Brazil Bolsonaro: Facebook told to block accounts of president’s supporters(bbc.com)
bbc.com
Brazil Bolsonaro: Facebook told to block accounts of president’s supporters
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-53625728
252 comments
Brazilian here. Unfortunately I wouldn't call them independent. They simply represent the other side. Brazil is not as united behind Bolsonaro as the media makes out to be.
I'm originally from Turkey, and that's also the case with Erdoğan. I mean, they wouldn't be dictators if everyone agreed with them, no?
The big problem arising from the stark polarization is that there's no uncontaminated news sources anymore. Many argue that news should be political anyway but I really miss reading stuff that doesn't fit 100 percent to a single agenda.
The big problem arising from the stark polarization is that there's no uncontaminated news sources anymore. Many argue that news should be political anyway but I really miss reading stuff that doesn't fit 100 percent to a single agenda.
Hold on, Bolsonaro is not a dictator. Federalism even recently screwed him over. He didn't act on COVID but individual states imposed their own measures and thankfully countered his opinion.
That's like saying Mussolini was not a dictator in 1922, because there were still so many factions competing against him in Italian politics. Possibly true, but it's also clear what direction he was heading. By 1925 he had largely consolidated his power.
Well I'm also super concerned that he has expressed dictatorial aspirations. But as of right now the constitution holds.
"Super concerned?" The guy wanted to celebrate the coup that started the last dictatorship. Stop splitting hairs.
http://www.iconnectblog.com/2019/04/bolsonaros-unconstitutio...
Note: Trump's call for postponing the election is exactly the same thing. Evidence they have no interest in constitutional democracy and will, at the earliest possible moment, impose total control on the country.
http://www.iconnectblog.com/2019/04/bolsonaros-unconstitutio...
Note: Trump's call for postponing the election is exactly the same thing. Evidence they have no interest in constitutional democracy and will, at the earliest possible moment, impose total control on the country.
Read what I said. I said I'm super concerned about it :D
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Polarization is exactly that, remove all gradients. Fascists like to make out everything is black-white. “Only siths deal in absolutes”
I’ve always thought that quote itself was curiously absolute. ‘Only’, Yoda?
That whole movie is about how the Jedi completely lost their way from millennia of stagnation to the point that they couldn't recognize the sith in their midsts anymore, and how their own well meaning influence contributed to their own downfall.
>I’ve always thought that quote itself was curiously absolute. ‘Only’, Yoda?
“Do. Or do not. There is no try.”
I always took it as Yoda unwittingly revealing himself as a Sith Lord. I mean, how much do we really know about this little fella's shady past? :D
“Do. Or do not. There is no try.”
I always took it as Yoda unwittingly revealing himself as a Sith Lord. I mean, how much do we really know about this little fella's shady past? :D
> I mean, they wouldn't be dictators if everyone agreed with them, no?
A dictator's enemies are deplatformed and powerless. They are certainly not allowed to sit in top courts.
A dictator's enemies are deplatformed and powerless. They are certainly not allowed to sit in top courts.
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There are 11 or 12 supreme court judges. While one or two may present some "tastes" here and there, overall, all of them together are doing a good job til now.
Gilmar Mendes sometimes free their rich pals from prison here and there, but in other matters hes not that bad.
Dias Toffoli also do some shady things here and there but some bad things he did got reverted back by the other judges.
I dont think is fair to say they "represent the other side", first because this gives a dichotomistic way to see things that are far too simplistic.
Also because as a Brazilian too, im very thankful for what the two other powers; judiciary and legislative, have being doing to put the executive at least in check.
The president is nuts, and the country is without any sort of leadership, and if it were only incompetence, but the problem is that this guy is trying by any means necessary to do a takeover move over the republic..
And if those other powers weren't in opposition, trying to defend the democratic institutions, we would be heading to some sort of Putin state.
So of course that nothing is perfect, but overall i've been positively surprised about what they have done so far.
Gilmar Mendes sometimes free their rich pals from prison here and there, but in other matters hes not that bad.
Dias Toffoli also do some shady things here and there but some bad things he did got reverted back by the other judges.
I dont think is fair to say they "represent the other side", first because this gives a dichotomistic way to see things that are far too simplistic.
Also because as a Brazilian too, im very thankful for what the two other powers; judiciary and legislative, have being doing to put the executive at least in check.
The president is nuts, and the country is without any sort of leadership, and if it were only incompetence, but the problem is that this guy is trying by any means necessary to do a takeover move over the republic..
And if those other powers weren't in opposition, trying to defend the democratic institutions, we would be heading to some sort of Putin state.
So of course that nothing is perfect, but overall i've been positively surprised about what they have done so far.
They are free to not take the government side in all matters. So, how are they not independent?
Independence means something else. It means not beholden to certain interests.
Simply being in the pocket of the other party (opposition) does not make them independent.
(Disclaimer: I don't know if this is the case, simply commenting on the topic of independence)
Simply being in the pocket of the other party (opposition) does not make them independent.
(Disclaimer: I don't know if this is the case, simply commenting on the topic of independence)
Last time I visited Brazil some 5 years ago, the courts would ban Whatsapp every couple months. They were in bed with telecom companies that hated that Whatsapp made many of their services free.
That's a wildly uninformed accusation.
There's a lot of problems with telecoms there, but WhatsApp actually has partnerships to enjoy "unlimited" bandwidth privileges with all four mobile operators in Brazil. Just checked and all four have such plans: Claro, Vivo, TIM and Oi.
The bans were because the courts were trying to coerce WhatsApp into responding to subpoenas.
There's a lot of problems with telecoms there, but WhatsApp actually has partnerships to enjoy "unlimited" bandwidth privileges with all four mobile operators in Brazil. Just checked and all four have such plans: Claro, Vivo, TIM and Oi.
The bans were because the courts were trying to coerce WhatsApp into responding to subpoenas.
I'm not sure that was the case 4 years ago. They first tried to beat it before joining it.
The subpoenas were widely seen as a pretext among the population. It is Brazil: you have to read between the lines.
The subpoenas were widely seen as a pretext among the population. It is Brazil: you have to read between the lines.
That's still sounds like a wild and unfounded accusation.
And that was partially already the case a few years ago:
TIM started free WhatsApp plans in 2014 [1].
Claro started in 2015 [2].
Oi started later, but it already had a similar plan in 2013 for Facebook Messenger, before WhatsApp acquisition [3].
Vivo seems to be the only holdout, starting in 2018, but that's far from proof that they were in bed with judges just to damage WhatsApp.
And frankly, "you have to read between the lines" sounds like code for unfounded conspiracy theories. Unfortunately something that is currently destroying the country.
[1] https://tecnoblog.net/170330/tim-controle-whatsapp-internet-...
[2] https://gizmodo.uol.com.br/claro-turbinada-detalhes/
[3] https://tecnoblog.net/131671/oi-facebook-messenger-de-graca/
And that was partially already the case a few years ago:
TIM started free WhatsApp plans in 2014 [1].
Claro started in 2015 [2].
Oi started later, but it already had a similar plan in 2013 for Facebook Messenger, before WhatsApp acquisition [3].
Vivo seems to be the only holdout, starting in 2018, but that's far from proof that they were in bed with judges just to damage WhatsApp.
And frankly, "you have to read between the lines" sounds like code for unfounded conspiracy theories. Unfortunately something that is currently destroying the country.
[1] https://tecnoblog.net/170330/tim-controle-whatsapp-internet-...
[2] https://gizmodo.uol.com.br/claro-turbinada-detalhes/
[3] https://tecnoblog.net/131671/oi-facebook-messenger-de-graca/
You should try to remember the political scenario at the time. The Snowden leaks had generated an immense discomfort in Brazilian government regarding the fact that US based companies could just wiretap Brazilian communications. WhatsApp didn't have a subsidiary at Brazil, and Facebook Brazil used to say they didn't respond for WhatsApp matters. Since Brazilian justice didn't manage to get WhatsApp to answer subpoenas even for extremely low-profile cases, they tried to force their hand on them. The blocks were clearly a demonstration of force, trying to get companies providing services to Brazilians to obey Brazilian law at least to some extent.
This was not what happened. Whatsapp got banned by individual low-ranking-judges in low profile cases, which was unreasonable.
Higher courts removed the ban pretty quick and made sure it won't happen again.
I stand corrected then. Thanks for clarifying. I remember lots of talk about that back then and I was not aware of the details.
The Print is a Congress party affiliated publication with many of its writers having affiliation in some form with the Indian National Congress. What you posted are just allegations/innuendos against Modi. Nothing more.
As far as Modi is concerned, he has been vilified for over 2 decades now. Enough crap has been said about him and none of it proven till date. He was not the Prime Minister for 1 full decade. If there was a shred of evidence against Modi that would have implicated him it would have gotten him behind bars. If you can't find even one case that can be taken to logical conclusion then the onus is on you to prove Modi is guilty and not on Modi to prove his innocence.
The Congress party ruled from 2004 to 2014. And they hate Modi the most in India. Especially the top brass of the party. They tried every trick in the book and nothing stuck. So to say that Modi has control over all institutions is just baseless slander. Nothing more!
The Print has openly advocated for spreading fake news against Modi Government [1]. I wouldn't even take them as a media publication. More a Congress mouthpiece.
Direct quote from their article:
"4. Compete: Across the world, fire-hosing of falsehood is becoming a powerful propaganda tool. Those who want to defeat such propaganda may have to do their own fire-hosing of falsehood. As the Hindi saying goes, iron cuts iron. When public opinion is being manipulated with fake news and lies, the opposition cannot win the game with mere fact-checking. It may have to do its own rapid and continuous misinformation with little regard for the truth. The RAND researchers suggest this is what the US should do against Russia."
[1]: https://theprint.in/opinion/why-modi-government-gets-away-wi...
As far as Modi is concerned, he has been vilified for over 2 decades now. Enough crap has been said about him and none of it proven till date. He was not the Prime Minister for 1 full decade. If there was a shred of evidence against Modi that would have implicated him it would have gotten him behind bars. If you can't find even one case that can be taken to logical conclusion then the onus is on you to prove Modi is guilty and not on Modi to prove his innocence.
The Congress party ruled from 2004 to 2014. And they hate Modi the most in India. Especially the top brass of the party. They tried every trick in the book and nothing stuck. So to say that Modi has control over all institutions is just baseless slander. Nothing more!
The Print has openly advocated for spreading fake news against Modi Government [1]. I wouldn't even take them as a media publication. More a Congress mouthpiece.
Direct quote from their article:
"4. Compete: Across the world, fire-hosing of falsehood is becoming a powerful propaganda tool. Those who want to defeat such propaganda may have to do their own fire-hosing of falsehood. As the Hindi saying goes, iron cuts iron. When public opinion is being manipulated with fake news and lies, the opposition cannot win the game with mere fact-checking. It may have to do its own rapid and continuous misinformation with little regard for the truth. The RAND researchers suggest this is what the US should do against Russia."
[1]: https://theprint.in/opinion/why-modi-government-gets-away-wi...
Add Duterte to that list. He appointed 11 out of 15 justices to the Philippine Supreme Court.
Interesting but off-topic. Submit a new top-level post.
There is nothing independent with Brazil’s court. They are just dismantling the executive powers so they and their own can be kept on power.
In Brazil, the Supreme Court is filled by presidential choice. Brazil had 25 consecutive years with social democratic and socialists presidents, so that every justice currently have been put there by them. Now that democracy turned to the right-wing, the losers aren’t accepting the results and the reforms being made, that takes out their privileges and positions of power.
I know barely nothing about India, but what you described certainly is not correlated to what is happening in Brazil.
In Brazil, the Supreme Court is filled by presidential choice. Brazil had 25 consecutive years with social democratic and socialists presidents, so that every justice currently have been put there by them. Now that democracy turned to the right-wing, the losers aren’t accepting the results and the reforms being made, that takes out their privileges and positions of power.
I know barely nothing about India, but what you described certainly is not correlated to what is happening in Brazil.
True. You cannot expect the judicial to be apolitical if it is appointed by the other two highly political branches of government. But we pretend it is apolitical in Brazil and in the US.
There is a difference between political philosophy and being political.
A judge may be liberal or conservative but it doesn’t follow that they would represent a party platform.
A judge may be liberal or conservative but it doesn’t follow that they would represent a party platform.
You're glad that this independent court is censoring people?
Yes, as in this case the posts in question include direct physical threats like threatening the children of judges with murder and rape.
Using social media to threaten physical violence against Bolsonaro's opponents has been a theme all throughout his time in power.
Using social media to threaten physical violence against Bolsonaro's opponents has been a theme all throughout his time in power.
Absolutely none of the censored did threat with physical aggressions. It is quite the opposite.
Bolsonaro was stabbed, and almost died, by a leftist activist, with former link to a far left party, PSOL.
Dirceu, the strategist head of PT, the main opposition to Bolsonaro, gave an interview recently saying that “it is time to retake position of power, which is not the same as winning the elections”.
Marcelo Freixo, currently the most popular politician from PSOL, was saying the left can’t simply resist the right, but must work to destroy it.
Alexandre de Moraes, the justice that is censoring brazilians worldwide was for more than 15 years advocate to criminals pertaining to PCC, the biggest drug smugglers mafia in Brazil. He was put in the court after a very suspect plane crash which killed a justice that was incriminating our last former president, Michel Temer.
Bolsonaro was stabbed, and almost died, by a leftist activist, with former link to a far left party, PSOL.
Dirceu, the strategist head of PT, the main opposition to Bolsonaro, gave an interview recently saying that “it is time to retake position of power, which is not the same as winning the elections”.
Marcelo Freixo, currently the most popular politician from PSOL, was saying the left can’t simply resist the right, but must work to destroy it.
Alexandre de Moraes, the justice that is censoring brazilians worldwide was for more than 15 years advocate to criminals pertaining to PCC, the biggest drug smugglers mafia in Brazil. He was put in the court after a very suspect plane crash which killed a justice that was incriminating our last former president, Michel Temer.
Dirceu's quote was retracted and said to be unfortunate. Also he was talking about a scenario where Bolsonaro executed a military coup.
Freixo meant that about Bolsonarismo, not the right. Which is a sentiment I agree.
Your claim about Alexandre de Moraes is conspiracy theory, there's no serious reason to believe he's involved on Zavascki's death.
Yeah, Bolsonaro was stabbed by a nutjob, and STF's ministers and family constantly receive threats from people online. Both affirmations are true, although that's not the reason for the censoring in question.
I completely agree STF went to far in this matter and it's worrying that they're starting to feel comfortable censoring speech. But nothing you said related to it. It feels like you're trying to imply "see, it's the left that's actually violent", which is not only unfaithful to the general public discourse in Brazil but also contributes to polarization without adding nothing to the discussion in hand.
Freixo meant that about Bolsonarismo, not the right. Which is a sentiment I agree.
Your claim about Alexandre de Moraes is conspiracy theory, there's no serious reason to believe he's involved on Zavascki's death.
