[HN Gopher] EFF co-founder John Gilmore removed from org's Board
___________________________________________________________________
EFF co-founder John Gilmore removed from org's Board
Author : intunderflow
Score : 171 points
Date : 2021-10-25 20:05 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theregister.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theregister.com)
| 1cvmask wrote:
| The last paragraph from the article regarding John Gilmore:
|
| He's widely credited as the source of the famous aphorism "The
| Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it."
|
| -
|
| The EFF has routed around John Gilmore now.
| anyonecancode wrote:
| A nuance I see missing from the censorship/free speech
| dichotomy is around what's essentially DDOSing of speech. I
| think that the free-est speech has something equivalent to the
| voting idea of "one person, one vote." No one should be
| silenced, but also everyone should have equal representation.
|
| In the same way that being very rich generally gives you
| effectively much more power than having a single vote, and so
| is a corruption of democracy, I think we see a similar thing
| with online discourse, where those with extra resources are
| able to essentially "flood the zone" and dominate the
| discourse.
|
| So the question is what should be the effective response? Those
| pushing the censorship/free speech framing argue that removing
| voices is wrong -- banning, deplatforming, etc. That may be
| right, but it's also incomplete as it doesn't address the
| dynamic of the well-resourced voices overwhelming everyone
| else.
|
| I don't know what an effective solution _is_ here, but I know
| what it _looks_ like -- all voices with equal access. I don't
| think the censorship/freedom framing gets us there.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| This is the key ingredient missing from most online fora that
| is not missing in most face-to-face fora and the actual halls
| of government (well, most of them): equal time.
|
| In a public physical venue, it's much easier to allocate one
| person, one time slice to present their views. There are
| exceptions (lobbying is a huge hack on this, and indeed,
| there's a reason many see lobbying as anti-democratic). But
| in contrast: online speech is dominated by whoever has either
| the most leisure time to toss at an online forum or the
| willingness and resources to sock-puppet up and turn their
| one voice into an echoing hydra. Factor in state spending on
| those hydras and the situation turns pretty un-democratic
| pretty fast.
| concinds wrote:
| > So the question is what should be the effective response?
| Those pushing the censorship/free speech framing argue that
| removing voices is wrong -- banning, deplatforming, etc. That
| may be right, but it's also incomplete as it doesn't address
| the dynamic of the well-resourced voices overwhelming
| everyone else.
|
| It's a good point, but the loud voices that have been driving
| this "anti-free speech" shift are also a loud minority. The
| people who got Alex Jones banned everywhere, got YouTube to
| start demonetising videos, got Trump banned from Twitter,
| were essentially a small group of influential Twitter users
| (some of whom also had jobs in the media, giving them huge
| platforms to put pressure on these companies). It's a
| "natural law" of human societies that the 1% are
| disproportionately loud, on any issue, and drive what the
| other 99% hear and think; not just a feature of online
| spaces. When you think of a liberal, or a conservative, or a
| college student, for example, whatever you picture in your
| head is just the loudest, most visible portion of that group,
| but is likely a tiny minority of that group. Whatever opinion
| you have on science, or nutrition, is driven by a very tiny
| loud minority, whether that's lobbyists, or a few influential
| individuals (maybe Neil deGrasse Tyson, maybe Al Gore, maybe
| the Coca Cola company[0]). Without them, the popular mind
| might think quite differently.
|
| Ergo; the "censorship shift" isn't about giving the minority
| their voice, it's two warring minorities struggling for
| control of the Overton window.
|
| [0]: did you think "a calorie is just a calorie" (aka CICO)?
| That was a marketing campaign by the Coca-Cola corporation,
| to get people to think that food quality was irrelevant to
| weight gain, only quantity. It turns out everything, from the
| food groups you eat, quality (refined or not), to the time of
| day you eat (eating later in the day is associated with
| weight gain), to the macronutrient breakdown (each macro has
| different effects on satiety) influences your weight.
| Effective, huh? A referendum didn't decide people's opinion
| on that, nor did medical consensus.
| tpmx wrote:
| And sensible people are routing around the current EFF as a
| response.
| FabHK wrote:
| a) That's not the last paragraph, but the antepenultimate.
|
| b) As far as I can tell, Gilmore was not trying to censor
| anyone. It seems more like the EFF has put Gilmore on the other
| side of their firewall.
| OnlineGladiator wrote:
| > antepenultimate
|
| And I thought knowing what penultimate meant was fun. For
| those that don't know, penultimate means second to last and
| antepenultimate means third to last.
| FabHK wrote:
| (There's also "preantepenultimate" if you ever want to say
| fourth to last without saying fourth to last...)
|
| https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/preantepenultimate
| OnlineGladiator wrote:
| Now I'm curious if there's a word meaning 'having more
| syllables than the definition itself' because we crossed
| that barrier back at antepenultimate (and penultimate
| already is tied with 'second to last').
| chrismorgan wrote:
| Well, there's _sesquipedalia_ for long words. You can
| also try hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia: https://en.
