FYI if you read on in the twitter thread cited by the story, this has been walked back as bad communication by the company. They say they intended to allow any customer who wants FB and Twitter to be blocked by the ISP to reply to that email and that's what would happen. Not that it would be universally blocked for all customers.
Owner does not seem to be the best communicator, he admits this and says in his defense it has been three days of nonstop emails and calls that he answers even in the middle of the night. So maybe he's not thinking clearly.
Sure, they can try to claim that now. It's pretty clear that they blocked it for everyone and people have email them to be whitelisted.
"So we have a solution if you or your family would still like to be able to connect to Facebook or Twitter please let us know and we can add you to the allowed list to be able to not be blocked [...]"
From what I gather, they apparently blocked FB and Twitter because they were getting too many customers asking them to block those sites. It was presumably less time consuming to block them all than to handle all those requests individually. Until it blew up, anyway. Suddenly they are losing business and scrambling to enable it for those that want it, so they backtracked on it.
They could have saved a lot of time and anguish if they had simply said "no" to those who originally wanted them blocked.
> "Our company does not believe a [snip] site has the authority to censor what you see [snip]. This is why [snip] we have made this decision to block these two websites from being accessed"
> If your organization uses web tools that allow you to track cookies or the IP addresses of people who visit your website from EU countries, then you fall under the scope of the GDPR. Practically speaking, it’s unclear how strictly this provision will be interpreted or how brazenly it will be enforced. Suppose you run a golf course in Manitoba focused exclusively on your local area, but sometimes people in France stumble across your site. Would you find yourself in the crosshairs of European regulators? It’s not likely. But technically you could be held accountable for tracking these data.
More importantly, what would the regulators do - your not in their country, have no company in their jurisdiction to fine, and you don't really care if they fire-wall you out of country (you're us only, right?), your dns registration and infrastructure are all presumably US based..
So, I've always wondered what they would do? yell at you harshly ?
I could imagine that if you’re a big enough player, they’ll just arrest one of your executives if they ever travel into the EU. Like what happened with Canada and the Huawei CFO.
Probably nothing. Especially since GDPR isn't enforced that heavily.
But I also understand why US companies are doing this. It's kinda like when my dad got parking and speeding tickets sent home from a foreign country. Most likely nothing would happen if he didn't pay them, but you never know when you want to go back to holiday in $country, and the border agent sees them in your "permanent record".
It's at least imaginable that the EU _could_ do something similar, ask for a fine and if not dealt with, the company (or even worse directors of the company) getting some kind of dent in the proverbial permanent record.
(I'm not saying that it's likely, but if EU visitors aren't a big user base for your local regional news paper, I see why it's so tempting to just check the "Block EU visitors" checkbox.)
> So, I've always wondered what they would do? yell at you harshly ?
Downvoters (not necessarily you): This question is why I made sure to quote the paragraph, rather than just link it. "It does" is the lawmakers intent, regardless of feasibility in enforcing it. Avoiding the question entirely is why various sites have decided to block EU access.
No, it does not, anymore than Iran or China get to dictate rules, and for the same reason: the EU has no jurisdiction and no leverage. The EU of course is free to setup their own Great Firewall and block off anyone they dislike, and for people or businesses with assets under their jurisdiction they have an angle to go after that way. But a person or business entirely out of their territory is completely free to flip them the proverbial (or not so proverbial) bird. That is the fundamental nature of "law".
I'll add it's curious this seems to come up on HN with regards to the GDPR so regularly too, precisely because of my first sentence here. It speaks to a real lack of foundation in understanding the basics of law. Are people writing this actually thinking through the implications of every country being able to unilaterally dictate practice worldwide? Or do they think only the EU has this power?
You're pointing out that they may not be able to enforce the law against an entity that does not operate in the EU.
But even if a company doesn't operate in the EU today, it may want to in the future. Or it may want to be acquired by a company that does. The future is unknowable, so I'd imagine they were advised to follow the law, even if there would be no immediate consequences to breaking it.
>The GDPR absolutely does apply outside of Europe.
No, it doesn't, as you yourself admit two sentences later when you write:
>You're pointing out that they may not be able to enforce the law against an entity that does not operate in the EU.
Yes, which by definition means the law does not apply to that person to entity. That is the fundamental nature of law and sovereignty.
>The law itself says so.
Completely irrelevant, in the same way it's irrelevant if you or I order some societal change on our say so. Law is about power. And again, also in the exact same way that it's completely irrelevant if Pakistan or whomever have blasphemy laws on the books they say apply to everyone, China laws against "disrupting society" or someone sues a US entity under the UK's very plaintiff friendly libel laws. They can all be told to pound sand.
>But even if a company doesn't operate in the EU today, it may want to in the future. Or it may want to be acquired by a company that does. The future is unknowable, so I'd imagine they were advised to follow the law, even if there would be no immediate consequences to breaking it.