Yeah, Bolsonaro was stabbed by a nutjob, and STF's ministers and family constantly receive threats from people online. Both affirmations are true, although that's not the reason for the censoring in question.
I completely agree STF went to far in this matter and it's worrying that they're starting to feel comfortable censoring speech. But nothing you said related to it. It feels like you're trying to imply "see, it's the left that's actually violent", which is not only unfaithful to the general public discourse in Brazil but also contributes to polarization without adding nothing to the discussion in hand.
> Yeah, Bolsonaro was stabbed by a nutjob, and STF's ministers and family constantly receive threats from people online. Both affirmations are true, although that's not the reason for the censoring in question.
None of the censored made threats to any ministers, other than legal political activism. I would be surprised if you could link to just one occurrence of threat to ministers.
What is unfaithful is to say otherwise. The left in Brazil IS violent, period. They have a history with terrorism, in 70’s, agency with Cuba and USSR, the murdering of deserters (see Celso Daniel’s case), money laundering to finance despotic government abroad third world and their own plan “to be kept permanently on power“ - Dirceu again, has he retracted that as well?
None of the censored made threats to any ministers, other than legal political activism. I would be surprised if you could link to just one occurrence of threat to ministers.
What is unfaithful is to say otherwise. The left in Brazil IS violent, period. They have a history with terrorism, in 70’s, agency with Cuba and USSR, the murdering of deserters (see Celso Daniel’s case), money laundering to finance despotic government abroad third world and their own plan “to be kept permanently on power“ - Dirceu again, has he retracted that as well?
https://congressoemfoco.uol.com.br/justica/suspeito-de-ameac...
https://jc.ne10.uol.com.br/politica/2020/06/5612890-alexandr...
Although I made clear that these threats are not the reason of the censorship in question.
And "the right" actually executed plans to keep themselves permanently in power with all the violence that entails, but it's not fair to associate everyone that subscribes to "the right" with the military coup.
And this is an especially dishonest claim to be made in times where the most important and beloved right-wing figure in Brazilian politics openly defends this military regime [0], violence against the opposition [1], domestic violence (spanking children) [2], police violence, and is even associated with violent militia [3]. Had you said that during PT vs. PSDB times it would be damaging, unfruitful and a gross generalization, but at least it would have some basis on the real public discourse.
[0] https://veja.abril.com.br/politica/doze-vezes-em-que-bolsona...
[1] https://exame.com/brasil/vamos-fuzilar-a-petralhada-diz-bols...
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJNy08VoLZs
[3] https://theintercept.com/2019/01/22/bolsonaros-milicias/
https://jc.ne10.uol.com.br/politica/2020/06/5612890-alexandr...
Although I made clear that these threats are not the reason of the censorship in question.
And "the right" actually executed plans to keep themselves permanently in power with all the violence that entails, but it's not fair to associate everyone that subscribes to "the right" with the military coup.
And this is an especially dishonest claim to be made in times where the most important and beloved right-wing figure in Brazilian politics openly defends this military regime [0], violence against the opposition [1], domestic violence (spanking children) [2], police violence, and is even associated with violent militia [3]. Had you said that during PT vs. PSDB times it would be damaging, unfruitful and a gross generalization, but at least it would have some basis on the real public discourse.
[0] https://veja.abril.com.br/politica/doze-vezes-em-que-bolsona...
[1] https://exame.com/brasil/vamos-fuzilar-a-petralhada-diz-bols...
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJNy08VoLZs
[3] https://theintercept.com/2019/01/22/bolsonaros-milicias/
> https://congressoemfoco.uol.com.br/justica/suspeito-de-ameac....
>
> https://jc.ne10.uol.com.br/politica/2020/06/5612890-alexandr....
I never denied that political figures from any party received threats, there are crazy people and plain criminals in every political side. What I said is that none of the censored are involved in those. The two links you enlisted doesn't even contain names.
About [0], they defend the historic military regime (what is a shame, truly), but they have clearly refuted any military coup, even silencing supporters that do [4].
About [3], it is a year and half old, and had no follow up, entirely speculative, by a widely know fake news outlet [theintercept.com].
[4] https://www.em.com.br/app/noticia/politica/2020/04/20/intern...
I never denied that political figures from any party received threats, there are crazy people and plain criminals in every political side. What I said is that none of the censored are involved in those. The two links you enlisted doesn't even contain names.
About [0], they defend the historic military regime (what is a shame, truly), but they have clearly refuted any military coup, even silencing supporters that do [4].
About [3], it is a year and half old, and had no follow up, entirely speculative, by a widely know fake news outlet [theintercept.com].
[4] https://www.em.com.br/app/noticia/politica/2020/04/20/intern...
This is a problem with censorship. If the posts weren’t censored, we could look at them and see what they said.
Instead we have to speculate.
Instead we have to speculate.
Believe it or not, censorship can be good.
This is why I come to Hacker News.
Absence of irrelevant political motivated posts with flimsy evidence.
Absence of irrelevant political motivated posts with flimsy evidence.
[deleted]
There seems to be some confusion in the comments regarding this decision.
This is not an arbitrary decision made in a vacuum. There’s an ongoing judicial inquiry, and the accounts suspended were linked to persons of interest. They’re currently being investigated for crimes in both civil and penal spheres.
The accounts were not banned, they are temporarily suspended for the course of the investigation. Also, it’s explicitly mentioned that, given the evidences (which the accused parties have access to), some individual rights are being suspended, as they’re not shields for committing crimes or avoiding responsibility. The decision also mentions that Constitutional rights don’t exist on their own, they find their limits in the other equally important rights and guarantees contained in the Constitution. This is not some exotic feature of Brazilian law, it’s something also mentioned in the Declaration of Human Rights (which is also cited).
Having said that, all affected parties have the right to contest the measure, this is not an autocratic decision.
Finally, if Facebook and Twitter wants to operate in Brazil, they need to comply with Brazilian laws, including complying with court decisions. You can definitely argue against blocking the information world wide, but similar decisions were made by other democratic countries (like Canada).
This is not an arbitrary decision made in a vacuum. There’s an ongoing judicial inquiry, and the accounts suspended were linked to persons of interest. They’re currently being investigated for crimes in both civil and penal spheres.
The accounts were not banned, they are temporarily suspended for the course of the investigation. Also, it’s explicitly mentioned that, given the evidences (which the accused parties have access to), some individual rights are being suspended, as they’re not shields for committing crimes or avoiding responsibility. The decision also mentions that Constitutional rights don’t exist on their own, they find their limits in the other equally important rights and guarantees contained in the Constitution. This is not some exotic feature of Brazilian law, it’s something also mentioned in the Declaration of Human Rights (which is also cited).
Having said that, all affected parties have the right to contest the measure, this is not an autocratic decision.
Finally, if Facebook and Twitter wants to operate in Brazil, they need to comply with Brazilian laws, including complying with court decisions. You can definitely argue against blocking the information world wide, but similar decisions were made by other democratic countries (like Canada).
> This is not an arbitrary decision made in a vacuum. There’s an ongoing judicial inquiry, and the accounts suspended were linked to persons of interest. They’re currently being investigated for crimes in both civil and penal spheres.
Except that this "judicial inquiry" is anything but lawful. The offended side (the supreme court) is also the inquirer and the judge. There is nothing in the law that allows this, and the constitution plainly prohibits it. They are abusing their power and are censoring activists, journalists and politicians, plain and simple.
> (which the accused parties have access to)
Even the OAB (brazilian akin to advocates' guild) recognized this wasn't the case for at leas two weeks. And when the accused were given access to formal accusation, they only had access to a small chapter of it.
Except that this "judicial inquiry" is anything but lawful. The offended side (the supreme court) is also the inquirer and the judge. There is nothing in the law that allows this, and the constitution plainly prohibits it. They are abusing their power and are censoring activists, journalists and politicians, plain and simple.
> (which the accused parties have access to)
Even the OAB (brazilian akin to advocates' guild) recognized this wasn't the case for at leas two weeks. And when the accused were given access to formal accusation, they only had access to a small chapter of it.
> Even the OAB (brazilian akin to advocates' guild) recognized this wasn't the case for at leas two weeks. And when the accused were given access to formal accusation, they only had access to a small chapter of it.
Do you have any source? I tried to google 'Roberto Jefferson OAB', but I found nothing.
Do you have any source? I tried to google 'Roberto Jefferson OAB', but I found nothing.
It’s arguably lawful. By the Brazilian Constitution, investigation on crimes committed against the Supreme Court are to be presided and supervised by the court itself. Furthermore, it’s been established that the whatever case comes out of the investigation will be sent to the Attorney General. It’s up to him follow prosecution. So no, they’re not the inquirer and the judge.
Questioning procedures is a healthy part of the democratic game. But it doesn’t change the fact that there’s evidence that crimes we’re committed, and legal action is being taken.
Questioning procedures is a healthy part of the democratic game. But it doesn’t change the fact that there’s evidence that crimes we’re committed, and legal action is being taken.
There is a internal regiment that postulates the court investigates crimes within the court. Justices then, by their own, and extrapolating interpretation of the law, came out that the Supreme Court abroads national territory, thus any act against it is considered "within". Does it seem fair to you?
Also, can you enlist a single of said crimes against the court?
Also, can you enlist a single of said crimes against the court?
> There is nothing in the law that allows this
There is, though. They will forward the case to the general prosecutor's office, as the law dictates.
> and the constitution plainly prohibits it.
It really doesn't. In fact it mentions explicitly that the Supreme Court in Brazil must oversee the early investigations (before handing them over to the general prosecutor, although that part is not explicit).
I'm not really in favor of it, but this is the reality of the system in place.
There is, though. They will forward the case to the general prosecutor's office, as the law dictates.
> and the constitution plainly prohibits it.
It really doesn't. In fact it mentions explicitly that the Supreme Court in Brazil must oversee the early investigations (before handing them over to the general prosecutor, although that part is not explicit).
I'm not really in favor of it, but this is the reality of the system in place.
Freedom of speech is quite complex and every single country in the world has limits on speech. Japan and the US seem to have the broadest interpretation of freedom of speech, yet both countries have reasonable limits when it comes to obscenity, direct threats of violence, and others.
Many countries under the Crown do not have freedom of speech. In New Zealand, the live stream video from the Christchurch shooting was illegal to possess or distribute, without seeking specific permission (e.g for academic purposes). Most Kiwi's I've talked to considered this reasonable, and even the Americans who immigrated understood and accepted this limit when they choose to apply for residence or citizenship.
Australia doesn't have freedom of speech or a bill or rights, but the state of Victoria (Melbourne) has a charter of human rights.
China has freedom of speech in their constitution.
The freedom isn't the most important part, but the due process of law that comes around fighting for, maintaining and putting reasonable limits on those freedoms.
Many countries under the Crown do not have freedom of speech. In New Zealand, the live stream video from the Christchurch shooting was illegal to possess or distribute, without seeking specific permission (e.g for academic purposes). Most Kiwi's I've talked to considered this reasonable, and even the Americans who immigrated understood and accepted this limit when they choose to apply for residence or citizenship.
Australia doesn't have freedom of speech or a bill or rights, but the state of Victoria (Melbourne) has a charter of human rights.
China has freedom of speech in their constitution.
The freedom isn't the most important part, but the due process of law that comes around fighting for, maintaining and putting reasonable limits on those freedoms.
No, this is not legal. I talk with the leading YouTube influencers in the area. What’s happening is that the highly corrupt Brazilian supreme court has made “fake news” illegal and are arresting top influencers in the country.
The judges are violating constitutional law by going after these people.
Here’s a video on twitter I cut with one of the top influencers (by YouTube subs) explaining the situation.
https://twitter.com/perpetualmaniac/status/12897624790152273...
The judges are violating constitutional law by going after these people.
Here’s a video on twitter I cut with one of the top influencers (by YouTube subs) explaining the situation.
https://twitter.com/perpetualmaniac/status/12897624790152273...
From a US perspective that type of prior restraint on free speech prior to a criminal conviction just seems bizarre. Regardless of whether or not the suspects accused in this case are actually guilty, it gives the authorities too much power to suppress dissent.
Well, dissent is protected by the Brazilian Constitution. Death threats and threats to democracy itself are not.
At some point you need to trust the set of institutions in place, otherwise you can’t apply any kind of regulation effectively.
At some point you need to trust the set of institutions in place, otherwise you can’t apply any kind of regulation effectively.
> threats to democracy itself are not.
Isn't there a claim being made that the military has a constitutional right to take over as the junta once did?
Isn't there a claim being made that the military has a constitutional right to take over as the junta once did?
The technical argument from the court is quite intriguing.
The Supreme Court justice only wants to prevent access to the blocked profiles within Brazil. However, he says Facebook should not allow Brazilians themselves to view such profiles by “subterfuge” (by changing their registered country on Facebook settings or using VPNs, according to the Court’s tech advisors).
In the end, the most efficient way for Facebook to comply with this order is a worldwide ban.
Facebook may have a shot at reversing the ban and the fines on its appeal. But it certainly doesn't help that several previous orders on this case had been ignored before.
The Supreme Court justice only wants to prevent access to the blocked profiles within Brazil. However, he says Facebook should not allow Brazilians themselves to view such profiles by “subterfuge” (by changing their registered country on Facebook settings or using VPNs, according to the Court’s tech advisors).
In the end, the most efficient way for Facebook to comply with this order is a worldwide ban.
Facebook may have a shot at reversing the ban and the fines on its appeal. But it certainly doesn't help that several previous orders on this case had been ignored before.
Where did you read the technical arguments? The article doesn't mention them. In fact, the article is very light on information, and only left me confused about the situation, like why are the presidents supporters calling for a coup? And how does blocking a dozen accounts change anything, really? Would the people behind them not simply open more sockpuppet accounts?
> why are the presidents supporters calling for a coup
Acts asking for a militar coup have been happening for the last few years among the radical right. Their demands are not clear enough, so most news reports are about them happening and events surrounded them, such as the president appearing in some of them. [1] [2]
---
I'm not going to guess what they want, so let's just translate what their banners say. Hopefully I can be unbiased.
- "Military intervention / Close the supreme court and congress / With Bolsonaro as president" [3]
- "Military tribunal", "Criminalize Communism", among others I can't read [4].
- "Military intervention so that Bolsonaro can govern". In the back: "criminalize communism" [5].
- "AI-5 with Bolsonaro in power" [6].
The last one is about AI-5. AI-5, according to Wiki:
"resulted in the forfeiture of mandates, interventions ordered by the President in municipalities and states and also in the suspension of any constitutional guarantees which eventually resulted in the institutionalization of the torture commonly used as a tool by the State." [7]
The previous reference is in english.
---
> And how does blocking a dozen accounts change anything, really? Would the people behind them not simply open more sockpuppet accounts?
Some of them are under house arrest and forbidden from using social networks. [7]
The others are stopped for different reasons, but according to a news website "there's still no information about the reasons". [8]
If they open sock puppets, this will probably be dealt with in a case by case basis.
