Electric Frontier Foundation: Silencing "The Daily Stormer" Threatens Free Expression - Polidicks

[url]http://www.tomshardware.com/news/eff-daily-stormer-free-expression,35258.html[/url] [QUOTE]The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) criticized GoDaddy, Google, and Cloudflare's decisions to stop offering their services to The Daily Stormer neo-Nazi site. The digital rights organization said that effectively censoring The Daily Stormer could make it easier for companies to do the same with other, less obviously repugnant sites in the future, which could undermine the internet's ability to serve as a haven of free speech. A quick refresher: The Daily Stormer is a website devoted to the alt-right and neo-Nazis. Earlier this week, GoDaddy gave the site 24 hours to find another host. Google refused to host the site. Not long after, Cloudflare decided to remove The Daily Stormer from its distributed-denial of service (DDoS) attack mitigation service. These decisions (plus some alleged hacking from Anonymous) made it hard for the site to stay online.[/QUOTE] [QUOTE]As the EFF explained in its blog post about the issue:[QUOTE] [W]e strongly believe that what GoDaddy, Google, and Cloudflare did here was dangerous. That’s because, even when the facts are the most vile, we must remain vigilant when platforms exercise these rights. Because Internet intermediaries, especially those with few competitors, control so much online speech, the consequences of their decisions have far-reaching impacts on speech around the world.[/QUOTE] Private companies and organizations do control how most people use the internet, which allows them to control how people communicate with each other. Barring certain speech from their platforms limits that speech's ability to find an audience. It's easy to support the decision to stifle some of that speech when you're talking about a neo-Nazi site; it would be much harder if the same companies disallowed less damaging speech. That puts companies in the unenviable position of being accused of censorship if they don't allow hate speech on their platforms or of supporting that speech if they make sure it remains online. Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince addressed that issue when he explained that the company removed The Daily Stormer's access to its services because the site "made the claim that we were secretly supporters of their ideology."[/QUOTE] again, putting it here cause my baltimore thread was moved the other day so im assuming all the stuff related to that white nationalism rally stuff is supposed to be here

EFF, is this really the hill you wanna die on?

EFF has always been hardline like this. I don't know why anyone would be surprised. Hate speech has no place on a private service. Besides, there's plenty of smaller companies that would take them, or they could do their own self-hosting solution.

It's absolutely a slippery slope for companies to decide what you can and can't say, but I'm not even sure what the solution would be. You can't force companies to allow everything, they're not a public service, but if they did decide to start censoring more and more stuff there's nothing we could do about slipping away from free speech on the internet.

[QUOTE=Hilton;52587885]It's absolutely a slippery slope for companies to decide what you can and can't say, but I'm not even sure what the solution would be. You can't force companies to allow everything, they're not a public service, but if they did decide to start censoring more and more stuff there's nothing we could do about slipping away from free speech on the internet.[/QUOTE] i don't see why we can't draw the line at "self professed nazi propaganda"

[QUOTE=Hilton;52587885]It's absolutely a slippery slope for companies to decide what you can and can't say, but I'm not even sure what the solution would be. You can't force companies to allow everything, they're not a public service, but if they did decide to start censoring more and more stuff there's nothing we could do about slipping away from free speech on the internet.[/QUOTE] You have to address it with laws if you think it's worth it, similar like how segregation had to be ended, since companies can't really be expected to voluntarily do it since it's a poison they don't want to individually imbibe. Although, hosting it should be pretty easy. There's a lot of smaller server providers and re-sellers that won't particularly care what happens on their services. But I dunno how they'll do DNS registration if the big guys all tell them no. Props to the EFF for consistency by the way. I highly doubt they wanted to actually say this.

EFF, learn this: NAZISM IS NOT AN IDEOLOGY! Is a goddamn crime that devastated Europe. Is not free expression. Is a goddamn crime.

I think it's a super easy line to draw. It's like saying "companies banning people discussing child molestion is a slippery slope" I get the sentiment, but I think it's highly preemptive.

