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Comment by doublestandard2 | Hacker News Reader

It's an irony how American companies try circumvents another country's law (regardless of whether you call it censorship or not, it is still a law) and boast about it.

Yet, in the US these companies help the mainstream narrative to enforce censorship by banning (Google and Apple App market) or simply not offering other point of views basic hosting services (AWS).

I am an Iranian and don't agree with all of our government actions but I can clearly see a tech neo-colonialism/neo-imperialism here. I am sure Signal's intention and people wanting to help is genuinely good but this does not change this double-standard.

I would like to see your supportive reaction if an Iranian company offers hosting to Parler. I imagine you would call it foreign intervention!

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"I would like to see your supportive reaction if an Iranian company offers hosting to Parler. "

This is a hacker forum and not a US foreign ministry praise board, even though it is mainly US based. In other words, I doubt the reaction here would be rage, if a iranian company would do that. Hackers usually are not in favor of censorship or information restriction.

So who do you mean, with "you"?

Fair enough, you have a good point. By, "you" I mean a tech person who is supportive of Signal action and is willing to setup a proxy without realizing that this is circumventing another country's law.

I agree I could have said it more clearly and less emotionally.

I think you expressed it really well. Double standards and hypocrisy seem to be one trait that Americans inherited from their British founders.

> Hackers usually are not in favor of censorship or information restriction. So who do you mean, with "you"?

There are many comments on previous HN threads defending censorship and information restriction, precisely as the GP has described it.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25693742

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25691631

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25706993

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25733038

What you call “defending censorship” is perhaps better described as “defending free speech”. Forced speech is not free speech.

Stong disagree. When a handful of tech companies that form an Oligarchy on modern communication decide to systemically oppress members of one political party, that's the antithesis of free speech.

Lets not pretend that this has anything to do with their political party.

Would you also say that tech companies banning ISIS is systematically oppressing members of one religion?

> that's the antithesis of free speech

It’s not. Companies enjoy freedom of speech too, but you’d force them to publish content they don’t want to publish. That’s the antithesis of free speech.

Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information, on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or "inconvenient." Censorship can be conducted by governments, private institutions, and other controlling bodies.

Amazon, Apple, Google, Twitter, Facebook, etc. are multibillion-dollar corporations that control a colossal share of online communications.

Let's not play pretend here.

There are certainly peoole here defending censorship, but the parent poster spoke like "we" would follow US geopolicy in general. And in general I don't see the majority here in favor of kicking out parler etc.

Rather the contrary. Anyway, by my tautological definition of hacker, no hacker would be in favor of banning a communication app, anyway, so ...

> Yet, in the US these companies help the mainstream narrative to enforce censorship by banning

Why THESE companies? Where did Signal do this? Or are all US companies the same entity to you?

I describe my sentiment more precisely. By "these companies" I refer to entities or even individuals who take a very simplistic view toward this issue (Blocking of Signal by Iranian government).

In this simplistic viewpoint, issues in 3rd world countries (even this naming is condescending) are assumed to be evident. In this case an evil government versus oppressed people who can not even communicate with each other freely. So 'we' good people must help these poor people against their oppressive government.

This is in contrast to a much more nuanced view of the issues in the west. End-to-end encryption is a debated issue in the US and EU and legislators have proposed laws to ban it or enforcing other mechanisms to circumvent by law enforcement such as backdoors.

I mentioned the US as an example, because of Signal is operating under US jurisdiction. Moreover, the recent events in the US demonstrated that how a supposedly stable democracy is vulnerable to chaos. In this situation the tech companies decided to limit the communication of people or access to their platform for the greater good (according to them). I am not stating whether this is good or bad. I just want to point out that the issue is complex, nuanced and needs debate in the society. Keep in mind that the US is a superpower surrounded by two oceans and two friendly countries and has no serious external threat.

This is in contrast to Iran which is in a chaotic region and surrounded by the US military bases. It has suffered wars and coup in its recent history. It is currently under harsh economic sanctions with a possible goal of people revolting. The Iranian government has reasons to be paranoid and fearful that Signal can be used to organize violent demonstration. They cannot even demand information regarding criminal cases such as drug trafficking from these tech companies.

In the US the decision of giving access to tools and platforms is out-sourced to companies but in most part of the world governments make these kind of policies (again not necessarily good or bad).

I don't have a solution to these problems and I am not trying to say that we have an equivalence here. What I am expecting is a more nuanced and sophisticated perspective toward the issue.

> This is in contrast to a much more nuanced view of the issues in the west. End-to-end encryption is a debated issue in the US and EU and legislators have proposed laws to ban it or enforcing other mechanisms to circumvent by law enforcement such as backdoors.

