Citing 'Censorship' Concerns, North Idaho ISP Blocks Facebook, Twitter

https://www.kgw.com/article/news/local/idaho-internet-provider-blocks-facebook-and-twitter/293-867cc22b-fb90-4142-a296-8d800d2a03fb

by thereare5lights • 6 years ago

299 242 6 years ago

kgw.com

renewiltord• 6 years ago

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.

Cool.

mattigames• 6 years ago

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.

recursive2• 6 years ago

So why would they send out an email taking a position on these two sites? And why did that email say that the block applied to all customers?

I think they are back-pedaling after seeing the public response.

mrzimmerman3• 6 years ago

The ISP backtracked after saying they'd block it for everyone, which is what the article actually says.

I guess "reading the entire article" isn't as catchy as trying to get a quip in the the HN comments.

dmode• 6 years ago

I am super confused. If a user wants to "block" the site, can they not just visit the site ?

MeinBlutIstBlau• 6 years ago

That requires you to learn about computers and only technocrats like bezos and Tim cook know that stuff.

permo-w2• 6 years ago

I could be completely wrong, I’m no expert on North Idaho corporate politics; however, my thoughts are that the confusion is arising from your assumption that this is a practical move, rather than a political one

henryfjordan• 6 years ago

If you want to browse the web with JS enabled, you'll be making lots of requests to Google and Facebook whether you want to or not (analytics, like/share buttons, etc). The most convenient way to stop them is to run something like a Pi-Hole so that those requests never reach Google/Facebook. An ISP offering that as a service sounds like a nice feature.

vlunkr• 6 years ago

The email says users didn't want it in their internet "feed," so... this is a load of nonsense. I'm highly skeptical that anyone contacted them about blocking facebook in the first place.

paxys3• 6 years ago

The users in question likely wanted the site blocked for everyone, not just themselves.

PhaedrusV2• 6 years ago

It's like people have never heard the word "boycott"

smsm42• 6 years ago

Next thing you'd say "if you don't like somebody's tweets, can't you just not read their twitter feed?"! You're treading on dangerous grounds here, comrade.

woadwarrior01• 6 years ago

I wonder if the productivity of the people who requested the sites to be blocked went up significantly? :)

dna_polymerase• 6 years ago

It's quite generous to attribute productivity to people who call their ISP to get a website blocked that they could just stop using.

azianmike• 6 years ago

Is it not ironic that the ISP is censoring Facebook and Twitter because of claims that Facebook and Twitter are censoring...?

unstatusthequo• 6 years ago

Amusing to me, really. Nobody stands up to Big Tech, so it’s nice to see them get theirs.

mrzimmerman3• 6 years ago

"BiG tEcH" People only use this term when they're mad that they can't call for the hanging of American citizens or the burning down of our government.

Amazon, Twitter, FB, Apple, Google—none of them have to tolerate calling for murder and destruction and they aren't going to risk liability by ignoring it and letting people come to harm. If you feel like not being able to call for lynchings of left leaning Americans is curtailing your speech then you need to reflect on why you want Americans dead so badly.

rootusrootus• 6 years ago

Considering the location, it seems likely that ideology trumps irony.

rwcarlsen• 6 years ago

Northern Idaho actually has quite a lot of left-leaning politics/culture. Southern idaho is where all the conservatives live (and the vast majority of people generally).

bigtones• 6 years ago

Yes, I agree - the ISP block is censorship also. When China blocks sites with The Great Firewall, we all agree that's censorship. This is the same thing.

tomcam2• 6 years ago

Is the ISP in question run by a state organization or is it private?

dfxm124• 6 years ago

This isn't about censorship.

It's about supporting authoritarianism & getting people to tolerate the idea.

FireBeyond• 6 years ago

And perhaps unsurprising that it's in an area of the country that is a literal hotbed for white supremacy.

mc32• 6 years ago

Or protest?

