
We Are At War For A Free And Open Internet - cft
https://medium.com/@getongab/we-are-at-war-for-a-free-and-open-internet-426629fba4bf
======
psyc
Seems like a lot of people are right on board with Internet-wide censorship by
community standards. I'm very disappointed that so many have chosen to cast
the problem only in terms of bad people posting bad things. You've missed the
whole point.

I've conducted some research in the past into how to solve this simple
problem: how to reliably host potentially offensive content, given the content
is legal in the US. I concluded it's currently infeasible. All US hosts are
responsive to mobs, and all hosts that market themselves as "pro free speech"
are in jurisdictions with a variety of "hate speech" or "anti insult" laws.

I've concluded that the only way forward is probably a P2P web.

Given this is Hacker News, I wish that people wanted to talk about that sort
of thing, rather than, as has happened here, bikeshedding about what those
global community standards should be in our personal opinions.

~~~
idle_zealot
I've seen a handful of p2p internet solutions pop up, but all seem immature.
Is there one in particular that you have hopes for?

~~~
psyc
Not really. It's a commonly proposed application for blockchains, but calling
most of those immature would actually be generous. The only one I'm aware of
is Substratum, but I honestly don't know whether it's a fly-by-night ICO or
not.

------
throwanem
For those perhaps unfamiliar with the context, this is another example of
Andrew Anglin making a base and pointless personal attack against Heather
Heyer, the woman killed in the violence surrounding the Charlottesville rally
a few weeks ago.

It's interesting to watch Anglin continue to force people in his vicinity to
choose between compromising on principle and defending the utterly
indefensible. One wonders what he hopes to accomplish, and even more what
anyone else might hope to achieve by continuing to tolerate his presence - I
get that quoting Niemoller is somewhat popular in this connection, but I don't
see how the situations are parallel when this one revolves around a person who
appears to have no greater aim in his public behavior than simply to bring
about whatever ruin he can find a way to produce.

I don't know. Perhaps he has a point to make about the tension between freedom
of speech and relative oligopoly over the notionally public forum in which
such speech can most productively be published. If so, he's picked the worst
way in the world to do it, because by making himself a stench in the nostrils
of civilization he only adds strength to the argument that the very concept of
freedom of speech is one which has outlived its usefulness and merits
deprecation in favor of a restricted realm beyond which suppression is the
universally acknowledged default. That's the _most_ charitable interpretation
of his actions that I'm capable of constructing - but not one in which I
especially confide.

~~~
notyourday
The _only_ speech that needs protection is the icky speech. Absolutely no one
cares to suppress palatable, well meaning, everyone agrees to it speech.

~~~
throwanem
It's possible to fail "palatable, well meaning, everyone agrees to it",
without also meeting or even approaching the nonpareil standard of general
worthlessness to which Anglin seems at such pains to hold himself.

The matter is in any case also, I think primarily, one of pragmatism. Even the
most hard-line free speech absolutist can't defend Anglin without being made
radioactive by mere association; thus, by his actions, he forces everyone
around him to choose between principle and livelihood. It seems to me little
wonder that everyone of import chooses the latter.

~~~
angersock
> It seems to me little wonder that everyone of import chooses the latter.

"First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out--because I was
not a Socialist" and so forth. And no, the irony is not lost on me.

Systems-minded people not blinded by ideology have natural sympathies to those
causes, because the same mechanisms used to justify punching Nazis and kicking
fascists off the internet _can just as easily_ be turned against things that
_we_ care about.

~~~
throwanem
Absolutism has the virtue of simplicity, to be sure. The human world, in my
experience, has not.

~~~
stcredzero
_Absolutism has the virtue of simplicity, to be sure. The human world, in my
experience, has not._

The judicial system is pragmatically absolutist in its operation. It's quite
complicated, it's not perfect, but it does work. The system of rights it's
constructed on is necessary to prevent tyranny. Look up and read the history
around the Magna Carta and the founding of the United States.

------
CM30
Perhaps the solution may be to treat domain registrars as common carriers and
bar them from taking down customer domains based on anything that's legal in
their country. Similar thing may need to be done for web hosting, since
without web hosting and domain registrations a viable (read, independent with
free speech) internet presence can't be established nowadays.

