Comments

1

They probably just did this to keep people from openly discussing the various ways Facebook fucks its users.

3

Does this include The Stranger suspending dozens of long time sloggers?

4

Anyone remember after 9/11

And we were all terrified of the PATRIOT ACT

And it was fashionable for liberals (myself included) to say "those who value security over liberty deserve neither" (quote attributed to Ben Franklin)

Where they at now?

5

@4 demanding the no-platforming of all their political enemies, of course, as seen so often here on The Stranger's comment sections.

6

@ compared to today's breed of outraged social justice warriors, Catherine MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin seemed downright playful.

7

"While the bills were, in theory, designed to help people, according to sex workers and their advocates, shutting down these avenues has led to an increase in street solicitation, which puts sex workers more at risk than advertising their services online."

Source?

8

Please, Facebook, tell us more about how you're helping the women and children of internet by ham-fistedly blocking the sharing of Medium articles written by sex workers.

The link to "Porn on Tumblr — a eulogy / love letter," published today by Vex Ashley (@Vextape on Twitter) is being flagged as porn itself under these new restrictions.

Mind blowing.

https://medium.com/@vexashley/porn-on-tumblr-a-eulogy-love-letter-6d45e70fefff

9

This sort of thing used to make me very emotional, but I've accepted that this is just how our world is, and that the open internet was always just going to be a moment in time. We live in a world that prioritizes authority and control at all times. Everything is set up to enable locking down from above. Technology enhances this dramatically. Add to that the power that wealth has in this nation to do what is right for wealth no matter the cost to others... yeah, we're not heading down a good path.

10

Wait when did a massive corporate spying platform become a free speech zone? Are we to be surprised and have fuck to give about any sort of community standard this private company chooses to enact? It's their company, and I don't use it, so who gives a fuck if it's unicorns and baby talk or aggressive fistings? Move on and let some other massive company steal your personal information if you don't like it ....

11

"The open internet, it seems, is rapidly closing."

A colorful statement, but one I don't quite agree with in this case. Facebook is most decidedly not the open internet. If you want to flatter Facebook, it's its own closed internet. Really, though, it's just a website, or a collection of websites and other Internet services. The same is true for other social media outlets.

The internet itself is still open, provided you're not living somewhere like China. You can go to any site; you can email any email address (just don't expect a reply). Anyone theoretically can come along and put up their own site that is more permissive about salacious content or hate speech.

And that's where you do see the front lines of the fight to close the internet. The site that the Pittsburgh synagogue shooter was on was kicked off its hosting service and had to find another one. They got picked up by a niche provider in the Seattle area: https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/website-used-by-suspect-in-synagogue-massacre-is-back-online/.

There's certain speech that is illegal, whether it's IRL or in print or on the web. There's certain speech that is unsavory, and I'll allow that such speech is increasingly subject to some censorship of the marketplace. If I was motivated enough, I'd go back over Ms. Herzog's writeups of "the dark web," or Bari Weiss's "dark web" story in The New York Times. What do we really mean by "the dark web"? Sites that are just off the beaten path, or ones whose content is hidden, sort of like a private club or speakeasy?

12

Having made my pedantic point…

For someone who's invested in being a member of the Facebook community, I can understand why this is a big deal.

15

@9 The Internet being "The Wild West" is a comparison that's been made a billion times, but mostly because of it's lack of established rule and structure. Who knew that perhaps, the internet as we know, would be likewise similar because of how short lived the particular era was. We had Web 1.0 (dorky tech hobbyists experimenting, roughly 1975-1995), Web 2.0 (Commerce; dynamic, user-generated content, ie Social Media, 2000-2020). What's 3.0? I dunno (ubiquitous networked non-computer devices and autonomous vehicles will probably be the core), but it seems like we're diving in headfirst in regardless.

