I don't think I want the government to have the authority to decide what is and isn't true and to police the internet accordingly. I like free speech, even when much of it is crap.
Free expression already has limits (No "Fire!" in a crowded theater when no danger exists), I'm absolutely fine with government saying what Facebook isn't allowed to do (remove journalistic posts without due process).
So content would be hosted and regulated in a freedom-oriented place (or at least in a place where free servers can be predictably maintained) and no oppressive or abusive government could control speech with legislation or force? Doesn't sound bad, actually.
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.
I don't see why some people dislike this idea. If you think about it, this is really just an extension of the right to speech and the right to assembly. The only new thing is officially recognizing the Internet as an avenue for these things.
If it's possible for the arm of the law to reach particular speech, is that speech really free?
We need an internet were speech isn't protected because the government blesses it and decides not to censor it. We need an internet where the government is wholly unable to censor it. Then we'll see what actual free speech looks like.
...and the matter of what speech is permissible is far from unanimous. The list of content that various governments deem taboo is enormous and growing. In the USA we have it much better than most places, but even here we have a very robust system of denial-of-service via DMCA and other legal means, including the trademark at issue here.
There's little doubt in most people's minds that the kinds of actions that The Yes Men execute are protected by the first amendment, yet here we are.
So you're effectively proposing that government should be deciding what speech is allowed on the platforms. How is this free speech if government can silence you?
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...
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