Texas Could Push Tech Platforms to Censor Posts About Abortion(wired.com)
wired.com
Texas Could Push Tech Platforms to Censor Posts About Abortion
https://www.wired.com/story/texas-could-push-tech-platforms-to-censor-posts-about-abortion/
107 コメント
I just hope the big platforms (Meta's mostly) either cut off Texas entirely or corral them to a separate Texas-only instance where they can't see others posts and nobody can see them.
Why do you hope for this? Please state it explicitly.
If all platforms start catering to the lowest common denominator, everything will be banned.
Should platforms start banning material that's not allowed in, let's say Saudi Arabia? Or Iran? In Finland "disturbing religious peace" (basically blasphemy) is illegal, should that be censored on tech platforms if we say so?
IMO it's just easier to pull out of said country/state/region altogether or if they bring enough business you create a separate sandbox just for them (Like Google.cn used to be).
Just the threat of being cut off from just Youtube, Facebook and Instagram _will_ make Texas politicians back off really fucking fast. There are very very few voters who don't use Alphabet and Meta services daily.
Should platforms start banning material that's not allowed in, let's say Saudi Arabia? Or Iran? In Finland "disturbing religious peace" (basically blasphemy) is illegal, should that be censored on tech platforms if we say so?
IMO it's just easier to pull out of said country/state/region altogether or if they bring enough business you create a separate sandbox just for them (Like Google.cn used to be).
Just the threat of being cut off from just Youtube, Facebook and Instagram _will_ make Texas politicians back off really fucking fast. There are very very few voters who don't use Alphabet and Meta services daily.
Other commenters have the right of the response here. If every platform has hundreds of nations & many thousands of provinces (states in the US) that can make arbitrary rules, the internet loses the magic of being an online place where human spirit can congregate & connect.
The internet has been at the fore for a while as a deeply Western-democratic free speech agent, a way to let people share & find out, to support many view. The authoritarian impulse to control & dictate, the view of the party, the small.minded, the dictatorial ought have no extra sway or swagger here.
This hearkens back directly to JP Barlow's Declaration of Independence Of Cyberspace. Which speaks to the freedom. From shitty tyrannies of the mind & spaces, large & small. Which is almost certainly among the top 10 things most submitted to HN. https://hn.algolia.com/?q=Declaration+of+independence+of+cyb...
It's a pity this submission is flagged. This is such at the heart of the online experience, and the threats against it.
The internet has been at the fore for a while as a deeply Western-democratic free speech agent, a way to let people share & find out, to support many view. The authoritarian impulse to control & dictate, the view of the party, the small.minded, the dictatorial ought have no extra sway or swagger here.
This hearkens back directly to JP Barlow's Declaration of Independence Of Cyberspace. Which speaks to the freedom. From shitty tyrannies of the mind & spaces, large & small. Which is almost certainly among the top 10 things most submitted to HN. https://hn.algolia.com/?q=Declaration+of+independence+of+cyb...
It's a pity this submission is flagged. This is such at the heart of the online experience, and the threats against it.
The alternative is to cater to the lowest common denominator, meaning that the platforms would restrict everyone, regardless of whether or not they live in Texas.
Just like textbooks!
Both sides of the divide would be happier
the logical extension of that line of thinking is to divide into 2 nations, red & blue. personally I believe Huge gigantic nations are not very well suited to implement democracy. the problem is this needs to happen for all huge nations (i.e.. china & russia) otherwise you are concentrating too much power.
We have 50 states. Let them be different.
I believe you’re saying “I would be happier if I didn’t have information about other people’s opinions and lives.” That’s pretty easy to achieve. However, I don’t at all believe that is consistent with the original proposal.
Have any tech companies already been moving away from Texas and other areas where some politicians are going "anti-tech"? (Closing offices, targeting layoffs, canceling expansion plans, etc.)
Also, is anything known about whether driving away tech immigrants (with their maybe more Californian values) is an intention of some politicians there?
Also, is anything known about whether driving away tech immigrants (with their maybe more Californian values) is an intention of some politicians there?
The intent we knew is dying and once gone will never come back. I’d go as far to say as it’s already basically done.
There is just too much interference with its functioning, combine this with the dangers of autonomous AI systems hacking infra, growing government weariness over recent leaks and the growing ease of spreading lies, I can’t see how it can continue.