~~~
jerkstate
I've been pointing out that some of the same organizations who have been
lobbying for net neutrality as an anti-censorship necessity are leading the
charge of censoring reprehensible speech. It seems pretty short-sighted, but
luckily for them, the mob tends to have a short memory, so they will probably
still be able to cast net neutrality as anti-censorship at the next
opportunity, and still exclude themselves from the regulated parties.

------
Rotten194
FWIW, I found the original post on the Wayback Machine and it's pretty gross:
[http://i.imgur.com/NYJiQXc.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/NYJiQXc.jpg) (I pixelated
the face, was fully in view before)

Taking someone's Tinder picture and sharing it on the internet to mock them is
harassment (especially nowadays when software can take a person's face and
look up their social media profiles). Say what you will about free speech, but
this isn't a hill I particularly care about dying on.

~~~
lanevorockz
End of free speech is just one step a way of ending personal thought and
individuality.

~~~
confounded
"Free speech" is freedom from government reprisals. Nothing in the article
relates to this, merely that private companies wish not to support Neo-
fascists.

You can be upset about this, but please don't confuse it with Freedom of
Speech.

~~~
cgore
Freedom of Speech is a basic human right. Like the right to life, liberty, and
property. Can SuperMegaCorp, Inc. decide to murder me? They're not the US
Federal Government after all, so they aren't infringing on my Freedom of Life.

~~~
confounded
> _Can SuperMegaCorp, Inc. decide to murder me?_

No. But they're free to have terms of service. I don't see how this is
relevant.

------
gfosco
What would it take to avoid this kind of censorship?... One possible route: a
new TLD specifically based on free speech principles. That's not a perfect
solution either, because you'd have to trust that organization and all its
future owners to keep it that way.

~~~
nippples
> What would it take to avoid this kind of censorship?

Decentralization & p2p technologies

~~~
programmarchy
For anyone wondering, looks like Namecoin and the .bit domain could be a
potential solution. It's still a huge barrier for non-technical folk though,
and censored content won't show up on search engines.

------
steventhedev
Why are they doing business through some 3rd party registrar and not through
the official anguillan registrar?

Not to mention #36 in the FAQ[0], which pretty clearly states they only
disallow outright illegal behavior.

[0]: [https://whois.ai/faq.html](https://whois.ai/faq.html)

~~~
rsynnott
Depends what the complaint the registrar got, but it could well have been a
complaint of criminal harassment, given the content.

~~~
steventhedev
RTA. It was an obscenity complaint. Gab usually tags it NSFW, which they
normally do, but in this case they got an existential threat to their
business.

It's also not like AsiaRegistry makes things cheaper. Using whois.ai directly
you only spend 100 to renew every 2 years, not 200.

------
JediWing
Title: "We Are At War For A Free And Open Internet" Domain: "medium.com"

Irony meter rating: off charts

~~~
davisjung
Why?

------
orasis
This post is about AsianRegistry. I use 101domain for my .ai domain. I assume
I'm immune from AsianRegistry's influence? Can anyone confirm?

------
Jaruzel
From the article:

    
    
      The free and open internet as we know it is under attack. 
    

Yes, not only from those agencies listed, but from Doxxers, Spammers,
RevengePorners, and various other online trollers.

We will never have a 'free and open internet' until humanity grows up and
people like the above evolve into more socially-inclusive human beings.

Unfortunately, I can never see that happening. What will happen is the slow
loss of anonymity across the internet, where all new signups require id
verification or the use of a 3rd party 'trusted' authentication provider.

On one hand, I think this may be a good thing - regardless of where you do it,
you should be liable for any offensive behaviour you do that upsets other
people. However on the other hand where do all the whistle blowers and free
speech advocates go? It's a tricky balance, but one things for sure, anonymous
online trolling is the reason why we can't have nice [internet] things...

~~~
moomin
It's got to the point where "free speech" has become a dog whistle for the
alt-right. Taking the concept back from them is going to be hard.

~~~
angersock
> _It 's got to the point where "free speech" has become a dog whistle for the
> alt-right._

Because pride parades and Occupy protests don't benefit from free speech at
all, right?

It's more concerning to see the meme of "I don't like what these people say so
I'm going to add the 'dogwhistle' tag to it so other Right Thinking people
will know to avoid/condemn it without engaging properly".

Free speech is critical to the success (such as it is) of the United States
today. Deciding to self-cripple because some small groups we don't like are
using it is absurd.

