Have we all just completely forgotten the years of fighting for net neutrality? The very same net neutrality where we all have been arguing that sometimes even private companies shouldn't be allowed to arbitrarily filter whatever they want?
If all of the major ISPs launch their own email competitor and then go on to block Google, would you be singing the same tune? "It's okay because AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, and Charter are private institutions and are not obligated to do business with Google"? What if it turns out that the AT&T CEO is a Trump supporter, and he decides that anyone who has AT&T as an ISP will no longer be able to access any news site other than Fox News? "It's okay because AT&T is a private company and has no obligation to do business with the Washington Post"?
The entire argument for net neutrality is based on the premise that sometimes even private companies become so big that they become very similar to 'public utilities' and it is absolutely in the public interest to force those companies to not arbitrarily filter whatever they feel like.
You can argue that Cloudflare, or a bank, or whoever doesn't fit this definition, but you can't both be for something like net neutrality while simultaneously spouting this argument that "private companies can do whatever they want". We have literally centuries of laws that specifically say that no, companies cannot do whatever they want just because they are private.
You're mixing up net neutrality with freedom of speech issues. Net Neutrality seeks to regulate IP packet filtering and prevent transport providers from selling premium services ("fastlanes") to particular companies only. What content those companies deliver or (re-)transmit is not regulated by net neutrality at all.
I'm saying this not because I disagree with your position, but mainly because this confusion was dominating the debate in the US and was to some extent a deliberate strawman pushed by the opponents of net neutrality.
Incorrect , net neutrality also required that ISPs not block.
A lot of pro net neutrality people didn’t really understand what they were arguing for, I think, since the same people will turn around and argue that ISPs should be able to censor content they don’t like.
“A person engaged in the provision of fixed broadband Internet access service, insofar as such person is so engaged, shall not block lawful content, applications, services, or non-harmful devices, subject to reasonable network management.“
The point remains that the OP mischaracterized net neutrality. What is important is that net neutrality only concerns transport of IP packets. Content providing companies and web site owners can moderate, block, or censor content as they like and as they deem fit. They have done so in the past under net neutrality, do so in countries with net neutrality laws, and are doing it now in the US without net neutrality.
The two issues are frequently mixed up, hence my comment.
On a side note, I've never heard anyone argue that ISPs should block content, that seems like a strawman to me, but I guess if you just search hard enough you can find someone on the Internet who argued for that nonsense.
> lawful content
Good point, that's compatible with restrictions of freedom of speech due to declaring certain kind of content illegal, and clearly illustrates that the two issues are different from each other. Yet people confuse them again and again, and additionally almost always base their arguments on a false dichotomy or on fallacious slippery slope arguments.
8chan is lawful content. Vile, hateful content, but completely lawful. They comply with DMCA and moderate to remove illegal material. If they didn’t, the FBI could already have had them pulled offline just like they do to ISIS websites.
The logical end to deplatforming is arguing that ISPs should be able to block or decline customers based on the content they are hosting. Otherwise a customer can buy business-class internet and host their immoral content themselves on a server farm in their home, which takes away the whole point of deplatforming which is to make the content no longer available on the internet.
> The logical end to deplatforming is arguing that ISPs should be able to block or decline customers based on the content they are hosting.
Not at all. That's an obvious strawman.
You're mischaracterizing what's going on there. If I run a company, it is my right not to make business with radical hate groups and terrorists. They will be someone else's problem then.
That's exactly the reason that Cloudflare has given, not some nebulous talk about "deplatforming".
> which is to make the content no longer available on the internet
LOL. That is decidedly not the purpose of deplatforming, as the word "de-platforming" readily suggests.
> the FBI could already have had them pulled offline just like they do to ISIS websites
It is obvious to me as an outside observer that the FBI applies justice selectively. Domestic terrorism is underrated. Of course, 8chan could be raided and closed for the same reasons as ISIS websites are raided and closed. The laws are there and 8chan could easily be considered aiding and fostering domestic terrorism. The laws are just not applied in this case.
It's also kind of 'reasonable' not to apply them as harshly, since US judges and juries suffer from the same bias. They are unlikely to judge of some deranged gun nut that he was planning or aiding a terrorist attack. They are highly likely to judge of some deranged ISIS sympathizer that he was planning or aiding a terrorist attack. Police authorities make the call on what to pursue and what not to pursue based on the prospects of a successful trial.
