What is the accepted term for removing video and printed content without the author’s consent? Again, I dislike anything that even hints of defending that shitbag. We are presently in a state with online media that it’s trending towards monopolies, due to expense and complexity with administration. There isn’t a meaningful competitor to YouTube, for example. So if there’s no real competition, but the company is also not state controlled, how should they be allowed to police their content? I don’t know that there’s a super great answer to that question just yet.
Why do you think that the author's consent is required for such removal? They shut down his account and removed his content... "removal of service", sure, but it's not censorship.
I’m backing up to this because I’m truly trying to understand what you want to happen and what your beliefs are. So let’s say there is a Jewish t-shirt maker. Neo Nazis come into her shop and say, “hey we want 150 t-shirts for our rally that say, ‘Jews are cockroaches.’” You think that there should be a law that says the t-shirt maker must do business with them? It’s hate speech but it’s not an explicit call to violence. It’s therefore necessary for the government to step in and enforce that she print those shirts for them.
In your case, no, the shop keeper has the right to refuse service. I think everyone gets confused when it comes to scale, and what appear to be de facto monopolies. At a certain point it's viewed that if you're not on platform X then there is no other option. As a result some people think that there should be some sort of guaranteed right of service regardless of (legal) content.
I actually had to look up the definition of censorship now to see who was misusing the term. It’s defined as the omission of media (books, articles, news, video) deemed offensive, obscene or threatening. It doesn’t mention that the omissions be state sanctioned. Not to get to splitting hairs, but if a platform deems content obscene or offensive and edits or removes it, then that’s censorship. Of course, I’ll stand corrected if if there’s another definition that is exclusive to the state or something.
censorship noun cen·sor·ship | \ˈsen(t)-sər-ˌship \ Definition of censorship 1a: the institution, system, or practice of censoringThey oppose government censorship. b: the actions or practices of censorsespecially : censorial control exercised repressivelycensorship that has … permitted a very limited dispersion of facts— Philip Wylie 2: the office, power, or term of a Roman censor 3: exclusion from consciousness by the psychic censor Examples of censorship in a Sentence Recent Examples on the Web Everything in the museum is rated G and PG, with the exception of a basement suite called The Blue Room, which tackles edgier topics like censorship, taboo, and free speech.— Suzanne Rowan Kelleher, Condé Nast Traveler, "The National Comedy Center Is an Unlikely Attraction That's Putting Western New York Back on the Map," 13 Sep. 2018 First, there are concerns about promoting censorship and state control in China with Project Dragonfly.— Brian Flood, Fox News, "Google CEO to meet GOP lawmakers regarding alleged bias against conservatives," 28 Sep. 2018 https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/censorship I think you are cherry picking your definitions to get your way.
This is actually a great example, and one that I’ve thought about fairly recently. Not with your specific usage, but with the lawsuit that occurred as a result of the baker who refused to custom make a cake for a gay wedding, because homosexuality violated his religious beliefs. It also ties into the Hobby Lobby case where HL was allowed to claim religious exemption as a corporation. Here are my thoughts: First, no company can discriminate against a person or group based on any of the legal categories that are protected. Race, gender, religion, etc. Any law that allows a company to do so is, in my opinion, wrong. In Hobby Lobby’s case, I think the courts were incorrect and it should subsequently be illegal to have the company directives/charter explicitly act in a manner that favours or excludes defined minorities (women, gay people,etc). By that same measure, the company cannot exclude service to chest thumping white assholes (in their policies). The second part of my belief is that the individual has the right to refuse any action that they determine to be immoral, unsafe or in violation of their beliefs. In the case of the baker, I would argue that while his company cannot explicitly descriminate against gay people, as an individual he can. Given that it’s a one-man small business, this becomes semantics. He can’t write a policy for his company that descriminates but he himself can refuse work on religious principles. The third part of this is: can any individual or organization be compelled to grant service by the state? I would argue no. It would be incorrect for the police or the state to force the Jewish t-shirt maker to produce shirts for the KKK. Lastly, I think the market would naturally correct for quite a bit of bad behaviour. If that baker openly refused service to gay people, he will quickly find that a large group of people will walk down the street and buy a cake elsewhere. He’ll either be left with a smaller demographic to earn a living off of, or he’ll go out of business, or he’ll change his actions to reflect what the people are willing to pay for.
So it should be illegal for a restaurant to offer discounts to active duty military members or veterans? Again I’m trying to figure out where your limits are here. I’m not really understanding how all this is supposed to work.
