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End all State involvement and let the free market decide.
This IS the free market though. Many who loved it when it was about net neutrality are now bemoaning it actually when websites and content providers shut down their far right hate-fueled havens.
I've read it and it is an unenviable position that companies like GoDaddy and Cloudflare were with realizing they hosted websites like that.
Neither of these companies were hosting that site and in the case of Cloudflare they are not a host. GoDaddy was providing the domain registration, this is almost exactly the same as having your name listed in a phone book and has nothing to do with the hosting.
Cloudflare is web performance/security company that specializes in preventing the largest threat to free speech which is DDOS attacks. Anything prone to attack like hate sites, environmental groups, political sites, businesses and on down the list will inevitably have to employ their services or someone else offering similar services. Google for example offers this for free to certain sites.
This can get enormously expensive especially for a small time operations. Cloudflare, Google and other large companies with their enormous infrastructure and global reach are simply far better prepared for this and can do it cheaply. Without services like this many of the sites you use would not be able to continue to operate. They are basically in the position to decide who can and cannot be on the internet and I need to emphasize the fact this affects small time operations that do not have boatloads ofmoney to address these threats the most.
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Should child molesters have a website to go to to be anonymous and talk about their exploits?
This is for the law and/or a judge to decide.
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I'm sorry, I have to disagree with this disgusting and vile deporables.
I don't agree with them either but that has nothing to do with the discussion IMO. You either support free speech or don't, there is no in between. Once you begin normalizing these large companies censoring speech you are going down a very dangerous path when they are providing critical services like a domain registration.
You are missing the point. Critical pieces of infrastructure, services and other things that essential to the internet are being concentrated into the hands of a limited amount of companies. A domain registration is the firs requirement if you expect someone to type xyz.com into a browser and arrive at your site, if the limited amount of companies offering these services deny you that registration you're toast. Nobody should ever be denied a domain registration, period.
Once I would suggest you read the blog post I previously linked to from Cloudflare's CEO who is one of the people that pulled the plug on that site. He himself understands the danger of his actions and the issues with so much power in the hands of so few companies .... in his case one person. Stormfront is another site that uses their services, he could simply wave his magic wand and <poof> no more Stormfront.
Here's another article on it:
I understand your concern, I just don’t see how you think that private media companies can be forced to “publish” content that they don’t want. Now I personally am open to the idea of regulating the internet as a public utility, which is the only way I know of to address the issue, but the current president and congress oppose that solution.
You can’t have it both ways, you must choose - either private media companies (which, BTW includes InfoWars) are subject to gov regulation requiring them to publish all comers, or they are not. To contend that this a 1st amendment issue is to say that there is no difference between the gov and private business which is absurd.
End all State involvement and let the free market decide.
A private media company deciding which content it will “publish” is exactly a free market solution. Which is why this whole discussion is heavily tinged with the surreal.
While I never cared for Alex Jones seems this removal from YouTube is nothing more then political because a few quick searches on YouTube I can find same old pro nazi channels and holocaust denier videos which have been there for years.
While I never cared for Alex Jones seems this removal from YouTube is nothing more then political because a few quick searches on YouTube I can find same old pro nazi channels and holocaust denier videos which have been there for years.
Alex Jones has been on YouTube for years and his content was tolerated for years. If political motivated, the banning would have occurred long ago.
The difference is that the owners of those channels haven't been linked with damages and impact of parents/families of the Sandy Hook massacre. The owners of those other channels don't have major lawsuitsagainst them directly for content that was on YouTube.
Regardless... It is still well within their right to determine content on their private servers. Twitter seems to have chose to Not ban his account. That too is also within their right. I support both decisions as I think business rights are very important....
The difference is that Twitter stands to make a lot of money from Trump and his supporters including INFOwars while YouTube has determined his content is a liability to their business interests and their TOS.
Of course every business decision is influenced by politics and views. But remember google (and Twitter) is a publicly traded corporation.... It answers to its investors first and foremost. While the CEO has a lot of latitude here, he does have a boss... The board and investors. So it isnt the decision that lies with a single poltically motivated mind.
But you certainly are not smart enough to point what it does say about it.
You have been told that these repetitive posts on a couple threads by dozens of posters both from th left and right are false.... Misleading... And uninformed.
I think this is quite insulting to the poster you responded to.
I understand your concern, I just don’t see how you think that private media companies can be forced to “publish” content that they don’t want.
My comments were merged from a much smaller topic about how Alex Jones channel getting dropped from Youtube illustrated the importance of Net Neutrality. Jones can move his videos to his own server. However without NN it's only a matter of time before the ISP's start to see pressure to block access to these sites. Without NN in place they could block his site but that will inevitably spur a court case.