It looks to me like you try to cloud your false argument in whataboutisms based upon a profound lack of knowledge:

> I mentioned the US as an example, because of Signal is operating under US jurisdiction.

The reason Signal is a good way to go is because this doesn't matter. Signal doesn't save any conversations they can hand over to the US (or other) government.

> This is in contrast to Iran which is in a chaotic region and surrounded by the US military bases.

Yeah, yeah I get it. We all do. US = bad but how does it change anything for the oppressed people in Iran we can help here? If those would have been people in the US, we'd be doing the same thing for them here in the EU.

> What I am expecting is a more nuanced and sophisticated perspective toward the issue.

A whataboutism and derailment of the issue is neither nuanced nor sophisticated. It's quite shady and ignorant.

Here is something you can do to help people out but instead of doing that, you try to build some weird case which actually helps the Iranian government.

Well. A Russian company, DDos-Guard, did host Parler in the end didn't they?

And sure enough, the FBI is investigating.

Signal is a charity rather than a company, but dunno if that makes any actual difference.

> I would like to see your supportive reaction if an Iranian company offers hosting to Parler. I imagine you would call it foreign intervention!

It's fine with me if an Iranian company offers to host Parler.

Having said that, I'm also in favor of prosecuting US companies that violate any sanctions we have against Iran.

Why are you in favor of sanctions on Iran? I've never really heard a good argument. It mostly tends to be "Well they say things I don't like that scare me, like Death to America" so very anti free speech type arguments.

I vouched for this post but you appear to be shadow-banned.

> Why are you in favor of sanctions on Iran?

My position isn't that Iranian sanctions are a good idea - I don't yet have an informed opinion about them.

We have laws against US companies trading with Iran and I believe in the rule of law as a general principle.

Am honestly not trolling here although it will sound like it:

Can someone please explain to me why it's a OK to reconnect Iranians to Signal, but not Trump supporters to Twitter (the ones censored and banned by Twitter)?

Because Signal didn't block Iran? This is false equivalence.

Hi, glad to help. The answer is that it depends on what your values are.

If you want to reconnect people to twitter (a publishing platform) who have been banned for racist hate speech or inciting violence, and the laws in your jurisdiction permit you to do that. Then you can do that without going to jail.

If you want to reconnect people to signal (a personal communications tool) who have been disconnected from it due to reasons best understood by the Iranian government, an the laws in your jurisdiction permit you to do that. Then you can do that without going to jail.

It's really just a value judgement whether you consider giving a publishing platform to racists against the will of said publishing platform is a worthwhile activity.

And, again, it's just a value judgement whether you consider giving the right to privately communicate back to Iranians who have been, effectively, deprived of it by connecting them to a service which will willingly have them is a worthwhile activity.

Your values may differ from mine. And both my and your values could differ from the majority of HN users. My experience is that perfect alignments of values rarely, if ever, occur between any two individuals.

It goes way way beyond inciting violence. For example, Facebook recently shut down the page of Socialist Workers Party in Britain. Facebook suspended well known libertarian Ron Paul. Timer blocked links to the New York Post Joe and Hunter Biden exposé and locked accounts that shared it.

Thanks for pointing that out. Yes, sadly, it would appear that those are the values of Facebook and Twitter. Insofar as an institution like a corporation can be said to possess "values" anyway...

But let's just assume we both dislike the editorial policies of Twitter. A pretty safe assumption, I think :)

Will spamming Twitter via a network of TLS proxies do anything to change their editorial policy to something more preferable to you or I?

Will setting up a network of TLS proxies to Signal give Iranians access to Signal?

Perhaps the answer to those two questions will give some indication as to what the practical (and moral) differences are.

For my two pence. I think anyone should be allowed to use a phone for any purpose, and I accept that a tap-proof phone can be used to commit crimes. I don't think Osama Bin Laden should be able to take out a page in the new york times to give his hot take on his "hugely successful" WTC attacks. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that these examples map directly to the point in hand, but I am just pointing out that they are different media and the balance between freedom of speech and public decency are struck differently and that tactics for finding political solutions to censorship in each case might look different, too.

They're completely unrelated examples. I'll try to explain why.

Iran's (authoritarian, human-rights-abusing) government wants to prevent citizens from communicating with each other using tools that are resistant to interception by their secret police. HN supports the basic human right to privacy, and thus wants to help Iranians circumvent unjust laws or government actions.

White supremacists (who happen to support Trump, because duh) are being banned by Twitter -- a company, notably distinct from a government, and thus incapable of "censoring" anything. This prevents them from using Twitter's platform to publish hate speech and (arguably illegal, definitely unjust) calls to violence. HN supports the right of a company to decide who can publish content on their platform and agrees that it's cool to tell racists that they aren't welcome there.

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