This is absolutely crazy, but here’s the thing. Because the internet is becoming so centralised and new surveillance tech has emerged, this type of censorship just seems more and more possible. More possible than anytime in history.
There is just too much interference with its functioning, combine this with the dangers of autonomous AI systems hacking infra, growing government weariness over recent leaks and the growing ease of spreading lies, I can’t see how it can continue.
This is absolutely crazy, but here’s the thing. Because the internet is becoming so centralised and new surveillance tech has emerged, this type of censorship just seems more and more possible. More possible than anytime in history.
Multiple States have already passed laws requiring everyone to upload their government papers (drivers license or passport, etc) to use social media. Things seem to be changing, that's for sure -- and fast.
ahem name them as I very sure that freedom of speech via Constitution trumps weird reactionary without facts blithering.
In fact no US State has passed laws that will withstand review under the US Constitution restricting use of interstate commerce as its not a State power under the US Constitution but a US Congress power.
Yes, hard to believe but using any internet service is Interstate Commerce only under US Congress power not state power.
In fact no US State has passed laws that will withstand review under the US Constitution restricting use of interstate commerce as its not a State power under the US Constitution but a US Congress power.
Yes, hard to believe but using any internet service is Interstate Commerce only under US Congress power not state power.
I've discussed this before[0], dragonwriter has a good response explaining that this law is not automatically illegal just because it affects interstate commerce. I do hope you're right though, and that these laws are ruled unconstitutional. The Utah law is planned to take effect in early 2024. In addition to Utah, Arkansas has or will soon pass a very similar law. Then there is this article talking about Texas trying to regulate the internet by themselves.
[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35310647
[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35310647
Something is only legal or illegal up to the point where it reaches the supreme court and Clarence Thomas is paid off to say whether it is or isn't.
I imagine a world someday where browsers no longer exist. Everything is just an app that you download and the internet is infrastructure for pushing data around to apps from content servers. Some people probably live in this world already, I know several people who spend little, if any, time looking through websites or forums.
There would be no reason to have websites, because it would all just be AI garbage that has been SEOed to hell. No reason to search the web because you just ask an AI on your phone for an answer.
It’s over. Perhaps some community of people will still build traditional websites, but it honestly just feels like they’re LARPing. There’s no reason to build a website over any other piece of content like a video, or images, or a game, or a story.
There would be no reason to have websites, because it would all just be AI garbage that has been SEOed to hell. No reason to search the web because you just ask an AI on your phone for an answer.
It’s over. Perhaps some community of people will still build traditional websites, but it honestly just feels like they’re LARPing. There’s no reason to build a website over any other piece of content like a video, or images, or a game, or a story.
It is an now , with the AI arms race heating up, there is true incentive to keep as much data in walled gardens as possible so you have more training data than the next guy.
Pointing out hypocrisy doesn’t work against authoritarians. Getting away with hypocrisy is a demonstration of their power.
Trying to connect banning abortion to “fascism” is a weird angle. Abortion was illegal in the principal allied countries that defeated Nazi Germany: the U.S., U.K., and Soviet Union. The Soviet Union had legalized abortion in the 1920s, but banned it again in time to fight and defeat the Nazis.
That is a really poorly thought out argument. Taking away existing rights and suppressing any discussion or dissemination of information that doesn’t align with the ruling party’s beliefs doesn’t strike you as fascist in its approach?
Regulating a medical procedure and suppressing online sources of information about illegal procedures may conflict with certain libertarian beliefs, but it’s not “fascist.” By your reasoning, it’s “fascist” for Germany to take away people’s right of free association by banning Nazi parties, and to suppress discussion of Nazism. But nobody thinks that.
The crux of your disagreement with what Texas is doing isn’t about the methods. It’s about your substantive disagreement regarding the morality of killing a human fetus.
The crux of your disagreement with what Texas is doing isn’t about the methods. It’s about your substantive disagreement regarding the morality of killing a human fetus.
Again a weak argument, your previous one was so bad you had to delete it and come up with a new bad analogy?
This is not regulating a medical procedure, it is inserting politics into a medical decision. It has nothing to do with medicine. It is forcing your beliefs on other people. There are valid reasons to regulate abortion, this is obviously not one at all, it will just result in worse health outcomes. And blocking any discussion of what is a legal and scientific procedure in other states is text-book fascist and as un-American as it can get.