Sometimes people resign in protest knowing full well the person replacing them will acquiesce more...

iaHN• 6 years ago

As stated elsewhere, by asking the question you’re assuming the point is to have a rational argument on consistent beliefs - but it isn’t. It’s to gaslight and misdirect for political gain.

ukj• 6 years ago

Consistency is an overrated value...

gabereiser• 6 years ago

Bingo! Censoring a site because of censorship (even if misguided in terms) is like a kid saying you can’t play kickball because you didn’t invite him to play soccer (futbol)

Angostura• 6 years ago

Citing censorship, downstream carriers remove peering/transit arrangements from ISP.

newacct583• 6 years ago

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.

X6S1x6Okd1st• 6 years ago

But in context, probably not a bad thing for society.

Why do you say that?

bsaul• 6 years ago

I guess this way maybe someone in california will realize it's not a great idea to censor people for their political views ?

orthecreedence2• 6 years ago

Probably because Facebook and Twitter provide maybe about an ounce of utility for every ton of pure, unfiltered garbage.

specto• 6 years ago

Agreed! But an ISP should be a dumb pipe, so this is wrong.

postalrat• 6 years ago

It's their property right? Same arguments I hear for twitter, google, etc censoring.

RyJones• 6 years ago

The ISP is based in Idaho.

ojbyrne• 6 years ago

It's confusing, but the article says the ISP "provides internet services to North Idaho and the Spokane area." Spokane is in WA.

aaomidi• 6 years ago

And operates in WA, so needs to follow their laws too.

BikiniPrince• 6 years ago

Usually, state net neutrality laws are there to prohibit the state from purchasing from entities that violet net neutrality.

They don’t regulate transmission because that is federal territory.

Now the article is slightly misleading because they didn’t block Twitter and Facebook globally. They only blocked traffic for those users that asked them to do so.

pseudalopex• 6 years ago

They said they would block them for everyone initially.

Washington's net neutrality law covers home service.[1]

[1] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/06/first-state-net-...

tomcam2• 6 years ago

Will it be a bad thing for society when they come for your favorite causes next?

recursive2• 6 years ago

So is censoring good or bad? I'm confused.

starkd• 6 years ago

This is the pandora's box that has been opened up.

olliej2• 6 years ago

It really hasn’t been - Twitter, fb, etc have explicit tos disallowing calls for violence, harassment, etc and have just stopped letting prominent people get away with violating those rules.

olliej2• 6 years ago

An ISP is a dumb pipe, that’s the other side of their having access to utility poles and use of people land for their cables.

Also the suspension/bans of individual people and groups for violating well established ToS by a private company, vs banning entire sites out of petulance with no actual grounds.

The obvious follow up is for FB, et al to block the ISP so everyone switches to a different ISP.

j_m_b• 6 years ago

It's all relative and very nuanced. It depends on which team you're on and whose being censored!

jacobsenscott• 6 years ago

Censoring is not good or bad. It is a tool. However, most people would consider this "bad".

tfehring• 6 years ago

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.

khyryk• 6 years ago

Depends on how much they're paying you.

snvzz• 6 years ago

Freedom of speech has always been about allowing the people you don't like to say things you would prefer they did not.

But society is losing sight of that.

lukewrites• 6 years ago

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.

They went out of business within the year.

Sargos• 6 years ago

They went out of business within the year.

Ah the good old days where people actually had more than one choice of internet provider. I miss those days.

paxys3• 6 years ago

Yes, good old days of 28 kbps internet.

l9k3• 6 years ago

Are we starting to see Ajit Pai's dream for Net Neutrality coming to reality?

PointyFluff2• 6 years ago

Sure are, Other Barry.

adamredwoods2• 6 years ago

Reference: Ajit Pai and background on net neutrality

Courts Mostly Back FCC Assault on Net Neutrality https://www.vice.com/en/article/3kx5a9/courts-mostly-back-fc...

DoofusOfDeath2• 6 years ago

IANAL, so I'm curious: would this count as a breach of contract with its customers?

I.e., is an ISP implicitly contracted to route packets between its customers and the entire publicly visible Internet?

reaperducer2• 6 years ago

I.e., is an ISP implicitly contracted to route packets between its customers and the entire publicly visible Internet?

Plenty of ISPs block certain traffic. Anything from DDOS to torrents.

DoofusOfDeath2• 6 years ago

Good point. Still, I'm curious if that's been tested in court.