---
Sorry for the excessive number of sources. This is still ongoing and very hard to explain, so I have no recourse.
[1] https://www.bbc.com/portuguese/brasil-52353804
[2] https://g1.globo.com/politica/noticia/2020/04/19/bolsonaro-d...
[3] https://media.gazetadopovo.com.br/2020/04/22162620/manifesta... / https://mediastorage.cnnbrasil.com.br/IMAGES/00/00/00/3368_7...
[4] https://conteudo.imguol.com.br/c/noticias/c0/2020/06/21/2106...
[5] https://static.poder360.com.br/2020/06/Apoiadores-Bolsonaro-...
[6] https://static.poder360.com.br/2020/04/bolsonaro-AI-5.jpg
[7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutional_Act_Number_Five
[8] https://www.bbc.com/portuguese/brasil-53570792
[9] https://economia.ig.com.br/2020-07-31/luciano-hang-da-havan-...
Acts asking for a militar coup have been happening for the last few years among the radical right. Their demands are not clear enough, so most news reports are about them happening and events surrounded them, such as the president appearing in some of them. [1] [2]
---
I'm not going to guess what they want, so let's just translate what their banners say. Hopefully I can be unbiased.
- "Military intervention / Close the supreme court and congress / With Bolsonaro as president" [3]
- "Military tribunal", "Criminalize Communism", among others I can't read [4].
- "Military intervention so that Bolsonaro can govern". In the back: "criminalize communism" [5].
- "AI-5 with Bolsonaro in power" [6].
The last one is about AI-5. AI-5, according to Wiki:
"resulted in the forfeiture of mandates, interventions ordered by the President in municipalities and states and also in the suspension of any constitutional guarantees which eventually resulted in the institutionalization of the torture commonly used as a tool by the State." [7]
The previous reference is in english.
---
> And how does blocking a dozen accounts change anything, really? Would the people behind them not simply open more sockpuppet accounts?
Some of them are under house arrest and forbidden from using social networks. [7]
The others are stopped for different reasons, but according to a news website "there's still no information about the reasons". [8]
If they open sock puppets, this will probably be dealt with in a case by case basis.
---
Sorry for the excessive number of sources. This is still ongoing and very hard to explain, so I have no recourse.
[1] https://www.bbc.com/portuguese/brasil-52353804
[2] https://g1.globo.com/politica/noticia/2020/04/19/bolsonaro-d...
[3] https://media.gazetadopovo.com.br/2020/04/22162620/manifesta... / https://mediastorage.cnnbrasil.com.br/IMAGES/00/00/00/3368_7...
[4] https://conteudo.imguol.com.br/c/noticias/c0/2020/06/21/2106...
[5] https://static.poder360.com.br/2020/06/Apoiadores-Bolsonaro-...
[6] https://static.poder360.com.br/2020/04/bolsonaro-AI-5.jpg
[7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutional_Act_Number_Five
[8] https://www.bbc.com/portuguese/brasil-53570792
[9] https://economia.ig.com.br/2020-07-31/luciano-hang-da-havan-...
> - "AI-5 with Bolsonaro in power" [6].
Brazilian living abroad here. This one is particularly hilarious/concerning because they keep screaming "censorship" against the supreme court orders and censoring the press was one of the policies instituted by the AI-5 decree.
I lived through the second half of the dictatorship. I'd rather lock up those who ask for one than see my country under one.
Brazilian living abroad here. This one is particularly hilarious/concerning because they keep screaming "censorship" against the supreme court orders and censoring the press was one of the policies instituted by the AI-5 decree.
I lived through the second half of the dictatorship. I'd rather lock up those who ask for one than see my country under one.
The plus side may be that social media is split up country by country and communicates via federation. Then ad revenue from zero sum competitive spending can remain in country instead of 15% of small business income and taxi dispatch fees flowing out of the countries to a couple winner take all, first mover advantage, megacorps located in America.
While that sounds desirable in itself, I don’t think it would actually solve the issue the judge is concerned about.
It would render american social media largely irrelevant in brazil, and vice versa: some call it the balkanization of the internet.
On the one hand, that's a terrible shame - on the other, the extreme lack of accountability and monopolistic power of the internet giants may mean that's the most pragmatic route for some accountability.
I'm not sure what to make of all this, but I definitely don't think it's anything simple or clearcut.
On the one hand, that's a terrible shame - on the other, the extreme lack of accountability and monopolistic power of the internet giants may mean that's the most pragmatic route for some accountability.
I'm not sure what to make of all this, but I definitely don't think it's anything simple or clearcut.
Very glad I'm not Facebook. No matter what choices you make, millions (or billions) will hate you. Is decentralization the only solution, if it even is one?
I agree. You may not agree with Zuckerberg's position of not censoring content (beyond the obscene), but it's probably the smartest position for the business.
As soon as you start saying "well, we'll censor stuff that isn't accurate", you've opened a Pandora's box of every single interest group hammering you on every single decision and in the end everyone thinks you're screwing them over.
As soon as you start saying "well, we'll censor stuff that isn't accurate", you've opened a Pandora's box of every single interest group hammering you on every single decision and in the end everyone thinks you're screwing them over.
> beyond the obscene
I mean, that's pretty arbitrary too, e.g. FB censors female breasts, which is not considered obscene in many places.
It's a difficult line to walk.
I mean, that's pretty arbitrary too, e.g. FB censors female breasts, which is not considered obscene in many places.
It's a difficult line to walk.
It's not difficult, it's the exact same kind of decision they decline to make with regard to advertising. These days that refusal lives mostly in political and health messaging, but we can see that they don't refuse in a lot of other subjects.
Where I live even full nudity would not be considered obscene at all, unless something sexual was going on.
However it is becoming more and more the case. With American platforms and media, their learned attitude of being overly prude also made their way here. Though I'm not sure whether "prude" is the right word to describe the crippling self-consciousness many experience when faced with nude humanity.
I suspect it has be actively instilled by your parents and society around you while you are still young, or you won't ever have it.
However it is becoming more and more the case. With American platforms and media, their learned attitude of being overly prude also made their way here. Though I'm not sure whether "prude" is the right word to describe the crippling self-consciousness many experience when faced with nude humanity.
I suspect it has be actively instilled by your parents and society around you while you are still young, or you won't ever have it.
As an American, I don't think it's "crippling self-consciousness", we're just trained to think of nudity as sexually provocative in itself.
"It's not the nudity that's bad, it's the sexual provocation! I mean, I don't care if they're topless in their own homes, but do they have to flaunt it? They're so in-your-face."
No obscene, inappropriate.
But it can very quickly descend into the obscene, and if they didn't filter you'd get nasty dick picks all over the place.
Every social place has rules, not exception. It's just a matter of how they are impressed.
But it can very quickly descend into the obscene, and if they didn't filter you'd get nasty dick picks all over the place.
Every social place has rules, not exception. It's just a matter of how they are impressed.
It's more than that though. It's not just the quantity of stuff you wouldn't want to see, but that FB would then be known for that type of content, and they'd lose the other content that brings in the money. Purely from a business model perspective, they want to keep that stuff off.
Purely from a business perspective, they do not want boobs and dick picks, it would die as quickly as chatroulette.
Not only would most people flee, advertisers would as well.
FYI advertisers don't like hate speech as well, which is why there are rules about that.
The perplexing issue comes down to things that are not 'hate speech' so much as a) insensitive things and b) truly 'fake news' ie QAnon, anti-vax etc.
You're right to point out that it is this stuff at the 'fringe' that keeps a lot of people engaged. Hence the paradox.
Not only would most people flee, advertisers would as well.
FYI advertisers don't like hate speech as well, which is why there are rules about that.
The perplexing issue comes down to things that are not 'hate speech' so much as a) insensitive things and b) truly 'fake news' ie QAnon, anti-vax etc.
You're right to point out that it is this stuff at the 'fringe' that keeps a lot of people engaged. Hence the paradox.
Only governments censor, what you're talking about is editorial policy. However, Zuck doesn't want to risk Facebook's §230 protection which is the door that the hammerers are behind.
It's not a Pandora's box, though, because these laws have been around for decades and centuries. But they don't want to, they haven't built the tools to do so, and they make money from it. It's the same as their rationale around moderation in general: "well we built this to be wide open and have zero tools to control it, and now it's just too complicated to do so!"
It's like building a car without brakes and saying "Look, congressperson, we're in the business of helping people get to wherever they want to go. We don't think it's our place to dictate the speed of travel, and there are many companies making brakes for these cars, for people who want them. Competition!"
It's not a Pandora's box, though, because these laws have been around for decades and centuries. But they don't want to, they haven't built the tools to do so, and they make money from it. It's the same as their rationale around moderation in general: "well we built this to be wide open and have zero tools to control it, and now it's just too complicated to do so!"
It's like building a car without brakes and saying "Look, congressperson, we're in the business of helping people get to wherever they want to go. We don't think it's our place to dictate the speed of travel, and there are many companies making brakes for these cars, for people who want them. Competition!"
Facebook has access to the biggest and most ubiquitous information delivery platform IN THE WORLD today.
To let them off the hook for the role they had in helping letting the idea of ABSOLUTE TRUTH degrade, as well as the role they COULD have in helping fix it, is not thinking big enough.
Facebook could choose to be an active participant in the quest to reinforce the value of reality-orientated information exchange. They choose not to because it doesn't help their metrics. That doesn't make them evil, that makes them a logical participant in capitalism. The onus is on the rest of us to make them.
To let them off the hook for the role they had in helping letting the idea of ABSOLUTE TRUTH degrade, as well as the role they COULD have in helping fix it, is not thinking big enough.
Facebook could choose to be an active participant in the quest to reinforce the value of reality-orientated information exchange. They choose not to because it doesn't help their metrics. That doesn't make them evil, that makes them a logical participant in capitalism. The onus is on the rest of us to make them.
There is no such thing as absolute truth, its relative and subjective.
Would you support this even if Facebook suppressed some ideas you believe in, or are you working under the assumption that Facebook will always agree with you about what's true?
I...don't know how to respond to that. Truth is truth.
Yes, there is right wing fascist parties that are trying to nullify the meaning of the word, and introduce subjectivity where there should not be any, sowing doubt on the very idea of Reality.
But this is not the new normal for society or humanity. I refuse to believe that, or we're truly doomed. This is a temporary hurdle made by desperate people trying to hold on to a world they are being left behind in.
If Facebook doesn't take a stance on facts, lies, reality, and fiction. Then they are by definition agreeing with those that say all these things are subjective, and are therefore themselves unimpeachable and above repercussions.
Not taking a stand is taking a stand in this case.
Yes, there is right wing fascist parties that are trying to nullify the meaning of the word, and introduce subjectivity where there should not be any, sowing doubt on the very idea of Reality.
But this is not the new normal for society or humanity. I refuse to believe that, or we're truly doomed. This is a temporary hurdle made by desperate people trying to hold on to a world they are being left behind in.
If Facebook doesn't take a stance on facts, lies, reality, and fiction. Then they are by definition agreeing with those that say all these things are subjective, and are therefore themselves unimpeachable and above repercussions.
Not taking a stand is taking a stand in this case.
The Earth orbits around the Sun. That is an indisputable truth right?
Except it really isn't quite true and is only an approximation. In reality the Earth and Sun both orbit around their common center of gravity, and both orbits are perturbed by other celestial bodies in a complex n-body interaction. So what is "truth"? If I post on Facebook that the Earth orbits around the Sun should they censor my post for not being 100% true? If not then where is the dividing line?
Except it really isn't quite true and is only an approximation. In reality the Earth and Sun both orbit around their common center of gravity, and both orbits are perturbed by other celestial bodies in a complex n-body interaction. So what is "truth"? If I post on Facebook that the Earth orbits around the Sun should they censor my post for not being 100% true? If not then where is the dividing line?
You act as if Facebook is the first organization in the history of time to have this challenge.
Where is the dividing line?
Somewhere between "The Sun orbits around the Earth" and "The Earth orbits around the Sun". Where the first is clearly not the truth, and the second clearly is for 99.9% of contexts.
Where is the dividing line?
Somewhere between "The Sun orbits around the Earth" and "The Earth orbits around the Sun". Where the first is clearly not the truth, and the second clearly is for 99.9% of contexts.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding you. Do you recognize the possibility of good-faith disagreements on matters of fact, or do you expect that every reasonable person should agree in all cases about what's true and false? In the latter case I agree I don't see a productive discussion to be had here.
People who deny climate change and other settled science and don't wear masks because they think it's a political statement aren't "reasonable people".
Oh you're throwing climate change into the group of "absolute truth".
Philosophy of science isn't that objectively finalized btw. The whole Vienna school which got obliterated by philosophers because it said that only valid scientific statements are those which can be empirically verified.
I understand that majority of the people making a certain viewpoint may be stupid but don't take it as the strength of your scientific statements. Even theory of evolution may need major corrections tomorrow and could even turn out to be completely false.
Philosophy of science isn't that objectively finalized btw. The whole Vienna school which got obliterated by philosophers because it said that only valid scientific statements are those which can be empirically verified.
I understand that majority of the people making a certain viewpoint may be stupid but don't take it as the strength of your scientific statements. Even theory of evolution may need major corrections tomorrow and could even turn out to be completely false.
People argue about how much of a social safety net or welfare are good for society in different ways in the us. But people also argue about whether forcing masks is good or bad. The second one is extremely clear yet is still predominantly argued by one side.
Is it really extremely clear? And why should we consider "sides" when evaluating the scientific validity of a particular point?
https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/masking-lack-of-evidence-with-...
To be clear I am not arguing against wearing masks, but rather against a misrepresentation of the clarity of current scientific evidence.
https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/masking-lack-of-evidence-with-...
To be clear I am not arguing against wearing masks, but rather against a misrepresentation of the clarity of current scientific evidence.
Truth is truth, but not everyone agrees on whether particular things are true.
The majority of people can be wrong about something (Berenstein Bears anyone?), ignorant about things (e.g. the exciting things the USA did in South America in the last century) or can be misinformed even by reputatable organizations (e.g. WHO advising against face masks). They can also be misinformed about what the science indicates (e.g. anything about intelligence and heritability).
The truth is often not obvious, can be unintuitive or can go against deeply held values. Would you be ok with Facebook censoring anything talking about equality because people aren't all equal?
The majority of people can be wrong about something (Berenstein Bears anyone?), ignorant about things (e.g. the exciting things the USA did in South America in the last century) or can be misinformed even by reputatable organizations (e.g. WHO advising against face masks). They can also be misinformed about what the science indicates (e.g. anything about intelligence and heritability).
The truth is often not obvious, can be unintuitive or can go against deeply held values. Would you be ok with Facebook censoring anything talking about equality because people aren't all equal?
Radiolab has a wonderfully deep episode on this topic: https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/articles/post-...
The main issue is the sheer volume of content. Four seconds – that's their estimate for how much time employees in Facebook's "censorship farm" centers have, on average, to make a decision about whether a reported post gets deleted or not. As a result, management decided to aim for the lowest bar: consistent enforcement of a limited set of rules. That's hard enough as is: is all blood gore? Are all references to race hate speech? Etc. etc.