| wiktionary.org/wiki/hippopotomonstrosesquipedalio....
| teawrecks wrote:
| And apparently propreantepenultimate. Love this lol
| antiretard wrote:
| Literal soyjack poggers-posting reddit cunt. "Love this
| lol."
|
| Please kill yourself in a fucking dumpster so nobody has
| to inconvenience himself cleaning up the mess you left
| behind.
| hpoe wrote:
| Well I found my new favorite word of the week
| antepenultimate. Thanks FabHK.
| NikolaNovak wrote:
| I have now discovered "preantepenultimate" and my world is a
| happier place with a bit of faith in humanity restored. Thank
| you for leading the way :)
| SahAssar wrote:
| Honest question: why use words like "antepenultimate" that
| are not in common use and don't convey any more meaning than
| a more common form (like third-last)?
| klyrs wrote:
| Because people are encouraged to look up and learn a new
| word!
| AlbertCory wrote:
| Personally, I like fun words like that, much more than
| pretentious words like "access" and "empower." YMMV.
| azornathogron wrote:
| If people never used rare words or poetic turns of phrase,
| then communication would just be unbearably dull.
| WalterBright wrote:
| Because adhering to a 6th grade vocabulary is tedious.
| [deleted]
| antiretard wrote:
| It's for insecure assholes to feel a sense of superiority
| over anyone dumber than them. They think that if they've
| "learned" some new word, it means they're smarter than
| people who don't know this word, which means they're
| better. It's the obverse of the "might makes right" coin,
| but brains over brawn.
|
| One asshole typed up you can look this up in a dictionary.
| He actually thinks everyone who has a problem with this
| method of communication must be too dumb to have figured
| out the meaning of the word on their own.
|
| And that's the same kind of asshole who uses the word
| "utilize" anywhere and everywhere he can because it has two
| more syllables than "use." Completely insecure about his
| own intelligence and place in the world, his only recourse
| is to try to cut down other people by playing the "look at
| my vocabulary" game. These people never grew up. They still
| live in the old high school nerds vs. jocks tropes.
| maw wrote:
| Maybe you grew up speaking a language where penultimate and
| antepenultimate's cognates are in common use, like Spanish.
|
| I still remember hearing a Mexican friend whose English
| was, at the time, very basic use the word "polemical" and I
| could hardly believe it. I'm not sure most English speakers
| could use it correctly; I'm all but certain that I at the
| time couldn't.
| FabHK wrote:
| Good question. While I enjoy witty or even flamboyant
| writing, there is plenty of writing that is hard to
| understand on purpose, and I despise that (postmodern
| French philosophers come to mind). It seems here I've used
| a word that is less common and more distracting than I had
| thought (though it seems some people enjoyed it).
| xiphias2 wrote:
| As a person who has English as a second language (not the
| only one on HN) I'm interested in what is your second
| language, and if you have the knowledge of so rare words
| in your second language.
|
| We're here because the same sophisticated discussions in
| new technologies don't happen in our language. Please
| make what you write accessible to us as well.
| samdg wrote:
| Just look at the sibling replies to see how delightful this
| new word is to some other folks here!
|
| Sometimes using a word outside the register [0] or literary
| style is just a way to include a nice lexical nugget.
|
| [0]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Register_(sociolinguistics)
| brandonmenc wrote:
| Because we're not writing instruction manuals here.
| gumby wrote:
| Antepenultimate is perfectly clear while an uncommon phrase
| like "third-last" is ambiguous, prone to possible fence
| post error: is it the first of two before the final
| sentence or third from last (a reasonable interpretation in
| UK and Australia, at least) which would mean it would be
| followed by three sentences.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Language, like programming skill or physical muscles,
| develops under use. Failure to extend beyond quotidian
| usage and trepidation over sesquipedalian terms will result
| in atrophy.
|
| Someone probably learned a new word today here. Or was
| reminded of an unfamiliar one.
|
| And yes, there's virtue as well in clarity. Sometimes that
| comes from precision.
| antiretard wrote:
| Get a load of this retarded asshole.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| Of course, like programming, there's also something to be
| said for adhering to readability guidelines. ;)
| drewcoo wrote:
| It was easy enough to suss out the meaning based on
| context.
|
| // No comments needed to explain this one!
| catskul2 wrote:
| But it wasn't more precise.
| newsclues wrote:
| Dictionaries exist.
|
| Anyone is welcome to look up words they don't understand.
| antiretard wrote:
| Go beat up some five-year-olds. You weak, candyass,
| pretentious faggot.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| The reading I take is that Gilmore opposed censorship, and
| presumably was impeding actions of the EFF which might be
| interpreted as same, effectively exercising power through
| veto (see Francis Fukuyama's concept of a "vetocracy", and
| note that I'm not familiar enough with EFF's governance to
| know specifically what veto or obstruction powers exist).
|
| The irony is that the EFF routed around Gilmore's presumed
| obstruction.
