FYI if you read on in the twitter thread cited by the story, this has been walked back as bad communication by the company. They say they intended to allow any customer who wants FB and Twitter to be blocked by the ISP to reply to that email and that's what would happen. Not that it would be universally blocked for all customers.
Owner does not seem to be the best communicator, he admits this and says in his defense it has been three days of nonstop emails and calls that he answers even in the middle of the night. So maybe he's not thinking clearly.
Sure, they can try to claim that now. It's pretty clear that they blocked it for everyone and people have email them to be whitelisted.
"So we have a solution if you or your family would still like to be able to connect to Facebook or Twitter please let us know and we can add you to the allowed list to be able to not be blocked [...]"
> "Our company does not believe a [snip] site has the authority to censor what you see [snip]. This is why [snip] we have made this decision to block these two websites from being accessed"
I look at this--with the caveat of casually accepting the frame of "censor" to include "stuff done by private companies" (which isn't, of course, how it is technically defined)--as "you shouldn't be allowed to censor people... but, since Facebook/Twitter think that's somehow OK, we are going to make an exception to our rule about this and censor them to show them how it feels (though of course, if you would prefer to not take part in this, contact us and we will happily turn this off for you, as we're only willing to take this demonstration so far)". FWIW, I consider this frame to be not only consistent but even acceptable, and it is similar to essentially all attempts to ensure freedom: "we believe in the freedom of all people... and so if you attempt to harm someone else's freedom we punish you (and only you) by taking away your freedom".
You have to imagine they realize the nature of it. But it's kind of like "this statement is false." It's a challenge to have somebody stop them. And if that happens, they turn it around the other way.
It's not hard to understand when you realize it's just the paradox of tolerance. The ISP won't tolerate curated "speech" from those intolerant of free speech.
> Initially, the company said too many customers had requested the sites be blocked, so it would block them for all customers except for those who called the company and requested access. However, the company backtracked on Monday and said those who didn't request the sites be blocked would still have access.
So it's only blocking for people who requested such blocking, then the title is just click bait, I guess "ISP let's it's users block websites they dislike" is not as catchy.
Back in the good old days of independent dial-up ISPs, the owner of one of our local ISPs (somehow a logging town had more than one local ISP...crazy to imagine now, isn't it?) found Jesus and decided to filter all traffic for objectionable/"adult" content.
Can I challenge the argument of self-contradiction being made by many here? (disclaimer - I'm not advocating for / against the action either way).
In civisilised society / discourse one must assume rules of engagement in order for co-operative interaction between agents to take place. To take an extreme demonstration - if you club me over the head and steal my meat while I approach you to trade, then a co-operative interaction cannot take place; physically so.
If we impose the additional rule that we must continue to observe those rules of engagement with agents who themselves have ignored them - then it's pretty clear (at least in the extreme example) that we expose ourselves to exploitation. And many philosophies and cultures do impose this rule (Christianity - for example).
In the process of discourse - it's plausible to argue that the ability to express oneself is one such rule of engagement. So, this ISP might feel that FB etc have broken the rules of engagment, and they might feel that they are under no obligation to adhere to those rules for agents that themselves aren't playing ball.
Now you can challenge this line of thinking on all sorts of interesting grounds - and I encourage folks to do so. However - the discussion gets nuanced fast...
I don't think you can just claim this action as prima-facie self contradictory - and to do so, I feel exposes the bias and lack of generosity in those attempting understand this action.
Pornhub dropped a bunch of content at the behest of MasterCard, so they don't mind their porn being curated.
"Recent studies have found that state-level religious and political conservatism is positively associated with various aggregate indicators of interest in pornography. "
I think mirroring free speech standards under the law is probably a good starting point - i.e., censoring is bad by default, but not all speech is protected, and calls for violence and insurrection are a relevant and timely example of non-protected speech.
I'll reiterate that this should be a starting point, not necessarily a hard and fast rule - there may be more nuanced situations where the standards that are appropriate for the government are inappropriate for social networks.
There's also the question of what levels of the stack it's appropriate for any censorship to occur at. Even if censorship of a particular class of speech is appropriate in general, it may not be appropriate for an ISP specifically to conduct that censorship.
If a company doesn't want to distribute a certain type of content (whether it's for political reasons or because they genuinely think it's better for society that some voices aren't heard), they're under no obligation to do so.
"You can't censor us, we censor you!" - In all seriousness, this only hurts the ISP's customers. Interesting business tactic. We'll have to see how that plays out.
I have a philsophical defence of this not being censorship: The essence of censorship is to restrict access to information. This is harmful and dangeroues when powerful people use it to hide inconvinient information. Blocking a website is not necessarily censorship. Blocking an online casino, or a place to buy drugs, this is not censorship.
Now where does blocking facebook fall in this distinction. If you block it to hide information, then it is censorship. If you block it because of privacy reasons it is not censorship. This case is not as clear cut as either of those examples, but I would still say the motivation is not to hide information, and so not call it censorship.
But having said that, this is an action by a small isolated ISP. They are completely powerless compared to facebook or twitter. They only thing this amounts to is a symbolic statement of disapproval. It is not surprising that they are now backtracking as if they kept it up, they would have started losing customers.
Finally if ISP's start blocking websites it will quickly turn ugly, and I hope this does not happen.
The timing to me makes this clearly playing a political game of chicken. I wonder how many more people threaten to take their ball and go home, and who blinks and walks this back first.
