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Comment by sneak | Hacker News Reader

It’s time we start calling these things what they really are: censorship platforms.

They have declared themselves the arbiters of what is or isn’t true, and censor anything that doesn’t align with their views, right or wrong.

At one point YouTube was censoring videos telling people to wear masks, as it contravened the government’s recommendations (who were lying to preserve mask availability for healthcare workers).

Build and use alternatives. Tell your friends and favorite content creators to stop donating content for free to these censorship platforms.

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what are the alternatives, and how are they not "censorship platforms"?

The alternative is moderation only on content (CP for example) and not on speech (save for crimes like death threats and so on).

The more you censor speech the more radicalized people become against the system setting that censorship. It becomes a self perpetuating feedback loop.

> and not on speech save for crimes(death threats and so on).

Dealing with speech that is, actively encourages, or supports (or engenders fear of in potential victims)¹, such crimes, is exactly what this is trying to get the companies to address.

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[1] That list being the battery/assault/affray equivalents of hate speech

really? how often this has happeden from internet writings?

and how many times has happened actual crimes that eu politicans have been lately hiding ?

>could directly lead to

"Could lead to" is a slippery slope to censoring free speech or even to a Minority Report style of enforcing crimes before they happen.

The EU already tried dozens of times to ban encrypted chat on the same kind of fearmongering, now they're boiling the frog on free speech.

> > could directly lead to > "Could lead to" is a slippery slope

Bad wording on my part, to an extent due to trying to make the battery/assault/affray comparison match better. I've edited it to “directly encourages”, though that is still vague enough to be accused of being the start of a slippery slope.

I know why people worry about the slippery slope, and you should be able to say anything but not expect zero comeback (“free speech, but not speech free of consequences” and all that), so until/unless there are practical consequences (is anyone working on slap-over-IPv4?) we need to compromise and start blocking things somewhere along that slope.

Mastodon is federated, like email so censorship is more difficult as you can switch servers.

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