I've never understood the attitude that there should be zero nuance to free speech. That somehow we can't collectively look at the Christchurch manifesto and say, "that's over the line".
Yes, I believe there are laws that are unjustly applied, but this is a) not a law and b) so obviously different from any sort of edge case. The only people who think kiwifarms should exist are sociopaths.
There can be limits on speech and free speech. There are many places where we've agreed there should be limits on speech, for instance it's illegal to lie under oath, or to threaten someone with physical harm, or to falsely advertise.
Stupid thing to say, your countries Supreme Court constantly have thousands of lawyers arguing over the distinctions, definitions and interpretation of the 1A.
Plus, Cloudfare isnt the government and is quite explicitly NOT burdened by a legal requirement to protect any users free speech. The fuck are you on about?
Fraud isn't fraud unless someone's resources are stolen, conspiracy isnt conspiracy unless some unlawful act is imminent or has occurred. In both cases, its not the words that are illegal, it is tangible, observable real world actions that are.
The difference between fraud and a bad investment or a foolish purchase consists entirely in the worlds spoken/text written.
“The price is algorithmically guaranteed to go up.” vs “there is always risk involved in investing.” Even “pen flown on the space shuttle” vs. “pen designed by NASA.” Everything else can be identical but they are legally different.
You can commit conspiracy without actually doing the crime. And one criminal acting on his own vs a conspiracy can be a matter of planning and moral comfort, not just material assistance (I think, IANAL).
“the scope of banned speech: that which would be directed to and likely to incite imminent lawless action”.
Like harassing someone? Or like publishing someones personal information to attempt to have them harassed or hurt? Sounds like speech is a “real world action” that has observable effects… and oh, it looks like the courts may even have considered this…
"Directed" has a meaning. "Go do this thing" is directed.
Honestly I'm very skeptical of any accusation of harassment online, seeing as you can just block people. Maybe I've never experienced it and don't know. When I ehar the word harassment I think of showing up to someone's workplace, home, things where you can't avoid them. Sending them messages that can be blocked, I'm not so sure. But that's a tangent to the topic of our discussion.
Publishing someone's address and telling people to go to their home and harass or harm them is direct incitement. This is absolutely punishable, because it's more than speech, it's conspiring to commit real world action, as you said. I'm curious, if that's the sort of thing they do, has anyone been criminally charged or convicted for such behavior? I mean that genuinely, I'm trying to learn about all this kiwifarms stuff as much as I can.
So that's not cool, I don't see anyone saying "go to their home" in those screenshots but I get the implication. So my question is, when will there be criminal charges? If this is directed incitement it's criminal, has anyone been charged or convicted for it from kiwi farms?
Even if KF was cooperating with law enforcement(I think they were, or said they would comply): how long should some company choose to help KF continue though? Is it when criminal charges get filed? After someone is hurt? After someone is arrested? How many people being hurt or arrested is enough?
But this is just business - that is all this is, not a right, not a government, not a monopoly, not even an essential service. CF wants to cast themselves as some principled and righteous defender, but they are just a business that was finding it profitable to provide services to another business, and now they don’t.
Drone strikes and domestic spying have always had huge literal and figurative blast radiuses. Ask someone who is on the no fly list because they have the exceedingly common name of Mohammad.
Comparing the removal of 3 sites, all associated with terrorism and lone wolves, from one commercial provider to the atrocity that is imperial US might is an absurd juxtaposition.
I’ve never visited these sites, and I’m sure I’d find them generally repulsive. But: I’d also be willing to bet that this level of censorship will be used to suppress political dissent against the most crucial imperial PR narratives within the next five years.
The censorship will most likely be justified by labeling the people in question as domestic terrorists, fascists, anti-Semitic, homophobic, anti-trans, or otherwise bigoted and anti-science.
I'd put money on that. Your wager is "by September 2027, Cloudflare will remove sites critical of the imperial powers using hate speech as a cover for removing said critical content"?
I'd take that bet on a heartbeat. Cloudflare will absolutely remove others from their service in the next 5 years, but they will be kin to 8chan, the daily Stormer, and kiwi farms. As long as we can agree that none of them would satisfy the conditions of your bet.
Not necessarily CloudFlare itself, but narrative censorship moving up from the platform level to the infrastructure provider level.
The difficult part is how to agree that these sites are not “kin to 8chan, the daily Stormer, and kiwi farms.” Like I said: that will be the outward justification.
Look at how MAGA Republicans have been labeled violent fascists and domestic terrorists. Look at how the same labels were applied to the Canadian trucker protests. Very similar with anyone aligning with Russia in the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
> Look at how MAGA Republicans have been labeled violent fascists and domestic terrorists. Look at how the same labels were applied to the Canadian trucker protests. Very similar with anyone aligning with Russia in the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
A number of these people legitimately are domestic terrorists. Domestic terror groups helped setup Jan 6 and the trucker protests. If you attend events setup by domestic terror groups, well, there's a good saying: "If there’s a Nazi at the table and 10 other people sitting there talking to him, you got a table with 11 Nazis."
That’s an idiotic saying which justifies criminalizing hundreds of thousands if not millions of people for something they have no control over. In none of the cases that I mentioned are these ideologies anything but an extremely fringe and non-influential minority.
Is it so impossible to imagine that it was arranged for some of these fringe individuals to appear and then be over-represented in media coverage? What easier way is there of immediately discrediting an anti-establishment popular movement in the minds of witless liberals? Let’s recall that the funding and utilization of Nazi and extremist groups by five eyes intelligence agencies around the world is well documented.
I'd take Democratic but imperfect over authoritarian any day. The company can also tell you how to "cut your grass", only you have no say at all in their leadership.
My union is fighting to raise my stake in the business I work for. Even if that means there are a couple new rules from the union it's still a hugely net positive.
Presumably these are the arguments that led to the HOAs? ‘More democratic’, ‘everyone has a say’, etc. In practice it’s a tyranny of the majority, right? Same in a union, the majority have power and may act against your interests.
I constantly run into situations where I spend money in ways that are financially non optimal, but socially good (in my mind).
An easy to understand example is, I believe I should pay more in taxes and everyone as wealthy as I am should too.
I rent an apartment, but I rent it out at the cost it takes to maintain it in good condition, because I think profiting off rent is unethical. This means I'm generally renting much much cheaper than local rents, and my tenants can therefore build savings.
No, I don't think you understand. I'm not charging below market rate, I'm charging at cost. Whatever it takes to maintain the building and provide utilities, etc. The space is worth, perhaps, $2400 a month. My last tenant paid $600 a month. She needed a place to stay for a year while she built up a down payment. Being able to stay with us meant she could save tens of thousands and she was able to embark on her own.
Could I have charged $1000 and pocketed a little profit? Of course. But it would have come directly at her ability to succeed. I think that's deeply unethical. I think it's morally repugnant to profit from housing.
But the point is that I believe we should all chip in more to help each other out. If you make, eg, $750k a year like I do an increase in taxes isn't really going to hurt your ability to live comfortably. I'm confident I could travel anywhere in the world, buy a second home, etc. I could still do those things if I payed more in taxes. Just... Not as often.
Yes, I believe there are laws that are unjustly applied, but this is a) not a law and b) so obviously different from any sort of edge case. The only people who think kiwifarms should exist are sociopaths.