Sure, but that doesn't mean the law "applies". A company can voluntarily take whatever actions it wishes that it believes may benefit it in the future, but a core point of law is that it's INvoluntary. Since the GDPR doesn't apply to anyone outside of EU jurisdiction (or under treaties giving it local effect), they may choose to run it because they think it's a good idea, or not. Those within EU jurisdiction do not get that choice.
Lol. I mean, you’re right. The EU can’t make laws that apply to the entire universe like they wish they could and claim they do, but that was the whole point of GDPR.
They claim that any company that has dealings with an EU citizen has to follow their laws. Of course they can’t do that. They could have passed a law forbidding their citizens from interacting with businesses that didn’t follow certain rules, since they have the ability to make rules for their citizens, but for some odd reason they decided not to.
They can’t “apply” to me if they don’t apply to me. The whole point of sovereignty is to say where laws apply. Politics and war are the negotiation of those questions.
No, lots of entities (including many at levels far above individuals) have superior authorities that decide how wide the subordinate entities writ runs.
I look at this--with the caveat of casually accepting the frame of "censor" to include "stuff done by private companies" (which isn't, of course, how it is technically defined)--as "you shouldn't be allowed to censor people... but, since Facebook/Twitter think that's somehow OK, we are going to make an exception to our rule about this and censor them to show them how it feels (though of course, if you would prefer to not take part in this, contact us and we will happily turn this off for you, as we're only willing to take this demonstration so far)". FWIW, I consider this frame to be not only consistent but even acceptable, and it is similar to essentially all attempts to ensure freedom: "we believe in the freedom of all people... and so if you attempt to harm someone else's freedom we punish you (and only you) by taking away your freedom".
>FWIW, I consider this entirely acceptable of a frame to take
No, it's a total bullshit false equivalency. Basic physical infrastructure, using public rights of way and subsidies, that is for most people going to be their sole and exclusive choice, is not in any fucking way the same as social media. Stop it.
Setting aside for a moment the false dichotomy you are putting forward that somehow this company's business should be treated differently than any other company's business--which, FWIW, to me is a pretty ridiculous assertion--your frame here is kind of irrelevant to the question of whether there's irony to be had from censoring someone over censorship: as many others have pointed out in this thread, is nothing more than the well-known "paradox of tolerance".
>that somehow this company's business should be treated differently than any other company's business--which, FWIW, to me is a pretty ridiculous assertion
This is such a ludicrous statement I honestly am having trouble thinking out to respond. Companies in different industries being treated differently is the universal rule throughout the world and human history. Airliners aren't accountants aren't computer hardware manufacturers aren't electrical companies aren't sports operations aren't restaurants aren't railways aren't... etc etc. A physical infrastructure company isn't an internet platform, and shouldn't be. Seriously what!?
>your frame here is kind of irrelevant to the question of whether there's irony to be had from censoring someone over censorship
No, it's not remotely irrelevant precisely because different areas of society have different rules. However much you hate Free Speech saurik, at least in America it is the law, and the humans that make up, own, and direct the entities of Twitter or Facebook have the exact same 1st Amendment rights that the rest of us do. It's not "censorship" for you, me, or any other regular private entity to refuse to actively provide help for others' speech. You aren't entitled to my money or property to spread your message, nor am I to yours, unless we are making use of certain public resources.
And that last bit brings us back to ISPs, or USPS/FedEx/UPS for that matter. A physical infrastructure company using public money and rights of way and escaping liability for providing carriage via Common Carrier does not have those same rights, anymore than a public university has the same rights as a private one.
> The Court rejected that contention, noting that ownership "does not always mean absolute dominion." The court pointed out that the more an owner opens his property up to the public in general, the more his rights are circumscribed by the statutory and constitutional rights of those who are invited in.
> In its conclusion, the Court stated that it was essentially weighing the rights of property owners against the rights of citizens to enjoy freedom of press and religion. The Court noted that the rights of citizens under the Bill of Rights occupy a preferred position. Accordingly, the Court held that the property rights of a private entity are not sufficient to justify the restriction of a community of citizens' fundamental rights and liberties.
>Section 230 was created when Twitter (and the likes) were much less important for public discourse.
Section 230 (which was part of the Communications Decency Act of 1996, 10 years before Twitter was founded) has nothing to do with this. This is about the First Amendment. Section 230, by allowing moderation that isn't 100% perfect, certainly does encourage forums to be much more tolerant towards speech since only those who make the speech will be liable. But if Section 230 didn't exist, it wouldn't stop bans one single bit and in fact would only encourage vastly more stringent moderation and banning (assuming any unvetted user created content continued to be allowed at all on the general web).
