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Comment by Ajedi32 | Hacker News Reader

The parent comment was not asking where to draw the line on _what_ to censor. The question was "where do we draw the line on _how_ we censor the internet?"

E.g. If your ISP decides that something you posted on Twitter violates some standard of their own devise, should they be allowed to disconnect you?

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According to the GOP, yes. -I- personally support net neutrality however. As well as the net being a need to operate in society.

But the ability to run a workload on AWS? They're a business. I'm totally okay with them deciding to stop doing business with me. That also has a GOP precedent, what with that whole "You don't have to sell a wedding cake to a gay couple" thing.

ISPs are businesses too, so that's not really the relevant distinction here. Why would you be okay with AWS deciding not to do business with you based on something you said, but not your ISP? Seems rather arbitrary to me.

"(I support...) As well as the net being a need to operate in society."

That's why. Access to a company's compute resources is not a need. Further, there are options, many different cloud vendors with different T&Cs, different allowed things, different jurisdictions, cultural expectations, etc. If I manage to break the T&Cs to all of them, that's kind of on me, and doesn't preclude me from having access to compute resources (I just have to buy them).

The internet? I've got one ISP option. And without it, I'm cut off from a large part of what it means to function in this day and age.

ISPs should be common carriers. Unfortunately the current administration disagrees.

At what point should something like AWS be a "common carrier" though?

When it's transporting goods (data) to the general public without discrimination, for the public good and necessity. Since that's the definition of a common carrier.

AWS isn't fundamentally transporting goods but providing a service (the transmission of data happens via a common carrier between you and it). It's not clear that AWS access is a public necessity. And it's never attempted to claim it does so without discrimination.

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