16

@3,

Like who? Back in 2016 they implemented a site redesign that caused a bunch of us to lose access to our old profiles and have to create new ones ("Lark 2" is one such example.) I've not seen anyone who wasn't posting inflammatory shit banned anytime recently. You're not advocating for bring NHL to seattle and muffy are you? Those morons, who routinely post insulting, inflammatory shit, have been through countless profiles over the years and are all too happy to create new ones on a whim.

19

Yeah, I think you'll find a way to share pegging tips without doing it on Facebook.

20

You all beg for censorship when it is someone you do not like who is talking. You can't possibly be so naive and stupid to think no one was going to want to censor you once you decided censorship was good.

Also, if you stop revolving your entire life around Facebook, it won't matter when they adjust the site rules.

21

@7 - it's basic common sense. Once platforms to advertise their services are shut down, escorts are basically forced to choose between having a pimp or becoming streetwalkers. This is far more dangerous.

@20 - well said. Free speech is an all in or all out proposition. You can't say, "I'm for free speech, BUT … " and expect the "but" is just one or two things. It always balloons out of control, and comes back to bite the people who demanded censorship/content policing in their ass. And no matter how many times you point that out, no matter how many examples are provided, people still howl for it. I will never understand.

23

[SLIGHT SELF-PARODY]
The Web's been going downhill ever since they let people who can't even code HTML put things on it, and let people use it to sell stuff.

[GREATER SELF-PARODY, but still a grain of truth]
The Internet's best use was grabbing free software with gopher and S.L.A.C.'s e-mail based physics abstracts look-up service; now I hear that people are using it to talk about sports, a clear indication to stay away from it.

24

@21 "Free speech is an all in or all out proposition"

Absolutist nonsense. Speech advocating harm to individuals or groups of people is liable to be curtailed. Plastering porn in public places can cause harm, talking about sex doesn't.

25

Rule 0:
Their iron, their rules.

…and there are no comparably significant other rules. `Forget it, Jake, it's private property.' which classifier is a-physical, but then again so are 'Justice', 'Fairness', 'Rights' and all the other spooks-in-the-head to which Stirner and some other angry teens give far too short shrift. (Stolen from: https://tinyurl.com/Pratchett-Justice.)

26

@22 Your comment illustrates the need for a social media public utility where people can opt out of having their metrics monitored or choose to have their data used for research not necessarily driven by commercialism

27

@17 you absolutely MUST share the link to the word salad generator you used!

29

@15 Internet of things is coming and imo will define web 3.0. Right now, the sensors are rigged together crap, it's difficult to get access to the volume and breadth necessary for many models to function (chiefly a corporate organization problem i.e. no central platform it's all going through), and outside of a few corporations people are idiots when it comes to understanding how to use data. But it's coming. And the potential for knowledge and control will be pretty over the top. I have a little experience here.

@27 lol.

30

@21, if it's such "common sense" then I'm sure you can point me at an example of a person who left an online platform because of a rules crackdown, started working on the streets, and was harmed. I'll wait.

31

@22 - now do Christian bakers.

Incidentally, you're confusing the first Amendment with free speech, a common mistake for people who slept through (or did not take) civics. While Facebook is not obliged, their content policing (and Twitter's, etc.) is leading to shitty outcomes, with the predictable result of having to either unevenly enforce rules, or ban all but the least controversial of content for "balance". This winds up biting not just the platform provider, but existing users in the ass, making it suck for everyone. But hey, if you don't pester these tech companies to go after your culture war enemies so you can gain an inch of ground, then evil wins, or something.

@24 - cool story, bruh. Now do "shouting fire in a crowded theater".

32

The internet is still open. It's the walled gardens in which you choose to participate that are making the restrictions. Still plenty of ways to get your freak on outside of Facebook, Tumblr, etc. Even though you provide the content those services don't belong to you. That's something you should have realized long before now.

33

@11 assuming it's not a rhetorical question what's called the "dark web" is part of the internet that is typically encrypted or otherwise restricted and accessed though a special browser, client or something as easy as knowing the password. They can also be hosted on compromised servers or more or less in the open buried on Usenet. It's like its own virtual network hosted within the bigger internet.


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