>Consider this precedent :
Look, particularly with 1A SCOTUS has made many changes over the years and EXCLUSIVELY in the direction of more, not less. So if you're going to cite very old case law you really, really need to double check to what extent it's been superseded since. In this particular case the cite is in fact done for you, because if you'd actually read all the way to the bottom of the very Wikipedia[1] piece you cited you'd have noticed that it already has dealt with this:
>In Lloyd Corp. v. Tanner, the Supreme Court distinguished a private shopping mall from the company town in Marsh v. Alabama* and held that the mall had not been sufficiently dedicated to public use for First Amendment free speech rights to apply within it.
>Recently the case has been highlighted as a potential precedent to treat online communication media like Facebook as a public space to prevent it from censoring speech. However, in Manhattan Community Access Corp. v. Halleck* the Supreme Court found that private companies only count as state actors for first amendment purposes if they exercise “powers traditionally exclusive to the state."*
SCOTUS, particularly the current one, isn't going to eliminate the general 1A rights of organizations despite the authoritarian fever dreams of many.
----
1: Incidentally, the end of 230 would mean that Wikipedia-the-organization would be directly liable for everything users contributed which would result in certain changes, the exact nature of which will be left as an exercise to the reader.
> But if Section 230 didn't exist, it wouldn't stop bans one single bit and in fact would only encourage vastly more stringent moderation and banning (assuming any unvetted user created content continued to be allowed at all on the general web).
> smart lawyers will say that the best way to avoid that kind of liability is not to moderate at all. So Section 230 explicitly overruled that judicial decision, and eliminated liability for moderation choices.
(which would also be bad of course)
So I wouldn't be surprised if in the next years we would see changes :
There could be an intermediary status between hoster and editor : a "displayer" would not be liable for what its users do. It would (unlike a hoster) be liable for the moderating choices that he decides to do.
There might be additional requirements to benefit from the hosting status : of size, power, economic model, &c.
(Some of this has now been implemented in the EU.)
As for Manhattan Community Access Corp. v. Halleck, you'll note that it was decided by 1 voice, and there recently was a change in the SC, and the USA generally seems to have entered a very unstable time, so who knows what the future holds ?
Not tolerating intolerance theoretically reduces, isolates, or rejects the intolerant element, stopping it from committing intolerances and therefore (again, theoretically) reducing net intolerance. Censoring a censoring element only serves as petty retaliation, since it is necessarily a net increase in censorship (if the censoring element is the host of the information, as in this case).
Depends if the censorship is against attempts at overthrowing the society. A society has to be fundamentally intolerant of this or it will cease to exist.
But society is tolerant of intolerance and I believe it has to be tolerant, if we are to be a free society, as opposed to engineered society controlled by elites.
For example, Western society tolerates to some extent (and it should) bigots, racists, jingoists, people who take religious texts as literal manuals to life, antivaxxers, antimilitary activists, anti police activists, anti globalist activists, environmental activists, etc. These groups are known to be intolerant of some things and some classes of people. And society should tolerate them and allow them the same guarantees of free speech as to other people. There may be exceptions like neonazi/supremacist propaganda in Europe etc. but each exception should be carefully introduced and accepted in the population.
You have to imagine they realize the nature of it. But it's kind of like "this statement is false." It's a challenge to have somebody stop them. And if that happens, they turn it around the other way.
I like it -- if everyone set up their own websites, we would have way less monopolization, censorship, posts promotion. Even ordering of your "News feed" is already a form of content moderation.
It's not hard to understand when you realize it's just the paradox of tolerance. The ISP won't tolerate curated "speech" from those intolerant of free speech.
> Initially, the company said too many customers had requested the sites be blocked, so it would block them for all customers except for those who called the company and requested access. However, the company backtracked on Monday and said those who didn't request the sites be blocked would still have access.
If you want to browse the web with JS enabled, you'll be making lots of requests to Google and Facebook whether you want to or not (analytics, like/share buttons, etc). The most convenient way to stop them is to run something like a Pi-Hole so that those requests never reach Google/Facebook. An ISP offering that as a service sounds like a nice feature.
I would think the people knowledgable enough to know their browser is making requests to FB without actually visiting FB would also be knowledgable enough to block it themselves (with their hosts file, ublock, etc) and not need the ISP to do so.
I could be completely wrong, I’m no expert on North Idaho corporate politics; however, my thoughts are that the confusion is arising from your assumption that this is a practical move, rather than a political one
The email says users didn't want it in their internet "feed," so... this is a load of nonsense. I'm highly skeptical that anyone contacted them about blocking facebook in the first place.
Next thing you'd say "if you don't like somebody's tweets, can't you just not read their twitter feed?"! You're treading on dangerous grounds here, comrade.
So it's only blocking for people who requested such blocking, then the title is just click bait, I guess "ISP let's it's users block websites they dislike" is not as catchy.
As stated elsewhere, by asking the question you’re assuming the point is to have a rational argument on consistent beliefs - but it isn’t. It’s to gaslight and misdirect for political gain.