So the censors simply have no capacity to fairly fact-check every single political post, and when in doubt, they err on the side of free speech. ML can help suppress certain viral posts, but not consistently so. I'm not a fan of Facebook by any means, but in this case they really are in a tough spot.
The main issue is the sheer volume of content. Four seconds – that's their estimate for how much time employees in Facebook's "censorship farm" centers have, on average, to make a decision about whether a reported post gets deleted or not. As a result, management decided to aim for the lowest bar: consistent enforcement of a limited set of rules. That's hard enough as is: is all blood gore? Are all references to race hate speech? Etc. etc.
So the censors simply have no capacity to fairly fact-check every single political post, and when in doubt, they err on the side of free speech. ML can help suppress certain viral posts, but not consistently so. I'm not a fan of Facebook by any means, but in this case they really are in a tough spot.
Facebook seems to still have some profit, so it clearly has capacity. The insufficient number of people looking at reported violations is by design.
This assumes that there is a solution 'if you just throw enough money at it'.
I'm not familiar enough with how large scale moderation works, so is this solvable, with near unlimited funds?
I'm not familiar enough with how large scale moderation works, so is this solvable, with near unlimited funds?
It really only assumes the solution gets better if you throw more money at it. And that, frankly, is essentially certain given the fact that they need to pay for human eyeballs. Also, the problems facebook has are somewhat misrepresented often - they don't actually need to moderate everything equally intensively - most of the impact will be there with the things that get shared publicly and are viewed often. Comparing the amount of moderator time with total posting volume is thus misleading, trying to make it appear like a hopeless case. But look at it the other way around, not from the poster's side, but the reader's - clearly reads aren't distributed evently; so it's plausible you might catch 90% of post readungs with just 10% of post writings (I don't know the proportion, but I'd expect it to be heavily skewed).
I think the solution is clear: If governments want to censor they should do it themselves not externalize costs to the foreign media company, meaning Facebook should give them access to an API/dashboard with all the posts created or viewed on Brazil and government employees should pick manually (or by algorithm) what to censor. After that any request of censoring anything coming from Brazil should be directed at the government and never again to Facebook itself.
I wonder what could go wrong with that.
That at some point Facebook has to isolate Brazil on a separate website to stop it from censoring people that has nothing to do with Brazil and their government realizes that policing by themselves a global communication channel is not the best idea?
> ...position of not censoring content (beyond the obscene)..
I don't think this accurately describes Facebook's position. They have deleted several people for essentially pure ideological reasons, including people who they readily admit violated no rules.
I don't think this accurately describes Facebook's position. They have deleted several people for essentially pure ideological reasons, including people who they readily admit violated no rules.
We need to think federation here. Some websites have more racist content. Some have more porn. We can choose to visit a website which sorry suits our sensibilities. That's not the case with a social network. They have to apply one set of policies to all. The problem though is that there is no business model that supports federated social networks.
That doesn't help much that the problem here is people objecting to the content hosted, regardless of whether they view it or not.
Not having centralized admins that are actively opposed to your politics or your sense of humour like Reddit would still greatly help. Or not having an admin at all just voting and community level mods.
Twitter used to be always about who you choose to follow is what you see, or what tags you click on, it was opt-in and it was great. The popular feed wasn't your feed by default (via other peoples friends of friends which you have zero control over nor blue checkmarks being heavily promoted - which are usually the most tribalistic and FUDy).
Twitter used to be always about who you choose to follow is what you see, or what tags you click on, it was opt-in and it was great. The popular feed wasn't your feed by default (via other peoples friends of friends which you have zero control over nor blue checkmarks being heavily promoted - which are usually the most tribalistic and FUDy).
Some people hate CNN. Some hate Fox News. Neither website can be removed from the Internet. Of course, both set of individuals can petition Facebook to ban those links.
This is a really interesting argument, and I’d like to understand it more clearly. For the sake of honing in on this:
Many subreddits have different sets of rules & restrictions. If these options were significantly expanded, could that ever meet the requirements?
Another interesting niche example is stackexchange.com, which isn’t a social network in the traditional sense (yet), but it has many different communities with different rules where a single identity, but variable set of privileges, follow you around.
Could these evolve into what you consider federated social networks, or are there more strict separation requirements (such as different login / identity providers among sub-communities)?
[edit: typo]
Many subreddits have different sets of rules & restrictions. If these options were significantly expanded, could that ever meet the requirements?
Another interesting niche example is stackexchange.com, which isn’t a social network in the traditional sense (yet), but it has many different communities with different rules where a single identity, but variable set of privileges, follow you around.
Could these evolve into what you consider federated social networks, or are there more strict separation requirements (such as different login / identity providers among sub-communities)?
[edit: typo]
I don't think those would work because the data is centralised and only has value while 'live'. Look at, say, movie torrents. Data which has had the most focused attempts made to knock it off the internet.
If a specific corporate site was coordinating the effort it would be shut down (eg, I think the Pirate Bay was knocked out of commission a few times, and blocked depending on the country). But it doesn't help because the actual data is highly distributed in a redundant fashion. Any piece of infrastructure to share torrents (DNS, websites, trackers, client software, information about where to look) can and has been targeted but it is too cheap to replace.
The key is the actual data - ie, the movie being torrented - is redundant and distributed. That property isn't present if one corporation controls all the data as is the case with Reddit, Facebook or StackExchange. It isn't technically prohibited from mirroring it all, but with bittorrent the peers provide the storage (which is the part that doesn't scale) and there is a nice cheap unit to work with - one movie is an irrelevant amount of data and static. Social data is a bit more dynamic - the attention of the speaker is important - and doesn't seem to work quite the same way.
If a specific corporate site was coordinating the effort it would be shut down (eg, I think the Pirate Bay was knocked out of commission a few times, and blocked depending on the country). But it doesn't help because the actual data is highly distributed in a redundant fashion. Any piece of infrastructure to share torrents (DNS, websites, trackers, client software, information about where to look) can and has been targeted but it is too cheap to replace.
The key is the actual data - ie, the movie being torrented - is redundant and distributed. That property isn't present if one corporation controls all the data as is the case with Reddit, Facebook or StackExchange. It isn't technically prohibited from mirroring it all, but with bittorrent the peers provide the storage (which is the part that doesn't scale) and there is a nice cheap unit to work with - one movie is an irrelevant amount of data and static. Social data is a bit more dynamic - the attention of the speaker is important - and doesn't seem to work quite the same way.
Can't wait until crossing a border requires showing them that your firewall rules block all the federated servers they disapprove of.
>The problem though is that there is no business model that supports federated social networks.
Communication is a public utility. They shouldn’t need to be operated for profit.
Communication is a public utility. They shouldn’t need to be operated for profit.
> Is decentralization the only solution, if it even is one?
I feel that question is too often discussed without enough context. To be able to find a solution, we should first agree on what is the problem.
So, what's your problem statement?
I feel that question is too often discussed without enough context. To be able to find a solution, we should first agree on what is the problem.
So, what's your problem statement?
You aren't going to find a technical solution to court orders.
What would decentralization accomplish?
Censorship resistance, potentially
That is a double edged coin. Thinking of fake news, spam, scams etc.
microcommunities and web of trust. the things you mentioned are not eliminable but i trust my peers more than a multinational with conflicting values.
You are literally describing the breeding grounds of radicalizing young men on the internet. Microcommunities, if anything, have proven themselves incredibly dangerous to human life.
Decentralized microcommunities is how people interacted for the vast majority of existing.
Only recent, after settling down, feudalism, growing cities, and the last blip —globalization—, moved us towards centralization.
If anything, humans are great at managing small communities, and very bad at operating in a large, centralized, globalized world. Radicalism is often a product of that globalization, and would be unable to exist in a hunter-gatherer tribal system of small moving groups.
Only recent, after settling down, feudalism, growing cities, and the last blip —globalization—, moved us towards centralization.
If anything, humans are great at managing small communities, and very bad at operating in a large, centralized, globalized world. Radicalism is often a product of that globalization, and would be unable to exist in a hunter-gatherer tribal system of small moving groups.
I think you're right that some microcommunities aren't exactly the greatest for your mental and social wellbeing. It's not hard to find websites today that showcase and bring out the worst in people. At the same time, I'd be tempted to suggest that the sort of thing isn't much different than someone starting to "run with the wrong crowd" in high school. Or, I think socializing on the internet reflects our humanity in ways that socializing in real life does too.
I think the internet is more dangerous, because it makes it easier for those with really harmful intentions to radicalize a person. If your kid starts to hang out with Islamic state terrorists in their local hangout, that is far easier to notice than if they do it online.
Decentralized microcommunities are just places to communicate with others, nothing about them is dangerous unless there is dangerous people in them. You can find all kinds of people in places like these, from left to right or even some pretty centrist folk. There are some pretty specific places on the internet where awful people live but I would say people are pretty capable of being radicalized on any platform including good old fashioned Facebook, Twitter or Reddit...
I'm not so sure about that line of reasoning; you're focusing on the size of the community (and sure, small communities online can be extremely dangerous!) but the nasty examples you're likely thinking of allow self-selection within a larger group. However, the kind of decentralization that follows local groups and families is different; you don't get to ignore that bigoted great-uncle (nor he get to ignore his crazy communist niece). If decentralization followed national or regional control as you'd need to satisfy conflicting courts, you're more likely to trend towards the latter kind of smaller community, not the former.
The size of the community is probably less relevant that how it is grown. Self-selection (like e.g. hackernews) is certainly much more vulnerable to groupthink.
The size of the community is probably less relevant that how it is grown. Self-selection (like e.g. hackernews) is certainly much more vulnerable to groupthink.
good thing centralized authority and official truthmaking organs have no such track record i suppose
Couldn't you create a microcommunity in WhatsApp?
That's just echo chambers...
How is that different from any follow-based network?
More like localized censorship. Censorship will always exist.
[deleted]
Yes! This is exactly the problem with centralization.
On a federated maps product, some communities can label Nagorno Karabakh one way, others another. Unlike Google.
https://qbix.com/blog/2019/03/08/how-qbix-platform-can-chang...
On a federated maps product, some communities can label Nagorno Karabakh one way, others another. Unlike Google.
https://qbix.com/blog/2019/03/08/how-qbix-platform-can-chang...
It must be so terrible, maybe they'd have to wipe your tears with your billions of dollars.
What is it going to take for facebook to voluntarily exit a country? Courts/governments all around the world are pushing the limits on what their jurisdictions cover, and facebook is being spineless. With this case it's somewhat reasonable, in the sense that the action mainly affects Brazilians, but how long until countries try to use its citizens as leverage to get facebook to conduct foreign influence? eg. country A (50M population) wants country B's (5M population) president to be blocked worldwide because he badmouthed country A. Will facebook exit country A, or cave to their demands because they got more leverage?
I would do anything for Facebook to leave mine. If this is a step in that direction, I'm all for it.
To be immediately replaced by a local imitation founded by a politically-connected mogul. But at least it'll be local.
I don't see how that's any worse than the politically-connected mogul from a foreign country we have now.
There’s something to be said for the throat you wish to choke (metaphorically) residing in the jurisdiction. Very unhelpful when the tech oligarch you take issue with lives in a far away land outside of your reach.
More broadly, “meet the new boss, same as the old boss.” (from The Who's song Won't Get Fooled Again if you’re unfamiliar)
More broadly, “meet the new boss, same as the old boss.” (from The Who's song Won't Get Fooled Again if you’re unfamiliar)
Personal criminal liability of owners/shareholders and the credible threat of a fine that actually dents profits. Only the EU and US have any chance on enacting sufficiently scary penalties I suspect.
If you can read Portuguese, you can get more information here: https://www.conjur.com.br/2020-ago-01/facebook-bloqueia-aces...
Follow the links to older articles, and several of them have at their end the original court decision. The latest one (found at https://www.conjur.com.br/2020-jul-31/moraes-aumenta-multa-f...) is https://www.conjur.com.br/dl/decisao-alexandre-moraes.pdf and the previous one seems to have been (found at https://www.conjur.com.br/2020-jul-31/facebook-informa-nao-c...) https://www.conjur.com.br/dl/decisao-alexandre-moraes-twitte...
Finally, the original decision seems to have been (found at https://www.conjur.com.br/2020-jul-24/decisao-alexandre-twit...) https://www.conjur.com.br/dl/inq-4781.pdf (a cleaner copy of this last one can also be found at the Brazilian Supreme Court website: http://www.stf.jus.br/arquivo/cms/noticiaNoticiaStf/anexo/ma...).
Follow the links to older articles, and several of them have at their end the original court decision. The latest one (found at https://www.conjur.com.br/2020-jul-31/moraes-aumenta-multa-f...) is https://www.conjur.com.br/dl/decisao-alexandre-moraes.pdf and the previous one seems to have been (found at https://www.conjur.com.br/2020-jul-31/facebook-informa-nao-c...) https://www.conjur.com.br/dl/decisao-alexandre-moraes-twitte...
Finally, the original decision seems to have been (found at https://www.conjur.com.br/2020-jul-24/decisao-alexandre-twit...) https://www.conjur.com.br/dl/inq-4781.pdf (a cleaner copy of this last one can also be found at the Brazilian Supreme Court website: http://www.stf.jus.br/arquivo/cms/noticiaNoticiaStf/anexo/ma...).
Brazilian here. I sincerely dislike those who were blocked, but don't be fooled, what the Supreme Court is doing here is completely dictatorial.
Brazilian here. Our law is incompatible with the Internet as we know it.
Below is a brief excerpt from our 1989 Constitution, translated by myself:
Art. 5º Todos são iguais perante a lei, sem distinção de qualquer natureza, garantindo-se aos brasileiros e aos estrangeiros residentes no País a inviolabilidade do direito à vida, à liberdade, à igualdade, à segurança e à propriedade, nos termos seguintes:
(All men are equal by the law, without any distinction, guaranteed to Brazilians and foreigners living on the Country the inviolable right to life, freedom, equality, safety, property, on the following terms:)
(...)
IV - é livre a manifestação do pensamento, sendo vedado o anonimato;
(The freedom of speech/thinking is allowed, but anonymity is not)
(...)
Below is a brief excerpt from our 1989 Constitution, translated by myself:
Art. 5º Todos são iguais perante a lei, sem distinção de qualquer natureza, garantindo-se aos brasileiros e aos estrangeiros residentes no País a inviolabilidade do direito à vida, à liberdade, à igualdade, à segurança e à propriedade, nos termos seguintes:
(All men are equal by the law, without any distinction, guaranteed to Brazilians and foreigners living on the Country the inviolable right to life, freedom, equality, safety, property, on the following terms:)
(...)
IV - é livre a manifestação do pensamento, sendo vedado o anonimato;
(The freedom of speech/thinking is allowed, but anonymity is not)
(...)