|
| For the record, I'm increasingly of the view that free-speech
| absolutism is very badly flawed. If my reading of the
| situation is correct, then I'd agree with the action. That
| said, I'm as much in the dark as anyone whose information is
| the _Register_ piece itself, so don 't read too much into
| what I'm saying.
| antiretard wrote:
| _OF COURSE_ one of the most arrogant posters on the
| antepenultimate subthread is an anti-free-speech fucking
| goon. Fuck you.
| xhkkffbf wrote:
| While I don't know anything about the board's decision, I think
| someone who is anti-censorship would be out of favor with a
| Silicon Valley world that increasingly believes in censoring
| anything someone (in power) considers "misinformation." This is
| a big, big change from the early days of the Internet when
| people believed in free flowing information.
|
| John's attitude is so old school. Shaping the attitude of the
| populace through selective amplification is now.
| torgian wrote:
| So they advocate transparency, yet there aren't any board minutes
| or even a look into what happened. Weird.
| gego wrote:
| Perhaps this is relevant although it is about the
| fsf(clarification added after comments):
| https://www.theregister.com/2021/06/16/glibc_gnulib_fsf_copy...
|
| The glibc stewards are seeking input from developers to decide if
| the project should relax the requirement to assign copyright for
| all changes to the Free Software Foundation,"
|
| I do not, and have never, had an assignment in place (it's a
| running joke that my patch contributions have been all-minus-
| signs)," wrote glibc contributor Rich Felker, "but given recent
| behaviour by the FSF board, I am completely unwilling to assign
| copyright to them in the future, so not making this change may
| affect my ability to contribute.
| Jolter wrote:
| This is about the EFF, not the FSF.
| gego wrote:
| True, just thought it might give some insight into recent
| pain points, Gilmore's email at the eff is gnu after all :)
| not2b wrote:
| No, it isn't relevant. He's used that handle for about 40
| years, but you can't use that to conclude much about his
| position on any current issue. He was a co-founder of
| Cygnus Support (which eventually merged with Red Hat), and
| the name was a recursive acronym for Cygnus: Your GNU
| Support.
| gego wrote:
| Nice, didn't know that detail, always something new, thx.
| bsedlm wrote:
| I disagree, it is relevant, just not directly related.
| It's relevant through an idelogical lens.
| [deleted]
| ineedasername wrote:
| _The EFF appears not to publish board minutes, nor to have posted
| its constitution or charter to its site (but does advocate for
| transparency)_
|
| That is a bit strange.
| topynate wrote:
| If the reasons don't leak (they usually do) then it will still be
| possible to see what Gilmore was blocking by watching what the
| EFF does over the next six months that it hasn't done before.
| wnissen wrote:
| I have to admit that I am relieved this appears to be merely a
| difference of belief, and not related to disgusting behavior of
| any kind.
| sva_ wrote:
| It was already posted a few times, but might be worth being
| reposted as it didn't get much traction. I'd be curious if
| somebody knows more about the reasons for him being removed?
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28962841
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28985369
| afsFF wrote:
| Without any further information, this looks like "old idealistic
| libertarian out, new malleable directors in".
|
| ACLU, OSI, now EFF. Expect your freedoms to erode further.
| TigeriusKirk wrote:
| Several other board members are high profile people with regular
| social media usage. It'll be interesting to see what they have to
| say about this.
| squarefoot wrote:
| Unless some sort of internal NDA prevents them to do so, which
| being the EFF would be ironic, albeit in a sad way.
| [deleted]
| bsedlm wrote:
| There's a fundamental incompatibility between ownership-based
| capitalist markets (and their orderly political state
| association) and free and open source software owned by "the
| community".
|
| I believe the trend we are now on would lead us to a kind world
| in which even natural language has a concrete political entity
| (like a corporation or government) owning it in such a way that
| they'll pursue unauthorized speakers. For some it might seem far-
| fetched that natural language could ever be owned like this;
| hopefully they're right and this end won't ever be possible; just
| because it's a trend towards that does not mean we'll ever get to
| such an extreme.
| akudha wrote:
| _The EFF appears not to publish board minutes, nor to have posted
| its constitution or charter to its site (but does advocate for
| transparency)_
|
| Are board minutes considered private? What is the logic behind
| not posting the constitution, that sounds odd...
| rectang wrote:
| The EFF is a 501(c)(3), so they have to file IRS form 990 and
| their financials are public: https://www.eff.org/about/annual-
| reports-and-financials
|
| But I can't find any bylaws or board meeting minutes. I'm a bit
| disappointed.
| ghaff wrote:
| >Are board minutes considered private?
|
| Yes.
|
| The non-profit whose board I'm on does, I believe, have bylaws
| filed with the state we're incorporated in. And I know board
| member names (or maybe just the executive board) are filed as
| well. But we definitely don't have to make board minutes
| public.
| seba_dos1 wrote:
| What is that "but does advocate for transparency" even supposed
| to mean? EFF is not a government, it doesn't have to be
| transparent at all.
