Nazism is the easy target. The precedence is removal of something legal by a moral/social decision by a corporate entity. This is dangerous.
In the 50s, had they had internet, it could be leftist or communist sympathizers' blogs (under the red scare). In the 60s it could be blacks civil rights blogs (imagine a conservative southern CDN), In the 70s/80s it could be pro-gay writings. In the GWB era it could be criticism of various wars, etc - like the Dixie Chicks had their shows cancelled for speaking out.
It already includes all kind of right and left ideas stomped, if they don't agree not just with your local country morals, but what with Americans think those should be (this includes FB banning posts for "nudity" in 2020, as if we're in the Victorian era, or as if it's e.g. French users are ok with puritanism).
>>> Nazism is the easy target. The precedence is removal of something legal by a moral/social decision by a corporate entity. This is dangerous.
Do we want companies to do just what's legal or what's moral? in the end even laws are supposed to be trailing morality and disagreements are expected on what's moral and what's not.
This is again the same old debate of whether is some sort of fundamental right to be served by Cloudflare or have your content hosted by Twitter. I do not like all forms of censorship but I also don't want private companies to be forced to host just about any content people want to publish.
>Do we want companies to do just what's legal or what's moral?
Content hosting platforms I want them to merely do what's legal.
It's not up to them to make moral decisions.
They could still make those (moral decisions) in other areas, e.g. paying their employees a good salary and not exploiting them, paying taxes, and so on.
>This is again the same old debate of whether is some sort of fundamental right to be served by Cloudflare or have your content hosted by Twitter.
I think that's mostly a debate in US culture, where the concepts about censorship begin and end with what some founding Santas said 3 centuries ago and its all about what the state can and cannot do.
In 2020, platforms are more important than the state for censoring. They even have larger revenue than entire countries GDPs, and they are also operated by people promoting their own culture and national interests, while catering to an international audience of billions. It's the ultimate soft power space and has vastly eclipsed the "public square".
So, in 2020, as opposed to 1920 where the public square might have been enough, having access to something like Google or YouTube should be enforced as a legal right unless explicitly cut off by court order (as opposed by corporate whim).
Even economically, if you think about it, think how Google search ranking for example (or lack thereof) could sink companies globally at the whim of Google operators.
>>> Content hosting platforms I want them to merely do what's legal.
Well, one could argue that's what they're doing. Unless we make it illegal for them to make moral choices over content, they're merely doing what's legal and what they perceive in their best interest.
But, ok, I do kind of get your point and it seems you care just when it comes to content, as you still want them to make moral decisions in other areas (employee compensation). I guess that's what I find different from my expectations (I'm not from the USA btw). I am fine with them making moral decisions on the content hosted in their platforms, even if that means sometimes they may censor my own point of view, it's their platform after all and I can still host my content on my own. I know, is not where "everyone" is, but perhaps that's a good thing, if people is missing that content they can get it elsewhere. Perhaps is that I don't perceive Twitter or Cloudflare as essential as say, ISPs. I'd have an issue with an ISP snooping and making moral choices about what traffic to allow beyond what the law requires because is not like I can build my own internet as an alternative.
>>> So, in 2020, as opposed to 1920 where the public square might have been enough, having access to something like Google or YouTube should be enforced as a legal right unless explicitly cut off by court order (as opposed by corporate whim).
That's a good point and my view is somewhat swayed now, or at least I understand that point of view better. I usually don't pay attention to twitter or facebook which somewhat bias me to deem them as unimportant social noise.
>>> Even economically, if you think about it, think how Google search ranking for example (or lack thereof) could sink companies globally at the whim of Google operators.
Search (content discovery, not content hosting) I do find more inclined to believe should be pretty much impartial (beyond perhaps top results that are clearly marked as "sponsored"), but instead of expecting google doing the right thing, we should push clear legislation about it.
> I also don't want private companies to be forced to host just about any content people want to publish.
That's the thing - they're not being 'forced' to host content. They willingly offering a service to host all and any (at least legal) content. If they're no longer willing to do that, then they're no longer a neutral Internet service provider. They're a private publisher and morally opinionated content moderator, like Facebook. That makes them no longer a provider of 'free' and 'open' Internet.
Perhaps a solution that makes everyone happy is strong / privacy layered end-to-end DNS encryption in a way that Cloudflare never sees or can control the delivery and allocation of website addresses based on domain queries. Not sure if it's possible, but I'm thinking something like Tor .onion site HSDirs and lots of cryptography is involved.
Also, people should just filter out the content they don't want to see, instead of everyone being forced to agree on what's good or bad as if they're all in the same one-size-fits-all boat.
Nazism is the easy target. The precedence is removal of something legal by a moral/social decision by a corporate entity. This is dangerous.
In the 50s, had they had internet, it could be leftist or communist sympathizers' blogs (under the red scare). In the 60s it could be blacks civil rights blogs (imagine a conservative southern CDN), In the 70s/80s it could be pro-gay writings. In the GWB era it could be criticism of various wars, etc - like the Dixie Chicks had their shows cancelled for speaking out.
It already includes all kind of right and left ideas stomped, if they don't agree not just with your local country morals, but what with Americans think those should be (this includes FB banning posts for "nudity" in 2020, as if we're in the Victorian era, or as if it's e.g. French users are ok with puritanism).