Entrusting our speech to multiple different corporate actors is always risky. Yet given how most of the internet is currently structured, our online expression largely depends on a set of private companies ranging from our direct Internet service providers and platforms, to upstream ISPs (sometimes...
I apologise beforehand for a slightly rude tone. I won’t be “kind” towards stupidity - because that would be arseholery towards everyone, as everyone gets harmed by stupidity.
Plenty individuals are reducing the matter into two positions:
Let hate discourses and harassment run rampant.
Let corporations dictate what’s considered acceptable or not.
And then, when you criticise one of those positions (because they’re both foul), you’ll get some assumers neighing that you’re defending the other view, even when explicitly stated otherwise. It’s that old false dichotomy: “if u dun think dat red is blue than u think dat red is green! Red is not green you is dumb lol XD lmao”.
And that is exactly what is happening here. EFF is criticising #2 as short-sighted and dumb; it is. However it is not defending #1. This is blatantly obvious for anyone with basic reading comprehension, as the following excerpts show:
But just because there’s a serious problem doesn’t mean that every response is a good one.
Finally, site-blocking, whatever form it takes, almost inevitably cuts off legal as well as illegal speech. It cuts with a chain saw rather than a scalpel.
Here’s the third position:
3. Governments should institute and enforce laws against hate discourses and harassment.
That’s rather close to what EFF is proposing, see:
The cops and the courts should be working to protect the victims of KF and go after the perpetrators with every legal tool at their disposal. We should be giving them the resources and societal mandate to do so.
I agree with this because it’s easier to whip a gov into defending your interests than doing it with a private entity, that will always defend its own interests against you. EFF is spot on when it says that they won’t stop at illegal speech, you’re giving them precedent to dictate what you - intermediated by your government - should.
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I apologise beforehand for a slightly rude tone. I won’t be “kind” towards stupidity - because that would be arseholery towards everyone, as everyone gets harmed by stupidity.
Plenty individuals are reducing the matter into two positions:
And then, when you criticise one of those positions (because they’re both foul), you’ll get some assumers neighing that you’re defending the other view, even when explicitly stated otherwise. It’s that old false dichotomy: “if u dun think dat red is blue than u think dat red is green! Red is not green you is dumb lol XD lmao”.
And that is exactly what is happening here. EFF is criticising #2 as short-sighted and dumb; it is. However it is not defending #1. This is blatantly obvious for anyone with basic reading comprehension, as the following excerpts show:
Here’s the third position:
3. Governments should institute and enforce laws against hate discourses and harassment.
That’s rather close to what EFF is proposing, see:
I agree with this because it’s easier to whip a gov into defending your interests than doing it with a private entity, that will always defend its own interests against you. EFF is spot on when it says that they won’t stop at illegal speech, you’re giving them precedent to dictate what you - intermediated by your government - should.