Texas Could Push Tech Platforms to Censor Posts About Abortion

https://www.wired.com/story/texas-could-push-tech-platforms-to-censor-posts-about-abortion/

by nelgaard • 3 years ago

43 37 3 years ago

baremetal2• 3 years ago

The slippery slope of censorship.

However I am anti-abortion. I used to be pro abortion, I was a hardcore liberal just a few years ago, before covid (still not a Trump supporter, just rabidly apolitical now). And considering what the federal government has been doing censoring the right via tech platforms when it goes against their narratives.. aw shucks I can't get behind censorship.

Sorry Texas.

nicodjimenez2• 3 years ago

Censorship is inevitable to maintaining the power structure, the question is who controls the censorship and whether the approach taken to censorship makes the people strong or weak.

baremetal2• 3 years ago

No I don't agree that censorship is inevitable. You are gonna need to back that argument up, nico.

Sounds like you have drunk deeply of some authoritarian rhetoric

krapp2• 3 years ago

You can't be "rabidly apolitical" and be anti-abortion and claim the government has been "censoring the right via tech platforms when it goes against their narratives," both of which are explicitly right-wing political positions.

theshrike792• 3 years ago

I just hope the big platforms (Meta's mostly) either cut off Texas entirely or corral them to a separate Texas-only instance where they can't see others posts and nobody can see them.

the_optimist2• 3 years ago

Why do you hope for this? Please state it explicitly.

flappyeagle2• 3 years ago

Both sides of the divide would be happier

LadyCailin• 3 years ago

The alternative is to cater to the lowest common denominator, meaning that the platforms would restrict everyone, regardless of whether or not they live in Texas.

theshrike792• 3 years ago

If all platforms start catering to the lowest common denominator, everything will be banned.

Should platforms start banning material that's not allowed in, let's say Saudi Arabia? Or Iran? In Finland "disturbing religious peace" (basically blasphemy) is illegal, should that be censored on tech platforms if we say so?

IMO it's just easier to pull out of said country/state/region altogether or if they bring enough business you create a separate sandbox just for them (Like Google.cn used to be).

Just the threat of being cut off from just Youtube, Facebook and Instagram _will_ make Texas politicians back off really fucking fast. There are very very few voters who don't use Alphabet and Meta services daily.

rektide• 3 years ago

Other commenters have the right of the response here. If every platform has hundreds of nations & many thousands of provinces (states in the US) that can make arbitrary rules, the internet loses the magic of being an online place where human spirit can congregate & connect.

The internet has been at the fore for a while as a deeply Western-democratic free speech agent, a way to let people share & find out, to support many view. The authoritarian impulse to control & dictate, the view of the party, the small.minded, the dictatorial ought have no extra sway or swagger here.

This hearkens back directly to JP Barlow's Declaration of Independence Of Cyberspace. Which speaks to the freedom. From shitty tyrannies of the mind & spaces, large & small. Which is almost certainly among the top 10 things most submitted to HN. https://hn.algolia.com/?q=Declaration+of+independence+of+cyb...

It's a pity this submission is flagged. This is such at the heart of the online experience, and the threats against it.

pornel• 3 years ago

Pointing out hypocrisy doesn’t work against authoritarians. Getting away with hypocrisy is a demonstration of their power.

krapp2• 3 years ago

rayiner5• 3 years ago

Trying to connect banning abortion to “fascism” is a weird angle. Abortion was illegal in the principal allied countries that defeated Nazi Germany: the U.S., U.K., and Soviet Union. The Soviet Union had legalized abortion in the 1920s, but banned it again in time to fight and defeat the Nazis.

ChatGTP2• 3 years ago

The intent we knew is dying and once gone will never come back. I’d go as far to say as it’s already basically done.

There is just too much interference with its functioning, combine this with the dangers of autonomous AI systems hacking infra, growing government weariness over recent leaks and the growing ease of spreading lies, I can’t see how it can continue.

This is absolutely crazy, but here’s the thing. Because the internet is becoming so centralised and new surveillance tech has emerged, this type of censorship just seems more and more possible. More possible than anytime in history.

xwdv• 3 years ago

I imagine a world someday where browsers no longer exist. Everything is just an app that you download and the internet is infrastructure for pushing data around to apps from content servers. Some people probably live in this world already, I know several people who spend little, if any, time looking through websites or forums.

There would be no reason to have websites, because it would all just be AI garbage that has been SEOed to hell. No reason to search the web because you just ask an AI on your phone for an answer.

It’s over. Perhaps some community of people will still build traditional websites, but it honestly just feels like they’re LARPing. There’s no reason to build a website over any other piece of content like a video, or images, or a game, or a story.

ChatGTP2• 3 years ago

It is an now , with the AI arms race heating up, there is true incentive to keep as much data in walled gardens as possible so you have more training data than the next guy.

Buttons8402• 3 years ago

Multiple States have already passed laws requiring everyone to upload their government papers (drivers license or passport, etc) to use social media. Things seem to be changing, that's for sure -- and fast.

fredgrott• 3 years ago

ahem name them as I very sure that freedom of speech via Constitution trumps weird reactionary without facts blithering.

In fact no US State has passed laws that will withstand review under the US Constitution restricting use of interstate commerce as its not a State power under the US Constitution but a US Congress power.

Yes, hard to believe but using any internet service is Interstate Commerce only under US Congress power not state power.

elijah_moham• 3 years ago

Bodily autonomy is a contradiction to abortion rights. Control over one's body logically implies not allowing a second body formation. The autonomy of the child overrides access to abortion since now in pregnancy, there are 2 bodies.

Similarly, access to expensive and elective medical services is a privilege, not a right.

Timon3• 3 years ago

Bodily autonomy is a contradiction to abortion rights. Control over one's body logically implies not allowing a second body formation.

There's a glaring logical error here: Control over one's body does not logically imply not allowing a second body formation, only that it requires consent.

The autonomy of the child overrides access to abortion since now in pregnancy, there are 2 bodies.

But this sentence is in opposition to bodily autonomy. How does the autonomy of the fetus affect the autonomy of the person carrying them? The fetus is free to do what it wants, just as the woman is.

Similarly, access to expensive and elective medical services is a privilege, not a right.

I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding of what a "right" is. It's not just something that you're guaranteed to get, but can also be something that nobody is allowed to ban you from. The second amendment doesn't mean that you can just waltz into a gun store and take what you want, does it?

neilv• 3 years ago

Have any tech companies already been moving away from Texas and other areas where some politicians are going "anti-tech"? (Closing offices, targeting layoffs, canceling expansion plans, etc.)

Also, is anything known about whether driving away tech immigrants (with their maybe more Californian values) is an intention of some politicians there?

friend_and_foe• 3 years ago

They're just getting in on the game. The EU does it, various European countries do it, as well as India and others. About the only ones who don't get the special treatment are China and Iran.

So now US states are doing it. What do you expect? I should be able to run a website and if you don't want your people to see it, put up your great firewall or get fucked. But we decided to take a different path, where countries can charge companies and people for violating their laws when they've never set foot there and creators have to geoblock. And plenty deriding this move applauded it when it was their ideologies being protected.To those people: help us free the internet again or go cry in a corner about it. This is your fault.

Texas Could Push Tech Platforms to Censor Posts About Abortion

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