Bingo! Censoring a site because of censorship (even if misguided in terms) is like a kid saying you can’t play kickball because you didn’t invite him to play soccer (futbol)
Well, I'd argue that censoring a site because of censorship is like a society saying you must be do community service (or even be locked into a jail/prison)--as in, lose some of your rights--because you violated someone else's rights.
Northern Idaho actually has quite a lot of left-leaning politics/culture. Southern idaho is where all the conservatives live (and the vast majority of people generally).
yes, northern idaho, I remember all the left leaning skin heads. . . /s
It has more leftists than southern Idaho, but still, it's not exactly a bastion of progressive thinking. In fact, the state legislator doesn't have a single dem elected north of the boise metro, so I'm not sure how you're quantifying it?
Ehhh... I'd say that the left leaning people are basically all in the Boise area (Ada county) Sort of west center of Idaho. Beyond that, it's trump town pretty much everywhere else. Especially the pan handle where all the neo-nazis live.
Really only Moscow where the university is, and maybe pockets of CDA. Where-as Boise, Meridian, Twin Falls, and Pocatello are all fairly centrist/left-leaning.
"Northern Idaho" used to be shorthand for "extreme right wing" due to it being the location of the headquarters of the Aryan Nations and location of the Ruby Ridge standoff. Those references are over twenty years old now, so no idea how much that ideology survives there.
Even NPR's Maria Hinojosa couldn't find any "Nazi Town" in Idaho, as she had expected to. See the "Our Private Idaho" episode of "America By The Numbers":
https://shop.pbs.org/WC6542.html
Yes, I agree - the ISP block is censorship also. When China blocks sites with The Great Firewall, we all agree that's censorship. This is the same thing.
I stand by the actions of Facebook, Twitter etc, I'd agree this ISP has the same rights. Now where I could see it getting interesting is if consumers in the area don't have an alternative way to access content. I'd say if that is the case then this ISP here just opened up a door to a potential case to regulate them as utilities which means they wouldn't be able to do this. If the users do have a choice in the area then moot point.
If there is competition, one could think it's okay.
But if they are allowed, I imagine the competitors ask why they can't do that either. If they can, they'll block sites too.
Then what? Residents won't have any choice guaranteeing free access to all websites.
Yup, I was kind of amazed at how the situation played out a few years ago with Wheeler and then onto Pai. You don't need the same type of net neutrality laws if you just make them utilities, but ISPs of course know this and made sure that wasn't going to happen then.
The worse one would be that they actually can block sites and access to the internet is forever changed, now at the will of the ISPs. (fortunately, this would be more plausible under a Republican government, and they're leaving.)
> Now where I could see it getting interesting is if consumers in the area don't have an alternative way to access content.
Assuming private companies have the moral right to fully regulate their services, they're just blocking a specific resource for violating their policy. If you build your case on blocking Facebook, you must argue that the utility chain leads all the way to Facebook. It is all or nothing.
There exist many utilities that themselves are built on top of other utilities.
The reason something should be an utility has to do with competition and how much power customers. The primary argument in favor of having Internet providers be an utility is that creating an competing Internet is not really an realistic concept, and the power customers of ISP has in their customer-provider relation is close to nothing. Utility laws exist to solve this specific situation in the market, and making every single company an utility would not be very efficient way to make use of those laws.
Let's examine two cases for an ISP utility. They both lead to the same conclusion without turning everything downstream of ISPs into utilities.
1. The utility of an ISP is that of an ad hoc communication platform. Here we must ask why an ISP is an ad hoc communication platform and Facebook is not. Either both are or neither is.
2. The utility of an ISP is derived from providing access to Facebook. Again it is either both or none.
Ah see, I disagree that an ISP is in itself an adhoc communications system.
An ISP hooks up the wires, lays and maintains the infrastructure for web connections for which you can build communications on but are not in themselves sufficient as communications. You can also build more than just communications on ISP infrastructure.
As examples, you watch Netflix on the infrastructure of an ISP but Netflix is not communications and you may bank on your bank's website on an ISP and that is not communications those are movie watching and banking respectfully.
I could continue to provide examples, but my point being is an ISP is not in itself sufficient for communications to be established and that you can establish more than communications on an ISP and that is why I don't agree.
I agree a private business may do what they will within the bounds of our laws, so yes, but my framework for how I handle this would have ISPs regulated as natural monpoly which would make them a utility without that choice and that takes care of your concern. In their current state, however, you would not be wrong even if I wouldn't like it.
"BiG tEcH" People only use this term when they're mad that they can't call for the hanging of American citizens or the burning down of our government.
Amazon, Twitter, FB, Apple, Google—none of them have to tolerate calling for murder and destruction and they aren't going to risk liability by ignoring it and letting people come to harm. If you feel like not being able to call for lynchings of left leaning Americans is curtailing your speech then you need to reflect on why you want Americans dead so badly.
