Comparisons to Hitchens are similarly misleading; there is a large difference between enabling vs not stopping.
While I support eg the KKK or gamergate jerks' right to talk and organize, I'm damn well not helping pay for it.
I know it's not the same to you, but if you look at the top 15 boards on 8chan, that list includes a board that Fredrick likely has no interest in (gay porn), boards full of users that he probably disagrees strongly with (/leftypol/, a left wing version of /pol/, and /christian/, iirc he is an athiest), and a community full of people that he personally cannot stand (/furry/). Maybe you wouldn't pay to provide a home for "gamergate jerks", but he doesn't seem to have a problem providing a home for a lot of people he dislikes or disagrees with.
What is the difference between "enabling" and "not stopping" something? Is he "enabling" GamerGate because he supports it on his personal twitter account, or is he "enabling" it just for refusing to censor it on his site? Is he "enabling" /baphomet/ because he made some improvements to the site software that happened to fix a spam/flooding problem they had? Then is he not also "enabling" the /furry/ board that he developed a CAPTCHA option specifically for, due to the constant attacks of one dedicated spammer that board received? Or does "enabling" just mean "allowing something I dislike"?
If you allowed anybody in the world to put an ad in your newspaper, for example, you would be responsible when ISIS use it as a recruitment or propaganda tool - they wouldn't have that reach otherwise. Same with imageboards, reddit, or HN.
How are these distinct from imageboards, forums or reddit? This is a very slippery slope which implies censorship from the very beginning. Are you prepared to follow your reasoning all the way to its conclusion and stop people from having any platform for speaking their mind? Once you go there, you no longer have freedom of speech, which I agree with Hitchens et al. has to be protected even when it is uncomfortable.
I agree that there is a very tricky ethical case when it comes to harrassment or terrorism, but I have no good ideas on how to resolve it. We should err on the side of not censoring stuff we don't like.
No, that's not the conclusion. The conclusion is that the providers are responsible for it and are definitely enabling it, but sometimes that's better than the alternative. Not everything's black and white, unfortunately.
I'm not entirely certain that unrestricted use of a popular destination is the same thing as unrestricted use of a transport, though, to try and figure out a place where the line should be put. If you have an audience and allow people to reach that audience with dangerous and harmful ideas, that's likely worse than giving them the transport to build their own audience.
Holding providers of "audience" infrastructure accountable means that the only unorthodox groups that can communicate as effectively as the orthodoxy are groups with members that can provide "audience" infrastructure. Now the unorthodox suffer a disadvantage. The purpose of this system is to prevent dangerous and harmful ideas from being spread. This is still censorship.
Requiring all ISPs (or forums or whatever) to accept and retransmit the KKK's propaganda is just as much a limit on freedom as banning the stuff.
Alternatively, when an American cable news channel bleeps profanity or blurs nudity, isn't that a form of censorship?
I'm really confused with where the "censorship is only something a government can do" idea came from.
Some sort of conflation between the ideas of "censorship" and "violation of first amendment rights" I suppose.
Oh my god, shut up about free speech. It's his privately owned website and he can do whatever he wants with it.
But if every individual ISP refuses to host the KKK because they'd just rather not do business with bigots, then that's not censorship. It's just freedom of association.
If the 8chan guy tomorrow decided to shut down and nobody else wanted to host the pedophiles, that isn't censorship. They can buy a piece of land and make a pedophile clubhouse. They can buy a printer, make pedophilia leaflets, and distribute them in the town square. But if nobody wants to help them do that, it isn't censorship, because nobody is exercising power over the pedophiles, just over themselves.
No, that is censorship.
transitive verb : to examine in order to suppress or delete anything considered objectionable <censor the news>; also : to suppress or delete as objectionable <censor out indecent passages> http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/censoring
Freedom of speech means that you can put up your own lawn signs in your lawn. It doesn't mean that you get to put your lawn signs in other people's yards. It certainly doesn't mean that they are obligated to print and put up your signs in their yard.
People don't have an obligation to uncritically pass on any and all messages. True.
That a publisher only publishes certain books is not censorship of all the other books. True.
That you promote your own views without simultaneously mentioning all other views is not censorship. True.
Freedom of speech means that you can put up your own lawn signs in your lawn. It doesn't mean that you get to put your lawn signs in other people's yards. It certainly doesn't mean that they are obligated to print and put up your signs in their yard. True.
These are all true, but irrelevant. Refusing to help spread a message is different than trying to stop other people help spread a message. I've been repeating this for a while now. If you're still confused, try rereading our discussion until you see the difference.
If my neighbor puts up your signs, I am allowed to express my opinions to him. If he decides to take down the signs, that is still not censorship. I'm even allowed to decide to not talk to him if he leaves them up. Exercising my right to freedom of speech and freedom of association is not censorship. It can't be, because otherwise the right to free speech ends up being self-contradictory.
Your analogy is irrelevant. Your example neighbor is only putting up signs for one person, and you don't explain why he takes down the signs.
Censorship is selective removal of unwanted ideas to prevent those ideas from spreading. Removing all ideas for some other reason is not censorship.
Removing neutral infrastructure is restricting free speech through social conventions instead of through government. It's still censorship.
If you have an ideological attachment to the existence of neutral providers, nobody can stop you from creating one. But as 8chan is discovering, people are free to criticize them for who they are helping and what effects that has.
People are of course free to try and stop neutral providers. They are also free to lobby for a government that will censor them.
If you don't believe me, maybe you'll believe a lawyer who does a lot of free-speech work: https://www.popehat.com/2013/09/10/speech-and-consequences/
Edit: According to you, shouldn't Twitter be at fault for letting Pax say such hurtful things? They're providing him a platform.
Should you be under fire if you sell a printing press to an unsavory bunch of people?
How many levels of "providing a platform" can we go through before we no longer vilify people? We do business with companies (our ISPs) who do business with companies (other ISPs) who does business with a company (8chan's ISP) who does business with a company (8chan's host) who does business with a company (8chan) which is used by extremists. How deep does this go?
Alternate question: Should we bust newspapers for pimping?
Is it up to park police to monitor the user groups? Sure, but they cannot take action unless it violates the law.
When the ACLU spends money defending the KKK's first amendment rights in court, are they enabling the KKK, or merely not stopping them?
That's a different thing from giving them a platform to talk on, though. From a natural rights viewpoint, the KKK should be allowed to say whatever they want, but nobody has to give them a platform to talk on.