Ramblings on Digital Rights

[XKCD #1022]

I've been thinking about writing this for some time, now. On Monday, I was perusing ponies like the blissfully ignorant idiot I am, and today I'm left wandering the ashen fields under a gray, sordid sky, wondering, "What the hell just happened?" Corpses lie buried in the trenches, blood is in the water, and I'm ducking for cover with worry in my heart. A red sun is rising and the stars reveal themselves to be megaspells heading my way.

What the hell just happened?

I don't normally go out of my way like this on sites for ponies. Elsewhere, sure, I don't mind getting into debates if I think I have anything worthwhile to add. But on sites for ponies, on FIMFiction? This is where I go to escape reality. I seal up the walls of the universe and drown myself in the happy fantasies of imagination. But apparently, reality doesn't like that and has brought a battering ram. Grogar is at the gates and I'm not sure if Discord is helping me out here.

Now I'm confronted with reality, and reality is bleak and miserable. Let's start with some context in the hopes that you, dear reader--while you may disagree vehemently and violently with everything I say and all of my being--can at least understand how I got the mindset I have. In the words of my would-be condemners: I'm a white, European, cis-male, agnostic atheist, and linguistic minority in his 20s. My family was lower middle class before 2008 but have spiraled since into the lower classes. Relative to the country I live in, I'd consider us "poor". Not "starving poor" but certainly "lacking financial security poor". The recent pandemic isn't helping.

I'd like to consider myself educated, but I'm sure any credentials posted here mean nothing. This is the Internet, after all. Pulling the cred card in this day and age? Hah! Or maybe I'm just old and the newer post-Facebook generations have developed something new that I don't know about. I don't do that kind of social media. Forumite for life, and stuff.

In any case, because of that "class" experience, if you can call it that, you'd find me on the left-side of politics on many issues. Welfare? You betcha. Universal, tax-paid healthcare? Dental included! Taxes? The rich can afford less luxury, bring on the Economic Activity Tax (the Rich) Act; we seriously need unitary taxation. Sex/gender rights? Be whatever you want! You're human and deserve the same human rights as everyone else. Just don't expect me to be able to read to your mind. Rage against the creeping police state? Where do I sign up? Protest that garbage. Protest police brutality. Protest lack of government accountability. Protest government corruption. Get corporations out of politics.

You'd also find me on the right side. Military? Si vis pacem, para bellum. Guns? I won't let myself be left with only unarmed and non-equalizing options for self-defense; gunsmithing is not going back into the golden lamp nor is the development of new technologies e.g. 3D printing. EU? My country is becoming more of a vassal and province every day; I don't want my country to cede more power to Brussels. Immigration? We have neither the resources nor the power to be the social worker of the world; some limitation is necessary and the game theory of the rules mustn't screw us over.

Then we get to the Internet, my heart, my darling. The one place I can be free. Left or right, I have no clue where I get placed, but I am first and foremost a Pirate Party voter. Get those surveillance laws out of my face; copyright has outlived its usefulness and should be abolished; stop tracking my every movement, ad tech providers and clients.

This is the moment we get to freedom of speech on the Internet--and this is where it all goes to hell, I'm sure. Now let me be frank: I'm well aware that laws will differ from country to country. Hell, what I'm espousing would almost certainly require a law change at home for it to come true. That's OK, I can accept that. Laws are just imperfect implementations of some ideals. So if a website needs to take down content due to legal issues, you do what you need to do.

Instead, I'll be talking about--and campaigning for--my ideals.

Please excuse my soap box.

*ahem*

Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

Source for the interested.

I hold Article 19 close to my heart, now more than ever as more and more social interactions increasingly occur on the Internet. Now I know what many are thinking to themselves: "Freedom of speech only protects you from government censorship and reprisal." To that I say, "Over my dead body." I find that line of thought just as absurd as thinking that my right to life only protects me from the government murdering me. I'm sure the many vulnerable minorities under attack right now would very much want to have more protection than that and I would certainly want them to have that protection just as much I want it.

Thus when I say that corporate censorship is real and does happen, I do mean it from the perspective of Article 19. Most countries have simply legalized it--an imperfect implementation. So if people are going to be throwing the First Amendment at me then they've already missed the point. I'm not here to discuss a descriptive what it is, but a prescriptive what it should be, in my opinion.

This brings us to the topic at hand: the right of websites (platforms in particular) to ban or take down user content. In order to make sense of my ramblings, I feel a distinction is necessary. I hereby postulate that there is a difference between what I call "private hosts" and "public hosts" (alternatively "corporate hosts" but I think that name is too narrow). A private host is very much like a private residence, a public host is not. A public host may be private property but it is very much open to the public. Where the line is drawn I do not know--I'm sure there are plenty of gray areas. But private hosts are distinguished by the fact that access to them is typically by private invitation and with a thorough vetting of the user prior to accessing the service--just like a private residence. These definitions aren't declarative i.e. the websites themselves don't explicitly declare which kind of host they are. Which box they fall in is determined by their behavior, no more, no less.

Why I make this distinction is because of my ideals. A public host needs to have less power to decide on content than a private host, in order to cut down on the corporate censorship. Why do private hosts get the thicker end of the wedge? Because they--by definition--are more like private residences. I will not deny peace and quiet in one's own home.