| Kbelicius wrote:
| What is hard to understand here, really? Nobody said anything
| about EFF having to be transparent.
| [deleted]
| seba_dos1 wrote:
| That text in parenthesis is completely irrelevant to the
| rest of the sentence and feels cheap. It's clearly trying
| to convey "they advocate for transparency but aren't even
| transparent themselves", which is missing the point. I read
| it as a form of manipulation to instill particular feeling
| towards EFF in the reader.
| DharmaPolice wrote:
| How is that missing the point? Transparency isn't just
| for governments and if you advocate for transparency in
| others you should adopt it yourself.
| seba_dos1 wrote:
| I can't agree with that. I can advocate for transparency
| in government and expect my right for personal privacy to
| be respected at the same time. The whole nature of what
| government and NGOs are makes points like "you should
| adopt it yourself" completely moot.
|
| EFFs transparency is regulated by it being a 501c
| charity. It has full right to demand transparency from
| governments while not being any more transparent than
| strictly required by law themselves. You may wish for
| them to be more transparent if you want to support them -
| it's your choice - but that has no bearing on their
| advocacy at all, because it's completely irrelevant. The
| reasons why governments should be transparent simply
| don't apply to entities that are not governments, because
| they don't hold the power that governments do. The worst
| thing that may come from lack of EFF's transparency is my
| curiosity not being fed with board minutes, possibly
| causing me to restrain from supporting them in the future
| - which is hardly comparable to how my country's
| government influences my life.
| jessaustin wrote:
| Our rulers are more powerful than we are. They already
| surveil our every communication, while avoiding public
| scrutiny whenever possible. So long as CIA and NSA exist,
| forces for good like EFF should be as private as they
| deem necessary.
|
| Although, removing Gilmore isn't a _good_ look.
| MeinBlutIstBlau wrote:
| It's like the Bono Haiti charity. Dude just made it to
| raise awareness that there are poor people in Haiti. No
| shit...
| jedberg wrote:
| It's a 501c charity, so it does have to be somewhat
| transparent in exchange for its protected tax status.
| ineedasername wrote:
| While I think the EFF's mission is a good one, I don't always
| like their tactics, which often resemble those of politicians or
| corporations.
|
| Here's a current example [0]. The message is basically "don't
| scan our phones, respect our privacy". Sounds okay, but it has
| practically no details. Nothing about _what_ exactly would be
| scanned, _why_ it would be scanned the, _how_ it would be
| scanned... nothing.
|
| Judging by most HN'ers conversations on the topic before, most
| would even support EFF's message on the issue! But look at their
| methods. They should be doing an _information_ campaign. Instead,
| that reads as _propaganda_ campaign.
|
| [0] https://www.eff.org/press/releases/eff-activists-lead-
| protes...
| scotuswroteus wrote:
| And maybe they should have thought about this inevitability
| when they did this: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/02/eff-
| apples-shareholder...
| agucova wrote:
| Clearly it's meant to be a political campaign, not an
| informative post. That's exactly what I expect the EFF to do,
| and their technical content (which is separate) is also great.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| More HN bikeshedding.
|
| Sloganeering is actually critical for mass movements for
| political change.
| dimitrios1 wrote:
| More improper use of a "gotcha".
|
| Perhaps those who consider themselves to be part of the
| educated class find sloganeering distasteful and thus
| contrary to the goals of the movement? After all, it's likely
| those part of the educated class that are going to do the
| real groundwork on these important matters of policy.
|
| Perhaps if it was a good slogan, it wouldn't need discussion.
|
| All of these are possibilities.
|
| How essential are slogans, in your view?
| criddell wrote:
| Slogans are fine as long as the details are available
| somewhere for those that want to dig in.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| I feel like the linked article from GP has plenty of
| additional details linked. There is also plenty of media
| coverage on what they are discussing.
|
| I am confused what is perceived as actually missing and why
| that missing content is somehow an indict on EFF
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > which often resemble those of politicians or corporations
|
| They are a corporation aren't they?
| yxhuvud wrote:
| They are a foundation. So as far as my grasp of definitions
| go, no.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| A corporation is just a group of people authorised to act
| as a single legal entity. Charities, foundations, etc, are
| corporations. They're corporate.
| cwkoss wrote:
| Does anyone have insight into what the primary disagreements were
| between Gilmore and the rest of the board?
|
| It looks like there is subtext that there was a contentious issue
| they couldn't agree upon, I wonder what it is.
| J5892 wrote:
| He's an old-school internet freedom activist.
|
| Judging from what's happened with many similar activists, I'm
| guessing a hard-line anti-censorship mindset isn't compatible
| with today's social/political landscape in which rampant
| misinformation on the internet has direct effects on meatspace.
|
| Of course, this is purely conjecture. It could be completely
| unrelated.
| rasengan wrote:
| Freedom is serious business and worth dying for. If our
| freedoms online are taken, make no mistake, it will be war.
| blagie wrote:
| I agree, but...