This is not regulating a medical procedure, it is inserting politics into a medical decision. It has nothing to do with medicine. It is forcing your beliefs on other people. There are valid reasons to regulate abortion, this is obviously not one at all, it will just result in worse health outcomes. And blocking any discussion of what is a legal and scientific procedure in other states is text-book fascist and as un-American as it can get.
Texas has chosen to ban a medical procedure that kills a human fetus after a certain stage of development. It has done so based on moral judgments about when killing a human fetus should be permitted, and when it should be prohibited.
Virtually every liberal democracy does the same thing. They just pick a different developmental milestone. There is no scientific reason why Denmark or Germany’s 12-week ban is more justifiable than Texas’s 12-week ban. And those countries insert moral judgments into regulation of other medical procedures, everything from euthanasia to female circumcision.
Your regurgitation of libertarian talking points misses the mark. Virtually every liberal democracy recognizes that society can make judgments about what's right and wrong, and regulate individual conduct based on those judgments. (And outside the U.S., most liberal democracies recognize the right of the government to suppress information that society deems harmful.) None of that is "fascist."
Virtually every liberal democracy does the same thing. They just pick a different developmental milestone. There is no scientific reason why Denmark or Germany’s 12-week ban is more justifiable than Texas’s 12-week ban. And those countries insert moral judgments into regulation of other medical procedures, everything from euthanasia to female circumcision.
Your regurgitation of libertarian talking points misses the mark. Virtually every liberal democracy recognizes that society can make judgments about what's right and wrong, and regulate individual conduct based on those judgments. (And outside the U.S., most liberal democracies recognize the right of the government to suppress information that society deems harmful.) None of that is "fascist."
> There is no scientific reason why Denmark or Germany’s 12-week ban [permitted if mother's life or health in danger or for other reasons, per Wikipedia] is more justifiable than Texas’s 12-week ban.
It's not a purely-scientific question. Blackmun got it approximately right in Roe v. Wade.
It's not a purely-scientific question. Blackmun got it approximately right in Roe v. Wade.
Right, it’s not a purely scientific question. It’s impossible to extricate moral judgments from the question. Which is why Texas drawing the line at 6 weeks isn’t “fascist.”
Blackmun was a libertarian who snuck onto the court during the bad old days when the GOP failed to vet their judicial appointments. As professor Ely wrote: Roe “is not constitutional law and gives almost no sense of an obligation to try to be.” Roe was uniquely indefensible, having no basis in constitutional text, long-standing tradition, original intent, international consensus, or public opinion either then or now. Half a century after Roe was authored, most people even in liberal democracies still think you shouldn’t be able to kill a fetus with a face absent risks to the mother’s health.
Blackmun was a libertarian who snuck onto the court during the bad old days when the GOP failed to vet their judicial appointments. As professor Ely wrote: Roe “is not constitutional law and gives almost no sense of an obligation to try to be.” Roe was uniquely indefensible, having no basis in constitutional text, long-standing tradition, original intent, international consensus, or public opinion either then or now. Half a century after Roe was authored, most people even in liberal democracies still think you shouldn’t be able to kill a fetus with a face absent risks to the mother’s health.
And abortion was criminalized for “Aryan” women in Nazi Germany and the countries it occupied, not just for the providers, but the women themselves, many of whom had been raped: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_in_Germany
And at the same time, they forced many women to have abortions.
The big difference between pro-choicers and forced-birthers is that both of those things are offensive to us. The latter is a bigger horror to me, personally, but think for a minute about a young Dutch woman forced to carry the baby of the occupying soldier she wouldn’t dare have said no to - and how she and that baby would have been treated by her village for years after.
And at the same time, they forced many women to have abortions.
The big difference between pro-choicers and forced-birthers is that both of those things are offensive to us. The latter is a bigger horror to me, personally, but think for a minute about a young Dutch woman forced to carry the baby of the occupying soldier she wouldn’t dare have said no to - and how she and that baby would have been treated by her village for years after.
> The big difference between pro-choicers and forced-birthers is that both of those things are offensive to us
The vast majority of liberal democracies are “forced birth” by your standard. Virtually none embrace a “rights”-based approach to abortion. Denmark will force women to give birth after the fetus has a face. Abortion is still technically illegal in the UK and Germany, though there is a defense under certain circumstances in the UK and it’s decriminalized in Germany.