Yeah, I hear where you're coming from. Moderation is a form of censorship, etc. So sure... some online services are censoring people that they don't want to support or assist or provide services to. I'm fine with that. It doesn't mean that it's not valid or somehow not allowed. There is no right for the user to have access to any particular private communications platform (unless it's part of the charter, like public local access television, etc). Everyone is absolutely entitled to agree or disagree with the decision, but that doesn't mean there should be legal action, in my opinion. I think it's up to the market to sort it out. And that is exactly what appears to be happening with this now... people are talking about it, and I think corrections will be made.
No. Offering incentives (10% off with a CAA card, kids under 12 eat free, students save the tax, etc) is not in any way the same as refusing service.
100%. I don’t profess to even begin to know what the right answer is. The digital world is uncharted territory. I hope that whoever the people are that actually attempt to sort this out are this willing to have an open and nuanced discussion.
You said it should be illegal to exclude or favor a defined minority. Ergo doing any of those things is wrong. Maybe I’m missing something, but I’m really not seeing where in your stated position it should be illegal for patreon or any other private company to tell Sergeant Arcade or anyone like him to kick rocks. Either way, I’m dropping this. Have a good one.
In terms of hiring or refusing service. Saying, “All members of the Redeemer congregation get a free coffee with lunch,” (an incentive) is fine. Saying, “We only serve Christians,” is not. My position is that corporations are different from the individual, and don’t enjoy the same abilities to discern. Also, as Juice pointed out, the digital companies we’ve been discussing have vague, constantly shifting terms of service that are being wildly inconsistently applied. My ultimate argument is for clear rules, uniformly enforced.
I’m not sure where you got “charge minorities more” from my post... In Canada, race is one of the specifically prohibited things to descriminate against. Given that it’s expressedly forbidden in legislation, I would think anyone who did it would be risking a lawsuit or a case with the provincial Human Rights tribunal. In the “grey area” vein is gender. It’s legal right now for, say, a gym to offer services to women only. But if a person who looks like Frank Mir shows up and tells the desk that he identifies as a woman, he must be granted membership and access to the change rooms. That issue in particular is going to get sticky, because I’m not sure how you sort it out from a legal perspective.
I don't know a whole lot about collusion and antitrust laws so I'm going to tread softly here, but it's not so far fetched that paypal and patreon broke these laws in regards to the fallout from the Sargon situation. Not from banning Sargon specifically, but from Paypal's subsequent pulling out from subscribe star. It seems to be quite the grey area in the legal realm. Paypal and Patreon, as companies, have freedom of speech in much the same way individuals do. As such, they can choose to not offer services to Subscribe Star in the same way an individual can choose not to associate with someone. Simple enough, but it gets murky because if Paypal chose to cancel services to Subscribe Star because they didn't want them to compete with Patreon then it's illegal. Barring some sort of really blatant statement of motivation, how do you differentiate the two in a courtroom? On the one hand it's ok for a company to not associate with businesses and people they find unethical for whatever reasons, but at the same time it's not legal for them to deny essential services that stifle competition. To make it even murkier it could be conceivably argued that Paypal, as well as being an essential service provider, is also a direct competitor of both Patreon and Subscribe Star. *I don't think* that an antitrust lawsuit against Paypal and Patreon would win in court here, but maybe someone who knows the law better than I do can shed light on that. I don't see how a plaintiff would have a case on the price fixing side of antitrust laws, but they probably do have a case on the basis antitrust laws pertain to controlling output. It's just that, in most cases these two are typically tied much closer together than they are here. https://www.theantitrustattorney.com/elements-monopolization-claim-federal-antitrust-laws/ T
That, I think, is the key... I doubt very, very much that Paypal is considered an "essential service". Essential Services are defined by legislation, whereas PayPal isn't even considered a bank (which is why they get away with their shit service like they do). I tend to think that if/when an anti-trust lawyer steps up and reviews this it will be pretty obvious that this isn't a case of anti-trust violations, otherwise I can't help but think that there would be legal action under way already. It's very, very easy for a legal layperson to totally misunderstand the law when it comes to specific terminology like this.
Anti-trust would be having a Twitter account somehow prevents you from having a Facebook account. Think back to when Microsoft tried to fuck Netscape by packaging IE with Windows 98. It’s that brazen.