Yes. Courts all over the world are discovering and dealing with the difficulties of imposing their own nation's laws on an international communications network. Currently it is relatively easy to become anonymous on the internet and avoid the consequences of free speech, especially since brazilian law enforcement is not as sophisticated as organizations such as the FBI when it comes to cyber crime investigation.
The end result will be the regionalization of the internet. Instead of one global network, we'll have several national or regional networks. This will be possible because internet providers are centralized services which are easily controlled by the governments.
The end result will be the regionalization of the internet. Instead of one global network, we'll have several national or regional networks. This will be possible because internet providers are centralized services which are easily controlled by the governments.
Censorship is so repugnant, yet so complicated.
What should be prohibited to be said, if anything? Who draws the line?
What should be prohibited to be said, if anything? Who draws the line?
So much of the strife we're seeing in the world right now stems from information now, maybe for the first time ever, being truly free. All the gatekeepers of information are no longer relevant.
This means that the truly delusional can spread their conspiracy theories and get people to believe them. But it also means that people caught within exploitative power structures can spread their stories - see MeToo as an example.
The strife stems from the very old, very firm order collapsing under this assault of free information. It's a little scary, to be honest, but I also believe it has the potential to be create a more just world.
Facebook's role, in my view, should be to ensure that this information remains truly free. The old order still tries to influence the spread of this free information (bot farms, paid influencers, etc.). If you can stop this, I think you're doing a good job.
This means that the truly delusional can spread their conspiracy theories and get people to believe them. But it also means that people caught within exploitative power structures can spread their stories - see MeToo as an example.
The strife stems from the very old, very firm order collapsing under this assault of free information. It's a little scary, to be honest, but I also believe it has the potential to be create a more just world.
Facebook's role, in my view, should be to ensure that this information remains truly free. The old order still tries to influence the spread of this free information (bot farms, paid influencers, etc.). If you can stop this, I think you're doing a good job.
So much of the strife we're seeing in the world right now stems from information now, maybe for the first time ever, being truly free
What strife in particular? From a US point of view, we've had several instance of race riots in the past. And those were far worse than what we see now.
And in terms of conspiracies, those have always existed. Maybe they move faster, but think of the conspiracies around JFK's assassination. Those were broadly known long before the internet arrived.
Plus, we see a lot more thanks to the internet. A good example is holocaust denial. Those people were always around. And I haven't seen any data to suggest holocaust denial is any more prevalent than in the past, despite people having more exposure to it.
I'm not sure much has changed.
What strife in particular? From a US point of view, we've had several instance of race riots in the past. And those were far worse than what we see now.
And in terms of conspiracies, those have always existed. Maybe they move faster, but think of the conspiracies around JFK's assassination. Those were broadly known long before the internet arrived.
Plus, we see a lot more thanks to the internet. A good example is holocaust denial. Those people were always around. And I haven't seen any data to suggest holocaust denial is any more prevalent than in the past, despite people having more exposure to it.
I'm not sure much has changed.
Some of the truly delusional have always had plenty of power and ability to spread their theories - religious people. Free information will hopefully reduce that rather than enhance it. Modern small-time delusions like anti-vax or white supremacy are nowhere near the scale and badness of, say Islam. But since Islam is well established, people turn a blind eye.
Religions aren’t homogeneous wholes.
The overwhelming majority of adherents to all(?) religions are peaceable people.
We just don’t hear much from them.
The overwhelming majority of adherents to all(?) religions are peaceable people.
We just don’t hear much from them.
People seem to forget (for some strange reason) that there are actually laws against things that you can say. For example, defamation laws are in place to punish the distribution of much of what is today qualified as "fake news". If you spread false news on purpose, or if you threat someone of violence, if you make racist comments (in countries like Brazil), these are situations where you can suffer consequences for things you say or write. In other words, free speech is not an absolute right as some want us to believe. A communications platform cannot be considered legal if it enables crimes to be committed with no consequences.
In most common law jurisdictions there are two branches of law, very approximately the differences are: Criminal law, crimes like murder, rape, theft in breach of rules enforced by the state against all citizens, judgements result in punishments up to death, prison etc; Civil law, unlawful acts like breach of contract, libel, negligence etc, rules are enforced by the courts at the request of one citizen against another, judgements result in nothing worse than financial recompense.
Typically jurisdictions treat defamation and libel as a civil matter not a criminal matter. In civil law, in the UK at least, you need to prove damages against a 'legal person' i.e. a person or a company to be able to win a court judgement against the defendant. Hence most fake news cannot be fought in the courts as it is too hard to prove that it has directly caused damages to any one person. This is why you often see tabloid news stories about vaguely defined groups and hardly ever about a specific person or manufacturer. Stories about a specific person are much more expensive to produce because you have to be sure you have solid enough evidence to win a libel case, whereas if you make stuff up about a poorly defined group, e.g. 'migrants' there is no come back so it's a much cheaper way to wind up your readers and get more emotional engagement.
Typically jurisdictions treat defamation and libel as a civil matter not a criminal matter. In civil law, in the UK at least, you need to prove damages against a 'legal person' i.e. a person or a company to be able to win a court judgement against the defendant. Hence most fake news cannot be fought in the courts as it is too hard to prove that it has directly caused damages to any one person. This is why you often see tabloid news stories about vaguely defined groups and hardly ever about a specific person or manufacturer. Stories about a specific person are much more expensive to produce because you have to be sure you have solid enough evidence to win a libel case, whereas if you make stuff up about a poorly defined group, e.g. 'migrants' there is no come back so it's a much cheaper way to wind up your readers and get more emotional engagement.
One complicating factor is that the United States guarantees rights that many countries do not, which can cause confusion. And another that often gets thrown is the "is social media a public square or private property" question.
FWIW, simply enabling a crime to occur is not necessarily illegal.
FWIW, simply enabling a crime to occur is not necessarily illegal.
> One complicating factor is that the United States guarantees rights that many countries do not
And further it fills a large part of American identity and backstory, to the degree that they don’t seem to realise most rich countries with free citizens get on just fine without it
And further it fills a large part of American identity and backstory, to the degree that they don’t seem to realise most rich countries with free citizens get on just fine without it
It is not ilegal if the enabler has no way to stop the crime. This is different if you can show that someone is committing a crime and the enabler doesn't want to stop it.
> Censorship is so repugnant, yet so complicated.
The court ordered Facebook to ban sock puppet accounts controlled by people suck as the leader of Bolsonaro's party and a major backer that were used to spread libellous accusations targetting anyone or anything that might jeopardize Bolsonaro's political plans.
Prevention's someone from creating a false profile to persecuted you with fabricated accusations is hardly censorship. In fact libel and slander laws are not censorship.
The court ordered Facebook to ban sock puppet accounts controlled by people suck as the leader of Bolsonaro's party and a major backer that were used to spread libellous accusations targetting anyone or anything that might jeopardize Bolsonaro's political plans.
Prevention's someone from creating a false profile to persecuted you with fabricated accusations is hardly censorship. In fact libel and slander laws are not censorship.
I don’t have answers to these questions, but it does seem to me that the internet has a fundamental incompatibility between being a space that enables or encourages (relative) anonymity on social media platforms, and being a space that strives to accept all kinds of speech, regardless of the content.
As long as users are able to remain anonymous, content will continue to be pushed that drives some users towards adopting censorship. And as long as people feel their right to speech threatened, there will be a desire to remain anonymous.
I honestly don’t see a clean way out of that scenario, but that’s just my perception.
As long as users are able to remain anonymous, content will continue to be pushed that drives some users towards adopting censorship. And as long as people feel their right to speech threatened, there will be a desire to remain anonymous.
I honestly don’t see a clean way out of that scenario, but that’s just my perception.
Even non anonymous users spew out whatever narrative they believe in and a large population does it without verifying facts.
One person’s spew is another’s gospel. Many a brave soul have died for the right to spew. 🇺🇸
When has anyone ever died for that right? Names and dates please.
I dunno, Jesus? 0 ad.
And he would have beaten the shit out of Bolsonaro if he ever claimed to be a Christian in front of him.
Exactly. It's possible these accounts are fake, paid by the own politicians to spread misinformation and fake news. But it's possible it's not. Brazilian courts have also become increasingly political which means a large portion of the population won't agree with their decision.
It's ugly, and I have no idea what Facebook can do.
It's ugly, and I have no idea what Facebook can do.
Facebook has to follow the law. Now, we can debate if the law is fair or not, but distributing in Brazil the content of these accounts goes against the law.
The Brazilian Supreme Court is asking Facebook to block accounts globally, not only in Brazil.
The Supreme Court asked them to block the delivery of content inside of Brazil, for brazilians in Brazil's territory.
It doesnt matter where the original account is stored.
Those accounts are part of a large network of fake news spreading, with a lot of cash apparently originating from the country government itself..
The individuals themselves keep all the free speech rights.. they can go to newspapers, social media or speak on the streets. The only thing that is blocked its the accounts that are bounded to this fake news network process being judged by the supreme court.
Free speech cant be used as an excuse to constantly commit abuses and crimes that menace to demolish democratic institutions.
Democracy must have means to protect itself from malicious actors that are massively lying in a industrial scale fomented by big money from populists that dreams becoming dictators.
If part of this money is public, this is even worse.
We should have learned at least one or two about how the proto-fascists used every immoral and even illegal trick in the book to turn a democratic society into a fascist nightmare.
It doesnt matter where the original account is stored.
Those accounts are part of a large network of fake news spreading, with a lot of cash apparently originating from the country government itself..
The individuals themselves keep all the free speech rights.. they can go to newspapers, social media or speak on the streets. The only thing that is blocked its the accounts that are bounded to this fake news network process being judged by the supreme court.
Free speech cant be used as an excuse to constantly commit abuses and crimes that menace to demolish democratic institutions.
Democracy must have means to protect itself from malicious actors that are massively lying in a industrial scale fomented by big money from populists that dreams becoming dictators.
If part of this money is public, this is even worse.
We should have learned at least one or two about how the proto-fascists used every immoral and even illegal trick in the book to turn a democratic society into a fascist nightmare.
> The Supreme Court asked them to block the delivery of content inside of Brazil, for brazilians in Brazil's territory.
If you read the article it’s saying the court is asking Facebook to block delivery of certain content globally, not only within Brazil. And they are threatening a local Facebook employee with criminal liability, which is the reason Facebook says it has complied with the order while appealing it.
If you read the article it’s saying the court is asking Facebook to block delivery of certain content globally, not only within Brazil. And they are threatening a local Facebook employee with criminal liability, which is the reason Facebook says it has complied with the order while appealing it.
The individuals in question, after being blocked on portuguese language, just changed their profiles as they were in english. It was just a matter of people that follow them changing their preferences making the court order ineffective. (Again their content were being delivered to Brazilian followers)
Than the court sent another order to block the content for Brazil of those specific profiles, in a way the content were not delivered to brazilian citizens.
This is exactly what the court order is saying..
Now if Facebook or Twitter cant act on geolocation, its a technical problem, that they need to solve, as its just a matter of blocking based on geolocation of the people who are seeing that content, the target, and not just the source.
I've read the court order, and it does not cover people from other nationalities, as if we follow whats being said on the court order, they are not the target.
Now if Facebook cant deliver this, they are just asking to loose the battle giving its pretty easy to destroy the narrative.
BTW, Brazil are more akin to Europe's convention to free speech, as to remediate things like "hate speech" learning from the past with the way fascist regimes spread out over Europe.
I dont know why Facebook feels entitled somehow to think the US way of seeing and working with free speech should be forced on others sovereign nations.
Than the court sent another order to block the content for Brazil of those specific profiles, in a way the content were not delivered to brazilian citizens.
This is exactly what the court order is saying..
Now if Facebook or Twitter cant act on geolocation, its a technical problem, that they need to solve, as its just a matter of blocking based on geolocation of the people who are seeing that content, the target, and not just the source.
I've read the court order, and it does not cover people from other nationalities, as if we follow whats being said on the court order, they are not the target.
Now if Facebook cant deliver this, they are just asking to loose the battle giving its pretty easy to destroy the narrative.
BTW, Brazil are more akin to Europe's convention to free speech, as to remediate things like "hate speech" learning from the past with the way fascist regimes spread out over Europe.
I dont know why Facebook feels entitled somehow to think the US way of seeing and working with free speech should be forced on others sovereign nations.
The issue is that members of Bolsonaro's fake news group were moving abroad to continue spreading their "content" from outside Brazil.
Asking? Is that what they're doing?
No, they have fined Facebook for not complying with this decision for the past two months and are increasing the fines if Facebook keeps refusing to comply.
One way to go would be to allow prohibition only of whatever is harmful and move the debate explicitely to what is harmful and how to decide that. As to the who decides what is harmful, I think one good option would be for it to be decided democratically by only those involved. The key there is consent. Who's involved though? That's the hard part I think.
Yelling "Fire" in a crowded theater is not free speech. This is what these people were doing - calling for the ousting of the head of the judicial branch, calling for a military coup, spreading hatred and slandering prominent figures from the left...
They need to answer for that.
They need to answer for that.
> Yelling "Fire" in a crowded theater is not free speech.
That's a commonly-held belief, but runs contrary to the history and law behind the quote. That particular quote was an example in a US Supreme Court case that was decided poorly and later changed (in 1969 I think). In the US, I believe threats of violence or harm are covered by the First Amendment, unless the speech "is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action". So the speech has to meet several qualifications to "not be free speech". What those people were doing on Facebook in Brazil would very likely be considered protected speech in the US. Not that what applies in the US applies to Brazil, but since the quote was from a US case, I figured it was with commenting.
Here's a good article about the quote's history: https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/11/its-tim...
That's a commonly-held belief, but runs contrary to the history and law behind the quote. That particular quote was an example in a US Supreme Court case that was decided poorly and later changed (in 1969 I think). In the US, I believe threats of violence or harm are covered by the First Amendment, unless the speech "is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action". So the speech has to meet several qualifications to "not be free speech". What those people were doing on Facebook in Brazil would very likely be considered protected speech in the US. Not that what applies in the US applies to Brazil, but since the quote was from a US case, I figured it was with commenting.
Here's a good article about the quote's history: https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/11/its-tim...
> In the US, I believe threats of violence or harm are covered by the First Amendment
That's not true. That's way too vague and broad of a claim. In general, specific threats of violence and harm are explicitly not free speech and not protected. And if they're not specific, they're not really "threats". Incitement, fighting words, and other speech often involved in fights where violent threats are made (such as slander and perjury) are all US exceptions to free speech that extend past the imminent lawless action clause.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech#Limitations
That's not true. That's way too vague and broad of a claim. In general, specific threats of violence and harm are explicitly not free speech and not protected. And if they're not specific, they're not really "threats". Incitement, fighting words, and other speech often involved in fights where violent threats are made (such as slander and perjury) are all US exceptions to free speech that extend past the imminent lawless action clause.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech#Limitations
Careful, that's how RMS got canceled.
"prostitution, adultery, necrophilia, bestiality, possession of child pornography, and even incest and pedophilia,"[129][130] Stallman wrote that those "should be legal as long as no one is coerced. They are illegal only because of prejudice and narrowmindedness,"
I'm sorry, this is not a bad example of 'cancel culture'.