In practice abortion isn’t about whether the state can force a woman to give birth. Almost every country recognizes that it can. In practice it’s about legislative compromise, and moral judgments as to stages of fetal development.
The vast majority of liberal democracies are “forced birth” by your standard. Virtually none embrace a “rights”-based approach to abortion. Denmark will force women to give birth after the fetus has a face. Abortion is still technically illegal in the UK and Germany, though there is a defense under certain circumstances in the UK and it’s decriminalized in Germany.
In practice abortion isn’t about whether the state can force a woman to give birth. Almost every country recognizes that it can. In practice it’s about legislative compromise, and moral judgments as to stages of fetal development.
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Bodily autonomy is a contradiction to abortion rights. Control over one's body logically implies not allowing a second body formation. The autonomy of the child overrides access to abortion since now in pregnancy, there are 2 bodies.
Similarly, access to expensive and elective medical services is a privilege, not a right.
Similarly, access to expensive and elective medical services is a privilege, not a right.
> Bodily autonomy is a contradiction to abortion rights. Control over one's body logically implies not allowing a second body formation.
There's a glaring logical error here: Control over one's body does not logically imply not allowing a second body formation, only that it requires consent.
> The autonomy of the child overrides access to abortion since now in pregnancy, there are 2 bodies.
But this sentence is in opposition to bodily autonomy. How does the autonomy of the fetus affect the autonomy of the person carrying them? The fetus is free to do what it wants, just as the woman is.
> Similarly, access to expensive and elective medical services is a privilege, not a right.
I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding of what a "right" is. It's not just something that you're guaranteed to get, but can also be something that nobody is allowed to ban you from. The second amendment doesn't mean that you can just waltz into a gun store and take what you want, does it?
There's a glaring logical error here: Control over one's body does not logically imply not allowing a second body formation, only that it requires consent.
> The autonomy of the child overrides access to abortion since now in pregnancy, there are 2 bodies.
But this sentence is in opposition to bodily autonomy. How does the autonomy of the fetus affect the autonomy of the person carrying them? The fetus is free to do what it wants, just as the woman is.
> Similarly, access to expensive and elective medical services is a privilege, not a right.
I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding of what a "right" is. It's not just something that you're guaranteed to get, but can also be something that nobody is allowed to ban you from. The second amendment doesn't mean that you can just waltz into a gun store and take what you want, does it?
They're just getting in on the game. The EU does it, various European countries do it, as well as India and others. About the only ones who don't get the special treatment are China and Iran.
So now US states are doing it. What do you expect? I should be able to run a website and if you don't want your people to see it, put up your great firewall or get fucked. But we decided to take a different path, where countries can charge companies and people for violating their laws when they've never set foot there and creators have to geoblock. And plenty deriding this move applauded it when it was their ideologies being protected.To those people: help us free the internet again or go cry in a corner about it. This is your fault.
So now US states are doing it. What do you expect? I should be able to run a website and if you don't want your people to see it, put up your great firewall or get fucked. But we decided to take a different path, where countries can charge companies and people for violating their laws when they've never set foot there and creators have to geoblock. And plenty deriding this move applauded it when it was their ideologies being protected.To those people: help us free the internet again or go cry in a corner about it. This is your fault.
The slippery slope of censorship.
However I am anti-abortion. I used to be pro abortion, I was a hardcore liberal just a few years ago, before covid (still not a Trump supporter, just rabidly apolitical now). And considering what the federal government has been doing censoring the right via tech platforms when it goes against their narratives.. aw shucks I can't get behind censorship.
Sorry Texas.
However I am anti-abortion. I used to be pro abortion, I was a hardcore liberal just a few years ago, before covid (still not a Trump supporter, just rabidly apolitical now). And considering what the federal government has been doing censoring the right via tech platforms when it goes against their narratives.. aw shucks I can't get behind censorship.
Sorry Texas.
Censorship is inevitable to maintaining the power structure, the question is who controls the censorship and whether the approach taken to censorship makes the people strong or weak.
No I don't agree that censorship is inevitable. You are gonna need to back that argument up, nico.
Sounds like you have drunk deeply of some authoritarian rhetoric
Sounds like you have drunk deeply of some authoritarian rhetoric
Not saying censorship is bad or good I’m just saying it’s inevitable.