Edit: it seems the ISP is walking this back already.
> But having said that, this is an action by a small isolated ISP. They are completely powerless compared to facebook or twitter.
While true on a global scale, internet access is not exactly a super competitive market. I think any one ISP likely has significant local power over individuals who live in their service area.
Serious question if there's anyone with an appropriate background in the relevant law: how does this play with net neutrality and FCC regulation if the ISP is blocking Facebook and Twitter but not their competitors? It's not a free speech issue, but are there any fair dealing and business regulations that would come into play? In Canada, where ISPs are usually treated like public utilities, I believe that this would not be permitted, but I don't know the current state of Net neutrality in the US.
Silly and retributory, and per the article a pretty clear violation of Washington State's net neutrality laws. But in context, probably not a bad thing for society.
Uhh aside from the censorship topic, I’m not sure if you can argue that ISP == some website. To be honest, I’m not sure why ISP aren’t regulated as utilities.
[+] [-] devindotcom|5 years ago|reply
Owner does not seem to be the best communicator, he admits this and says in his defense it has been three days of nonstop emails and calls that he answers even in the middle of the night. So maybe he's not thinking clearly.
Still, pretty ridiculous.
[+] [-] hundchenkatze|5 years ago|reply
"So we have a solution if you or your family would still like to be able to connect to Facebook or Twitter please let us know and we can add you to the allowed list to be able to not be blocked [...]"
[+] [-] munificent|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bawolff|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] BugsJustFindMe|5 years ago|reply
I can't tell if this announcement is parody.
[+] [-] chrisacky|5 years ago|reply
Access Denied You don't have permission to access "http://www.kgw.com/article/news/local/idaho-internet-provide..." on this server. Reference #18.6e8e7b5c.1610406044.d4bc76a
[+] [-] saurik|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] adnzzzzZ|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] coryrc|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] AnthonyMouse|5 years ago|reply
You have to imagine they realize the nature of it. But it's kind of like "this statement is false." It's a challenge to have somebody stop them. And if that happens, they turn it around the other way.
[+] [-] adamredwoods|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] flukus|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Geezus_42|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kortilla|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] panny|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] renewiltord|5 years ago|reply
Cool.
[+] [-] dmode|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] woadwarrior01|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mattigames|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] azianmike|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lukewrites|5 years ago|reply
They went out of business within the year.
[+] [-] oraphalous|5 years ago|reply
In civisilised society / discourse one must assume rules of engagement in order for co-operative interaction between agents to take place. To take an extreme demonstration - if you club me over the head and steal my meat while I approach you to trade, then a co-operative interaction cannot take place; physically so.
If we impose the additional rule that we must continue to observe those rules of engagement with agents who themselves have ignored them - then it's pretty clear (at least in the extreme example) that we expose ourselves to exploitation. And many philosophies and cultures do impose this rule (Christianity - for example).
In the process of discourse - it's plausible to argue that the ability to express oneself is one such rule of engagement. So, this ISP might feel that FB etc have broken the rules of engagment, and they might feel that they are under no obligation to adhere to those rules for agents that themselves aren't playing ball.
Now you can challenge this line of thinking on all sorts of interesting grounds - and I encourage folks to do so. However - the discussion gets nuanced fast...
I don't think you can just claim this action as prima-facie self contradictory - and to do so, I feel exposes the bias and lack of generosity in those attempting understand this action.
[+] [-] l9k|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pengaru|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] balozi|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] boxmonster|5 years ago|reply
"Recent studies have found that state-level religious and political conservatism is positively associated with various aggregate indicators of interest in pornography. "
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/23780231209084...
[+] [-] recursive|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] starkd|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tfehring|5 years ago|reply
I'll reiterate that this should be a starting point, not necessarily a hard and fast rule - there may be more nuanced situations where the standards that are appropriate for the government are inappropriate for social networks.
There's also the question of what levels of the stack it's appropriate for any censorship to occur at. Even if censorship of a particular class of speech is appropriate in general, it may not be appropriate for an ISP specifically to conduct that censorship.
[+] [-] j_m_b|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jacobsenscott|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] khyryk|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] snvzz|5 years ago|reply
But society is losing sight of that.
[+] [-] karmasimida|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Rebelgecko|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] elpocko|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] traveler01|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] balozi|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jonbronson|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] im3w1l|5 years ago|reply
Now where does blocking facebook fall in this distinction. If you block it to hide information, then it is censorship. If you block it because of privacy reasons it is not censorship. This case is not as clear cut as either of those examples, but I would still say the motivation is not to hide information, and so not call it censorship.
But having said that, this is an action by a small isolated ISP. They are completely powerless compared to facebook or twitter. They only thing this amounts to is a symbolic statement of disapproval. It is not surprising that they are now backtracking as if they kept it up, they would have started losing customers.
Finally if ISP's start blocking websites it will quickly turn ugly, and I hope this does not happen.
[+] [-] mattnewton|5 years ago|reply
Edit: it seems the ISP is walking this back already.
[+] [-] tqi|5 years ago|reply
While true on a global scale, internet access is not exactly a super competitive market. I think any one ISP likely has significant local power over individuals who live in their service area.
[+] [-] DoofusOfDeath|5 years ago|reply
I.e., is an ISP implicitly contracted to route packets between its customers and the entire publicly visible Internet?
[+] [-] exabrial|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] psadauskas|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ajarmst|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] newacct583|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] syntaxing|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rhplus|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] LordFast|5 years ago|reply