It's funny because this is the argument that sometimes anti free speech people put forth because they believe that 'free speechers' are just protecting truly bad people.
Harvey Weinstein was cancelled because he was very bad, for example. This is fine.
Stallman cancelled himself here, or at least, if you're going to support pedophellia and kiddie porn, then, well, you have to live in a small bubble.
I'm sorry, this is not a bad example of 'cancel culture'.
It's funny because this is the argument that sometimes anti free speech people put forth because they believe that 'free speechers' are just protecting truly bad people.
Harvey Weinstein was cancelled because he was very bad, for example. This is fine.
Stallman cancelled himself here, or at least, if you're going to support pedophellia and kiddie porn, then, well, you have to live in a small bubble.
Cancel culture is so ableist.
What does this sentence mean?
> What does this sentence mean?
It means precisely what happened to RMS.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_shaming#Call-outs_and...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman
It means precisely what happened to RMS.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_shaming#Call-outs_and...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman
Nothing should be censored. Yes, not even <insert-bad-thing-here>. Content should be curated, not censored.
K-means clustering. This is a solved problem.
Don't prohibit speech. That's it. Repugnance is part of life. If you suppress speech, you only push it underground. Light is the best disinfectant. Daryl Davis, a black musician, attends Klan rallies (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORp3q1Oaezw). By knowing who to speak with, he's helped people out of that racist pit.
I extend speech so far to include calls to violence. Then you know who to watch and who to protect. Hiding this does nothing but make intel harder to get. You can't try to prevent radicalization, because you've pushed it so far out of the light, it might as well be a mole. They'll still eat the roots of your modern democracy, but you'll be surprised.
I extend speech so far to include calls to violence. Then you know who to watch and who to protect. Hiding this does nothing but make intel harder to get. You can't try to prevent radicalization, because you've pushed it so far out of the light, it might as well be a mole. They'll still eat the roots of your modern democracy, but you'll be surprised.
Honestly I think this just doesn't work out this way in reality. First of all, we know that deplatforming racists/fascists does actually help to stop the spread of racist/fascist ideas.
Secondly, and I think this is the more salient point, encountering racist/sexist/transphobic/whatever speech as a person who is the target of such rhetoric is immediately harmful and othering, especially when these views aren't actively challenged or disavowed by society. This doesn't even include the possibility that hearing hate speech might trigger some prior trauma experienced because of one's identity.
By taking this stance, you're implicitly advocating the allowance of direct threats to other people's very existence, under the justitification that everyone will be better off that way because it's all out in the open. To me, that just sounds like you don't really understand the impact that hate speech can have on a person's ability to live with the same freedoms and opportunities that other members of society enjoy.
Example: You have a job interview downtown, but you're black and the Klan has a parade scheduled that day, and you're scared of the calls for violence. You don't make the interview, so you obviously don't get the job. You were denied the opportunity to because of the 'free speech' of others.
I for one would like to see more focus on Freedom of Association alongside Freedom of Speech in discussions like these - you can argue whatever you like, but nobody has to listen to you or give you a platform (and if you're a fascist, they shouldn't, and should be actively deplatforming you because your ideas are so awful/dangerous).
Secondly, and I think this is the more salient point, encountering racist/sexist/transphobic/whatever speech as a person who is the target of such rhetoric is immediately harmful and othering, especially when these views aren't actively challenged or disavowed by society. This doesn't even include the possibility that hearing hate speech might trigger some prior trauma experienced because of one's identity.
By taking this stance, you're implicitly advocating the allowance of direct threats to other people's very existence, under the justitification that everyone will be better off that way because it's all out in the open. To me, that just sounds like you don't really understand the impact that hate speech can have on a person's ability to live with the same freedoms and opportunities that other members of society enjoy.
Example: You have a job interview downtown, but you're black and the Klan has a parade scheduled that day, and you're scared of the calls for violence. You don't make the interview, so you obviously don't get the job. You were denied the opportunity to because of the 'free speech' of others.
I for one would like to see more focus on Freedom of Association alongside Freedom of Speech in discussions like these - you can argue whatever you like, but nobody has to listen to you or give you a platform (and if you're a fascist, they shouldn't, and should be actively deplatforming you because your ideas are so awful/dangerous).
> First of all, we know that deplatforming racists/fascists does actually help to stop the spread of racist/fascist ideas.
People often claim this but there doesn't seem to be any real evidence of it. You get a short-term effect because the target has to regroup, but then they move to a platform with no moderating influences and become even more radicalized. See Voat.
> Secondly, and I think this is the more salient point, encountering racist/sexist/transphobic/whatever speech as a person who is the target of such rhetoric is immediately harmful and othering, especially when these views aren't actively challenged or disavowed by society. This doesn't even include the possibility that hearing hate speech might trigger some prior trauma experienced because of one's identity.
Your theory is directly contrary to various clinical treatments for anxiety (e.g. exposure therapy) which are altogether more healthy and sustainable -- learning to accept that other people disagree with you and have contrary opinions is a much more robust solution than embracing fragility and trying to nerf the world.
Inoculating the population to fascist rhetoric by publicly winning the debate against it with reasoned argument removes its power. Refusing to do so makes it stronger, because then when people are exposed to it, they are more vulnerable having never learned how to defend themselves against it.
> Example: You have a job interview downtown, but you're black and the Klan has a parade scheduled that day, and you're scared of the calls for violence.
You are trying to make a case against speech by making an argument against violence. If the Klan commits violence they should be arrested. If they are deterred from violence by the real threat of arrest then there is no reason to fear going to your job interview no matter what they say.
People often claim this but there doesn't seem to be any real evidence of it. You get a short-term effect because the target has to regroup, but then they move to a platform with no moderating influences and become even more radicalized. See Voat.
> Secondly, and I think this is the more salient point, encountering racist/sexist/transphobic/whatever speech as a person who is the target of such rhetoric is immediately harmful and othering, especially when these views aren't actively challenged or disavowed by society. This doesn't even include the possibility that hearing hate speech might trigger some prior trauma experienced because of one's identity.
Your theory is directly contrary to various clinical treatments for anxiety (e.g. exposure therapy) which are altogether more healthy and sustainable -- learning to accept that other people disagree with you and have contrary opinions is a much more robust solution than embracing fragility and trying to nerf the world.
Inoculating the population to fascist rhetoric by publicly winning the debate against it with reasoned argument removes its power. Refusing to do so makes it stronger, because then when people are exposed to it, they are more vulnerable having never learned how to defend themselves against it.
> Example: You have a job interview downtown, but you're black and the Klan has a parade scheduled that day, and you're scared of the calls for violence.
You are trying to make a case against speech by making an argument against violence. If the Klan commits violence they should be arrested. If they are deterred from violence by the real threat of arrest then there is no reason to fear going to your job interview no matter what they say.
> See Voat.
The retreat to Voat was highly detrimental to the fascists because it massively hindered recruitment, the most effective form of which was to have moderator control of large subreddits not explicitly about politics, but saturated with far-right memes / "ironic" jokes, to slowly normalise and inculcate those ideas in people who are originally just there out of interest in some hobby. In contrast, very few people go to Voat who aren't already true believers. It's a much greater leap than from one subreddit to another.
> learning to accept that other people disagree with you and have contrary opinions is a much more robust solution
If there are people who believe in a Jewish conspiracy to destroy the white race through miscegenation, and they advocate for violent resistance in response, then "learning to accept" that is not in any way a solution.
> Inoculating the population to fascist rhetoric by publicly winning the debate against it with reasoned argument
Two points: (a) the overwhelming majority of political content consists of arguments presented without rebuttal. In the case of far-right content, it almost entirely consists of arguments against straw men, citing pseudoscience, deceitful abuse of statistics, and grandiose appeals to emotion. You can consume countless hours of content without actually encountering a genuine debate.
(b) Have you ever watched a debate between a fascist and a non-fascist? Even in response to comprehensive dismantling of their ideas, fascists remain completely insensible to facts (they can always fall back on "fake Jewish science") or reason. Some small fraction of viewers may be convinced by the debates, but the mere fact of something having been cogently debunked does very little overall.
The retreat to Voat was highly detrimental to the fascists because it massively hindered recruitment, the most effective form of which was to have moderator control of large subreddits not explicitly about politics, but saturated with far-right memes / "ironic" jokes, to slowly normalise and inculcate those ideas in people who are originally just there out of interest in some hobby. In contrast, very few people go to Voat who aren't already true believers. It's a much greater leap than from one subreddit to another.
> learning to accept that other people disagree with you and have contrary opinions is a much more robust solution
If there are people who believe in a Jewish conspiracy to destroy the white race through miscegenation, and they advocate for violent resistance in response, then "learning to accept" that is not in any way a solution.
> Inoculating the population to fascist rhetoric by publicly winning the debate against it with reasoned argument
Two points: (a) the overwhelming majority of political content consists of arguments presented without rebuttal. In the case of far-right content, it almost entirely consists of arguments against straw men, citing pseudoscience, deceitful abuse of statistics, and grandiose appeals to emotion. You can consume countless hours of content without actually encountering a genuine debate.
(b) Have you ever watched a debate between a fascist and a non-fascist? Even in response to comprehensive dismantling of their ideas, fascists remain completely insensible to facts (they can always fall back on "fake Jewish science") or reason. Some small fraction of viewers may be convinced by the debates, but the mere fact of something having been cogently debunked does very little overall.
> In contrast, very few people go to Voat who aren't already true believers.
That's exactly the problem. It creates a space where there is nothing but fascist propaganda so that anyone who ends up there gets trapped in an extremist bubble where nobody who could bring the back to reality ever goes to rescue them.
Meanwhile if you want to give them a recruitment tool, start censoring anything even slightly right of center so that moderates start looking for a platform that doesn't.
Which plays right into their stupid conspiracy theory narrative because now they have real instances of censorship they can point to in claiming the "truth" they're telling you is being suppressed.
> If there are people who believe in a Jewish conspiracy to destroy the white race through miscegenation, and they advocate for violent resistance in response, then "learning to accept" that is not in any way a solution.
Violence isn't speech. Violence is illegal.
If somebody wants to argue that you shouldn't marry outside of your "race" because of some ridiculous Jewish conspiracy, make the argument why they're wrong. If they commit an act of violence, put them in jail.
> the overwhelming majority of political content consists of arguments presented without rebuttal
It's a discussion forum. The rebuttal is you posting a rebuttal. There are more of you than there are of the fascists, right? Because otherwise we've already got a bit of a problem, democracy-wise.
> Have you ever watched a debate between a fascist and a non-fascist? Even in response to comprehensive dismantling of their ideas, fascists remain completely insensible to facts (they can always fall back on "fake Jewish science") or reason. Some small fraction of viewers may be convinced by the debates, but the mere fact of something having been cogently debunked does very little overall.
You're not expected to convince the zealot. You're expected to convince the audience why the zealot is a zealot. Appeals to "Jewish science" and the like are how they lose the audience, because the only people who are going to buy that are the other zealots.
Having the debate does very much overall, because it's how we got to the point where most people aren't fascists. The fascists are the ones whose ideas aren't strong enough to stand without censoring the opposition. When your position can stand up to scrutiny you don't need to censor the opposition.
That's exactly the problem. It creates a space where there is nothing but fascist propaganda so that anyone who ends up there gets trapped in an extremist bubble where nobody who could bring the back to reality ever goes to rescue them.
Meanwhile if you want to give them a recruitment tool, start censoring anything even slightly right of center so that moderates start looking for a platform that doesn't.
Which plays right into their stupid conspiracy theory narrative because now they have real instances of censorship they can point to in claiming the "truth" they're telling you is being suppressed.
> If there are people who believe in a Jewish conspiracy to destroy the white race through miscegenation, and they advocate for violent resistance in response, then "learning to accept" that is not in any way a solution.
Violence isn't speech. Violence is illegal.
If somebody wants to argue that you shouldn't marry outside of your "race" because of some ridiculous Jewish conspiracy, make the argument why they're wrong. If they commit an act of violence, put them in jail.
> the overwhelming majority of political content consists of arguments presented without rebuttal
It's a discussion forum. The rebuttal is you posting a rebuttal. There are more of you than there are of the fascists, right? Because otherwise we've already got a bit of a problem, democracy-wise.
> Have you ever watched a debate between a fascist and a non-fascist? Even in response to comprehensive dismantling of their ideas, fascists remain completely insensible to facts (they can always fall back on "fake Jewish science") or reason. Some small fraction of viewers may be convinced by the debates, but the mere fact of something having been cogently debunked does very little overall.
You're not expected to convince the zealot. You're expected to convince the audience why the zealot is a zealot. Appeals to "Jewish science" and the like are how they lose the audience, because the only people who are going to buy that are the other zealots.
Having the debate does very much overall, because it's how we got to the point where most people aren't fascists. The fascists are the ones whose ideas aren't strong enough to stand without censoring the opposition. When your position can stand up to scrutiny you don't need to censor the opposition.
> Your theory is directly contrary to various clinical treatments for anxiety (e.g. exposure therapy) which are altogether more healthy and sustainable
Reading slurs online isn't exposure therapy. Exposure therapy consists of controlled situations and counseling led by licensed therapists. No therapist would suggest that their clients should expose themselves to abusive and toxic environments as "exposure therapy".
Please don't cherry pick techniques you don't understand from fields you aren't familiar with to support your opinions.
Reading slurs online isn't exposure therapy. Exposure therapy consists of controlled situations and counseling led by licensed therapists. No therapist would suggest that their clients should expose themselves to abusive and toxic environments as "exposure therapy".
Please don't cherry pick techniques you don't understand from fields you aren't familiar with to support your opinions.
The purpose of exposure therapy is to desensitize the patient to the stimulus, rather than wishing against all evidence that the stimulus would never be encountered, so that when they do encounter it in the world, it doesn't trigger them. The argument isn't that hate speech is exposure therapy, it's that the likes of exposure therapy are a better solution than censorship to prevent people from being harmed by contemptible third party speech.
I've had exposure therapy and seen it at work with others. This talking point really pisses me off. The "likes of exposure therapy" are not exposure therapy. Exposing yourself to something traumatic or distressing (and I mean "distressing" in a mental health sense) is a very tricky thing. Going overboard can have serious consequences. This is why it's done very deliberately, or even with supervision. Randomly encountering triggering content while going about your day is what it's supposed to prepare you for, but it's sure as hell not how it's done.
Please stop spreading mental health disinformation.
Please stop spreading mental health disinformation.
You're misreading what I wrote. Here it is again:
> The argument isn't that hate speech is exposure therapy, it's that the likes of exposure therapy are a better solution than censorship to prevent people from being harmed by contemptible third party speech.
The point is, people who are being triggered by third party speech should go get exposure therapy, from a professional, or "the likes of exposure therapy" -- some other treatment -- so that they are prepared for the world, instead of insisting on constraining the world to be only what they're prepared for -- which isn't even possible because the set of ideas different people find distressing are different.