Back in the good old days of independent dial-up ISPs, the owner of one of our local ISPs (somehow a logging town had more than one local ISP...crazy to imagine now, isn't it?) found Jesus and decided to filter all traffic for objectionable/"adult" content.
Can I challenge the argument of self-contradiction being made by many here? (disclaimer - I'm not advocating for / against the action either way).
In civisilised society / discourse one must assume rules of engagement in order for co-operative interaction between agents to take place. To take an extreme demonstration - if you club me over the head and steal my meat while I approach you to trade, then a co-operative interaction cannot take place; physically so.
If we impose the additional rule that we must continue to observe those rules of engagement with agents who themselves have ignored them - then it's pretty clear (at least in the extreme example) that we expose ourselves to exploitation. And many philosophies and cultures do impose this rule (Christianity - for example).
In the process of discourse - it's plausible to argue that the ability to express oneself is one such rule of engagement. So, this ISP might feel that FB etc have broken the rules of engagment, and they might feel that they are under no obligation to adhere to those rules for agents that themselves aren't playing ball.
Now you can challenge this line of thinking on all sorts of interesting grounds - and I encourage folks to do so. However - the discussion gets nuanced fast...
I don't think you can just claim this action as prima-facie self contradictory - and to do so, I feel exposes the bias and lack of generosity in those attempting understand this action.
Sadly I think this is at the heart of all of the recent political debates. That is, many folks on each side believe the other has broken the rules of engagement. Many years ago I knew a congressperson who was deathly afraid of this happening (they pointed out a few "nuclear options" each party had for consolidating power). We're at a critical juncture where change is inevitable, let's hope we wind up in a better place than we were before.
There's the Progressive Left who point at the established Democrats and the mainstream media for tactics used to hurt progressive causes (like Bernie's nomination) [1].
There's the general Left who point at Trump for his abuses of power and propaganda [2].
There's Trump and his supporters who point to election fraud [3].
There's the general Right who point to the Democrats for schemes to pack the court [4].
I don't want to suggest that all of these claims are equally valid, but I do believe supporters of these sides all strongly believe these claims and are willing to use them as justification for bending the rules. In fact, I believe it would be foolish not to, given that is seems clear no matter who your opponent is, they will certainly bend the rules given the chance.
What I meant by "sadly" in my previous comment is I see the situation in the US in contrast to a government like New Zealand. In New Zealand opposing sides aren't focused on subverting the rules but instead sometimes work together to fuel positive outcomes for the whole country [5]. "Researchers have pored over the views of nearly 20,000 Kiwis and found, over the past decade at least, we haven't drifted toward polarised politics". [6]
Pornhub dropped a bunch of content at the behest of MasterCard, so they don't mind their porn being curated.
"Recent studies have found that state-level religious and political conservatism is positively associated with various aggregate indicators of interest in pornography. "
I believe pornhub was under fire for not moderating user-submitted content, which was allowing child pornography and other exploitive content to get through.
No matter stance you take on it, the CESTA amendment to 230 protections holds pornhub accountable, meaning they nuked all their non-verified user content.
It really hasn’t been - Twitter, fb, etc have explicit tos disallowing calls for violence, harassment, etc and have just stopped letting prominent people get away with violating those rules.
I think mirroring free speech standards under the law is probably a good starting point - i.e., censoring is bad by default, but not all speech is protected, and calls for violence and insurrection are a relevant and timely example of non-protected speech.
I'll reiterate that this should be a starting point, not necessarily a hard and fast rule - there may be more nuanced situations where the standards that are appropriate for the government are inappropriate for social networks.
There's also the question of what levels of the stack it's appropriate for any censorship to occur at. Even if censorship of a particular class of speech is appropriate in general, it may not be appropriate for an ISP specifically to conduct that censorship.
An ISP is a dumb pipe, that’s the other side of their having access to utility poles and use of people land for their cables.
Also the suspension/bans of individual people and groups for violating well established ToS by a private company, vs banning entire sites out of petulance with no actual grounds.
The obvious follow up is for FB, et al to block the ISP so everyone switches to a different ISP.
If a company doesn't want to distribute a certain type of content (whether it's for political reasons or because they genuinely think it's better for society that some voices aren't heard), they're under no obligation to do so.
> If a company doesn't want to distribute a certain type of content (whether it's for political reasons or because they genuinely think it's better for society that some voices aren't heard), they're under no obligation to do so.
I thought ISPs were classified as common carriers and thus are obligated? Or are we saying we _don't_ want net neutrality now?
Personally, I think this principle is limited in its application. Sure, Walmart may choose not to distribute specific products but at this point an ISP is essentially a utility, much like your water and electricity providers. As there is not much in the realm of choices for ISPs and many users are locked into contracts, this seems like an abuse of the power ISPs are holding.
