
Post-SESTA/FOSTA Self-Censoring for Twitter, Reddit, and Other Social Media - rhema
http://titsandsass.com/post-sesta-fosta-self-censoring-for-twitter-reddit-and-other-social-media/
======
noam87
Perfect time to start moving (and contributing) to decentralized services.

I've been following the development of
[https://beakerbrowser.com](https://beakerbrowser.com) and I really hope it
captures wider attention. -- It's not just super user friendly already, it's
actually easier to set up a Beaker website than one on the regular net
(literally one click).

~~~
wtfstatists
What are you going to do when decentralization/encryption/etc itself become
illegal ?

~~~
mirimir
How well has the War on Drugs worked?

~~~
arpa
Ask the people arrested and jailed for posession of cannabis. I mean, both you
and the parent comment are right: we, the people, shall resist; but we, the
people, must also do our best to prevent such legislation come to pass.

~~~
mirimir
Yes, I agree.

My point was that marijuana has remained popular in the US, despite several
decades of draconian suppression. But perhaps people won't care so much about
freedom of expression online.

------
huffmsa
Yeah, let's outlaw public, centralized, easy to track and target forms of
communication about sex work! If we don't let people talk about it where we
can see it, it must mean people aren't doing it!

No way they'll just move to loosely structured, encrypted p2p networks.

"Sponsored by Senators Portman, Blumenthal, McCain, McCaskill, Cornyn, and
Heitkamp"

Luddites.

------
cft
Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut), a cosponsor of the bill, derided
Craigslist's announcement. “If Craigslist is really telling us that they can’t
run a page on their website without knowingly facilitating sex trafficking,
that would certainly be a damning admission,” he said in a statement

[https://www.wired.com/story/craigslist-shuts-personal-ads-
fo...](https://www.wired.com/story/craigslist-shuts-personal-ads-for-fear-of-
new-internet-law/)

~~~
propman
Like everyone knows, it's not that they can't, it's just no longer economical
for them to do so. I dislike this linear thinking from our politicians and
surprisingly it's often not for show or the media. Some of them truly believe
that, but it's mostly in the House not the Senate.

They've been trying to pass something like this for years and I remember
reading about this back in the day and actually feeling neutral with the bill
if they were able to do it the right way. Given the power of the internet
giants I assumed that that would happen, but I guess not. This was awful
implementation.

There is a bright side. Now within the new law, this gives a small business a
good opportunity to create something similar while testing the legal grounds.
If you try hard to prevent all sex trafficking/illegal activity, will the law
bend and allow some leeway? Now that many sites are exiting the personals
market, it's a good time to try. The advantages these sites had were not due
to UI or tech features, but due to wide adaptability so this means it could be
a free for all and one business could create a vastly greater user experience
because those sites had no reason to innovate.

Do I have the guts to do it? No way. The penalties are too scary and any
prosecuter trying to make a name for themselves could destroy anyone's
reputation and life.

~~~
nickpp
>Now within the new law, this gives a small business a good opportunity

No. Laws and regulations are never a good environment for startups. Big Cos,
on the other hand love them. Until they become too much even for them.

~~~
Fnoord
> Big Cos, on the other hand love them.

I suppose because they're on obstacle for smaller competitors (small
companies, NPOs, startups).

------
random4369
It's sad how little progress we've made in terms of freedom of speech and
expression. In the 1800s the church was the censorship machine, with sex as
the main vector. Today it's the government, still with sex as the main vector.

~~~
SiempreViernes
What are you talking about, black people can vote, gay people can marry, but
there has hardly been any freedom of speech progress since 1800?

~~~
Afforess
The US has made negative progress on sexual liberation on the whole of
history. Prostitution was common and generally legal in the late 1700's and
1800's. The temperance movements in the late 1800's and early 1900's (yes, the
same movement that caused the 18th amendment) led to the illegalization of sex
work and other vices. America has not yet recovered from this criminalization,
despite being one hundred years in the past.

~~~
jonathanyc
Are you seriously saying that prostitution having become mostly illegal is a
greater setback to sexual liberation than all the other advances we have made
with regards to women’s rights? (For example, women being able to legally
resist having sex with their husbands?)

~~~
hueving
From a public behavior perspective, yes we have regressed. Women's rights are
much better but you can show someone getting violently murdered on TV easier
than you can show a tit.

~~~
SiempreViernes
Look, just such a simple fact women who are raped by their husbands can
actually call and expect to be defended is to me obviously much more important
than the fact that the tits on some statues are censored when shown on tv.

~~~
hueving
Textbook false dichotomy. Freedom of expression is about as related to rape as
it is to the right to a trial.

