance with the world view of the Extremist. If they try to balance other considerations against the Reasonable Position, they are seen by the Extremist as sympathizing with the Enemy.
5. The fervor of extremism charges through society, trampling on other values and considerations.
It seems to me that the right to exclude certain types of speech from your privately owned platform is in itself a form of expression, and important to preserve. Where we get into trouble is when one entity obtains monopoly or near-monopoly control over a means of spreading information, and thus gains the power to tell everyone what they can and can't know.
And Google is not that far off. They have a monopoly in at least one market and the EU has already found them guilty of anti-competitive practices. The US government has not brought an anti-trust case against Google, and you could argue it's failing to do its job--the ties between Google and the US government run disturbingly deep, with Google allegedly serving as an arm of US foreign policy in many ways: https://wikileaks.org/google-is-not-what-it-seems/
Either way, the most important point is simply that monopolies are dangerous. And the best solution is to weaken them, whether through regulatory action, consumers voting with their feet, or other companies introducing competition. I think the most interesting project in this space is Searx, which allows me to aggregate results from Google and other search engines, and flip a switch to turn each engine on or off. Searx is a great step in the direction of breaking Google's monopoly and thus hindering its ability to severely limit free speech. https://github.com/asciimoo/searx
I don't think private-sector companies have any obligation to host anything. The problem is we in the tech community have watched with only minor concerns as the web grew increasingly centralized and left the power to these companies. The Daily Stormer has no right to an domain name or search results or ad revenue, no site does. The Daily Stormer has every right to exist, but it doesn't have a right to be served fast and conveniently(no, I'm not advocating against net neutrality, any host for the Daily Stormer should treat it exactly as they treat all their other customers). I think despicable sites like the Daily Stormer have a right to exist, but I'd rather they be hosted on a personal computer with a non-static address and every now and then the dial up connection get's interrupted when the site admin has to call David Duke about when the next Klan rally is.
>"Because internet intermediaries, especially those with few competitors, control so much online speech, the consequences of their decisions have far-reaching impacts on speech around the world."
Maybe it's just me but I think enabling hate-speech and bigotry is much worse than failing to maintain 100% neutrality.
There's nothing stopping these maniacs from starting their own intermediaries to host the content(trash) they want to peddle.
I recently finished Tim Wu's "The Master Switch", which is a history about the early radio/telephone/television/film industries, consolidation in those industries, and the effects on free speech.
One of my favorite examples from the book is the story about Hollywood and the Production Code in the 1930s. This was a voluntary code that the major studios obeyed for their own commercial interests (they wanted to avoid boycotts by groups like the National Legion of Decency). Because the film industry was centralized (with a small number of companies controlling all film production and distribution and most of the national theaters), this private decision by a handful of companies led to effective censorship in nearly all film in the US for ~20-30 years, all without any government action whatsoever.
I think we're in the same boat here with Google and other major internet infrastructure providers. Because a huge amount of power over the internet is concentrated in the hands of a few companies, those companies need to be very careful about the way they handle censorship.
"In an information industry the cost of monopoly must not be measured in dollars alone, but also in its effect on the economy of ideas and images, the restraint of which can ultimately amount to censorship."
"The story of Daniel Lord and the Legion of Decency goes to a central contention of this book: in the United States, it is industrial structure that determines the limits of free speech."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_Picture_Production_Code
I'm glad to see the EFF making the point I'be been trying to make all week; at the cost of multiple downvotes: "Because internet intermediaries, especially those with few competitors, control so much online speech, the consequences of their decisions have far-reaching impacts on speech around the world."
"And music streaming services offered by Google, Deezer and Spotify have said they would remove music that incites violence, hatred or racism."
That sounds like a big job, and one filled with ambiguity. Classifying forum posts is one thing, but trying to determine intent with music is going to be tricky.
Why don't people get upset like this when companies refuse to carry pornography? That's been really common for a long time, even if not universal, and I don't recall ever hearing a peep about it from the likes of the EFF. Maybe I missed it?
If anything, this makes the argument for ISP common carrier status stronger, which is a good thing.
Even more disturbing to me is that youtube has started banning UFO research channels like Steve Greer's CSETI. I don't really bother watching these channels and consider the UFO thing a bit of a quasi-religion, but they aren't inciting violence or hate against anybody.
Has Google decided they are now the truth police? Is Google taking it upon themselves to be like the Chinese censorship bureaus except for the whole world?