Thinking about it this way, what if you worked for Facebook or Twitter as WFH and they blocked these sites. What now, do you move? Get a new job? Suppose they also block VPN traffic as that is a known way around their blocking.
> It's a private company, they should be free to choose what kind of content they want to provide
Censorship is just a classification of what they are doing. In both cases, it is selectively application of blocking of contents based on one's political believes. Calling them censorship is not an assessment whether they have a legal/illegal/legit/reasonable/unreasonable cause to carry out such acts.
Looks to me like this kind of reasoning will eventually go all the way up to "they can start their own society", and at some point, it will actually happen. surprised pikachu
"You can't censor us, we censor you!" - In all seriousness, this only hurts the ISP's customers. Interesting business tactic. We'll have to see how that plays out.
I have a philsophical defence of this not being censorship: The essence of censorship is to restrict access to information. This is harmful and dangeroues when powerful people use it to hide inconvinient information. Blocking a website is not necessarily censorship. Blocking an online casino, or a place to buy drugs, this is not censorship.
Now where does blocking facebook fall in this distinction. If you block it to hide information, then it is censorship. If you block it because of privacy reasons it is not censorship. This case is not as clear cut as either of those examples, but I would still say the motivation is not to hide information, and so not call it censorship.
But having said that, this is an action by a small isolated ISP. They are completely powerless compared to facebook or twitter. They only thing this amounts to is a symbolic statement of disapproval. It is not surprising that they are now backtracking as if they kept it up, they would have started losing customers.
Finally if ISP's start blocking websites it will quickly turn ugly, and I hope this does not happen.
The timing to me makes this clearly playing a political game of chicken. I wonder how many more people threaten to take their ball and go home, and who blinks and walks this back first.
Edit: it seems the ISP is walking this back already.
> But having said that, this is an action by a small isolated ISP. They are completely powerless compared to facebook or twitter.
While true on a global scale, internet access is not exactly a super competitive market. I think any one ISP likely has significant local power over individuals who live in their service area.
I can't speak to Idaho, but it appears this ISP also serves some areas in eastern Washington (which happens to be my state). As the article says, WA state net neutrality laws explicitly prohibit ISPs from selectively blocking websites so it is pretty slam-dunk illegal.
Good point. Still, I'm curious if that's been tested in court.
My impression is that some commercial practices can be widespread, and still fail under eventual court challenge. I'm thinking of the U.S. case regarding the advertised-vs-visible diagonal sizes of CRT monitors back in the day.
Beyond existing censorship (i.e. ISPs already block stuff, sadly), there might be an implied contract along those lines e.g. statistically the vast majority of Twitter traffic is people arguing about nonsense not censorship.
Do you have the text of said contract? It's not even a worthwhile thought experiment without it. How can one comment on a possible breach of an unknown contract?
As a utility, power is regulated differently from Internet service, so no.
If you're genuinely worried about this with regards to your ISP, consider writing to your lawmakers that ISPs should be treated like utilities as well.
Serious question if there's anyone with an appropriate background in the relevant law: how does this play with net neutrality and FCC regulation if the ISP is blocking Facebook and Twitter but not their competitors? It's not a free speech issue, but are there any fair dealing and business regulations that would come into play? In Canada, where ISPs are usually treated like public utilities, I believe that this would not be permitted, but I don't know the current state of Net neutrality in the US.
Silly and retributory, and per the article a pretty clear violation of Washington State's net neutrality laws. But in context, probably not a bad thing for society.
It's not if you consider being an isp like a utility. If the power company had a way to shut your power off anytime you tried to access a web site.
I also disagree with what the other companies did in the first place is censoring. They're removing rule breakers. You can still share your political views, just don't organize and call for the government to be other thrown because you believe everything you read online. You wouldn't freak out because a child porn distribution platform was turned off and claim it's censored.
Usually, state net neutrality laws are there to prohibit the state from purchasing from entities that violet net neutrality.
They don’t regulate transmission because that is federal territory.
Now the article is slightly misleading because they didn’t block Twitter and Facebook globally. They only blocked traffic for those users that asked them to do so.
Uhh aside from the censorship topic, I’m not sure if you can argue that ISP == some website. To be honest, I’m not sure why ISP aren’t regulated as utilities.
The comments here confuse me. Over the past months/years, I've read many a comment here insisting that whatever Facebook/Twitter/etcetera allow or don't allow in their platforms is absolutely not censorship[1]... But a significant amount of the comments in this post are saying that this move is "fighting censorship with more censorship", which is, by itself, tacitly saying that what the social media companies do is indeed censorship.
For the record, I don't think that twitter or facebook banning/blocking whatever they want is censorship[2], legally speaking... And neither is this, for the same reasons.