|
| Whose freedom? And what is freedom?
|
| Market dynamics support corporations which can generate the
| largest numbers of ad clicks. You can't run an organization
| which doesn't ultimately conform to market dynamics. That
| leads to polarization, hate, and misinformation. Do we want
| to go down that path?
|
| Are corporations people? Should corporations have freedom-
| of-speech? Should corporations be free to lie? Should
| government employees? Should corporations be free to engage
| in speech which is known to actively harm people?
|
| I really don't know.
|
| I do feel like some forms of intentional lying should be
| illegal. If a government employee says something, or an
| academic does, I should be able to trust they're not being
| intentionally untruthful. Where does that line lie? I don't
| know.
|
| I also feel like individuals should have real freedom of
| speech. Not just freedom from government prosecution after
| speech, but freedom from economic prosecution, and to some
| extent, social ostracization.
|
| I feel like we need a serious discussion here, though.
| tpmx wrote:
| Yeah, this is my interpretation as well. I mean, he
| formulated "The Net interprets censorship as damage and
| routes around it".
| shadowgovt wrote:
| Funny enough, if I recall correctly, that quote was
| specifically in the context of USENET.
|
| And the story of USENET since then might be educational...
| USENET itself, and the infrastructure running under it, are
| hard to censor, but many of the individual service
| providers that ran USENET endpoints and provided them for
| their customers went "This is more trouble than it's worth"
| and stopped providing that service. It's harder to get on
| USENET now than it was in the days AOL offered it.
|
| The Net interprets censorship as damage, but a critical
| mass of service providers concluding something isn't worth
| the resources can have the same effect as censorship.
| threatofrain wrote:
| My interpretation is that _capitalism_ routes around
| blockades and protectionism. But capitalism is a tango
| between producers and consumers, and if either side fail to
| agree then the liveliness of exchange will suffer. Demand
| alone is insufficient.
|
| This also means that de jure censorship, as performed by
| government, can affect both customers and businesses, and
| hence it is very difficult for the sex worker industry or
| content pirating communities to find an alternative route.
| Not all things can thrive in a black market.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Information distribution has always had direct effects on
| meatspace.
|
| That's what makes an anti-censorship stand relevant and
| important. Nobody would censor if there were no physical
| impacts.
| a-dub wrote:
| i used to be into hardline freedom of speech... now i
| acknowledge that real life nuances are a lot more
| complicated.
|
| censorship is messy and complicated and usually involves a
| dangerous concentration of power, sure...
|
| but truly free and anonymous speech that can originate from
| places that are immune to it's effects or can be falsely
| attributed for the purposes of subversion can also result
| in a dangerous concentration of power.
|
| what's the difference between a censored truth and a chorus
| of convincing lies originated anonymously that buries the
| truth?
| akira2501 wrote:
| And this is something you believe is best solved through
| censorship of individuals by large tech companies?
| J5892 wrote:
| I believe tech companies should have the freedom to
| decide who gets to post on their own platforms,
| regardless of the size/reach of the platform.
|
| To restrict that freedom would be a direct restriction of
| freedom of speech.
| a-dub wrote:
| i'm arguing that the situation is more complicated. we
| live in a world that is still somewhat e-communication
| naive, while the internet has completely rewritten the
| rules of the game bringing e-communication into focus.
|
| when the us constitution was written, it wasn't written
| with the idea in mind that anyone in the world could
| anonymously participate in the local political process.
| that would have been crazy talk!
|
| so i think maybe there may be some weirdness in terms of
| keeping the peace in the short term as more naive
| generations die off and more saavy generations come up. i
| also think that maybe some ideas we thought were
| principles were actually implementation strategies built
| for a very different world and that perhaps we'll need to
| look at what the underlying principles were and how they
| might be upheld in a world without information borders.
|
| perhaps freedom of speech, which was written with the
| idea of preventing government from getting too powerful
| and controlling people, would need to be reduced to the
| idea of any entity amassing undue power by consolidating
| information capabilities to control people. from that,
| maybe you build up a freedom of speech paired with a
| required assertion of identity...
|
| but honestly, i don't know. it sure does seem that the
| old principles were written for a different game though.
| evouga wrote:
| Somebody bears ultimate responsibility for filtering fact
| from fiction.
|
| It could be the individual consuming the news (which is
| hard work, and requires consciously counteracting
| confirmation bias as well as overt attempts at
| information manipulation).
|
| Or it can be some centralized authority (social media
| companies, the government, etc.) and you have to ensure
| that the interests of that authority are aligned with the
| public interest.
|
| The last several years have illustrated the downsides of
| the former approach but I'm not at all convinced that the
| latter is less brittle.
| EvanAnderson wrote:
| > when the us constitution was written, it wasn't written
| with the idea in mind that anyone in the world could
| anonymously participate in the local political process.
| that would have been crazy talk!
|
| I thought the Federalist Papers were published
| anonymously.