I disagree with the EFF on this one. I don't think free speech needs to be absolute. You can draw the line at Nazis. These companies didn't draw the line at Breitbart, or Alex Jones, or any number of far-right sites, but at a site that proudly traces its ideology to a group that successfully executed genocide. Germany and South Korea (among others, I'm sure) still have vibrant democracies and economies despite stricter online and offline speech controls. I feel like Americans have an odd obsession with absolute freedom, e.g., they're more "free" because they can own assault rifles.
I personally believe we should not only block those ideas on the web, but also everywhere else. Those ideas supporters should see that their opinions lead them outside of the society and make them suffer of loneliness and no support from anyone. Then and only then, they will understand they are wrong. It's another thing to allow the freedom of speech and another thing to make it easier for people to promote those ideas. We are not free to walk out with a gun, so we shouldn't be free to advocate violence.
"Dark web network Tor has said it has no plans to stop the Daily Stormer from using its technology." This straight after having talked about various other services having banned Daily Stormer. It implies Tor is a service controlled by the Tor project who could actually kick Daily Stormer if they wanted. While it could be accidental incompetence I worry this is a deliberate attempt to paint tor negatively in the public’s mind.
I agree but only in part. The real problem isn't that Google is able to shutdown a site as a registrar it's the fact DNS as designed needs a hierarchy to make it scale. This is the real problem with DNS and trying to shame Google to not cover its bottom line on such matters isn't going to work when you have a government that may decide they're too big for their britches and decides to go after them.
Instead, I wish EFF and other organizations would fund the development of a replacement for DNS rather than trying to legislate its use. Computers aren't like other kinds of technology where the implementation has to follow the physical structure, especially when considering the idea of domain names which are human readable to bind to IP addresses (which aren't human readable enough). That way, you get around corporate and government interventions entirely.
Google's recent crackdown on alternative viewpoints appears to have also been coordinated across other tech monopolies. From American Renaissance:
"""
Since the Charlottesville rally last weekend, American Renaissance has been under attack. Internet giants from PayPal to Facebook are trying to squeeze us out.
PayPal has cut us off, which means for now we can no longer take donations or sell books by credit card or any electronic means. All our recurring monthly donations—which are the predictable cash flow we count on and plan around—have stopped.
Facebook has blocked the AmRen account for seven days with a warning that if we violate their vague “terms of service” it will close us down for good.
MailChimp, which is the service we use to reach supporters by email, has cut us off completely. Our Twitter accounts—with a total of more than 60,000 followers—could be next, and our YouTube channel, with 35,000 subscribers and millions of views, is just as vulnerable.
As you know, American Renaissance had nothing to do with Charlottesville, and for all its 27 years, AmRen has consistently repudiated violence. This doesn’t matter. Corporate America is stamping out our revenue sources and trying to block our access to the public.
If this continues, AmRen.com could be kicked completely off the internet.
We cannot go back to the pre-internet days. With your help, we will find alternative platforms and, if need be, take legal action.
This is a historic moment in our movement. We are being silenced because we are winning. We are winning because we cannot be refuted. We cannot be refuted because we are right!
Please, give us the means to keep our voice heard.
At this point we can take only checks, money orders and cash; no electronic or credit cards.
Please send your donation made out to:
<snip>
"""
In at least a few cases most of terrorism's damage to a society is from the auto immune response.
It's interesting considering how this is related to Net Neutrality (they aren't the same, but they are related). While I agree with the EFF, that this is happening, I hope, raises awareness around the importance of Net Neutrality.
Would the EFF defend private companies hosting ISIS recruitment?
That's the question that matters.
While I definitely don't support these people, I do have to point out:
The problem with the approach taken by Google & Co. is that it criminalizes beliefs, regardless of whether or not adherents have taken illegal actions based on their beliefs.
If people 1) believe something, and 2) perform illegal actions based on their beliefs, a free society can punish #2. However, a free society can neither outlaw nor punish #1 without sinking into some form of despotism.
Liberty need not approve of all that she protects, and the best way to combat bad ideas is with better ideas, not censorship. Kudos to the EFF for raising an important point.
Slippery slopes are a fallacy for a reason.
I understand the concern - and it’s totally reasonable to point out concerns - but let’s fight when they actually start sliding down that slope rather than hand-ring over Nazi’s, hmm?
I think a lot of people, me included, play on both sides of this fence too often. Where we shun companies that host this content, but will also blame them for restricting freedom of speech if they remove it.
I definitely see both sides to this argument, but how extreme does a website have to be in order for it to be OK by everyone for companies to remove the content? If it were my company, I wouldn't want to be associated with content like this either. So if it's lose-lose either way, I would probably do the same thing as these companies.