Claiming free expression is all fine and dandy until the line gets crossed and people start dying, and you have to step back and realize that this part of the argument isn't the most comfortably valid anymore.

Yeah, No. Hate speech does not fall under the category of freedom of speech. Does EFF really want another Hitler problem? Cause if they're worried about freedom of speech, then they should be downright afraid of giving nazis any kind of platform to stand on. Protect your freedom of speech EFF, stop being fucking imbeciles.

Just because people have the right to free speech doesnt mean web hosts have to host their vile garbage

People also criticized the ACLU for defending the charlottesville protests but they're not your coworker talking at the watercooler, they have very clear stances, this shouldn't surprise anyone.

[QUOTE=DiBBs27;52588032] Hate speech does not fall under the category of freedom of speech. .[/QUOTE] It actually does, in the US. It's just that freedom of speech applies to the government, not private services.

Please EFF, these are Nazis, they are opponents of free expression and a large part of everybody

they have the freedom to say it, and i have the freedom to tell them to fuck off

Well, the EFF isn't wrong about the issue, as it is one hell of a slippery slope to slide down once you start.

[QUOTE=Zerfenus;52588267]Well, the EFF isn't wrong about the issue, as it is one hell of a slippery slope to slide down once you start.[/QUOTE] When you're framing it in the context of nazis being refused a platform, your argument gets lost somewhat.

[QUOTE=Zerfenus;52588267]Well, the EFF isn't wrong about the issue, as it is one hell of a slippery slope to slide down once you start.[/QUOTE] They're at the very least completely off the mark with CloudFlare however. CloudFlare was going to let the Faily Stormer stay but then the retard who runs it decided it would be a great idea to publicly claim that CloudFlare secretly supports their views. And that's not even addressing the fact we're talking literal Nazis who preach genocide.

Incitements to violence are not covered under free speech laws, and Neo-Nazi shit-holes like the Daily Stormer do little but. The admin was openly stating that he "unequivocally condones" the "killing of children" to save them from leftist ideology, and hailed psychopaths like Anders Breivik as heroes of the White Race. He was calling for armed Nazi thugs to show up at the funeral of "that fat slut" that was murdered by the terrorist in Charlottesville. There is no such thing as a moderate Nazi. They are terrorists, and deserve to be treated as such. They aren't promoting "Free Speech," they are promoting death, abuse, and persecution. Do [I]not[/I] let them hide behind that bullshit. Force them to retreat to the deepest, darkest corners of the web, where the only people reading their terroristic bullshit are other Nazis, and the FBI agents charged with bringing them to justice.

[QUOTE=Sir Whoopsalot;52588284]When you're framing it in the context of nazis being refused a platform, your argument gets lost somewhat.[/QUOTE] how so? the EFF's argument seems to be that once these host and domain companies exercise their right to refuse service based on values, it opens the door to a refusal of service for values decidedly less dangerous than nazism. [editline]18th August 2017[/editline] i'm kind of on the fence about it. on one side i am glad the site is less able to spread nazism as an ideology, but another side of me fears that this might have opened up a door to further censorship that cannot be closed.

[QUOTE=Ninja Gnome;52588364]how so? the EFF's argument seems to be that once these host and domain companies exercise their right to refuse service based on values, it opens the door to a refusal of service for values decidedly less dangerous than nazism. [editline]18th August 2017[/editline] i'm kind of on the fence about it. on one side i am glad the site is less able to spread nazism as an ideology, but another side of me fears that this might have opened up a door to further censorship that cannot be closed.[/QUOTE] This argument only holds water if they don't limit their "censorship" to sites that literally preach violence. There's a huge difference between Nazis preaching violence and genocide and some right wing asshole ranting about how illegal immigrants are stealing are jobs and other such retarded shit.

[QUOTE=Alice3173;52588396]This argument only holds water if they don't limit their "censorship" to sites that literally preach violence. There's a huge difference between Nazis preaching violence and genocide and some right wing asshole ranting about how illegal immigrants are stealing are jobs and other such retarded shit.[/QUOTE] and now we as a people have to be extra vigilant to ensure that they exercise the power responsibly and have to be ready to speak up if they overreach. a small way we can stay vigilant is fully recognizing that what google and godaddy did here was censorship, full stop, and accepting it as such. pretending it somehow isn't censorship is dangerous and opens the door for more innocuous things to be censored with the same excuses.