[1]: And some others who don't care and go as far as to say that censorship is okay and free speech doesn't work, among other things.
[2]: Unethical, manipulative, a betrayal of the spirit if not the law of "free speech"? Totally, but still not censorship.
From Karl Popper (1945):
“(..) we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant.“
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
Wy not block google's servers too? They should try that and see what their users say. These enablers of authoritarianism are entrenched in every facet of society. Its sad that we are living in times where lies are so strongly believed.
The paradox of tolerance states that if a society is tolerant without limit, its ability to be tolerant is eventually seized or destroyed by the intolerant. Karl Popper described it as the seemingly paradoxical idea that in order to maintain a tolerant society, the society must be intolerant of intolerance.
So some contingent of customers demands that their ISP block some sites, for all customers, or they are going to boycott. SO basically, your fucktard neighbors decide to censor what you are allowed to see on the internet.
Until the blocked customers get all up in arms, and the ISP backtracks and says "whoa, will add you to a white list".
How about the fucktards just install pihole at home and block Facebook and Twitter themselves?
You could always subscribe to a VPN service and bypass the shitshow.
I can imagine every single business in North Idaho that engages, markets, and even sells items online via Facebook and/or Twitter called them and said - (a) I don't believe that two-thirds of your customers called you asking to ban Twitter and Facebook (b) At no point would we have ever signed a contract with you if you had the right to eliminate our right to do business for no cause or fault of our own and (c) we would like to cancel our service.
Unless they have liberal (hah...) TOS, this is straightforward breach of contract.
No one pays money to post or read FB and Twitter and participation is voluntary.
But if I pay money to an ISP and the ISP decides that I can't access certain web services for what are essentially random (political) reasons with no legal justification beyond "We don't like them" - there's a good chance that's not going to end well if it gets to court.
You can stand on public property and say whatever you want. You can stand on your own property and say whatever you want. You cannot stand on my property and say whatever you want. No need to confuse public and private property. There is no law that protects you from the social consequences of your speech.
I’m starting to get a bit tired of so many posts at the top of HN being in some way tangentially related to this question of “should social media companies have the power to censor politicians?”
I know it’s a hugely important question that’ll have repercussions for years to come, and I know if you want an intelligent debate on the matter, HN is probably the best place for it, but politics sincerely gives me stress, and I use Hacker News because it is (or was) one of the few places that generally avoids it
I’m of the position that the human brain isn’t really geared for dealing with dangers on a geopolitical level
This is a little amateur psychologyish, but when you perceive danger, the brain releases chemicals that won’t let you rest until you’re convinced you’re free of that danger - the fight or flight response. So far this is essentially common wisdom, but - and here’s where I stray into the region of am-psych - I suspect that our unconscious mind finds it difficult to distinguish between immediate dangers and threats to our life, and geopolitical dangers that, while important, are rarely a threat to your life
The problem, for me, lies in the fact that in the news media, with a few exceptions (Reuters, BBC News), and social media, with almost no exceptions, the political content which rises to the top is the content that is most capable of triggering that response in you
If this wasn’t the case, then it would be okay, as the content would be easy to avoid, but I am weak to it, most of us are. The news media has what’s getting on for centuries of practice in triggering these emotions, triggering your unconscious mind to chemically scream at you to fight or run. Who am I to withstand that?
What I think this means is that if you keep up with politics consistently, and allow it in, you will either be in a near constant state of fight or flight, or you will become numb. Either state, while both useful in certain circumstances, is not pleasant. It’s not conducive to a happy life. It’s stress or jade
So this is my impassioned plea to the mods: Please prune back the constant political content. It’s unhealthy, it’s not what I’m here for, and, I suspect, although I may be wrong, that others feel the same way. Of course, if this comment gets heavily downvoted, (assuming people even read it) then I accept that I am simply in the minority, and that’s okay
>In a phone call with KREM, the owner of the company, Brett Fink, again said the websites would only be blocked for customers who asked.
>"We've had customers asked to be blocked by it. That is what the email was about, so no we are not blocking anybody, only the ones that have asked for it," Fink said.
So the entire premise of the article up to that point, as well as the article's subtitle are based on a non-event.
> Initially, the company said too many customers had requested the sites be blocked, so it would block them for all customers except for those who called the company and requested access. However, the company backtracked on Monday and said those who didn't request the sites be blocked would still have access.
They have a screen shot of the email that says they'd block it for everyone and if you want it unblocked you'd have to call and ask for that. It's a report of an entire event, from start to finish, not just the part where the ISP realized they were making a mistake and decided to change their mind.
In the book "Moral Tribes", Joshua Greene outlines a great point that rights are not arguments. I think the Facebook/Twitter censorship issue demonstrates this pretty clearly. Rights always have some context and without specifying that context, they can be used to justify almost anything. For example, depending on whether I'm under oath or not reasonably determines whether I can be persecuted for lying or not.