I hear the arguments for and against. I've noticed its always easier for people to argue these type of things when they feel they aren't the target of the harrassment. People who can take a "not me" position can reason that the site deserves a voice. That said, if the site was spouting ideologies that did target you, would you continue to argue for its existence? Were this an Isis site, would you argue it deserves a voice as well? Just wondering.
I think an important aspect that is often missed here is how conservative most tech companies are when it comes to legal boundaries.
I would posit that each of these companies is arguing internally (at least in part) in favor of removing neo-Nazi and other violence inducing content from their services to distance themselves from fault when that content results in legal harm.
There are a huge number of DNS registrars. So the fact that GoDaddy and Google chose not to act as their DNS registrar doesn't follow that they can't find _anyone_ to be a DNS registrar. (And indeed, they were able to find a DNS registrar in Russia.)
Similarly, there are a large number of ISP's and hosting partners. So if Amazon were to choose not to want to host their web site, on the theory that they were going to get huge numbers of DOS attacks, and they don't want to do deal with the PR blowback of supporting an extremely unpopular group --- is that really censorship?
This seems to be another variant of "freedom of the press" doesn't mean "free presses" issue. To say that the owner of a printing press should be forced to print Racist materials seems to be... morally dubious. It's true that the owner of an apartment isn't allowed to choose not to do business with someone based on their race, gender, religion, etc. Unfortunately for the Alt-Right, the neo-Nazi's aren't a protected class. If they think it should be, they should feel free to lobby to change the law. If President Trump thinks there are "very fine people" who belong to the Alt-Right, maybe he would even be willing to sign it....
Slippery slope fallacy applies here I feel.
Thank you EFF; You've earned a recurring donor. I will also be removing all of my domains from GoDaddy and Google Domains.
If you support net neutrality, you fundamentally cannot support the actions of these companies. These two ideals are in direct conflict.
More discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15042367
I find it odd that websites seem to either harbor a slowly growing extreme right wing, or choose to seek and destroy it.
It seems like the extreme rights' method of gaining control is to be provocative while the extreme left lobbies admins to remove the provocateurs (see: reddit, youtube). This ends with the tech companies complying with the left. Why isnt it the other way around?
Edit: apparently today okcupid banned a nazi as a publicity stunt. Maybe im looking too much into this
I have to disagree with the EFF on this one.
"Sometimes standing on the wrong side of history in defense of a cause you think is right is still just standing on the wrong side of history."
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/08/17/opinion/aclu-first-ame...?
Why are big companies banning this? Surely Google, GoDaddy and Cloudflare, even Spotify aren't going to be hurt by any public backlash. GoDaddy is already widely despised as a bad actor. I can understand a small startup at risk of being destroyed by an internet mob for supporting Nazis, but not these.
Are they afraid of legal consequences? Aren't they safe to just wait till the police asks them to take it down before doing so?
if you want to give a better world a chance you have to give a worse world a chance.
Please don't flag this submission, fellow users, there's already been one direct from the EFF even when it was at number one and one hour.
The Pandora's box just opened
First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
Someone needs to publish a list of companies that violate free speech, with examples, for people to avoid them in the future. Does anything like this exist? I have a small but growing list myself with Google at the top.
I think the genesis of this can be traced back to Reddit deciding that an anti-obesity subreddit couldn't be hosted there because it hurt people's feelings.
But back then, pre-Trump, they seemed to have no problem with extreme neo-Nazi subreddits, which Pao kept.
It also had the opposite of its intended effect.
Millions of people had no idea Daily Stormer existed until GoDaddy, Google, and CloudFlare kicked them out. Each one only added to their growing pile of free publicity. I guess Google never Googled "Streisand Effect"? First Damore and now this.
Edit: Also kind of ironic that my comments are now being buried on HN because I posted some unpopular opinions. Maybe we should throw HN in the mix too.
Edit2: Aaaaand now I'm not even allowed to post. HN is at least predictable in their censorship tactics, if nothing else.
If recent events have shown anything, it is that we need to do a lot MORE to stop neo-Nazism. I'm not saying doxx all neo-Nazis and whites, supremacists. But we need to name them. Make them known.
Don't support their businesses. Don't let them have domains or websites. Kick them off Google platforms, Facebook, even OKCupid. All private companies need to take action now and make sure none of them can use the internet to spread their hate, or really use any service.
I think it is time to organize contacting car dealerships working next to deny selling any automobiles to them. Eventually we can get the DMV to deny licenses to these dangerous individuals, or at least put them on a registry so the feds can check in on them.
Ongoing discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15042367