Sticking to an American frame and the principle of freedom of speech from the federal government, if the premier league or another private organization wanted to enforce this from the boundaries of their stadium, that's fine.(banning people from being racist at football matches). Having legislation create a system of using the top level government resources to patrol the internet for what they deem to be racist should be concerning to a statesman that holds the original principles of the federal goverment to be law. This is because not only could they liberally enforce this onto people who are not being racist, but also to decide some forms of actual racism isn't racist and create a class of people who are above justice without any check on this power at the country level(except a slow bureaucracy/judicial system). Of course, England can do what ever it wants. If this is across the board what english want for themselves, great for them!
The central issue here is 'content neutrality'. Prince the Cloudflare CEO is an attorney so he knew what he was saying when he disabled the dns.
There are huge numbers of people with strong political beliefs of all persuasions out there, including the racist isolationist nationalists you have to co exist alongside. In the US society where free speech is enshrined in the constitution, it is a very slippery slope to suppress that right to speech. I grew up alongside lots of violent skinheads in the UK (and got knocked about by them unless I ran very fast).
I am absolutely for protecting free speech, because for every apparently clear cut case of reprehensible online behavior - racism, child abuse, snuff videos etc - there is someone else with a legitamate voice who will be suppressed. Here is an example - syriangirl, who has been removed from Facebook. https://youtu.be/QvT95w6H59g Speking via youtube on a channel called russianinsider'
The lifeblood of democracy is free speech. We've ignored extremist dialog for decades, if we suppress it we glamorize it and it goes underground, not away. Allowing free speech means the ability to argue with people about their views as 'rock against racism' in the UK during the 70's proved before the internet. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_Against_Racism That popular movement was inclusive to all and celebrated the anomaly that English skins loved jamaican ska and reggae. It pulled people to together and humiliated the far right fringe...
Here is the thing. Most online speech is garbage and very little is going to be lost if it's regulated. The hypothetical argument that after banning tons of racist scumbags some government agency will accidentally ban the wrong website is just that - a hypothetical. I've been hearing about this hypothetical for as long as the web exists.
If you want "free speech" so much, then why aren't you on 4chan and instead post on a highly moderated website like this one? It's the pinnacle of hypocricy.
So if you press "no" on the first screen during setup, you will be not affected by filtering? Somehow, I cannot see the great danger to freedom in that.
Actually, as far as free speech in Britain goes[1][2][3][4][5], that almost sounds like a courtesy.
It's not a straw man; it's exactly what's being proposed. This is an invented dichotomy. If a private entity is not liable for its users' content, it doesn't follow that they then can't moderate that content. We don't hold bars liable for defamatory statements their patrons make, even if they kick out people who say racist things.
If I understand correctly, you're also misapplying common carriage here. Common carrier laws basically say that if all you do is transport things from A to B, you can't discriminate. That already doesn't describe social networks, which do much more than just deliver your speech: they algorithmically promote it, sell ads against it, etc. But OP is speaking even more broadly than that. One example they've brought up is YouTube demonetizing people, which has nothing to do with transmitting speech.
The problem is specifically that the government won't stop you. American free speech principles have been warped and distorted to give platforms total control and no responsibility over what they host. Hell, back during the last wave of Net Neutrality regulation, Comcast was arguing in court that common carrier regulations were a free speech violation. Which is absolutely insane.
Additionally, we should stop measuring the size of a country's free speech commitment by how legally easy it is to host Nazi bullshit. Let us not forget that Nazis hate freedom of speech and use all sorts of extralegal bullshit to stifle it. A country or platform in which it is legal or permitted to express Nazi political opinions is one where you have less freedom of speech, not more.
Freedom of speech is a balancing act in which we tie the hands of people in power to allow those out of power to speak their mind.
But perhaps the web has reached a point where we have to consider it as a public service. And as such should be subject to free speech laws. There is precedent for this with the "equal time rule" for broadcast networks regulated by the FCC which guarantees air time to opposing political candidates during an election. I could easily see an argument to be made for forcing service providers to dedicate a portion of there resources to dissenting opinion on these grounds. Although obviously the line must be drawn at hate speech, I shudder to imagine a world where acceptable content for the web is determined by the whim of an executive who "woke up in a mood".