[QUOTE=Ninja Gnome;52588434]and now we as a people have to be extra vigilant to ensure that they exercise the power responsibly and have to be ready to speak up if they overreach. a small way we can stay vigilant is fully recognizing that what google and godaddy did here was censorship, full stop, and accepting it as such. pretending it somehow isn't censorship is dangerous and opens the door for more innocuous things to be censored with the same excuses.[/QUOTE] Either way we need to stay vigilant. That doesn't mean we should oppose people preaching violence getting shut down. Freedom of speech doesn't protect fighting words, hate speech generally, nor does it protect inciting violence. (Different from fighting words because that's a more one-on-one situation.) That last one in particular is something the Daily Stormer is very guilty of. So if we ignore the caveats about freedom of speech actually only even applying to the government to begin with it [I]still[/I] doesn't cover this specific website.

[QUOTE=DiBBs27;52588032]Hate speech does not fall under the category of freedom of speech.[/QUOTE] Yes it does, or do you think that the first amendment was set up to only protect popular opinion?

[QUOTE=Alice3173;52588453]Either way we need to stay vigilant. That doesn't mean we should oppose people preaching violence getting shut down. Freedom of speech doesn't protect fighting words, hate speech generally, nor does it protect inciting violence. (Different from fighting words because that's a more one-on-one situation.) That last one in particular is something the Daily Stormer is very guilty of. So if we ignore the caveats about [B]freedom of speech actually only even applying to the government to begin with it[/B] [I]still[/I] doesn't cover this specific website.[/QUOTE] this is the attitude that is possibly dangerous. these companies may not be governmental organizations, but they still act as a sort of gateway to the internet, and exempting them from expectations of freedom of speech is giving quite a lot of power that is easily exploited into the hands of private entities. i am not necessarily against the daily stormer getting shut down as it has but it does raise the question if domain name services should be held to an expectation of freedom of speech because of the unique position they hold regarding internet access.

[QUOTE=Mort Stroodle;52588152]It actually does, in the US. It's just that freedom of speech applies to the government, not private services.[/QUOTE] The issue is that this has really scary implications. You can pretty effectively shut down anything on the internet (within the US) with only the consensus of 3 companies. Those being the backbone "Tier 1" ISPs (CenturyLink+Level3, AT&T, Cogent). If they decide they don't want something on their Network, they'll start null-routing IPs, and threatening the client with service termination. Right now middle-level providers (GoDaddy, CloudFlare) are the ones removing them, but it's only an increasing possibility the more companies do it.

Everyone who is OK with nazism in our society should embrace Wahhabism with open arms. If the EFF is going to support the "right" to force private companies to host Nazi propaganda, they should unequivocally condemn FBI/CIA takedowns of radical Islamist terrorist sites and communities. Yet for some reason, people supporting homegrown Nazi terrorists don't seem to have a problem with open government censorship of radical Wahhabist ideas and communities. Wonder why that is?

Right right... Stopping nazis from talking about killing other races will surely end up in the goverment or some other authority take away your free speech... Because, you know, we really live in a world where stopping people from saying "kill all the niggers" will culminate into people not being able to call someone else a negative word, like "asshole".

[QUOTE=Omali;52588468]Yes it does, or do you think that the first amendment was set up to only protect popular opinion?[/QUOTE] You're correct, hate speech is protected free speech. Do you know what else is free speech? Companies refusing to do business with those that use hate speech. By saying that GoDaddy and Cloudflare shouldn't be allowed to ban hate speech from their private platform, you're saying they do not have a right to free speech. Daily Stormer can always buy their own servers for hosting and spread a hosts file over USB if they really want to.

It's only a slippery slope if the person in power wants to curtail all free speech. If you are levelheaded, you can tell the difference between Nazis and, say, the Left.