Suppose I'm triggered by the imposition of censorship.
> The argument isn't that hate speech is exposure therapy, it's that the likes of exposure therapy are a better solution than censorship to prevent people from being harmed by contemptible third party speech.
The point is, people who are being triggered by third party speech should go get exposure therapy, from a professional, or "the likes of exposure therapy" -- some other treatment -- so that they are prepared for the world, instead of insisting on constraining the world to be only what they're prepared for -- which isn't even possible because the set of ideas different people find distressing are different.
Suppose I'm triggered by the imposition of censorship.
First of all, we know that deplatforming racists/fascists does actually help to stop the spread of racist/fascist ideas.
How do we know that? Has a study been done? Are there surveys that track it over time?
Racists beliefs have decreased over the past 50 years. I haven't seen any evidence it's spiked since the advent of the internet.
More visible? Sure. But more visible doesn't mean more people hold those beliefs.
How do we know that? Has a study been done? Are there surveys that track it over time?
Racists beliefs have decreased over the past 50 years. I haven't seen any evidence it's spiked since the advent of the internet.
More visible? Sure. But more visible doesn't mean more people hold those beliefs.
By induction - repeated exposure to ideas increases their staying power in the mind - see advertising.
If one accepts the premise that fascist ideas spread by exposure, then one way to limit their spread is to limit said exposure.
Sidenote: I'm increasingly frustrated with this increase in veneration of scientific studies, as if studies are the only way or even the best way of attaining or approximating truth. I would like to see more acceptance of lived experience as admissible evidence in matters of debate.
If one accepts the premise that fascist ideas spread by exposure, then one way to limit their spread is to limit said exposure.
Sidenote: I'm increasingly frustrated with this increase in veneration of scientific studies, as if studies are the only way or even the best way of attaining or approximating truth. I would like to see more acceptance of lived experience as admissible evidence in matters of debate.
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My response is that everyone should carry. If the Klan goes nuts, the Klan gets shot. Eventually the system will react an equilibrium.
I agree with your freedom of association. My only note would be that removing people from the means of financial transactions is the same as limiting speech.
I agree with your freedom of association. My only note would be that removing people from the means of financial transactions is the same as limiting speech.
Vengeance doesn’t bring back the dead.
The prisoner’s dilemma has the equilibrium of defect-defect.
If racists regularly shoot ethnic minorities, that means members of those minorities have good reason to shoot first in preemptive self-defence; there will inevitably be errors, and then the ethnic group the racists belong to will do the same, and suddenly you have a literal race war.
Likewise for any other distinction that people fight over besides race.
The prisoner’s dilemma has the equilibrium of defect-defect.
If racists regularly shoot ethnic minorities, that means members of those minorities have good reason to shoot first in preemptive self-defence; there will inevitably be errors, and then the ethnic group the racists belong to will do the same, and suddenly you have a literal race war.
Likewise for any other distinction that people fight over besides race.
I tend to prefer solutions to social problems where no one gets shot.
As do I. The fact of the matter is that the cops average 11 minutes to respond in good areas. They take longer in high crime areas. Further, we've seen that the cops are generally bad people. So leave policing to the average person.
If the Klan attacks people, they can freely be shot. If the Klan parades around in their sheets, meh.
If the Klan attacks people, they can freely be shot. If the Klan parades around in their sheets, meh.
Carrying doesn't prevent anyone from getting shot. And there were plenty of instances in the US where the Klan attacked blacks with few repercussions.
Why do you talk so much about these abstract problems while neglecting the real ones? Black people get shot every day and it's not by the KKK or the police, it's by other black people. They are the real danger, not some parade with slogans. Other blacks is the major violence problem facing blacks in America today and has been for many decades but nobody seems to care. Blacks and Hispanics shooting members of their own groups accounts for most of America's excess shootings compared to other high gun ownership countries. But it doesn't fit well with your political ideology so you ignore it.
A more realistic version of your job interview example is that it's in a rival gang occupied part of town. KKK isn't shooting blacks but black gang members are. Facebook doesn't seem to be able to stop that.
A more realistic version of your job interview example is that it's in a rival gang occupied part of town. KKK isn't shooting blacks but black gang members are. Facebook doesn't seem to be able to stop that.
No, I'm pretty sure the cops are murdering black people.
Your analysis is sorely lacking in context for <i>why</i> black communities have higher rates of crime (hint: it's systemic racism, namely poverty and overpolicing).
Your analysis is sorely lacking in context for <i>why</i> black communities have higher rates of crime (hint: it's systemic racism, namely poverty and overpolicing).
What about spam? Scams? Child porn? Doxxing? People's very personal data? A bounty to hurt a specific person, with included address and identifying information?
There's always an exception. Some amount of moderation is always necessary, and naturally there will always be gray area cases.
There's always an exception. Some amount of moderation is always necessary, and naturally there will always be gray area cases.
> What about spam?
Spam filtering isn't censorship because the recipient doesn't want to receive it. Censorship is removing access to material the recipient would otherwise choose to view.
> Scams? Child porn? Doxxing? People's very personal data? A bounty to hurt a specific person, with included address and identifying information?
All of these things have illegal non-speech components (fraud, child abuse), so you can go arrest the perpetrators directly and leave the platforms out of it.
Spam filtering isn't censorship because the recipient doesn't want to receive it. Censorship is removing access to material the recipient would otherwise choose to view.
> Scams? Child porn? Doxxing? People's very personal data? A bounty to hurt a specific person, with included address and identifying information?
All of these things have illegal non-speech components (fraud, child abuse), so you can go arrest the perpetrators directly and leave the platforms out of it.
> All of these things have illegal non-speech components (fraud, child abuse),
Do you find slander to not fit the bill? And what about calling for a military coup to persecuted anyone they see fit?
Do you find slander to not fit the bill? And what about calling for a military coup to persecuted anyone they see fit?
> Do you find slander to not fit the bill?
But it's still the same thing -- what does it have to do with the platform? Go sue the actual speaker, and keep collecting damages from them as long as they keep using the platform to publish the slander.
> And what about calling for a military coup to persecuted anyone they see fit?
A military coup pretty obviously falls under a non-speech act which is itself illegal.
But it's still the same thing -- what does it have to do with the platform? Go sue the actual speaker, and keep collecting damages from them as long as they keep using the platform to publish the slander.
> And what about calling for a military coup to persecuted anyone they see fit?
A military coup pretty obviously falls under a non-speech act which is itself illegal.
> But it's still the same thing -- what does it have to do with the platform?
The platform is the medium that's enabling slander. If Bolsonaro's minions were publishing their fake news and slanderous attacks on newspapers, the newspaper would also be held accountable for it's responsibility of wilfully spreading false information.
> Go sue the actual speaker
It's not an either/or thing.
Similarly, ISPs are also forced to comply with cutting access to services that violate the law.
The platform is the medium that's enabling slander. If Bolsonaro's minions were publishing their fake news and slanderous attacks on newspapers, the newspaper would also be held accountable for it's responsibility of wilfully spreading false information.
> Go sue the actual speaker
It's not an either/or thing.
Similarly, ISPs are also forced to comply with cutting access to services that violate the law.
> The platform is the medium that's enabling slander.
That's a naive take. It's like saying roads enabled accidents and thus must be demolished.
On most countries, usually the specific infriging content is ordered to be taken down, not the entire account.
Read about DMCA for example. Youtube channels have specific content taken down, not the entire channel.
That's a naive take. It's like saying roads enabled accidents and thus must be demolished.
On most countries, usually the specific infriging content is ordered to be taken down, not the entire account.
Read about DMCA for example. Youtube channels have specific content taken down, not the entire channel.
> That's a naive take. It's like saying roads enabled accidents and thus must be demolished.
No, it's like saying that roads which are found to be repeatedly causing accidents should be fixed in order to allow everyone to drive safely. Which is what happens in real life.
And you seemed to have turned a blind eye to the fact that ISPs have been for decades complying with court orders to remove access to illegal content hosted and made available by them. You don't need to resort to convoluted apples-to-oranges comparisons to understand the problem and it's solution.
No, it's like saying that roads which are found to be repeatedly causing accidents should be fixed in order to allow everyone to drive safely. Which is what happens in real life.
And you seemed to have turned a blind eye to the fact that ISPs have been for decades complying with court orders to remove access to illegal content hosted and made available by them. You don't need to resort to convoluted apples-to-oranges comparisons to understand the problem and it's solution.
ISPs comply on a national level.
Facebook was demanded to comply on a worldwide level based on a national law.
That's the whole point.
Facebook was demanded to comply on a worldwide level based on a national law.
That's the whole point.
> ISPs comply on a national level.
Wrong. ISPs comply at their service level. They provide a service, thus they are barred from providing it to their customers if their service violates the law.
Facebook's service is breaking the law, thus the court determined it should not. That's the point.
Wrong. ISPs comply at their service level. They provide a service, thus they are barred from providing it to their customers if their service violates the law.
Facebook's service is breaking the law, thus the court determined it should not. That's the point.
Actually, you're wrong. Facebook strives to comply on a national level only whenever possible.
Here's an article about it: https://www.mic.com/articles/87515/if-you-live-in-one-of-the...
Here's an article about it: https://www.mic.com/articles/87515/if-you-live-in-one-of-the...
But do you leave up the porn?
Assign the copyright to the victim. Then they can make a copyright claim.
> Assign the copyright to the victim. Then they can make a copyright claim.
Are you really saying that the way to deal with depictions of child-abuse is by assigning copyright to the victim and then asking the victim to deal with it judicially?
This kind of process is onerous even for regular people in non-dire situations, let alone for children who have just been a victim of sexual abuse. By asking from action coming from the child, you are advocating something that is effectively forcing them to re-live the abuse.
Imagine being rescued by the police or some other group, and then having to independently deal with lawyers in the fallout of the case just to get justice done. This is why we have prosecutors and laws for.
On top of that, it doesn't even make sense from a copyright perspective.
Not to mention how problematic copyright is in itself, and how nonsensical your suggestion is, since copyright can and is used as a much more powerful weapon for censorship, when used against criticism for example.
The current system is much better than this. Not having someone yell "fire" and cause harm, or to have propagation of child-abuse dealt without doing more harm to the child are WAY more important than having absolute freedom of harming others (or, as you call it, freedom from censorship).
To quote Joseph Welch, "At long last, have you left no sense of decency?"
Are you really saying that the way to deal with depictions of child-abuse is by assigning copyright to the victim and then asking the victim to deal with it judicially?
This kind of process is onerous even for regular people in non-dire situations, let alone for children who have just been a victim of sexual abuse. By asking from action coming from the child, you are advocating something that is effectively forcing them to re-live the abuse.
Imagine being rescued by the police or some other group, and then having to independently deal with lawyers in the fallout of the case just to get justice done. This is why we have prosecutors and laws for.
On top of that, it doesn't even make sense from a copyright perspective.
Not to mention how problematic copyright is in itself, and how nonsensical your suggestion is, since copyright can and is used as a much more powerful weapon for censorship, when used against criticism for example.
The current system is much better than this. Not having someone yell "fire" and cause harm, or to have propagation of child-abuse dealt without doing more harm to the child are WAY more important than having absolute freedom of harming others (or, as you call it, freedom from censorship).
To quote Joseph Welch, "At long last, have you left no sense of decency?"
> This kind of process is onerous even for regular people in non-dire situations, let alone for children who have just been a victim of sexual abuse. By asking from action coming from the child, you are advocating something that is effectively forcing them to re-live the abuse.
Nonsense. Copyright is designed as a profit-generating system. All they'd have to do is deploy a third party to enforce it. There are many organizations that would love do to this work, and on top of that get paid for it out of the judgments against pedophiles. The victims wouldn't even have to be involved in the cases.
And it has the extremely useful property of creating a market incentive to bankrupt pedophiles.
> On top of that, it doesn't even make sense from a copyright perspective.
Hollywood would presumably by very interested to hear of this possibility of holding the copyright to the work of an "actor" without their consent.
> Not to mention how problematic copyright is in itself, and how nonsensical your suggestion is, since copyright can and is used as a much more powerful weapon for censorship, when used against criticism for example.
This is why fair use exists. Copyright doesn't always get that right, but now you're leveling a criticism of copyright implementation at a use case where it doesn't even apply. Pedophiles aren't distributing child pornography for the purposes of criticism.
Nonsense. Copyright is designed as a profit-generating system. All they'd have to do is deploy a third party to enforce it. There are many organizations that would love do to this work, and on top of that get paid for it out of the judgments against pedophiles. The victims wouldn't even have to be involved in the cases.
And it has the extremely useful property of creating a market incentive to bankrupt pedophiles.
> On top of that, it doesn't even make sense from a copyright perspective.
Hollywood would presumably by very interested to hear of this possibility of holding the copyright to the work of an "actor" without their consent.
> Not to mention how problematic copyright is in itself, and how nonsensical your suggestion is, since copyright can and is used as a much more powerful weapon for censorship, when used against criticism for example.
This is why fair use exists. Copyright doesn't always get that right, but now you're leveling a criticism of copyright implementation at a use case where it doesn't even apply. Pedophiles aren't distributing child pornography for the purposes of criticism.
> And it has the extremely useful property of creating a market incentive to bankrupt pedophiles.
So, we treat child porn the same way we treat movie or music piracy, with the major difference being that victims doesn't have as much money as RIAA and MPAA to fight the pirates, and instead of good lawyers we get ambulance chasers, as pointed by the other poster?
You honestly believe that converting something that is currently a crime into a mere copyright violation will work better at removing the incentive for distributors of child pornography?
You're also delusional if you think distributors of child-porn operate in the daylight. Individual victims (or their proxies) don't have as much power/resources as the government to seek pedophiles just for noticing them for copyrights.
The only thing your suggestion would accomplish is making child-porn de facto legal.
> This is why fair use exists. Copyright doesn't always get that right, but now you're leveling a criticism of copyright implementation at a use case where it doesn't even apply. Pedophiles aren't distributing child pornography for the purposes of criticism.
Fair use makes your idea sound even more evil. Now an abuse victim risking losing a copyright case against a photographer using child-porn for criticism, or if someone uses it in a book for demonstration purposes.
On the other hand, your post is a tremendous idea for a dystopic novel. David Bowie made an album in 1995 about a detective deciding whether or not "Art-related Crime" is art, but you took it to an even darker corner.
So, we treat child porn the same way we treat movie or music piracy, with the major difference being that victims doesn't have as much money as RIAA and MPAA to fight the pirates, and instead of good lawyers we get ambulance chasers, as pointed by the other poster?
You honestly believe that converting something that is currently a crime into a mere copyright violation will work better at removing the incentive for distributors of child pornography?
You're also delusional if you think distributors of child-porn operate in the daylight. Individual victims (or their proxies) don't have as much power/resources as the government to seek pedophiles just for noticing them for copyrights.
The only thing your suggestion would accomplish is making child-porn de facto legal.