My (European) perspective is that, just like we need laws to protect privacy online, we do also need laws to institute freedom of speech online.
I'm not exactly sure what the right way to go about it is (obviously we shouldn't and cannot force every company online to publish whatever anyone wants to say), but fact is that right now you are at the mercy of private companies if you want to communicate online, and restricting freedom of speech to the proverbial "free speech zone" where discussion isn't actually happening is not a healthy state of affairs.
I'd probably at least advocate for something like net neutrality.. ISPs and hosting providers should not work as censors and arbiters of good taste. They should be more like utilities; as long as you're not doing anything illegal, what you do or say is none of their business. Unfortunately this isn't a solution for the common person whose communications are limited to platforms like facebook and twitter.
Two things: 1) Google shouldn't have free speech since it is not a person. 2) The reason things get enshrined in the Constitution is to limit the ability of the government to get rid of it. The UK's non-constitutional, constitutional monarchy is a rather problematic thing if the monarchy ever wanted to exercise itself.
If that was a legal rule for the internet it would make it illegal for most people to communicate with each other. I don't think this idea is well thought through. That would actually be the government regulating speech and arguably freedom of assembly.
Sure. But those rules are enforced within the sport, not television networks. Just because tyson bit holyfield's ear doesn't mean the network got banned. Even more, just because there is a possibility that someone might bite someone's ear doesn't mean that entire networks have to be banned.
If there is a credible threat, that's a matter for the police, not the university. If instead of a website, someone mailed the threats, should the university ban the mailman, the postal system and all mail?
Also, when it comes to something as important as free speech and open access, I'd rather err on the side of more free speech rather than less.
One thing that is interesting is how so many foreigners are so supportive of limiting speech in the US. Can I ask why you are so heavily invested in supporting censorship in the US, especially since you aren't american?
The proposal in question does regulate freedom of expression, as the gp said, because it proposes monitoring all communications of citizens. So their argument is not nonsense at all.
The problem here is that the default assumption is that everyone on the internet is under the jurisdiction of US law, when the majority in fact are not.
These are global platforms with global membership, simply stating that “if it is free speech in America it should be allowed” isn’t a workable concept.
First of all, unless you're a free speech absolutist (who believes that literally nothing supercedes free speech) then recognize and accept that someone, somewhere has to draw a line across a continuum of grey.
So we're already in the morass, whether you like it or not. You're right to worry about this question:
> But then, who decides what's bad?
But in this case, it's Patreon, trying to look out for its own best business interests. It's almost ideal. Since this is their core business they are pretty strongly incentivized to be liberal about what they allow.
You can imagine some kind of net neutrality regulation, but please realize that for it to have any effect it must be enforced. So we're talking about regulators, investigators, rulings, fines, appeals, legal defenses, etc., along with the attendant politics, of course, not to mention, soon you'll have entrenched interests to bog down any reforms or improvements to the system. Maybe as a left-leaning socialist you will be happy to hear about all this but just note that it doesn't resolve the fundamental issue. In the end, there's still a mixture of policy, enforcement, process and precedent deciding what's OK and what's not. Passing a law doesn't solve this issue, it just moves it around and probably makes it more complicated.
> The societal norms are shifting to a place where there are certain topics that are not allowed to be discussed at all
I'm not sure what you're talking about here. Anyway, this case seems to be about vigorous use of the n-word and homophobic slurs, which certainly can be discussed (and, unfortunately, are well accepted and encouraged in certain circles).
Also, keep in mind: moving the line of what is acceptable (whether to something more liberal or more conservative) doesn't change the situation at all. There are people who will test the line, wherever you draw it. In fact, for many, that's the point. They get attention (in their own circles) by testing the line and it's not bad to sometimes get banned as a result.
Policing content isn't the same thing as stopping active damage to the internet. Even in the US where free speech is king, you can't go around slashing tires or taking down stop signs and say it's protected by the 1st amendment or something.
The problem is that not all countries consider this free speech. If you're hosting a Diaspora pod in the UK, then having this material on your system is considered terrorism.
reply