Personally I think it makes sense for Twitter and Facebook to use their power to prevent Trump's false claims about election fraud, especially given the harm it appears to be fostering [1]. That said, I believe there are many good faith arguments about why censorship in this instance could be harmful to the aims of a free society. However, I don't believe "right of free speech" or "censorship is always bad" are good arguments, instead I would like to see arguments about the purported benefits/harms to society of this censorship.
[1] I'm not the arbiter of truth here, there are many court cases affirming no voter fraud and the recent Capitol Building invasion is demonstration of the potential harm.
Well why should they be forced to carry content they disagree with, right? And if they're the only ISP in town, well I guess that's just too bad. As a corporation they have unlimited freedom to censor what their customers see.
This obviously isn’t the answer. But this is the year that decentralized social media will become mainstream, as a direct consequence of the actions of Facebook, Twitter, and all of the big tech providers that are currently trying to destroy Parler.
Telling 150 million people to sit down and shut up because their party happened to lose an election is a really, really bad idea that has no possible good ending for those doing it.
"Telling 150 million people to sit down and shut up because their party happened to lose an election" is probably the most disingenuous representation of events I've ever seen
> Telling 150 million people to sit down and shut up because their party happened to lose an election
What country have we shifted to talking about, because no US party has 150 million people, and the one that recently lost a national election—if you apply the percentages from Party ID surveys to the whole US adult population–has about half that many who identify with it.
As a long-time observer of HN, I have noticed that many people resort to pedantry when attempting to respond to comments that they have no real way to argue with, but want to argue with them anyway. Whether the number is 150 or 75 million, it's slightly less than 1/2 of the voting public. Do you think it's a good idea to attempt to silence 40-45% of the voting public in a country as large as the United States?
> Whether the number is 150 or 75 million, it’s slightly less than 1/2 of the voting public.
No, its not. Its not even the 21% of voters who actively support the storming of the Capitol [0]. Its just the even smaller group actively advocating new and further political violence.
Really? More pedantry? We aren't talking about silencing those that "support storming of the capital". We are talking about silencing an entire party of people. Donald Trump received approximately 46.8% of the popular vote. Is that not slightly less than half of the voting public?
46.8% of the people who care about this stuff are being told that they no longer have the right to speak on platforms where it would matter. That's a very serious problem.
> We aren’t talking about silencing those that “support storming of the capital”.
Yes, as I said we are talking about a much smaller group than even that. Nor are we actually talking about silencing them, we're talking about certain forums not serving as megaphones for them.
> We are talking about silencing an entire party of people.
No, we aren’t. I mean, not with any connection to reality, we aren’t.
> Donald Trump received approximately 46.8% of the popular vote.
Yes, but no major platform is adopting a rule that would cutoff access to people who voted for Donald Trump, so that’s not relevant.
> Is that not slightly less than half of the voting public?
Yes, but no one is talking about silencing people based on membership in that group.
> You’re talking about silencing slightly less than 1/2 of the the people who care about this stuff.
It appears that this entire comment and all of its replies have been hidden from public view. Oh the irony! We are the only ones discussing this now lol.
Can you tell me how they're being silenced? Supporting Donald Trump is not the same as inciting violence against the state, so it should be clear to you that punitive reactions against those who aimed to incite violence against the state can only be taken as an action against supporters of Donald Trump if you think supporting Donald Trump is the same as supporting violence against the state.
> this is the year that decentralized social media will become mainstream
I really hope you're right, but I am also very skeptical. For every centralized platform that a community is cut off from, another centralized platform opens to accept them.
And then you have decentralized platforms that specifically build in censorship in the stupidest places [0] in an effort to stave off "rightoids." It seems most of the people building the decentralized platforms aren't actually interested in the merits of open communication or free thought, but rather pushing their inconsistent, amorphous identity politics bullshit down everyone's throats (and I'm saying this as a communist). They bring their ruling-class-approved "us vs them" mentality into the platforms they are building and try to force participants to "bend the knee" or be banished. Sure, you can run your own instance, but why would you on a platform where you're not sure where you stand? Decentralized social media platforms will need to exercise a bit more tolerance before they see mass adoption.
I'm excited for things like Holochain though, which might help to turn everything on its head.
> Telling 150 million people to sit down and shut up because their party happened to lose an election is a really, really bad idea that has no possible good ending for those doing it.
i do think you mean 74M? anyways i agree with you, it's a recipe for disaster. (and i'm not sure why you're being down-voted here.)
it'd be much more healthy to actively engage this cohort of people; allow them to present "facts" as they see fit and offer evidence to either support or refute their views.
Owner does not seem to be the best communicator, he admits this and says in his defense it has been three days of nonstop emails and calls that he answers even in the middle of the night. So maybe he's not thinking clearly.
Still, pretty ridiculous.