The specific comments you are replying to are the other side of the coin for critical internet services like domain registrations. If the small amount companies that handle this service all decide they will not issue you a domain registration there is no amount of money that will fix this. There is lot of power concentrated into the hands of few companies on the internet which effectively could allow them to decide who gets to be on the internet. In the case of Cloudflare, one person.
I'd suggest reading the comments from Cloudflare's CEO who was instrumental in booting The Daily Stormer off the internet.
I woke up this morning in a bad mood and decided to kick them off the Internet. I called our legal team and told them what we were going to do. I called our Trust & Safety team and had them stop the service. It was a decision I could make because I’m the CEO of a major Internet infrastructure company
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Now I personally am open to the idea of regulating the internet as a public utility, which is the only way I know of to address the issue, but the current president and congress oppose that solution.
Neither of these companies were hosting that site and in the case of Cloudflare they are not a host. GoDaddy was providing the domain registration, this is almost exactly the same as having your name listed in a phone book and has nothing to do with the hosting.
Fair enough but that is the media. Also if domain hosting could be ended by it, why couldn't site hosting "be next?" It isn't far on the slope after all.
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Cloudflare is web performance/security company that specializes in preventing the largest threat to free speech which is DDOS attacks. Anything prone to attack like hate sites, environmental groups, political sites, businesses and on down the list will inevitably have to employ their services or someone else offering similar services. Google for example offers this for free to certain sites.
And Anonymous hackers hacked in regardless to if Cloudflare was in the picture or not.
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This can get enormously expensive especially for a small time operations. Cloudflare, Google and other large companies with their enormous infrastructure and global reach are simply far better prepared for this and can do it cheaply. Without services like this many of the sites you use would not be able to continue to operate. They are basically in the position to decide who can and cannot be on the internet and I need to emphasize the fact this affects small time operations that do not have boatloads ofmoney to address these threats the most.
Don't brow beat me. I already covered that the various hosting and other website services are indeed important and walk a razor thin line. The issue is when a company breaks the terms of use that bad and don't react (ie the Daily Stormer article which GoDaddy wanted pulled 24 hours after being named in a tweet. There is a difference between that and Alex Jones' ban from various content provider platforms and just dropping someone you just don't agree with who hasn't broke terms of use, even if it would fall under a vague pretense.
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This is for the law and/or a judge to decide.
You're shifting the goal posts. Previously you said ANYONE should have freedom on the internet. Child molesters would count as anyone as would the white supremacist groups. So are you are you not fine with that Pandora's Box being opened that they can do whatever on the wild wild west called the internet? Not judges, you.
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I don't agree with them either but that has nothing to do with the discussion IMO. You either support free speech or don't, there is no in between. Once you begin normalizing these large companies censoring speech you are going down a very dangerous path when they are providing critical services like a domain registration.
It does though. Free Speech isn't fully free. If it were, you wouldn't be arrested for inciting a riot for yelling fire in a theater or gun in a crowd. To me, hate speech is the same as a clear and present danger, though the Supreme Court disagrees.
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Originally Posted by jacqueg
I understand your concern, I just don’t see how you think that private media companies can be forced to “publish” content that they don’t want. Now I personally am open to the idea of regulating the internet as a public utility, which is the only way I know of to address the issue, but the current president and congress oppose that solution.
You can’t have it both ways, you must choose - either private media companies (which, BTW includes InfoWars) are subject to gov regulation requiring them to publish all comers, or they are not. To contend that this a 1st amendment issue is to say that there is no difference between the gov and private business which is absurd.
But here is the thing, even public utilities have terms of use and could very well end service at anytime for abuse. Ie the same thing Daily Stormer and InfoWars had lost services. That is the thing that I don't think people understand. We don't often read the long and drawn out Apple iTunes update in terms of service or when Facebook changes them, but these kind of things are in there. I know people who ended up on Facebook jail over posts for breaking theor terms.
The only thing I can say is if companies going forward continue to dump companies, it is through a clearly defined matter. Stormer got it for lampooning the girl who got ran over at Charlottesville using sedual slurs and other obscene language about a girl not even.in the grave yet. Alex Jones on the other hand was finally banned after years of racially charged hate speech, PizzaGate and shaming the parents of the Sandy Hook victims as crisis actors. Both abused free speech, which according to terms of use isn't. Just look at City-Data, you can post some nasty things about people in the public eye, but not posters. You do that, you get modded, if not banned.
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