|
| I understand that you said "anyone in the world". I'm
| certainly not a scholar of American history, but surely
| there were European influences being exerted (and likely
| anonymously, too) on the Colonies around the time of the
| Federalist Papers.
|
| Far-reaching anonymous political speech isn't a new
| thing. The speed and ease of disseminating speech is new,
| for sure.
| a-dub wrote:
| > Far-reaching anonymous political speech isn't a new
| thing. The speed and ease of disseminating speech is new,
| for sure.
|
| yeah i suppose you're right, foreign intelligence
| operations designed to influence local politics have
| existed long before the internet. i think maybe the
| difference is, it can now be done at scale on a
| grassroots level at substantially reduced cost.
|
| mix that with massive populations that are naive to
| common internet discussion traps and well, here we are.
| evgen wrote:
| > I thought the Federalist Papers were published
| anonymously.
|
| They were not. They were published by three well-known
| political figures under a pseudonym that was widely known
| among their peers. Everyone knew it was one of three, and
| in most cases everyone who mattered in the discussion
| knew that Hamilton was the most likely author of most of
| them.
| jimmygrapes wrote:
| Just kinda spit balling here so forgive the lack of
| empathy, but it seems to me like the overall System is
| perfectly capable of correcting itself when people
| succumb to "misinformation" to the point it harms them.
| Yeah we don't want anyone to get harmed, sure sure, yeah,
| of course, that would be simply... awful. Yet... we learn
| best from failure, correct?
|
| In other words, at some point every concerned individual
| needs to let those insistent/destined to fail to do so,
| and let others learn from their mistakes.
|
| Everyone's gotta stop trying to save everyone else.
| nuerow wrote:
| > _(...) but it seems to me like the overall System is
| perfectly capable of correcting itself when people
| succumb to "misinformation" to the point it harms them._
|
| For this hypothesis to be valid, you'd require a
| population which:
|
| a) had decent critical thinking,
|
| b) consumed reliable information from reliable sources,
|
| c) wasn't targeted by bad actors who hijack information
| channels to saturate it with disinformation,
|
| d) wasn't radicalized to the point where even basic
| health and safety precautions are attacked as being
| partisan politics.
|
| What we have been seeing for the past year or so is that
| the system is unable to self-correct if attacked hard
| enough. Also, we also that the system indeed has some
| capacity to self-heal if the volume of disinformation is
| actively tuned down.
| J5892 wrote:
| I don't disagree with this, but there's a threshold in
| which the misinformation becomes the prevailing "truth"
| for a portion of the population, and is no longer able to
| self-correct.
|
| If there is a force actively working towards this as a
| goal, do you not think that force should be actively
| opposed?
| drewcoo wrote:
| There is a parable something like this:
|
| The child looks at the forest and sees the forest. The
| adult looks at the forest and sees all the trees and
| plants and wildlife and features of the land. The old
| person looks at the forest and sees the forest.
|
| It's possible to lose sight of what really matters when
| overwhelmed with nuance.
| mindslight wrote:
| It's still an open question of whether we're actually
| seeing the result of too much free speech, or whether
| we're seeing the result of overly centralized powers
| popularizing extreme viewpoints to drive engagement.
| Faceboot et al have essentially installed themselves as
| middlemen into everyone's interpersonal relationships,
| and have thus hijacked our sense of social proof.
| tpmx wrote:
| I miss the times when the EFF and the ACLU would both do what's
| _right_ 100% of the time, instead of doing what 's fashionable. I
| think there's a trend here.
| aaomidi wrote:
| > ACLU would do what's right 100% of the times
|
| Have you considered that your values might've changed? Or their
| values of "what's right 100% of the time" has changed?
| hoppyhoppy2 wrote:
| However you choose to describe it, the ACLU's values have
| changed in recent years and there's internal disagreement
| about the right path forward for the organization.
| https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/06/us/aclu-free-speech.html
|
| (alternate links to the article: https://archive.is/newest/ht
| tps://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/06... / https://web.archive.org
| /web/https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/...)
| echelon wrote:
| The ACLU is supposed to defend free speech. Period. Even if
| we hate it.
|
| Now they pick and choose, and that's not right.
|
| Do I like people with hatred towards their fellow humans?
| Absolutely not. But I don't think we should muzzle them. One
| day, that'll come back and bite the rest of us.
|
| Likewise, the EFF needs to focus on the incredibly important
| missions of keeping software accessible and our privacy
| paramount. They're getting distracted too.
|
| edit: mistakenly mentioned FSF instead of EFF. I'm clear
| about the distinction, it was just a mistake. Thanks for
| pointing it out, mig39.
| mig39 wrote:
| Are you confusing the EFF and FSF?
| NelsonMinar wrote:
| ACLU hasn't changed their values at all. They just finally
| understood that dangerous, violence-inducing hate speech
| like that coming from Nazis imperils the free speech of
| decent people who those Nazis directly threaten.
| gaganyaan wrote:
| Don't be silly.
