zlacker

>>feross+(OP)
One thing I see missing from the conversation is that fact that large corporations are becoming agents of the state, via fear, regulation, and fear of regulation.

I can see Social Media CEO saying "well, I believe in free expression and I would otherwise want to allow this message, but I'm worried what the government will do to me if I do allow it. So instead I will block it."

When a platform blocks some content, some call it "censorship", while others say "hey, it's a private company and they can block what they want to. It's called 'moderation'" - but this may in fact not be something the platform wants to block - it's indirect government censorship.

I wonder how Elon will handle this. Will he be cowed by the government into censoring content they don't like? Or will he ignore them and take his chances?

>>Nifty3+Mj2
It's not just the government companies need to fear, it's also other companies. Kiwifarms wasn't taken down by government action, there's been a massive conspiracy between a combination of criminals and infrastructure providers to try to kick them off the internet on the orders of journalists.

>>LightH+QA2
I think this is different. I hadn't heard of Kiwifarms before, but I looked it up in 10sec. Looks like they were a forum for people to actively harass others - which has always been and should remain illegal.

"Specific Person is a real jerk! And they probably eat live frogs for fun too! What a loser!" - As long as Specific Person can effectively ignore this - meaning it's not forced into their feed, overwhelming their inbox, etc - then that's probably fine, even if untrue.

"Specific Person might live near XYZ. Definitely DON'T put any turds in their mailbox ;-) " - Pretty clearly an invitation to real-world harassment, which is not okay and should not be abetted by any platform.