After several years of writer's block I finally had a longer piece published today:
https://redecentralize.org/blog/2021/01/18/centralization-is-a-danger-to-democracy.html
Many thanks to @redecentralize for carrying it, @tomasino, @[email protected], and Gerben for reviewing and editing it into shape.
The piece has also been published on #VSquare:
https://vsquare.org/centralisation-is-a-danger-to-democracy/
@rysiek @redecentralize @tomasino
Excellent essay.
I do not favor more third-party moderation or more regulation.
Moderation is censorship.
Regulation is centralization.
Give folks the tools to filter their own input, privately on their own device.
Change section 230 so it only applies where ISPs are not acting to filter or moderate, ie, acting in an editorial capacity. They should not get to monetize & censor content while receiving safe haven traditionally reserved for common carriers.
@hhardy01 @redecentralize @tomasino regulation is necessary.
The problem with social media is that it pretends to be both media, and infrastructure. Because "it's media" people are afraid to regulate it, since that would affect all media.
Because "it's infrastructure" it gets to pretend it's "neutral", when it is anything but.
We need regulation to make social media into a standardized environment, which will give us the actual neutral infrastructure. And then treat social media like media.
@rysiek @redecentralize @tomasino
The internet is a voluntary association of Autonomous Systems.
Centralized government censorship of free speech on the net is the antithesis of that.
@hhardy01 @redecentralize @tomasino we will not find common ground here. I am a strong supporter of Net Neutrality, for example, without which on higher levels of the OSI model you cannot have this "voluntary association of autonomous systems", because Telefonica will block Skype, as it's eating into their phone line business model.
Governments are not ideal, but are leaps and bounds more accountable than corporations.
@rysiek @redecentralize @tomasino
"Net neutrality" means "common carrier" status, ie no moderation or filtering, with equal access and no prior restraint or censorship or surveillance.
Government regulation of speech content and net neutrality are diametrically opposite and entirely incompatible.
Government content rules means no privacy, no security, no free speech, and no free internet.
You'll have reinvented television.
Television
Frank C. Waldrop, Joseph Borkin
@hhardy01 you explicitly said: "Regulation is centralization."
I gave you an example of regulation that brings more diversity in the network.
You are also ignoring the distinction I made between the "infrastructure" aspect of social media (that needs to be regulated and made into a common-carrier-like system), and "media" aspect that should be treated like all other media.
Not sure why you choose to ignore a rather crucial part of my argument there.
So are you regarding "net neutrality" as being in effect now, or not?
That's really not a well defined term, I prefer to talk about "common carrier" status which has a much longer history and a precise and well-agreed regulatory and legal meaning.
I did specifically talk about the distinction between ISPs who should be bound by common carrier rules, and receive safe haven under 230, and those which monetize and exercise editorial judgement and censorship of content, which should not.
@hhardy01 Net Neutrality is, to some extent, in effect, in some places. #ItsComplicated, and I might have been involved in writing a book about it:
https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783319264240
"Common carrier" has specific meaning in a specific regulatory environment, while Net Neutrality is specific to a network layer, so to speak, but is more broadly recognized as a particular idea. I'm fine with either.
The ways in which Internet traffic is managed have direct consequences on Internet users’ rights as well as on their capability to compete on a level playing field. Network neutrality mandates to treat Internet traffic in a non-discriminatory fashion in order to maximise end users’ freedom and...
Yours is a thoughtful and well-written essay.
I've been very invested in these internet autonomy and freedom issues for a long time, so please don't take any heat or shade from me personally. I apologize if offense.
But you have one libertarian argument [net neutrality] and one authoritarian argument [government content regulation of speech] and they are at odds as I see it.
National Information Systems and the US Bill of Rights
Henry Hardy
August 18, 1993
This is a really long discussion which deserves a more substantial response.
The character of the net as a free speech forum and the modern equivalent of the soapbox orator on the town square is what I most value and seek to preserve and enhance.
An essential characteristic is the very flat organization. There is Autonomous Systems. Period. ARIN, RIPE, etc. administer but do not rule.
Government gatekeepers will inevitably clamp down in order to assert and leverage their power.