|
| It really hasn't been that long since the red scare,
| where people made comments just like yours, but warning
| about the dangers of those dirty pinkos towards god-
| fearing, decent Americans. The first amendment protects
| us from authoritarians of any political stripe.
| azinman2 wrote:
| What do you mean by pick and chose? ACLU always has to pick
| their cases.. they cannot afford to be the nations lawyers
| nor should they be.
| debacle wrote:
| He means that, in 2021, they are coming out _against_
| free speech in multiple instances.
| bink wrote:
| Several people have stated this but none have provided an
| example. Could you be so kind?
| blacksmith_tb wrote:
| This article[1] being a standard talking point. I have
| been an ACLU member for years, but I do find their
| current direction to be somewhat worrying.
|
| 1: https://archive.md/tL7Rj
| Fellshard wrote:
| They are explicitly picking and choosing which speech
| they believe should be free - and it's not just selecting
| cases, but actively militating against some speech.
|
| EDIT: Not just speech, but also other basic rights they
| have stood for, such as legal representation and rights
| of the accused.
| azinman2 wrote:
| Can you please point to these cases?
| Fellshard wrote:
| One major one that seems to have set its course for the
| ensuing years is its response to the infamous
| Charlottesville rally, wherein they attempted to argue
| that they now considered liberties to have precedence
| among one another. [1]
|
| Their response to reforms of Title IX to restore the
| rights of the accused was to intentionally lift up the
| rights of the accusers over and above the rights of the
| accused. Their statement regarding it dishonestly claimed
| that they were balancing the scales, whereas anyone who
| has examined Title IX can easily see it leaves the
| accused without their constitutional rights to due
| process. [2]
|
| In a similar theme, they inserted themselves into the
| confirmation process of Brett Kavanaugh, taking a clear
| side on the issue instead of standing for principles of
| legal representation and initial presumption of
| innocence. [3]
|
| There are other recent articles on continued churning
| against their prior positions, but unfortunately they are
| behind a paywall and I do not yet have access to read
| them. I may be able to find other sources later. [4]
|
| [1] https://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/201
| 80621AC...
|
| [2] https://twitter.com/ACLU/status/1063456843706585089
|
| [3] https://twitter.com/ACLU/status/1046826766017466370
|
| [4]
| https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/19/opinion/letters/aclu-
| free...
| iszomer wrote:
| For a good recap, watch JRE #1595 with Ira Glasser.
| amalcon wrote:
| Is there a text source available? I'm not interested in
| getting this kind of information from a video, even if it
| weren't a polarizing source.
| kyleee wrote:
| I don't know anything about Ira Glasser, why are they
| polarizing?
| AlexCoventry wrote:
| Rogan is supposed to be the polarizing source.
| amalcon wrote:
| Joe Rogan is the one who's polarizing. I don't fully know
| why myself, as I'm not really a fan of the interview
| format anyway. I've just observed that he seems to be.
| J5892 wrote:
| While they may now be more often on one side of the
| political divide, they have not completely stopped
| defending freedom of speech regardless of political
| message: https://lawandcrime.com/first-amendment/aclu-
| backs-n-j-woman...
|
| Of course, this is just one case. But it at least shows
| they're not opposed to defending those they may otherwise
| disagree with.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Obligatory _The Onion_ link: https://www.theonion.com/aclu-
| defends-nazis-right-to-burn-do...
| PontifexMinimus wrote:
| I can't speak for tpmx, but I'm fairly certain that _my_
| values have changed less than the ACLU 's. They recently
| edited a quote by Ruth Bader Ginsberg in a very 1984-esque
| way[1], and my values have always been that 1984 is a warning
| not an instruction manual. I think that any organistion with
| "Civil Liberties" in its name should believe the same.
|
| [1]: see https://pontifex.substack.com/p/links-13-nandy-and-
| aclu-cont... , last item on the page.
| djur wrote:
| I was critical of this at the time because it associated
| Ginsburg with a viewpoint that she may not have held, but
| there's nothing Orwellian about that. People smooth over
| the rough edges of their historical idols all the time.
| There's virtually nobody who quotes the US founders who is
| actually advocating for the precise same set of values and
| institutions those founders supported.
| morelisp wrote:
| Ah yes, exactly like 1984. The Ministry of Truth was
| infamous for putting []s around the changes it made when
| quoting people on its own Twitter account.
| coolso wrote:
| > exactly
|
| I can't find anywhere in the parent comment or the
| parent's linked page where it was claimed that the ACLU's
| tweet of a modified false-quote-LARPing-as-the-actual-
| quote was "exactly" like 1984. The parent commenter
| appears to have used the adjective "esque", although
| perhaps it was run through the ACLU's false-quote
| converter first (in fairness to you, perhaps your comment
| was as well).
|
| Might I suggest you edit your original quote ACLU-style
| and write something such as:
|
| > Ah yes, [exactly like 1984].
|
| Certainly, deliberate modification of words is fully
| acceptable as long as there are half-squares surrounding
| them.