Equality and equity aren't the same. Equity is only giving David a slingshot. Equality is giving David, Goliath, and everybody else in the Philistine army a slingshot. In a perfect word, equality would be the best solution because equality works when everyone is on equal footing. Unfortunately, we don't live in a perfect world. Until that blessed day comes where all races are equally likely to be killed by police, maybe say "n-word" instead of the actual word. I know it's difficult for white people to wrap their minds around the idea that your skin color being a disadvantage, but then again, white people haven't gotten lynched for allegedly whistling at a black woman. Using your example, I believe the problem lies with asking people who are either marginalized or have empathy for those marginalized people to accept the idea that it's okay for white people to say the n-word. People have used the fear of censorship as a bad faith argument to say shitty things to people for hundreds of years. Marginalized people and those that are empathetic to them know this, assume that this is the case regardless of intent, and have a visceral reaction to it. Rather than white people asking themselves why there is a visceral reaction, they ask those marginalized folks to explain that reaction. Depending on the marginalized person, they can either attempt to explain it (again, because you aren't the first to ask), or get even more angry because it is inconceivable to them that a white people has to ask why it isn't okay for a white person to say the n-word. Now, instead of racism, use any other topic where you might take a position that would generate a visceral reaction from the other side. The other side's reasons for that visceral reaction can be myriad, but whatever the reason, it will still generate that same level of reaction. One reason for a person's reaction might seem ridiculous to you, but your incredulity doesn't make that person's reason for reacting any less valid than any other person's reason. I realize that a lot of this comes down to how people in general react when confronted with something that runs counter to who they are or what they believe in. That's why constructive dialog is so hard. If someone says or does something that upsets you, the human response is to get defensive. When you get defensive, you lose empathy and an open mind, which makes you dig in even more. Societally, straight white people have been on top in western civilization forever, so it makes sense that they would just assume everybody's interactions are just like theirs. Now that marginalized people are becoming more and more vocal, straight white people are starting to come to grips with the fact that since their interactions are different from non-whites and LGTBQ people, they just might be collectively responsible for treating entire swaths of people like shit for no other reason than that they could. As a result, it's up to straight white people to do the heavy lifting in terms of being empathetic and educating themselves. Until each white person takes a hard look at themselves, this won't stop.
The person being interviewed in the video I posted is an attorney and he is taking legal action. He's compiling a case history of antitrust court precedence and filing it to the FTC. Whether the case survives first depends on the complaint moving to a motion to lead to discovery phase, and then that discovery phase turning up evidence or testimony from Paypal, Patreon, and/or Stripe. That by itself is a pretty steep hill to climb, and I don't think they're going to win either. I completely agree that it's easy for a layperson (which I most certainly am with regards to the law) to obfuscate and confuse how these laws are applied, but I think it's an interesting development and I'm looking forward to seeing how it shakes out if for nothing other than sheer curiosity. That's essentially what the argument is. Patreon banned Sargon, who moved to Subscribe Star. Subscribe star is a relatively new start up in the market, who got a ton of press and attention within the (IDW, god I hate that term) community. Usually these deplatforming situations have been isolated to one or a handful of individuals, but that wasn't that case here. In a very short time period there were a lot of creators moving away from Patreon to Subscribe Star in protest against Patreon, or simply as a perceived lack of trust towards Patreon in the fall out. Many more professed an eagerness to leave for viable alternatives. Paypal and Stripe subsequently stopped servicing Subscribe Star, which immediately froze payouts, financially impacting all stakeholders involved. So, the anti-trust case is you have group boycotting from Paypal and Stripe acting in an anti-competitive way that benefits Patreon, and in a way that affects all the stakeholders, the content creators downstream. Within the niche Paypal by itself arguably meets the legal thresholds for 'dominant market share' and 'monopolistic power'. Combined with Stripe they're well over it. The immediate fallout from all this is spurring a growth in alternative currency, and that by itself is crazy to me. Whatever the legal ramifications, I don't think it can be argued that there isn't a concerted effort to shut down the processors and platforms that are being set up as an alternative, and the way it is being done is really toxic and fucked up. If wikileaks can manage to get donations while drawing the ire of so many governments I'm sure the content creators will manage just fine, but it's still profoundly sad and speaks volumes to what a lunatic space the current political environment has become. It's one thing for an entity to say "Hey, that's not cool" and kick someone off their platform. When you start to chase after them and try to shut them down where ever they go you're starting to act like a psycho.