My impression is that some commercial practices can be widespread, and still fail under eventual court challenge. I'm thinking of the U.S. case regarding the advertised-vs-visible diagonal sizes of CRT monitors back in the day.

mhh__• 6 years ago

Beyond existing censorship (i.e. ISPs already block stuff, sadly), there might be an implied contract along those lines e.g. statistically the vast majority of Twitter traffic is people arguing about nonsense not censorship.

xenocyon• 6 years ago

I can't speak to Idaho, but it appears this ISP also serves some areas in eastern Washington (which happens to be my state). As the article says, WA state net neutrality laws explicitly prohibit ISPs from selectively blocking websites so it is pretty slam-dunk illegal.

dfxm124• 6 years ago

Do you have the text of said contract? It's not even a worthwhile thought experiment without it. How can one comment on a possible breach of an unknown contract?

exabrial• 6 years ago

Good god. What next, I get my power cut off if I donate to the wrong political party?

reaperducer2• 6 years ago

What next, I get my power cut off if I donate to the wrong political party?

Not any crazier than losing your sponsorship because of something your father said before you were even born.

https://www.charlotteobserver.com/sports/nascar-auto-racing/...

dfxm124• 6 years ago

As a utility, power is regulated differently from Internet service, so no.

If you're genuinely worried about this with regards to your ISP, consider writing to your lawmakers that ISPs should be treated like utilities as well.

jonbronson• 6 years ago

"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.

Shared404• 6 years ago

Interesting business tactic. We'll have to see how that plays out.

I'd be happy if every mainstream ISP does this. Not because I agree to be clear, but because we could use some more competition in the market.

ridaj• 6 years ago

I'm sure this will go well with their customers /s

karmasimida2• 6 years ago

I am not following the logic here. Fighting censorship ... with more censorship ??????

balozi2• 6 years ago

Works the same as fighting fascism with even more fascism.

traveler01• 6 years ago

Hm... It's the US, nothing makes sense anymore.

Rebelgecko• 6 years ago

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.

jackson1442• 6 years ago

Personally, I think this principle is limited in its application. Sure, Walmart may choose not to distribute specific products but at this point an ISP is essentially a utility, much like your water and electricity providers. As there is not much in the realm of choices for ISPs and many users are locked into contracts, this seems like an abuse of the power ISPs are holding.

Thinking about it this way, what if you worked for Facebook or Twitter as WFH and they blocked these sites. What now, do you move? Get a new job? Suppose they also block VPN traffic as that is a known way around their blocking.

vageli• 6 years ago

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.

I thought ISPs were classified as common carriers and thus are obligated? Or are we saying we _don't_ want net neutrality now?

chopin24• 6 years ago

That’s not the case for states with Net Neutrality laws, according to the article. For the state of Washington, this move is illegal.

markdown4• 6 years ago

ISP's should be treated like utilities... dump pipes.

elpocko2• 6 years ago

How is that censorship? It's a private company, they should be free to choose what kind of content they want to provide.

henriquez• 6 years ago

Right, and if Facebook and Twitter don’t like it they can pull themselves up by their bootstraps and start their own ISPs!

karmasimida2• 6 years ago

It's a private company, they should be free to choose what kind of content they want to provide

Censorship is just a classification of what they are doing. In both cases, it is selectively application of blocking of contents based on one's political believes. Calling them censorship is not an assessment whether they have a legal/illegal/legit/reasonable/unreasonable cause to carry out such acts.

I just find this approach somewhat ironic.

hundchenkatze2• 6 years ago

It doesn't matter who's doing it, it's still censorship.

lxeiqr• 6 years ago

How ironic. On the serious side, in my opinion fighting censorship with even more censorship is a really terrible idea.

BTW, is anyone else getting "You don't have permission to access <URL> on this server" on that page too?

downandout• 6 years ago

This obviously isn’t the answer. But this is the year that decentralized social media will become mainstream, as a direct consequence of the actions of Facebook, Twitter, and all of the big tech providers that are currently trying to destroy Parler.