Now I know what some people are thinking: "That would infringe on the public hosts' freedom of speech." I counter that by three points:

1. They are just as free to speak on their platform as they were before.
2. The words I write on their platform are mine. I'm responsible for them, not the host. I'm responsible for my speech, not them, and I hope that's common sense. So it cannot be their speech.
3. Hosting and taking down content on a platform is not an exercise of the host's freedom of speech but an exercise of their terms of service and the user's freedom of speech.

That last point means that it would be more correct for the people to say: "That would infringe on the public hosts' freedom of association." But as has been done many times in the past--and for the benefit of many minorities--that freedom of association can be restricted for the sake of rights of other humans. Case in point, the many Civil Rights Acts. This is also another reason why I make the distinctions between hosts. A private host is far too close to a human being that I don't want to infringe upon their freedom of association. Public hosts, on the other hand, are more closely related to corporations.

The last point is also why it would still be illegal for the government to come cracking down on the website should the website host speech the government doesn't like: the user's freedom of speech would be infringed by it.

So what rights should a public hosts have when it comes to hosting and taking down content? And please note, I am by no means implying that public hosts should be forced to buy hardware to host the speech of users. I am merely saying that if they are going to host content, if they are offering the service as a public host, then their freedom of association should be restricted to these rights when it comes to hosting and taking down content.

The main focus is to bolster freedom of speech on the Internet to the point where it is useful, but not to the point of useless chaos. What do I mean by that? Essentially, if everyone is in a room and screaming at each other at the same time, no-one will be able make any use of their freedom of speech. You can't "seek, receive and impart information and ideas" if there is that much noise and chaos. So some amount of control is necessary for users to be able to exercise their freedom of speech. This is partly aided by the unique dynamics of the Internet: compared to The Wild Outside, it can be made to be all opt-in. Out on the street, there is not much you can do about getting flashed. On the Internet, we can build tools to screen content (to the best of our abilities) before it's presented before our eyes.

So what can a public host do? It can tag content, it can categorize it, it can prevent degradation of hardware (read: spam, bots, pruning to free space, etc.), and it can make it easier for the users to find desirable content and easier for users to avoid undesirable content. The name of the game is client-side content filtration. It's a sea of information, and the user picks which fishing net to use. The main point is that the content of the speech should not matter beyond the main category. If you're pruning content, do it from oldest to newest.

The main category here is basically the content that the website is all about. If you run a car forum, you can remove content not related to cars or the website itself. In FIMFiction's case, it's pony fan fiction. YouTube et al. on the other hand are very general, basically anything goes. What's important to note is that the main category, and other categories, are not value statements. You want to run a subreddit on liberalism? You can do that, but you must accept content for and against liberalism. Same thing for communism, or fascism. Public hosts don't get to run an echo chamber. If they start getting off-topic beyond the main category, then you may remove the off-topic content. Or you can tag it and let it get filtered by the users, or move it to a different category on the website.

If you're wondering about the spam and bots: the spam is generally considered off-topic or part of the aforementioned "chaos", and the bots in question tend to be sufficiently distanced from humans that their rights aren't the same as that of actual humans. Cue robot uprising.

Ultimately, this brings us to the heart of the controversy: Nazi content. Let me painfully try to reach above the screams and furor here: Defending someone's right to speak freely, and opposing the policies and contents of said speech, are two separate concepts. They're different and they're not mutually exclusive. If the ACLU can defend the rights of white supremacists and fascists in court and not be considered monsters, then I can do the same here. Because at the end of the day, if I'm not willing to defend this basic right of the vile and irredeemable, then what right do I deserve?

"But you're enabling Nazis!" some of you may say. I find that irrelevant. If humanity can't handle this "most innocuous freedom" (paraphrasing Immanuel Kant), if humanity is truly that doomed, then let the megaspells land already. If you find Nazi speech offensive and hurtful, congratulations on realizing you're a human. It is human to be offended, and we can be offended by so many things. Speak up about it, you have that right. But at the end of the day, it is just words, vibrations in the air, propagation of light, whatever, and on the Internet you get to decide on the type and intensity. I believe your monitors and speakers are set to safe levels. That's the unique dynamics of the Internet rearing its head again.

If believing this makes me a useful idiot, an enemy, or whatever word they want to call me, then so be it. I'm sticking to my ideals, labeling me is not going to change anything. If this means that in this "war" that's going on that I have to stare into the barrel of my supposedly anti-fascist ally's gun, then so be it.

I'm trying to be your ally, but I can't cross burned-down bridges. I'm standing up for what I believe in, even if it means crucifixion.

I'm not going to support corporate censorship. I do not support Nazis, nor do I support the censorship crusade. I know where that train goes and I know it's not going to stop at simply banning content from the currently targeted websites. Those kinds of crusades are nearly never about seeing undesirable content, but the mere existence of said content, and it is no more transparent than what happened at Derpibooru.

In any case, I'm here for ponies and escapism. I hope you all can enjoy it as much as I do. I hope you all use your tags and filters.

I hope you all stay safe in these trying and interesting times, and I hope the Gates of Janus stay closed.

Speak freely, listen freely, ignore freely. Say no to censorship, regardless of source and form.

Comments

[AeroFiction]

Very well said. The context beforehand helps everyone see you as another person before outright dismissing you. I am on the same page as you, and love the way you have worded this.