> This is why fair use exists. Copyright doesn't always get that right, but now you're leveling a criticism of copyright implementation at a use case where it doesn't even apply. Pedophiles aren't distributing child pornography for the purposes of criticism.
Fair use makes your idea sound even more evil. Now an abuse victim risking losing a copyright case against a photographer using child-porn for criticism, or if someone uses it in a book for demonstration purposes.
On the other hand, your post is a tremendous idea for a dystopic novel. David Bowie made an album in 1995 about a detective deciding whether or not "Art-related Crime" is art, but you took it to an even darker corner.
> All they'd have to do is deploy a third party to enforce it.
Ah perfect, ambulance chasers but for child porn.
This also ignores some major issues: child porn is currently illegal to create and distribute. There are good reasons for this. Once the porn gets old enough, it enters the public domain.
Which means that there's still a potential market for it, and there's no implicit criminality of the creation, but only the distribution of such things.
Ah perfect, ambulance chasers but for child porn.
This also ignores some major issues: child porn is currently illegal to create and distribute. There are good reasons for this. Once the porn gets old enough, it enters the public domain.
Which means that there's still a potential market for it, and there's no implicit criminality of the creation, but only the distribution of such things.
And in cases where the victim is a child (like child porn) and their guardian is involved in the abuse (which is often the case)?
Then you either wait for the child to be of age to assert copyright, and force them to confront this individually, or you wait for guardianship to unwind and hope the state or foster guardian or whatever is interested in pursuing a copyright violation on behalf of a minor.
Then you either wait for the child to be of age to assert copyright, and force them to confront this individually, or you wait for guardianship to unwind and hope the state or foster guardian or whatever is interested in pursuing a copyright violation on behalf of a minor.
Having the minor in the custody of the abuser is by far the more serious problem, so solve that first, and if that isn't happening fast enough, fix whatever is preventing that. Then the copyright claim solves itself -- there would be lawyers lined up in front of your door for the chance to sue child pornographers on a contingent fee basis.
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"Don't prohibit speech. That's it. Repugnance is part of life. If you suppress speech, you only push it underground. Light is the best disinfectant."
Speech is not Light
In fact, it's usually the opposite.
Most speech is just crude opinion, and the most popular speech has nothing to do with facts.
The 'free speech' arguments are all very academic - yes, of course' freedom of thought' is important.
But the 'real dimension' is not about political conscience, or the realm of ideas.
99% of people live and breathe on 'main street' not 'intellectual street' (including most of us during our daily lives) and it's not about 'ideas' it's just about bullying, sex and harassment.
Unfettered, every anonymous group becomes dick and boob picks, at minimum.
Do you know how the Rwandan genocide was inflamed? Talk radio. The hosts with large audience would, on a daily basis talk about how the Tutsi/Hutus were 'cockroaches' and 'subhuman' and deserved to die. The level of raw hate was on another level altogether.
Then as little confrontational incidents heated up, someone flipped the switch and the radio started calling everyone to 'get out their machetes and kill the cockroaches' and so it ensued.
This was mostly not a 'war' of 'soldiers and guns' - it was like a zombie uprising, people coming out of their homes with machetes and hacking up their neighbours.
I am not advocating for restrictions on civil opinions etc. - in any reasonable situation, people ought to speak their mind, particularly in academia, in the press etc..
But 'in the commons' (even in so called advanced countries) - things could get out of hand very quickly.
What we've witnessed over the last few years with false information about vaccines, a lot of Trump tweets, QAnon, a lot of false information about protests in every direction - is just barely scratching the surface of how bad it could get.
People will believe all sorts of crazy things and the 'angrier 'it is, the easier it is to get them to believe it.
Even in the US there is a small, but still very significant part of the population that would believe almost anything that Obama or Trump tweeted. If Trump decided to tell his base that 'the 2020 elections were rigged, the Army tried a coup, and you need to storm DC with your guns' there would be people who would do it, for example. Left unfettered, some really bad things could propagate, and the most popular voices would wield incredible power.
'Peace is Hard' Obama I think said, he was talking about geopolitical things, but in the commons it's just the same.
People should be able to discuss ideas freely, we need to protect that, but most people are not interested in that.
Consider what happens when the 'fake news' thing truly takes hold, and almost everything people read is completely fabricated. 'The Clintons leave a trail of Murder' - 'Trump secretly financed Putin's rise to power' etc..
It's a legit problem.
Speech is not Light
In fact, it's usually the opposite.
Most speech is just crude opinion, and the most popular speech has nothing to do with facts.
The 'free speech' arguments are all very academic - yes, of course' freedom of thought' is important.
But the 'real dimension' is not about political conscience, or the realm of ideas.
99% of people live and breathe on 'main street' not 'intellectual street' (including most of us during our daily lives) and it's not about 'ideas' it's just about bullying, sex and harassment.
Unfettered, every anonymous group becomes dick and boob picks, at minimum.
Do you know how the Rwandan genocide was inflamed? Talk radio. The hosts with large audience would, on a daily basis talk about how the Tutsi/Hutus were 'cockroaches' and 'subhuman' and deserved to die. The level of raw hate was on another level altogether.
Then as little confrontational incidents heated up, someone flipped the switch and the radio started calling everyone to 'get out their machetes and kill the cockroaches' and so it ensued.
This was mostly not a 'war' of 'soldiers and guns' - it was like a zombie uprising, people coming out of their homes with machetes and hacking up their neighbours.
I am not advocating for restrictions on civil opinions etc. - in any reasonable situation, people ought to speak their mind, particularly in academia, in the press etc..
But 'in the commons' (even in so called advanced countries) - things could get out of hand very quickly.
What we've witnessed over the last few years with false information about vaccines, a lot of Trump tweets, QAnon, a lot of false information about protests in every direction - is just barely scratching the surface of how bad it could get.
People will believe all sorts of crazy things and the 'angrier 'it is, the easier it is to get them to believe it.
Even in the US there is a small, but still very significant part of the population that would believe almost anything that Obama or Trump tweeted. If Trump decided to tell his base that 'the 2020 elections were rigged, the Army tried a coup, and you need to storm DC with your guns' there would be people who would do it, for example. Left unfettered, some really bad things could propagate, and the most popular voices would wield incredible power.
'Peace is Hard' Obama I think said, he was talking about geopolitical things, but in the commons it's just the same.
People should be able to discuss ideas freely, we need to protect that, but most people are not interested in that.
Consider what happens when the 'fake news' thing truly takes hold, and almost everything people read is completely fabricated. 'The Clintons leave a trail of Murder' - 'Trump secretly financed Putin's rise to power' etc..
It's a legit problem.
I sure hope they can reverse it in court. Otherwise this will be a precedent for that judge to block any account it sees fit under the threat of imprisoning a Facebook or Twitter employer.
> Given the threat of criminal liability to a local employee, at this point we see no other alternative than complying with the decision by blocking the accounts globally, while we appeal to the Supreme Court.
> Given the threat of criminal liability to a local employee, at this point we see no other alternative than complying with the decision by blocking the accounts globally, while we appeal to the Supreme Court.
> I sure hope they can reverse it in court.
This will be diffcult because the original order already came from our Supreme Court. However, it was decided/signed by a single justice/judge. The appeal asks for the matter to be decided by whole court (11 justices).
This will be diffcult because the original order already came from our Supreme Court. However, it was decided/signed by a single justice/judge. The appeal asks for the matter to be decided by whole court (11 justices).
> I sure hope they can reverse it in court. Otherwise this will be a precedent for that judge to block any account it sees fit
The ruling was based on track records of conducting libel campaigns targetting anyone who could jeopardize Bolsonaro's political goals, not to mention supporting military coups to allow him to become president for life and silence any critic.
And it seems you're missing the fact that the ruling specifically targets sock puppet accounts controlled by a couple of Bolsonaro Minions, such as the leader of Bolsonaro's party and one of Bolsonaro's main backer.
The judge didn't based his decision on whims.
The ruling was based on track records of conducting libel campaigns targetting anyone who could jeopardize Bolsonaro's political goals, not to mention supporting military coups to allow him to become president for life and silence any critic.
And it seems you're missing the fact that the ruling specifically targets sock puppet accounts controlled by a couple of Bolsonaro Minions, such as the leader of Bolsonaro's party and one of Bolsonaro's main backer.
The judge didn't based his decision on whims.
The issue here is, as stated in the article, facebook was ordered to block worldwide access to facebook accounts based on brazilian law.
I couldn't care less about what said accounts were posting if they were protected by the 1st amendment.
The problem here is the precedence of an overreach.
I couldn't care less about what said accounts were posting if they were protected by the 1st amendment.
The problem here is the precedence of an overreach.
> The issue here is, as stated in the article, facebook was ordered to block worldwide access to facebook accounts based on brazilian law.
It really isn't. ISPs are also required to cut access to illegal content. Facebook is a service provider that willingly provides access to illegal content, thus it is required to take it down.
That's the whole point of the ruling.
It really isn't. ISPs are also required to cut access to illegal content. Facebook is a service provider that willingly provides access to illegal content, thus it is required to take it down.
That's the whole point of the ruling.
Not sure I follow the logic.
The content is illegal in Brazil only for now.
The ruling explicitly tells facebook to take down content worldwide.
The content is illegal in Brazil only for now.
The ruling explicitly tells facebook to take down content worldwide.
> The content is illegal in Brazil only for now.
There is no such thing as "only for now". Either it violates the law, or it doesn't. The court deemed that it breaks the law, thus the law should not continue to be broken. Hence the ruling.
> The ruling explicitly tells facebook to take down content worldwide.
The court determined that Facebook hosts content that violates the law. Therefore Facebook should remove the offending content. That's it.
There is no such thing as "only for now". Either it violates the law, or it doesn't. The court deemed that it breaks the law, thus the law should not continue to be broken. Hence the ruling.
> The ruling explicitly tells facebook to take down content worldwide.
The court determined that Facebook hosts content that violates the law. Therefore Facebook should remove the offending content. That's it.
The #Brazilian# court deemed that it breaks the law.
As far as I know no other court addressed the matter so far.
Facebook argues that content should only be taken down where it breaks the law, which is reasonable.
Otherwise you'll see, for example, Facebook and Twitter silencing accounts of Turkish dictator Erdogan's opposition worldwide because that specific country deemed their speech to be illegal.
As far as I know no other court addressed the matter so far.
Facebook argues that content should only be taken down where it breaks the law, which is reasonable.
Otherwise you'll see, for example, Facebook and Twitter silencing accounts of Turkish dictator Erdogan's opposition worldwide because that specific country deemed their speech to be illegal.
I hope Facebook is able to revert it. To globally block an account, could lead to some court in the country A, blocks accounts in the country B. For example, Venezuela could block politic opposition posting something in US.
You know what’s next when they take constitutional rights from journalists and citizens.
> You know what’s next when they take constitutional rights from journalists and citizens.
Bolsonaro's supporters were caught calling for a military coup to allow Bolsonaro to become Brazil's dictator, as well as fabricating accusations and stories that targetted anyone who was inconvenient to Bolsonaro's political agenda.
You should check where you base your slippery slope fallacy because any journalist who did the same would be out of a job for plenty of good reasons.
Bolsonaro's supporters were caught calling for a military coup to allow Bolsonaro to become Brazil's dictator, as well as fabricating accusations and stories that targetted anyone who was inconvenient to Bolsonaro's political agenda.
You should check where you base your slippery slope fallacy because any journalist who did the same would be out of a job for plenty of good reasons.
Mainstream media journalists regularly fabricate accusations and target people based on political agenda.
Nick Sandmann sued several of them successfully for defamation, because they ruined the life of an innocent underage high school student based on politically biased reporting.
Nick Sandmann sued several of them successfully for defamation, because they ruined the life of an innocent underage high school student based on politically biased reporting.
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That's not true. Journalist Allan dos Santos reports the risk of a coup d'état against Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro. The coup is allegedly being plotted by members of Brazilian Supreme Court. That's why he's silenced.
If China demanded that its great firewall apply to Chinese citizens abroad, this would be considered a shocking authoritarian overreach by most people in the west. Yet a judge in Brazil can order that, and it's just taken at face value?
Put another way: if the BBC can identify Bolsonaro as "far-right", why not call the judge "far-left" for doing something that not even the Communist Party of China does? Or far-something, at any rate.
Put another way: if the BBC can identify Bolsonaro as "far-right", why not call the judge "far-left" for doing something that not even the Communist Party of China does? Or far-something, at any rate.
Isn't this already true wrt China? China requires companies with ops in China to abide by censorship rules, and companies without ops in China are at risk of being blocked.
Sounds like they were engaging in straight-up slander—-even worse than if they had “cancelled” their victims, whatever that actually means.
Slander is a reason to have slander suits, not a ban on a class of people imposed on a social network.
I'm all for the free market (i.e. users) pressuring social networks to ban certain groups, like pedophiles or neo-Nazis.
I'm deeply against a government telling a social network that any broad class of people should be banned, especially if they're mainstream enough that their leader is in office.
I'm all for the free market (i.e. users) pressuring social networks to ban certain groups, like pedophiles or neo-Nazis.
I'm deeply against a government telling a social network that any broad class of people should be banned, especially if they're mainstream enough that their leader is in office.
> I'm deeply against a government telling a social network that any broad class of people should be banned, especially if they're mainstream enough that their leader is in office.
Even if those people are calling for a coup d'etat to change the democracy into a dictatorship and place this leader at the top?
Even if those people are calling for a coup d'etat to change the democracy into a dictatorship and place this leader at the top?
> Even if those people are calling for a coup d'etat to change the democracy into a dictatorship and place this leader at the top?
If they are calling for violence, I support govt censorship only of the violent speech and only if each case is considered individually.
If they are calling for violence, I support govt censorship only of the violent speech and only if each case is considered individually.
It is worth noting that both Facebook and Twitter have appealed, citing that the measures have been too drastic.
Given Twitter's and FB's history, and the fact that Bolsonaro supporters tend to be more "right wing", that's when you know that the Brazilian court order is WAY out of line ...
Given Twitter's and FB's history, and the fact that Bolsonaro supporters tend to be more "right wing", that's when you know that the Brazilian court order is WAY out of line ...
that's pretty funny, but no they just don't want to deal with it, all they hear is "what do you mean, lose users?"
How long before Facebook is forced to be sold to a Brazilian company?
Looks like Bolsonaro, should borrow couple of tips from his friend Narendra Modi. Modi, dismantled the institutions in India systematically to guarantee his long lasting power.
e.g.
The only official from the election commission who didn't give a clean-chit to Modi for his election campaign violations during last election was greeted with Income Tax raids on his family members after the election, now he has been transferred to Asian Bank(He was next in line to become Chief Election Commissioner).
Look at the current Chief Justice of India, posing with limited edition Harley Davidson[0], which apparently was brought to him 'just for a demo by a local dealer and definitely does not belong to the son of a ruling party member'!
Former Chief Justice of India, has been given membership in parliament!
[0]https://theprint.in/india/photos-of-justice-bobde-astride-a-...