| newsclues wrote:
| They changed.
|
| They went from defending Nazis to calling people Nazis.
|
| I've always hated Nazis but I've also always wanted speech to
| be free, and the ACLU is the one who changed their tune.
| aaomidi wrote:
| > They changed.
|
| So yeah, they realized some stances they had has fucked
| over a huge group of people that weren't listened to for
| centuries \o/.
|
| For people like me, ACLU went from a pretty dangerous org
| to an org I actively support.
| pugets wrote:
| Any organization willing to put "Civil Liberties" in their
| name should be foremost concerned with the individual
| liberties of Americans. So it worries me that their position
| on the Second Amendment is:
|
| > Given the reference to "a well regulated Militia" and "the
| security of a free State," the ACLU has long taken the
| position that the Second Amendment protects a collective
| right rather than an individual right.
|
| https://www.aclu.org/other/second-amendment
|
| Of course, they have their reasons. And they concede that
| there are some instances where the state goes too far with
| regulations and prohibitions. But I would want to see an
| organization which defends civil liberties to frequently err
| on the side of protecting the individual than the government.
| disk0 wrote:
| Both orgs have absolutely done what's right many, many times,
| but 100% is a little high.
|
| I'd highly recommend checking out _All EFF 'd Up_ [0] in The
| Baffler--it's quite long, but below is a relevant bit for both
| orgs:
|
| > Leading EFF's invasion of Washington, D.C., was Jerry Berman,
| who had been a top ACLU attorney and founder of ACLU Projects
| on Privacy and Information Technology ... Berman was a Beltway
| insider who in the 1980s was at the center of a push to turn
| the ACLU into a big business lobby and an ally of intelligence
| agencies and right-wing political interests. Among other
| things, the Berman-era ACLU defended Big Tobacco from
| regulations on advertising and worked with the National Rifle
| Association to fight electronic collection of arrest data by
| the Department of Justice for background checks to deny
| firearms licenses. Among Berman's personal achievements:
| working with the CIA on an early version of a bill that
| criminalized disclosing the names of CIA agents--a law that was
| later used to prosecute and jail CIA officer John Kiriakou, who
| blew the whistle on the Agency's use of waterboarding as a
| torture and interrogation technique.
|
| > ... Berman also helped craft the 1986 Electronic
| Communications Privacy Act, a controversial law that gave the
| government power to grab electronic metadata from cellphone
| calls, email, and other digital communications without a
| warrant, which is now routinely used to collect user data from
| companies like Google, Twitter, and Facebook...
|
| > Freedom to Surveil
|
| > ...His signature achievement had been collaborating with the
| FBI to draft and rubber-stamp a law that expanded FBI
| surveillance into the digital telecommunications
| infrastructure. Known as the "Communications Law Enforcement
| Assistance Act"--or CALEA--the 1994 law required that
| telecommunications companies install specialized equipment and
| design their digital facilities in a way that made it easy to
| wiretap.
|
| > ...
|
| > When EFF's role in crafting this surveillance law came out,
| outraged members of its cyber-libertarian base cried foul. EFF,
| they'd been led to believe, was created to push back against
| government control of the internet...
|
| > ...
|
| > In reality though, the outrage stemmed from a basic confusion
| about what EFF was created to do. EFF emerged as a lobby for
| the budding internet industry...
|
| [0] https://thebaffler.com/salvos/all-effd-up-levine
| (Ctrl/Cmd+F "Buying Silence" to skip the intro portion)
| rectang wrote:
| Can you please be specific about what the EFF is doing that you
| find objectionable? Especially if you can relate it to the
| article (as opposed to something generic), that would be great.
| tpmx wrote:
| Firing John Gilmore is highly objectionable on its own.
| olyjohn wrote:
| I suppose that depends on what actually happened. Which
| they have not released any information on. So it's too
| early to make a judgement call on that.
| [deleted]
| an_mp_speaks wrote:
| So I guess one question I have is: what organizations still
| _do_ defend freedom of speech in the old style?
| badRNG wrote:
| What is the EFF doing that's fashionable and _wrong_? Is this
| just wild speculations as to what 's going on?
| [deleted]
| notadev wrote:
| This Twitter thread implies it's related to his "siding with"
| Jacob Applebaum of the Tor Project, when he was accused of sexual
| misconduct.
| https://twitter.com/mjg59/status/1452714046218649603?s=21
| tpmx wrote:
| Ah, so his sin was that he called for a formal legal process
| instead of "trial by rumor". Burn the witch!
| cbvx10 wrote:
| Ok, advocating against extrajudicial punishment (like djb also
| did) is of course monstrous behavior for woke directors.
|
| So the EFF has also departed from its mission. We learn
| (https://www.eff.org/de/pages/effs-diversity-statement):
|
| "Diversity of life experiences makes a big difference in how we
| identify and litigate cases, design privacy-enhancing software,
| and organize our activism."
|
| Another institution has been taken over. I can't find the donor
| list, it would be interesting.
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