Telling 150 million people to sit down and shut up because their party happened to lose an election is a really, really bad idea that has no possible good ending for those doing it.

the_drunkard• 6 years ago

Telling 150 million people to sit down and shut up because their party happened to lose an election is a really, really bad idea that has no possible good ending for those doing it.

i do think you mean 74M? anyways i agree with you, it's a recipe for disaster. (and i'm not sure why you're being down-voted here.)

it'd be much more healthy to actively engage this cohort of people; allow them to present "facts" as they see fit and offer evidence to either support or refute their views.

dragonwriter7• 6 years ago

Telling 150 million people to sit down and shut up because their party happened to lose an election

What country have we shifted to talking about, because no US party has 150 million people, and the one that recently lost a national election—if you apply the percentages from Party ID surveys to the whole US adult population–has about half that many who identify with it.

throwaway2021_24• 6 years ago

As a long-time observer of HN, I have noticed that many people resort to pedantry when attempting to respond to comments that they have no real way to argue with, but want to argue with them anyway. Whether the number is 150 or 75 million, it's slightly less than 1/2 of the voting public. Do you think it's a good idea to attempt to silence 40-45% of the voting public in a country as large as the United States?

nawgz3• 6 years ago

"Telling 150 million people to sit down and shut up because their party happened to lose an election" is probably the most disingenuous representation of events I've ever seen

orthecreedence2• 6 years ago

this is the year that decentralized social media will become mainstream

I really hope you're right, but I am also very skeptical. For every centralized platform that a community is cut off from, another centralized platform opens to accept them.

And then you have decentralized platforms that specifically build in censorship in the stupidest places [0] in an effort to stave off "rightoids." It seems most of the people building the decentralized platforms aren't actually interested in the merits of open communication or free thought, but rather pushing their inconsistent, amorphous identity politics bullshit down everyone's throats (and I'm saying this as a communist). They bring their ruling-class-approved "us vs them" mentality into the platforms they are building and try to force participants to "bend the knee" or be banished. Sure, you can run your own instance, but why would you on a platform where you're not sure where you stand? Decentralized social media platforms will need to exercise a bit more tolerance before they see mass adoption.

I'm excited for things like Holochain though, which might help to turn everything on its head.

[0] https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy/pull/816

BugsJustFindMe2• 6 years ago

"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 can't tell if this announcement is parody.

chrisacky• 6 years ago

Do you want more parody...

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

deno• 6 years ago

This happens with many US-exclusive websites since GDPR[1].

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17154971

samizdis2• 6 years ago

The article is accessible from the EU via MSN syndication:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/citing-censorship-...

adamredwoods2• 6 years ago

I wonder how their customers will react, including finding a new service.

cogman105• 6 years ago

LoL, like that's an option!

For north Idaho I'm sure that's the only option in town for high speed internet.

flukus• 6 years ago

I wonder how many people use facebook as a single sign on? Half their regular web may have been blocked.

option• 6 years ago

which should serve them as a huge wake up call

panny• 6 years ago

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.

kortilla• 6 years ago

“Paradox of tolerance”

AnthonyMouse• 6 years ago

I can't tell if this announcement is parody.

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.

Geezus_42• 6 years ago

In order to fight censorship we must implement censorship...

adnzzzzZ• 6 years ago

This is nothing but the Paradox of Tolerance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance in action. Intolerant websites shouldn't be tolerated in our society.

onlyrealcuzzo• 6 years ago

Which company does that refer to?

coryrc• 6 years ago

Paradox of intolerance claims a society must be intolerant of intolerance. Should that apply for censorship as well?

effie2• 6 years ago

But society is tolerant of intolerance and I believe it has to be tolerant, if we are to be a free society, as opposed to engineered society controlled by elites.