~~~
moomin
You're kind of making my point for me. Occupy protestors regularly got
assaulted and arrested. To the best of my knowledge, none of them murdered a
woman with a car.

As I say, it's not about speech. Speech is just a dog-whistle for what this is
really about.

------
DiNovi
Not shocking nazis can take something people might agree with them on and then
twist the knife into something super gross, like being an apologist for
murder.

------
jkelsey
Here we go with another nazi attempt to lecture us on civil liberties. If they
had more political power (and I shudder at the notion), they would be the
first ones to clamp down on speech and free expression (it's kinda their
thing).

We have more pressing free speech matters at hand right now with authoritarian
states and corporate monopolies. Nazis don't get a free ride on the hard work
being done just so they can turn the gun around on us when they have power. We
recognize racism and sexism for what it is, and don't let it distract us from
building a better society for us all.

Do we have to reference the xkcd comic again?

~~~
stcredzero
Please don't. I think Monroe has fallen down as a speaker of truth. If Free
Speech is suppressed through societal pressure, it's just as bad as the
government doing it. The mechanisms Monroe trumpets were once used to suppress
LGBT people, Jewish people, and Black people. The kind of society he wants is
just as authoritarian and socially stifling as Victorian society -- it just
fits his particular tastes. XKCD of all people should know better.

~~~
jkelsey
> If Free Speech is suppressed through societal pressure, it's just as bad as
> the government doing it.

You're confusing the market of free ideas with speech. Governments have
militaries and police forces. Societies have public opinion. Are you
suggesting that societies shouldn't have the ability to guide themselves by
rejecting speech that is harmful to itself (i.e. racist/sexist dogma
perpetuated by a majority that wants to get rid of its minorities)?

Honestly, this all sounds like nihilism which I know is all the currently all
the rage to wealthy and white Silicon Valley, but I'm sure your perspective
will be altered if you should ever be unfortunate to have nazis start
targeting you.

~~~
stcredzero
_You 're confusing the market of free ideas with speech...Are you suggesting
that societies shouldn't have the ability to guide themselves by rejecting
speech that is harmful to itself_

I have seen many things which are touted as part of "the marketplace of ideas"
that are really attempts to skew speech in civil society through non-
governmental bureaucratic power. This is dishonest. It's not a real
"marketplace of ideas" when certain things are placed in an inaccessible part
of the store. We've seen this "technically not censorship" thing before. Noam
Chomsky helped bring it to the world's attention.

[http://a.co/658KATJ](http://a.co/658KATJ)

 _Honestly, this all sounds like nihilism which I know is all the currently
all the rage to wealthy and white Silicon Valley, but I 'm sure your
perspective will be altered if you should ever be unfortunate to have nazis
start targeting you._

I have been racially targeted by groups of poor whites. My perspective changed
when extreme elements on the left started behaving in much the same way. When
your "activism" starts depending on the magnitude of horribleness of the enemy
for its justification, this is a historical sign that something is out of
kilter. No one who says they can do anything, because they're less horrible
than some bad guys, gets to wield the special liminal power of activism in my
name. Groupthink is groupthink. It feels much the same way, no matter where it
is based on the political spectrum. The justified hate of White Supremacists
is much the same as hateful ideologues of a different stripe.

I abhor the nihilism of Silicon Valley, however, it's not a white phenomenon,
nor is it particular to one ethnic group. Shortly after I moved to the Bay
Area, I got to see a drunken self-styled startup nerd spill beer all over the
laptop of a cancer-patient female techie who was trying to get her life
together, then try to pretend he had nothing to do with it. (Pre-Obamacare, so
her life seemed pretty precarious. He thought it was a good idea to dive into
his bunk at the hacker hostel I was staying at.) He was proof by
counterexample that being white is not at all necessary for entitlement.

The nihilism of Silicon Valley and the Bay Area is mostly derived from the
nihilism of the Postmodernist left. We have as much to fear from the
radicalism of the left as the radicalism of the extreme Fascist right. Both of
those groups have in common collectivist and nihilistic ideologies that reject
logic and rationality. You only have to read the writings of the esoteric
thought leaders of both groups to see this. Therein lies the real danger. The
left-right spectrum is only incidental.