>If I run a company, it is my right not to make business with radical hate groups and terrorists. They will be someone else's problem then.
This type of thing is possibly one of the hardest ethical issues to tackle. On the one hand, I don't support racists and fascists at all. But on the other hand, I recognize the potential damage in carving out these exceptions in free speech. As social mores change, the ideas of "acceptable" free speech may change, and we need to be cognizant of the ways that these exceptions could be abused long term. Otherwise, we're just setting up future generations for a collapse of the concept of freedom of speech.
I think the answer to solving hate and bigotry goes much, much deeper than preventing people from speaking their hateful and bigoted views. All that's going to do is sweep the problem under the rug, and eventually that problem will come back out some orders of magnitude worse. Perhaps we could do things like make it illegal to teach kids hate and bigotry? But then you've got the entirety of America mad at you because you're "telling people how to raise their kids". Mere advocacy against bullying and hate doesn't really seem to be working.
I think we'll see better gains in this area when we stop trying to find the first thing we can to "blame" these mass shooting on, and arguing endlessly about what that cause is (guns, video games, unrestricted freedom of speech, etc). We need to dig deep. I think if we understood more on the topic of mental health, we'd have a better chance at understanding these situations.
> On a side note, I've never heard anyone argue that ISPs should block content, that seems like a strawman to me, but I guess if you just search hard enough you can find someone on the Internet who argued for that nonsense.
Well, it's been going on for years in the Netherlands, where the Pirate Bay, almost all of its proxies, and a couple of non-TPB torrent sites are being blocked at the ISP level. It used to be a relatively simple to circumvent DNS block (the ISPs didn't really want to, either), but they've gotten better at it and now if it's blocked, the site is either gone, unless a specific proxy for it exist (or you use a VPN).
To tie it back to the US again, the reason this happened is because of a Dutch lobbying group (Brein) that is funded by and works directly for the gigantic US content industry and rightholders (there are maybe a few Dutch artists attached to them , but they are a mere drop in budget).
Net neutrality is deeply entangled with freedom of speech issues. In fact one of the ISP's main arguments against it is that it violates their 1st amendment rights.
>but you can't both be for something like net neutrality while simultaneously spouting this argument that "private companies can do whatever they want".
One can definitely pick and choose what you want to support, all those laws did exactly the same. Charities are 'picked and chosen' not to pay taxes, even though they are basically private companies. I don't see a contradiction between supporting net neutrality and supporting Cloudflare's decision.
>We have literally centuries of laws that specifically say that no, companies cannot do whatever they want just because they are private
We have literally centuries of law stating that 'Neo-Nazi White Supremacists' isn't a protected class, hence can be refused service.
If and when this is abused by companies causing real problems which society thinks is unacceptable, new laws will be passed restricting discriminating against neo-Nazis.
Maybe write to your local congressman and senator asking them to pass a law forcing Cloudflare to serve neo-Nazis.
>ISPs use the public's right of way and air wave spectrum licenses, so I don't think they're good examples.
And Cloudflare's business is similarly dependent on these very same rights of way and spectrums. So why shouldn't they be subject to the same restrictions?
Hint: it's because the argument for net neutrality has nothing to do with the ISP's usage of ROW or public spectrum, and everything to do with the effect that it would have on society if ISPs were allowed to arbitrarily filter whatever they want.
What's funny about this is that I actually don't need to make this argument, because Cloudflare's CEO Matthew Prince has already made it for me. The entire blog post that he wrote [1] when Daily Stormer was taken off CF is one big explanation of why companies like Cloudflare having the ability to arbitrarily filter sites is bad. That didn't seem to stop him, I guess.
> Due Process requires that decisions be public and not arbitrary. It's why we've always said that our policy is to follow the guidance of the law in the jurisdictions in which we operate. Law enforcement, legislators, and courts have the political legitimacy and predictability to make decisions on what content should be restricted. Companies should not.
>And Cloudflare's business is similarly dependent on these very same rights of way and spectrums. So why shouldn't they be subject to the same restrictions?
