zlacker

XKCD 1357 is how old? And yet people continue to get it wrong.

It’s not censorship unless the government itself is doing the censorship and making people face criminal consequences for disobeying.

If a private entity is doing it, even at the request of a government, it’s not censorship or a violation of free speech unless they were going to face legal consequences for ignoring the government’s request.

https://xkcd.com/1357/

>>Aprech+(OP)
This xkcd is about the first amendment.

The discussion here is about censorship. Infringing the first amendment is censorship, but the converse isn't true. Plenty of things are censorship without infringing on the first amendment.

As an example, Bezos hypothetically preventing his newspaper from publishing negative stories about him is censorship. He is censoring his editors in this hypothetical.

As another example, if Bezos says "everyone who calls me a stupid-head will get kicked of AWS", that would be an attack on free-speech.

>>rocqua+V1
What you said, plus xkcd is a webcomic. I happen to enjoy it as much as the next nerd, but can you imagine saying "batman issue xyz exists, and yet we still have petty theft in the streets!"

>>rocqua+V1
I’m not very concerned about the semantics of the word censorship. The definition of a word in the dictionary doesn’t also define the boundaries of what behaviors are acceptable.

My point is that unless something violates the first amendment, I’m ok with it. If Bezos kicks people he doesn’t like off of AWS, I’m ok with it. It’s not a public space. The owner of the private space makes the rules. Just like I can kick people out of my house for similar reasons.

Don’t like it? Host it yourself. If the government tries to censor your self hosted content, then I’ll get up in arms.

>>Aprech+(OP)
That’s just changing the definition of censorship to muddle the argument. The idea that censorship can only be done by governments (not even by private entities on behest of government) is to make the definition so narrow as to be effectively useless. Even in China most of the censorship is done by “private” companies.

While the XKCD explains that your “United States 1st amendment rights” are not be violated by non-governmental censorship, it doesn’t change the fact it is censorship. Everyone is in favor of censorship (like Randall) so long as only things they disagree with are censored.

>>Aprech+db
> My point is that unless something violates the first amendment, I’m ok with it.

Fair enough, not sure that is the point of the XKCD comic though. I believe the point of that comic was "banning racists from twitter is not a first-amendment issue".

I believe the public discourse is affected by much more than the government. To keep that public discourse free enough is important for democracy to function. Hence I fear more than just government trying to repress certain forms of speech.

That doesn't mean I want to legally ban all such repression. I also don't believe democracy would be better off if actual neo-nazi's were unbanned on twitter. Instead, I think its important we keep track of repression of free-speech, discuss what people consider acceptable, and reach some rough concensus. Based on this, we can then develop either alternative platforms, or make some well-thought out new laws.