Post-SESTA/FOSTA Self-Censoring for Twitter, Reddit, and Other Social Media

http://titsandsass.com/post-sesta-fosta-self-censoring-for-twitter-reddit-and-other-social-media/

by rhema • 8 years ago

139 97 8 years ago

titsandsass.com

dEnigma2• 8 years ago

Here is an Internet Archive link, since the site seems to be down right now:

https://web.archive.org/web/20180324231954/http://titsandsas...

sp3323• 8 years ago

For me, the cache was missing this screenshot of the message sent to mods of /r/SexWorkers: https://imgur.com/a/dxn04

dEnigma2• 8 years ago

Thank you for the image! There are actually a lot of screenshots on the original page, as I know realize. Thankfully the site seems to have recovered more or less (still very slow to load here, but it does load eventually)

colordrops4• 8 years ago

Speaking of which, how long until the Internet Archive becomes a target due to illegal content? That's when the book burning allegories will start hitting close to home...

mirimir4• 8 years ago

It already is a target. I recall that issues of Dabiq (ISIS' magazine) routinely disappeared.

AFNobody7• 8 years ago

Exactly as planned. The goal is creating chilling effects that create self-censorship to be reasonably sure you are safe. And this will begin a slippery slope of "questionable" court cases until they find where the line is.

They just had to wrap it up in a noble cause, much like false patriots wrap themselves up in flags.

Businesses selling any controlled good are now being censored "just to be safe" and try to avoid further legal pushes to add more things to the list.

Can we stop pretending this wasn't the goal now?

sp3323• 8 years ago

You can say what you think plainly. You don't have to chide other people for not having the same ideas in their head that you have in yours.

srslack2• 8 years ago

You can say what you think plainly

Clearly this isn't the case, since we're already seeing the chilling effects on platforms. The legislation is so intentionally vague for the benefit of prosecutors, and the very fact that it's ex-post facto (unconstitutional), you could certainly be forgiven for thinking that the sole intention was to produce a chilling effect, and those pushing it were intentionally dishonest.

noobermin3• 8 years ago

The thing that gets me is how people who drafted and supported these bills probably did it with the best of intentions. Most people who support these laws want to help individuals who are sex workers. However, it seems none of them actually talked to any actual sex workers here and some are even actively ignoring their voices.

colordrops4• 8 years ago

I think you aren't cynical enough. The US government is jealous of China's clampdown on unmoderated forums and some how just "stumbled" on the perfect alibi to do the same here.

syshum• 8 years ago

No they did not support it with the Best of Intentions...

I quote the EFF

"While we can’t speculate on the agendas of the groups behind SESTA, we can study those same groups’ past advocacy work. Given that history, one could be forgiven for thinking that some of these groups see SESTA as a mere stepping stone to banning pornography from the Internet or blurring the legal distinctions between sex work and trafficking."

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/03/how-congress-censored-...

I 100% agree with the EFF analysis of the motivations. This is the first battle in a bigger war over free speech, Free Speech has lost this battle, I hope we do not lose the war

GVIrish• 8 years ago

Some of the worst laws are made with good intentions. But people who fervently believe in a good cause often neglect to consider negative side effects in their quest to "do good" and can sometimes be actively hostile to anyone asking questions about said side effects.

Often righteous creates a sort of blindness.

cirgue3• 8 years ago

"questionable" court cases until they find where the line is.

Until this law actually gets tested in the courts, it is basically impossible to tell what the long-term impact will be. My suspicion is that Reddit et al want to do everything possible to keep a low profile while Facebook is occupying the spotlight. After that has run its course, I would bet there would be a challenge in some form, whether via PR or directly.

AFNobody7• 8 years ago

https://www.thecut.com/2018/03/sesta-anti-sex-trafficking-bi...

Please read that instead of pretending this is some academic debate that won't result in women being abused as a result.

People will suffer long term consequences.

random43692• 8 years ago

It's sad how little progress we've made in terms of freedom of speech and expression. In the 1800s the church was the censorship machine, with sex as the main vector. Today it's the government, still with sex as the main vector.

SiempreViernes6• 8 years ago

What are you talking about, black people can vote, gay people can marry, but there has hardly been any freedom of speech progress since 1800?

klokoman• 8 years ago

Voting is not speech. Also it's what you aren't allowed to say that changed.

Afforess• 8 years ago

The US has made negative progress on sexual liberation on the whole of history. Prostitution was common and generally legal in the late 1700's and 1800's. The temperance movements in the late 1800's and early 1900's (yes, the same movement that caused the 18th amendment) led to the illegalization of sex work and other vices. America has not yet recovered from this criminalization, despite being one hundred years in the past.

verylittlemeat• 8 years ago

Well he did put emphasis on sex. Social norms regarding pornography, sexuality, prostitution and nudity are still depressingly puritanical in the US.