~~~
jkelsey
Perhaps nihilism was too strong a accusation, but I still fear your position
is leaving a loop hole open for nazis. Your case for logic and rationality
reads like the status quo should be left alone, which in our current
circumstances, tends to benefit whites (thus my remark). Groupthink may be
groupthink, but you know how we combat that – we fund public education. We
don't need to let nazis to empower themselves to guard against groupthink.

I must comment on this:

> When your "activism" starts depending on the magnitude of horribleness of
> the enemy for its justification, this is a historical sign that something is
> out of kilter.

To what activism are you referring to? My activism would be related to moving
closer to a society where the starting floor hasn't fallen out for others
based on class, race, and gender. Nazism, you know, kinda gets in the way of
that.

~~~
stcredzero
_I still fear your position is leaving a loop hole open for nazis._

The free speech loophole _has_ to be left open for _everybody_. The moment we
let someone arbitrate speech, we no longer have free speech.

 _We don 't need to let nazis to empower themselves to guard against
groupthink._

A right for everyone has to be a right for everyone. If you study what
happened in the rise of Fascism in the Weimar Republic, you'll find that it
was the left leaning Weimar Republic that put into place the legal framework
for Nazi totalitarianism. In almost every law that had to do with human
rights, the Weimar Republic put in a "unless necessary for the public good" or
"unless a law is passed to the contrary" clause. All the Nazis had to do was
to use those clauses.

Free Speech protects society as a whole against groupthink. Any minority, no
matter how small or unpopular, is protected. The moment you introduce Weimar
Republic style exceptions to those rights, you lose a society that is
protected against authoritarianism. Instead, you get a society that's just an
incubator for totalitarianism.

 _My activism would be related to moving closer to a society where the
starting floor hasn 't fallen out for others based on class, race, and gender.
Nazism, you know, kinda gets in the way of that._

Study the Weimar Republic. Explicit activism of the type you mention above
(following an ethos of "By Any Means Necessary") was precisely the kind that
set the stage for Nazis to come to power. Also, you should note that the
"floor" in the US, even for "groups disadvantaged by class, race, and gender"
is quite high in absolute terms. As Dinesh D'Souza's friend once observed, "I
want to come to a country where the poor people are fat and own VCRs." There
are people whose "floors have fallen out," but I don't think the existence of
Neo-Nazis has had much affect on them. Can you give me an example where people
demonstrating have made poor neighborhoods poorer? I can give you examples
where riots have done that, but those were not sparked by Neo-Nazis.

 _Groupthink may be groupthink, but you know how we combat that – we fund
public education._

The way to combat groupthink in the long term is to advance groups. One
interesting thing that Thomas Sowell brings up in his book _Race and Culture_
, is that Russians, Poles, and Italians started out having IQ score
disparities as large as those of US black communities, but caught up over the
time span of the 1st half of the 20th century. By 1950, the scores had
basically equalized. He also notes a study of black children of GIs growing up
in Germany, who showed comparable IQs to other children growing up there. Yes,
there is clearly systemic racism in the US. It can be seen in the rising crime
rates and decay of communities. (As a black man who was born in North Carolina
and went to school in Harlem, Thomas Sowell has an interesting personal take
on this.) I think it takes the form of incentives that encourage broken homes
and abet poverty. (This can be seen in an increase in the IQs of black
children in the early 20th century, which _ended and reversed_ after the
introduction of perverse incentives in the 1960's and 70's.) I think it takes
the form of politics which protects public schools and keeps market buying
power out of the hands of parents who want to help their children to advance.
If one studies immigrant groups, one finds a pattern of groups that advance
themselves _in spite_ of overt oppression codified into law and sometimes
enacted as violence. One also finds a pattern of groups, whose leaders keep
their people in cultural isolation in order to maintain their power. Such
patterns are found all over the world, and repeat themselves across cultures
and in different times. I think it should now be obvious such patterns are at
play in the US.

------
common_
"Free and Open Internet"

You mean, the network created by the US government for the use of military and
research institutions? The idea of the Internet as an anarchist state is a far
more temporary concept than that of the Internet as a regulated environment
where people are supposed to act with a sense of decency. Anyone who argues
otherwise is too young, or too ignorant, to know what they're talking about
... And it doesn't surprise me that most of these Internet trolls whining
about censorship were born in the 1980s and later.

~~~
ktta
That's a bit like saying men should hunt and women must raise children because
that what they were doing for a long time and that's what they were 'meant' to
do.

Internet is no longer a network for the US government and research
institutions.