For example, Western society tolerates to some extent (and it should) bigots, racists, jingoists, people who take religious texts as literal manuals to life, antivaxxers, antimilitary activists, anti police activists, anti globalist activists, environmental activists, etc. These groups are known to be intolerant of some things and some classes of people. And society should tolerate them and allow them the same guarantees of free speech as to other people. There may be exceptions like neonazi/supremacist propaganda in Europe etc. but each exception should be carefully introduced and accepted in the population.

happytoexplain• 6 years ago

Not tolerating intolerance theoretically reduces, isolates, or rejects the intolerant element, stopping it from committing intolerances and therefore (again, theoretically) reducing net intolerance. Censoring a censoring element only serves as petty retaliation, since it is necessarily a net increase in censorship (if the censoring element is the host of the information, as in this case).

optimiz3• 6 years ago

Depends if the censorship is against attempts at overthrowing the society. A society has to be fundamentally intolerant of this or it will cease to exist.

saurik3• 6 years ago

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".

xoa5• 6 years ago

FWIW, I consider this entirely acceptable of a frame to take

No, it's a total bullshit false equivalency. Basic physical infrastructure, using public rights of way and subsidies, that is for most people going to be their sole and exclusive choice, is not in any fucking way the same as social media. Stop it.

pengaru• 6 years ago

I definitely don't have enough popcorn for the next two weeks.

balozi2• 6 years ago

Two weeks? Unfortunately this is now the new normal. All day. Every day.

paxys3• 6 years ago

These are probably the kind of people Facebook and Twitter are trying to keep off anyways.

fullstop• 6 years ago

Soon they will all be routing their traffic through a VPN and, without blocking that, they will be unable to block anything else in the future.

yalogin• 6 years ago

Wy not block google's servers too? They should try that and see what their users say. These enablers of authoritarianism are entrenched in every facet of society. Its sad that we are living in times where lies are so strongly believed.

PointyFluff2• 6 years ago

uhh...

slantedview• 6 years ago

"Due to censorship, we're going to censor"

boxmonster• 6 years ago

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. "

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/23780231209084...

bduerst2• 6 years ago

I believe pornhub was under fire for not moderating user-submitted content, which was allowing child pornography and other exploitive content to get through.

No matter stance you take on it, the CESTA amendment to 230 protections holds pornhub accountable, meaning they nuked all their non-verified user content.

wnevets• 6 years ago

This will end well for this ISP

devindotcom• 6 years ago

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.

Still, pretty ridiculous.

munificent• 6 years ago

No, their initial email is clear that they will be blocking the sites for all customers unless the customer asks it to be unblocked.

godshatter• 6 years ago

From what I gather, they apparently blocked FB and Twitter because they were getting too many customers asking them to block those sites. It was presumably less time consuming to block them all than to handle all those requests individually. Until it blew up, anyway. Suddenly they are losing business and scrambling to enable it for those that want it, so they backtracked on it.

They could have saved a lot of time and anguish if they had simply said "no" to those who originally wanted them blocked.

hundchenkatze2• 6 years ago

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 [...]"

MattGaiser2• 6 years ago

That isn't a miscommunication. There are two phrases in that sentence with the same intent.

bawolff2• 6 years ago

Lol, that makes even less sense

ajarmst• 6 years ago

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.

20after4• 6 years ago

Net neutrality isn't a thing anymore in the USA.

johnchristopher2• 6 years ago

Access Denied You don't have permission to access "http://www.kgw.com/article/news/local/idaho-internet-provide..." on this server.

Reference #18.4c4fXXXXXXXXXXX

Eh, from Europe.

samizdis2• 6 years ago

You should be able to read it here:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/citing-censorship-...

johnchristopher2• 6 years ago

Thanks.

syntaxing• 6 years ago

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.

LeicaLatte• 6 years ago

Curious to know if ISPs inspect user agent. Can they block iPhones and Androids from accessing their internet?

jimktrains2• 6 years ago

For non-tls connections they could.

Some examples of isps meddling with unencrypted connections:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/11/verizon-x-uidh

https://thenextweb.com/insights/2017/12/11/comcast-continues...

duxup• 6 years ago

I honestly think when many people talk about censorship being bad...they only worry if their own ideas are censored.

soledades• 6 years ago

How will everybody know what to be angry about??

twelfthnight3• 6 years ago

In the book "Moral Tribes", Joshua Greene outlines a great point that rights are not arguments. I think the Facebook/Twitter censorship issue demonstrates this pretty clearly. Rights always have some context and without specifying that context, they can be used to justify almost anything. For example, depending on whether I'm under oath or not reasonably determines whether I can be persecuted for lying or not.