I think the ripple effects from being raised to believe sexuality and nudity are shameful or obscene are much greater than we appreciate.

nukeop• 8 years ago

If this is what "freedom of speech" earns us then we're better off without it, it's completely useless or even worse, it seems to set us back.

noobermin3• 8 years ago

I believe s/he was using hyperbole. Their general sentiment is at the least this is a set back for the rights and protection of sex workers.

hueving4• 8 years ago

Neither of those have anything to do with censorship.

whataretensors• 8 years ago

Voting became a gameable activity primarily designed to convince the masses they matter. Almost all major decisions are made behind closed doors.

Bills like this are always bipartisan yet despised by the public.

mtgx2• 8 years ago

gay people can marry

That happened like in the past few years, which is a tiny fraction of the past 2 centuries. And if extremist Republicans get to rule the government for another decade (whether directly or with the help of "moderate Democrats"), then I don't know if that will last either.

nkkollaw• 8 years ago

In the US..

noam87• 8 years ago

Perfect time to start moving (and contributing) to decentralized services.

I've been following the development of https://beakerbrowser.com and I really hope it captures wider attention. -- It's not just super user friendly already, it's actually easier to set up a Beaker website than one on the regular net (literally one click).

greglindahl• 8 years ago

Don't forget that Blumenthal pounded a bunch of nails into Usenet's coffin while he was Connecticut AG.

cft3• 8 years ago

Can you provide some context?

wtfstatists• 8 years ago

What are you going to do when decentralization/encryption/etc itself become illegal ?

mirimir4• 8 years ago

How well has the War on Drugs worked?

md224• 8 years ago

When using Tor becomes illegal, then I'll know we're completely fucked.

On a side note: it will be interesting to see if tighter government regulation has any impact on the popularity of the dark web.

EGreg• 8 years ago

Ask the Chinese

userbinator• 8 years ago

"If you outlaw freedom, only outlaws will have freedom."

Mass disobedience is probably the only way.

mtgx2• 8 years ago

Yes, it's time. But notice how everytime there is talk about a decentralized project, some of the comments are like "so how will this censor child porn or copyright infringement on the network" or similar.

Decentralized projects will have to resist the urge to listen to these people, because otherwise they shouldn't even bother if the decentralized projects will have built-in censorship mechanisms.

Law enforcement should go straight after the criminals, not after the platforms, just like when they go straight after the people publishing child porn on the Tor network, not after the Tor browser. That's how it should work.

posterboy• 8 years ago

Decentralized projects will have to resist the urge to listen to these people

Think about it like this: "how will this censor calls on the network to censor the network". It's quite a conundrom.

Your proposal to well just don't listen to them is a form of self censoring -- not in the usual sense but I don't know a better term. Two sides of the same coin. One is the optimal case, you stay ignorant and it goes away, all do their best. On the other side, you can't just shut your eyes and ignore everything, which leads to various problems, some you don't want to or can't deal with and others can be resolved satisfactory. ...

Funny by-the-way. Zensur in german also means school-related "mark", "grade". Sp census is just evaluation. Weighting. Multiply content by its grade and you get zero contentrating for zero census votes. ... does that make sense?

cft3• 8 years ago

Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut), a cosponsor of the bill, derided Craigslist's announcement. “If Craigslist is really telling us that they can’t run a page on their website without knowingly facilitating sex trafficking, that would certainly be a damning admission,” he said in a statement

https://www.wired.com/story/craigslist-shuts-personal-ads-fo...

zaroth2• 8 years ago

That’s an absurd statement. First the conflation of sex trafficking and prostitution, and second, second the hazy definition of “facilitating”, third the shocking criminal penalties.

Yeah, Craigslist was scared. And so are a lot of people. Laughing that off is what’s damning.

chimeracoder• 8 years ago

If Craigslist is really telling us that they can’t run a page on their website without knowingly facilitating sex trafficking, that would certainly be a damning admission

That's a really disingenuous statement, though I'd expect nothing less from a person who has everything to gain from making Craigslist look shady.

The law very intentionally uses the word "knowingly", which has a lower legal bar than other considerations, like "intentionally". In this case, that means that even if Craigslist took active measures to prevent people from using Craigslist for sex work, they would still be liable for anybody who successfully circumvented their methods.

