Last week, the Electronic Frontier Foundation published an opinion piece arguing that Tier 1 ISPs should not bow to pressure to drop Kiwi Farms, calling the move “a dangerous step” toward censorship.
It’s all fun and games for the EFF until someone on that site starts publishing their employee’s SSNs and home addresses.
Well the EFF defends internet expression and communications interests for users, even when it’s a shitty cause. Kinda like how the ACLU has defended Klansmen and similar groups. They generally believe the right to freedom of speech and expression is absolute, and if speech isthreatened for one group, it sets a precedent for other groups to be threatened too.
The EFF has supported the prosecution of Kiwi Farms, but not by using ISP blocks.
They understand that setting a legal precedent like this may cause serious harm to other people in the future (e.g. women).
Once an ISP indicates it’s willing to police content by blocking traffic, more pressure from other quarters will follow, and they won’t all share your views or values. For example, an ISP, under pressure from the attorney general of a state that bans abortions, might decide to interfere with traffic to a site that raises money to help people get abortions, or provides information about self-managed abortions. Having set a precedent in one context, it is very difficult for an ISP to deny it in another, especially when even considering the request takes skill and nuance. We all know how lousy big user-facing platforms like Facebook are at content moderation—and that’s with significant resources. Tier 1 ISPs don’t have the ability or the incentive to build content evaluation teams that are even as effective as those of the giant platforms who know far more about their end users and yet still engage in harmful censorship.
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It’s all fun and games for the EFF until someone on that site starts publishing their employee’s SSNs and home addresses.
Well the EFF defends internet expression and communications interests for users, even when it’s a shitty cause. Kinda like how the ACLU has defended Klansmen and similar groups. They generally believe the right to freedom of speech and expression is absolute, and if speech isthreatened for one group, it sets a precedent for other groups to be threatened too.
I noticed that people who take an absolute view on certain rights don’t seem to buy into the concept of responsibility.
The EFF has supported the prosecution of Kiwi Farms, but not by using ISP blocks.
They understand that setting a legal precedent like this may cause serious harm to other people in the future (e.g. women).
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/08/isps-should-not-police-online-speech-no-matter-how-awful-it