Personally I think it makes sense for Twitter and Facebook to use their power to prevent Trump's false claims about election fraud, especially given the harm it appears to be fostering [1]. That said, I believe there are many good faith arguments about why censorship in this instance could be harmful to the aims of a free society. However, I don't believe "right of free speech" or "censorship is always bad" are good arguments, instead I would like to see arguments about the purported benefits/harms to society of this censorship.

[1] I'm not the arbiter of truth here, there are many court cases affirming no voter fraud and the recent Capitol Building invasion is demonstration of the potential harm.

loosetypes• 6 years ago

Curious about some of the would be logistics here.

This would’ve just been for web browsers pointing directly to facebook’s website, right?

Not necessarily other Facebook-owned companies?

What about Facebook ads/tracking on the pages of Facebook customers?

beached_whale• 6 years ago

Oh nice, their contract locks you in too. I suspect they will be in court soon to stop this policy

psadauskas• 6 years ago

Can I get my ISP (Comcast) to do the same? I think we'd all be better off.

sonotmyname• 6 years ago

FTA - way down toward the bottom:

In a phone call with KREM, the owner of the company, Brett Fink, again said the websites would only be blocked for customers who asked.
"We've had customers asked to be blocked by it. That is what the email was about, so no we are not blocking anybody, only the ones that have asked for it," Fink said.

So the entire premise of the article up to that point, as well as the article's subtitle are based on a non-event.

-- edited for formatting

mrzimmerman3• 6 years ago

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.

They have a screen shot of the email that says they'd block it for everyone and if you want it unblocked you'd have to call and ask for that. It's a report of an entire event, from start to finish, not just the part where the ISP realized they were making a mistake and decided to change their mind.

an-allen• 6 years ago

I can imagine every single business in North Idaho that engages, markets, and even sells items online via Facebook and/or Twitter called them and said - (a) I don't believe that two-thirds of your customers called you asking to ban Twitter and Facebook (b) At no point would we have ever signed a contract with you if you had the right to eliminate our right to do business for no cause or fault of our own and (c) we would like to cancel our service.

javajosh• 6 years ago

Scopes monkey trial, part 2.

oraphalous• 6 years ago

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.

twelfthnight3• 6 years ago

Sadly I think this is at the heart of all of the recent political debates. That is, many folks on each side believe the other has broken the rules of engagement. Many years ago I knew a congressperson who was deathly afraid of this happening (they pointed out a few "nuclear options" each party had for consolidating power). We're at a critical juncture where change is inevitable, let's hope we wind up in a better place than we were before.

dfxm124• 6 years ago

Can you elaborate on your understanding of all the sides involved and which rules they felt were broken?

salawat3• 6 years ago

Game theory mode: Tit-for-Tat

Welp, it's a race to the bottom of the tech stack now.

im3w1l• 6 years ago

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.

mattnewton• 6 years ago

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.

tqi• 6 years ago

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.

bawolff2• 6 years ago

Who'd of thunk that this would be why we need net neutrality

imgabe• 6 years ago

Well why should they be forced to carry content they disagree with, right? And if they're the only ISP in town, well I guess that's just too bad. As a corporation they have unlimited freedom to censor what their customers see.

ketamine__• 6 years ago

Likely not the only ISP in town. T-mobile, Sprint, Verizon, etc.

KorematsuFred• 6 years ago

Did you put a hole in your boat ? I will teach you a lesson by putting an even bigger hole in my own boat.

PhaedrusV2• 6 years ago

Aaaaand moral high ground: lost

rhplus• 6 years ago

The difference here is that an ISP is common carrier (or whatever the equivalent term is in telecoms) and Facebook/Twitter are publication platforms.

LordFast• 6 years ago

Utilities vs. Media

zermelo• 6 years ago

The paradox of tolerance states that if a society is tolerant without limit, its ability to be tolerant is eventually seized or destroyed by the intolerant. Karl Popper described it as the seemingly paradoxical idea that in order to maintain a tolerant society, the society must be intolerant of intolerance.

c/o https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

my comment: There is no automated way to define justice and tolerance. You can't take a shortcut from thinking.

annoyingnoob2• 6 years ago

Our public schools need to do a better job of teaching critical thinking skills. American society really seems to lack in critical thinking.

punnerud• 6 years ago

From Karl Popper (1945): “(..) we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant.“ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

jeppesen-io• 6 years ago

the company states that two-thirds of customers asked for Twitter and Facebook to be blocked.