~~~
truj
No. A dichotomy is mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive. Since there is
no suggestion of such a relationship between women's rights and nudity no
dichotomy is presented. Which therefor can't be false.

~~~
hueving
Poster is implying it's a dichotomy by pretending that better women's rights
is proof that sexual expression has improved. The implication is that you
either admit expression is better because we have women's rights or you admit
you were wrong. False dichotomy.

~~~
truj2
> Poster is implying it's a dichotomy by pretending that better women's rights
> is proof that sexual expression has improved.

No, they are specifically saying that expression has improved because the
improvements in women's rights are more important than the restrictions or
regression of nudity. There is simply no dichotomy there. In fact saying that
it is "more important" suggests that restrictions in nudity is also a factor.
Again, not a dichotomy.

> The implication is that you either admit expression is better because we
> have women's rights or you admit you were wrong.

No, you can acknowledge that we have women's rights and still think we have
regressed. But for that to be true you would have to argue what is more
important than the improvements in women's rights. Otherwise you would be the
one making a false dichotomy by claiming that things can't have improved
because one thing hasn't.

------
AFNobody
Exactly as planned. The goal is creating chilling effects that create self-
censorship to be reasonably sure you are safe. And this will begin a slippery
slope of "questionable" court cases until they find where the line is.

They just had to wrap it up in a noble cause, much like false patriots wrap
themselves up in flags.

Businesses selling any controlled good are now being censored "just to be
safe" and try to avoid further legal pushes to add more things to the list.

Can we stop pretending this wasn't the goal now?

~~~
noobermin
The thing that gets me is how people who drafted and supported these bills
probably did it with the best of intentions. Most people who support these
laws want to help individuals who are sex workers. However, it seems none of
them actually talked to any actual sex workers here and some are even
_actively ignoring_ their voices.

~~~
syshum
No they did not support it with the Best of Intentions...

I quote the EFF

"While we can’t speculate on the agendas of the groups behind SESTA, we can
study those same groups’ past advocacy work. Given that history, one could be
forgiven for thinking that some of these groups see SESTA as a mere stepping
stone to banning pornography from the Internet or blurring the legal
distinctions between sex work and trafficking."

[https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/03/how-congress-
censored-...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/03/how-congress-censored-
internet)

I 100% agree with the EFF analysis of the motivations. This is the first
battle in a bigger war over free speech, Free Speech has lost this battle, I
hope we do not lose the war

~~~
erric
Sadly, it’s already been lost.

~~~
colordrops
Not yet. Fuck the US government, and Fuck Donald Trump. See? That wouldn't fly
in a lot of countries. We are still mostly free. We need to gain back lost
freedoms, and continue to defend the ones we've got.

------
dEnigma
Here is an Internet Archive link, since the site seems to be down right now:

[https://web.archive.org/web/20180324231954/http://titsandsas...](https://web.archive.org/web/20180324231954/http://titsandsass.com/post-
sesta-fosta-self-censoring-for-twitter-reddit-and-other-social-media/)

~~~
colordrops
Speaking of which, how long until the Internet Archive becomes a target due to
illegal content? That's when the book burning allegories will start hitting
close to home...

~~~
mirimir
It already _is_ a target. I recall that issues of Dabiq (ISIS' magazine)
routinely disappeared.

------
merinowool
Do I understand correctly, the land of the free has appointed a bunch of
authoritarians who push for censorship like in the peak of communism, the very
thing America tried to fight for years? How is that not a treason? Why those
people are not locked up?

~~~
acobster
Money.

------
zaroth
You can see already the huge failure of this policy, before it has even become
law. The clearly unconstitutional aspects of the law, and the chilling effect
is tremendous.

The wrong thing to do is to run and hide.

The best response is to find ways to weaponize the law against more powerful
groups to create a backlash.

~~~
cctt23
Wait to judge on running and hiding until the inevitable cases reach the
Supreme Court. Congress can pass any law, but that doesn’t mean it will stand.

------
m1el
Does FOSTA apply to VPS providers?

Do VPS providers have to be wary of what sort of tenants they host?

Edit:

What if I rent a VPS and host a porn site?

~~~
venatiodecorus
I'm pretty sure that was already against lots of TOS, and if it was illegal
porn....already illegal.

------
wereHamster
It's the internet. Why is it so hard to move your website to a different
jurisdiction?

~~~
kenny87
yeah like kim dotcom? being located in one country is no defense against
committing a crime another country.

~~~
Fnoord
Depends on the country. "The other Kim" is still around.

------
cf498
Is there a list of lobby or non lobby groups who pushed for SESTA/FOSTA?

------
zerostar07
I can't think of a better gift to truly-uncensorable platforms.