@hhardy01 that's why Government power needs to be checked and accountable.
Problem is, corporate power right now is not, and market will not solve it.
If the protocol is agreed upon and walling the gardens is not legally permitted (the social media equivalent of network neutrality, so to speak), then editorializing done by a particular social media instance is not a problem, since users can move between them. That's the flat organization in action.
Gov't is needed only to ensure the protocol.
But wouldn't that in practice mean we could not site block gab, for instance?
@hhardy01 ah, now we're getting to the meat of the issue! 😃
Such regulations should probably kick in above a certain size of the network (so as to not stifle protocol innovation, small networks, "local bee-keepers forum", etc).
They should also probably be somewhat gradual: with great power over many users comes great responsibility. Large instances would need to meet a higher bar of accountability in their defederation decisions.
@hhardy01 yes you did talk about such ISPs. I take "ISP" to mean "Internet Service Provider", meaning an entity offering Internet access services. This is lower level than social media companies/networks operate on.
What I am saying is that the term "social media service", especially when used to denote Fb and 
, conflate two different things:
1. the *type of service* (think: "e-mail")
2. the *provider* of said service (think, "GMail").
(e-mail is just a metaphor here)
@hhardy01 we need to be able to demarcate the two to have a clear and meaningful conversation about regulating them.
We need to regulate the social media monopolists into having a common protocol, so that each separate service provider can be allowed to have (some?) editorial control because users are able to move between them freely.
So how does the regulatory agency know which type of site to regulate as?
Site registration & licensing, as w/ broadcast TV, you can no longer set up a website or publish anything without government prior review and approval and licensing of your site?
What if sites don't comply? What are the penalties, how applied? How appealed? Will small sites be driven out of existence by fees and regulations?
What about sites in non-US administered domains, or physically located outside the US?
@hhardy01 you regulate all social media sites as both.
Enforce the open protocol (with the caveats of size, defederation accountability for large sites, etc) to regulate the infrastructure aspect.
At the same time treat all social media sites as, well, media sites. Treat small instances similarly to how small blogs are treated. Treat large social media sites similarly to how large news sites are treated. The benefit here is that we already have the regulations, tools, precedents, etc., here.
@hhardy01 the open protocol is what lets you have the freedom of speech online. This way you don't have to rely on regulating what an admin can do on their instance. Just like e-mail - don't like GMail's policies, go to riseup. Don't like go to m.s.
Or set up your own.
"Censoring e-mail" is a preposterous idea in the sense that it just doesn't make sense in the medium. And yet we have some control over our mailboxes, and e-mail servers can block spam.
I am not much in favor of government-mandated protocols.
Interoperability yes is a good thing, but specific protocols should be voluntary open standards such as the RFCs.
I don't see US media regulation as a good thing historically in general.
An exception is from the ATT Modified Final Judgement to when those open access rules were repealed in early 90s. That "regulated openness" led to the dot com explosion... and government re-regulation and re-monopolization closed that door.
@hhardy01 the protocol should not be mandated in any way!
It's enough to say "if you have more than X users (say, 1mln), your protocol must be open, standardized, and it needs to be technically possible to set up a fully compatible yet independent instance".
That's it.
@hhardy01 all regulation is a blunt instrument, which is another reason to limit this kind of regulation to huge instances.
And notice how we're suddenly talking about Fb and as instances, instead of The Social Media Infrastructure. Which is where we suddenly might feel more comfortable saying "you know what? if anyone can set-up an instance compatible with Fb, then Fb blocking user X is less of a problem for free speech".
Facebook and twitter are websites... big deal. I quit FB years ago and I'm barely on twitter.
Let's not break the internet because we don't like Facebook.
@hhardy01 nobody is breaking the Internet. I am just suggesting that these websites should be, in fact, treated as websites as far as content policies are concerned.
If a website I control posted patently false claims about a political figure or a public health and safety situation, I would most likely get sued for libel or for endangering people.
If these are, as you say, websites, let's start treating them as such? But require the protocol to be open so that users can move.
Rysiekúr (old account)
Henry Edward Hardy