In order for them to win, you'll have to ignore the fact that when they created a CloudFlare account, they agreed that CloudFlare had the right to terminate such services for any or no reason.
However, this was a problem when Visa and Paypal cut off donations to Wikileaks. It was actually quite hard for them for a while to get donations in, even though there were plenty of people willing to donate.
Certain banks and their services (e.g. wire transfer), as well as payment providers should be treated like public utilities, especially when they have quasi-monopolies. The same for ISPs in areas in which there is only one or two, and other large companies with quasi-monopolies like Google, Apple and Microsoft. I don't think this applies to companies like Reddit or Cloudflare, though, for which there are easy and widely used substitutes.
Are there easy and widely used substitutes for Cloudflare's DDoS protection?
Because a big reason why I think this is bad is because I thought there are in fact no realistic alternatives to Cloudflare's protection.
If there are alternatives, then I am also in the camp of "okay they can decide who to do business with or not".
But I was under the impression that, if you are a controversial website, at a certain size (not even that big, depending on your enemies) you are likely to draw DDoS attacks of a severity that only Cloudflare can realistically protect against. The DDoS attacks being relatively cheap for whoever orders them.
> No. Because they are a public utility and that would be a violation of the first amendment.
> Yes. Because they are a private institution and not obligated to do business with you.
That's some pretty strong dissonance there. Here in Indiana, the utilities AND banks are all private entities. And there's no actual state or federal law that would prevent a utility from cutting utilities for "being and speaking of white nationalism". I chose my examples carefully - all are much more regulated than some Walmart or Target or Amazon.
My larger discussion was that over very corporate autonomy. Who made them arbiters of what language was acceptable? Why should infrastructure companies be decision makers of what is said online? Years ago, we restricted the phone companies from doing that very thing - and they wanted dearly to forbid classes of speech. Yet somehow when it's "on the interwebz" we throw those ideas and rules out, all so that someone can make a bigger pile of dollars.
Don't forget, cloudflare is a US company. There's absolutely 0 reason why they can't be considered an infrastructure company and subject to common carrier rules as well. Or the counter-offer is they can be responsible for speech over their network. I doubt they'd like that either. After all, they're still hosting piles of stressers and ddos merchants.
> Here in Indiana, the utilities AND banks are all private entities.
It's likely there's one (or at most, a small handful) of each utility enjoying a state-supported monopoly, even if it's technically run by a private company. The same is not true for banks - I can sign up for one of hundreds of nationwide or online banks even if all the local ones decide I'm an ass.
>That's some pretty strong dissonance there. Here in Indiana, the utilities AND banks are all private entities. And there's no actual state or federal law that would prevent a utility from cutting utilities for "being and speaking of white nationalism". I chose my examples carefully - all are much more regulated than some Walmart or Target or Amazon.
I don't see a dissonance. If and when banks and utilities start cutting off neo-Nazis, the public and politicians may find that unpalatable and pass laws restricting it. Or may not. The fact that isn't happening right now means no unnecessary laws are required.
If and when society and politicians feel that Cloudflare shouldn't be able to not serve 8chan, it will pass a law doing so. Call your congressman and senator.
>Years ago, we restricted the phone companies from doing that very thing - and they wanted dearly to forbid classes of speech
No, [1] the bakery that paid $135,000 in fines, went bankrupt, and is stll bound by the lower courts decision because SCOTUS only remanded the case back to a lower court.
And yeah, they might ultimately win... if you want to call that winning.
> and is stll bound by the lower courts decision because SCOTUS only remanded the case back to a lower court.
Wrong, they are not bound by the lower court decision, because the Supreme Court vacated the judgement and remanded the case for further consideration in light of the SCOTUS ruling in Masterpiece Cakeshop (as stated in the order linked from the source you linked), because that decision set relevant precedent which the lower court did not consider in its judgement (for timing reasons, as the lower court decision predates Masterpiece Cakeshop, I believe.)
No. Because they are a public utility and that would be a violation of the first amendment.
> Should that mean that a bank can refuse to give you a loan, because you said something bad, even if your credit is more than acceptable?
Yes. Because they are a private institution and not obligated to do business with you.
There are very simple rules at play here...