Secondly, sex trafficking is not the same as sex work. The bill purports to target sex trafficking, but it really applies to sex work - that is, to consensual sexual activity in which money changes hands.

Blumenthal, I should point out, has a long history of targeting Craigslist specifically, going back all the way to his days as AG. He failed to secure the case he wanted against them as AG, so he's going for a scorched earth approach now that he's in the Senate. For him, the Craigslist shutdown is a personal victory, and sticking it to Craigslist was honestly probably one of his motivations for cosponsoring the bill in the first place.

propman• 8 years ago

Like everyone knows, it's not that they can't, it's just no longer economical for them to do so. I dislike this linear thinking from our politicians and surprisingly it's often not for show or the media. Some of them truly believe that, but it's mostly in the House not the Senate.

They've been trying to pass something like this for years and I remember reading about this back in the day and actually feeling neutral with the bill if they were able to do it the right way. Given the power of the internet giants I assumed that that would happen, but I guess not. This was awful implementation.

There is a bright side. Now within the new law, this gives a small business a good opportunity to create something similar while testing the legal grounds. If you try hard to prevent all sex trafficking/illegal activity, will the law bend and allow some leeway? Now that many sites are exiting the personals market, it's a good time to try. The advantages these sites had were not due to UI or tech features, but due to wide adaptability so this means it could be a free for all and one business could create a vastly greater user experience because those sites had no reason to innovate.

Do I have the guts to do it? No way. The penalties are too scary and any prosecuter trying to make a name for themselves could destroy anyone's reputation and life.

cft3• 8 years ago

The danger for a resonable small business now are civil lawsuits, not state or federal prosecution. That litigation can be absolutely frivolous, but costly.

nickpp• 8 years ago

Now within the new law, this gives a small business a good opportunity

No. Laws and regulations are never a good environment for startups. Big Cos, on the other hand love them. Until they become too much even for them.

dragonwriter• 8 years ago

No, what they are saying is that they have a history of being harassed by the legal system for adult ads existing on the system even with the stronger version of Section 230 in place, and they know that with it weakened that it would only get worse.

Our legal system is not one in which only those actually liable under any reasonable reading of the law bear costs, and when you widen the scope of liability you also widen the sphere outside that scope where claims that lack genuine merit still aren't trivially dismissable and, especially when you’ve got a prominent (inter)national-scale target and politically driven (and often publicly-funded) opposition, there is a huge chilling effect outside the actual zone of prohibition anytime you expand the scope of legal liability for being a vehicle through which communications flow.

And Senator Blumenthal isn't a big enough idiot to fail to realize that's what is being said, he's just twisting it because he doesn't want to engage with it.

zaroth2• 8 years ago

You can see already the huge failure of this policy, before it has even become law. The clearly unconstitutional aspects of the law, and the chilling effect is tremendous.

The wrong thing to do is to run and hide.

The best response is to find ways to weaponize the law against more powerful groups to create a backlash.

cctt23• 8 years ago

Wait to judge on running and hiding until the inevitable cases reach the Supreme Court. Congress can pass any law, but that doesn’t mean it will stand.

wereHamster• 8 years ago

It's the internet. Why is it so hard to move your website to a different jurisdiction?

kenny87• 8 years ago

yeah like kim dotcom? being located in one country is no defense against committing a crime another country.

Fnoord2• 8 years ago

Depends on the country. "The other Kim" is still around.

m1el• 8 years ago

Does FOSTA apply to VPS providers?

Do VPS providers have to be wary of what sort of tenants they host?

Edit:

What if I rent a VPS and host a porn site?

venatiodecorus• 8 years ago

I'm pretty sure that was already against lots of TOS, and if it was illegal porn....already illegal.

zerostar07• 8 years ago

I can't think of a better gift to truly-uncensorable platforms.

huffmsa• 8 years ago

Yeah, let's outlaw public, centralized, easy to track and target forms of communication about sex work! If we don't let people talk about it where we can see it, it must mean people aren't doing it!

No way they'll just move to loosely structured, encrypted p2p networks.

"Sponsored by Senators Portman, Blumenthal, McCain, McCaskill, Cornyn, and Heitkamp"

Luddites.

merinowool• 8 years ago

Do I understand correctly, the land of the free has appointed a bunch of authoritarians who push for censorship like in the peak of communism, the very thing America tried to fight for years? How is that not a treason? Why those people are not locked up?

acobster• 8 years ago

Money.

cf498• 8 years ago

Is there a list of lobby or non lobby groups who pushed for SESTA/FOSTA?

Post-SESTA/FOSTA Self-Censoring for Twitter, Reddit, and Other Social Media

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