I really don't see how that's possible

throwawa3495• 6 years ago

isnt the irony here that with net neutrality in place an ISP wouldnt be able to block FB, TWTR?

permo-w2• 6 years ago

I’m starting to get a bit tired of so many posts at the top of HN being in some way tangentially related to this question of “should social media companies have the power to censor politicians?”

I know it’s a hugely important question that’ll have repercussions for years to come, and I know if you want an intelligent debate on the matter, HN is probably the best place for it, but politics sincerely gives me stress, and I use Hacker News because it is (or was) one of the few places that generally avoids it

I’m of the position that the human brain isn’t really geared for dealing with dangers on a geopolitical level

This is a little amateur psychologyish, but when you perceive danger, the brain releases chemicals that won’t let you rest until you’re convinced you’re free of that danger - the fight or flight response. So far this is essentially common wisdom, but - and here’s where I stray into the region of am-psych - I suspect that our unconscious mind finds it difficult to distinguish between immediate dangers and threats to our life, and geopolitical dangers that, while important, are rarely a threat to your life

The problem, for me, lies in the fact that in the news media, with a few exceptions (Reuters, BBC News), and social media, with almost no exceptions, the political content which rises to the top is the content that is most capable of triggering that response in you

If this wasn’t the case, then it would be okay, as the content would be easy to avoid, but I am weak to it, most of us are. The news media has what’s getting on for centuries of practice in triggering these emotions, triggering your unconscious mind to chemically scream at you to fight or run. Who am I to withstand that?

What I think this means is that if you keep up with politics consistently, and allow it in, you will either be in a near constant state of fight or flight, or you will become numb. Either state, while both useful in certain circumstances, is not pleasant. It’s not conducive to a happy life. It’s stress or jade

So this is my impassioned plea to the mods: Please prune back the constant political content. It’s unhealthy, it’s not what I’m here for, and, I suspect, although I may be wrong, that others feel the same way. Of course, if this comment gets heavily downvoted, (assuming people even read it) then I accept that I am simply in the minority, and that’s okay

annoyingnoob2• 6 years ago

You can stand on public property and say whatever you want. You can stand on your own property and say whatever you want. You cannot stand on my property and say whatever you want. No need to confuse public and private property. There is no law that protects you from the social consequences of your speech.

TheOtherHobbes• 6 years ago

Unless they have liberal (hah...) TOS, this is straightforward breach of contract.

No one pays money to post or read FB and Twitter and participation is voluntary.

But if I pay money to an ISP and the ISP decides that I can't access certain web services for what are essentially random (political) reasons with no legal justification beyond "We don't like them" - there's a good chance that's not going to end well if it gets to court.

julianmarq• 6 years ago

The comments here confuse me. Over the past months/years, I've read many a comment here insisting that whatever Facebook/Twitter/etcetera allow or don't allow in their platforms is absolutely not censorship[1]... But a significant amount of the comments in this post are saying that this move is "fighting censorship with more censorship", which is, by itself, tacitly saying that what the social media companies do is indeed censorship.

For the record, I don't think that twitter or facebook banning/blocking whatever they want is censorship[2], legally speaking... And neither is this, for the same reasons.

[1]: And some others who don't care and go as far as to say that censorship is okay and free speech doesn't work, among other things.

[2]: Unethical, manipulative, a betrayal of the spirit if not the law of "free speech"? Totally, but still not censorship.

greyhair• 6 years ago

So some contingent of customers demands that their ISP block some sites, for all customers, or they are going to boycott. SO basically, your fucktard neighbors decide to censor what you are allowed to see on the internet.

Until the blocked customers get all up in arms, and the ISP backtracks and says "whoa, will add you to a white list".

How about the fucktards just install pihole at home and block Facebook and Twitter themselves?

You could always subscribe to a VPN service and bypass the shitshow.

Citing 'Censorship' Concerns, North Idaho ISP Blocks Facebook, Twitter

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