[RankingMember]

This is exactly the kind of thing I point to when disaffected people say that voting for Democrat or Republican presidents makes no difference. I'm not saying either are roses, but one has clearly different results in unsexy-but-important issues like net neutrality.

[arghnoname]

It's not clear to me which party is more supportive of a 'free' internet. During the Trump and COVID era Democrats became much more aggressive in advocating for and explicitly pushing censorship regimes against what they consider to be misinformation.

Probably any political faction on earth is going to want to control information flows to their advantage. Whoever you vote for will probably want to censor or limit the reach of the speech of their enemies. The parties don't have actual principles on this stuff--vote for whomever has the same enemies as you I guess.

[archontes]

If I were able to convince a large swath of the population to participate in a suicide ritual a la Heaven's Gate, do you think that it's wrong to quash the spread of that message on the internet?

[hn_acker]

It is not wrong for websites to restrict certain information by their own choice. It is wrong - unconstitutional, even - for the government to force them to do so. You should read a bit about Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444 (1969) [1] and Hess v. Indiana, 414 U.S. 105 (1973) [2]. (By the way, suicide is not lawless action anyway. Whether advocacy of it is lawless is a different matter, but likely free speech.)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandenburg_v._Ohio

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hess_v._Indiana

[hn_acker]

While you bring up important points, they take away nothing from the merits of restoring the FCC's authority to restore net neutrality rules, and the FCC's authority as a whole has nothing to do with misinformation on the internet. Moreover, I think that courts will strike down Democrats' unconstitutional speech laws (such as [1], should it ever pass) at least as reliably as they strike down Republicans' book bans [2].

> Probably any political faction on earth is going to want to control information flows to their advantage. Whoever you vote for will probably want to censor or limit the reach of the speech of their enemies. The parties don't have actual principles on this stuff--vote for whomever has the same enemies as you I guess.

I'm reminded once again of why I dislike the political party system in the US. Principles are not necessary for candidates to win votes, and the political parties don't value people with principles, such as Gigi Sohn with respect to internet access policy [3].

[1] https://www.techdirt.com/2021/07/23/senators-klobuchar-lujan...

[2] https://www.techdirt.com/2023/07/31/judge-blocks-unconstitut...

[3] https://www.techdirt.com/2023/03/08/gigi-sohns-full-statemen...

[arghnoname]

I agree with you and should have been more clear on this point: net neutrality is something I support and anything in that direction is a good thing. It's almost hard not to be a cynic now, but kudos are in order here. I just am sufficiently disillusioned with the political parties that I'm a bit knee-jerk against anything I perceive as tribalist there.

[wredue]

The free internet has absolutely nothing to do with disallowing business from supporting terrorism on their software platforms dude.

[mptest]

Side A : repeals net neutrality

Side B: Puts net neutrality in place.

You: "It's not clear to me how these are different."

Seriously? You have to be kidding or downright silly to be an enlightened centrist in this situation.

[quitit]

It's people trying their absolute best to be opaque while holding completely obvious political views.

[mptest]

Yeah, I know and agree, but I've had (my only) two comments flagged for being more direct in accosting enlightened centrism.

Disgusting to me to see people on this forum of normally highly intelligent people comparing in any degree the side that tried to over throw democracy, denies basic science from vaccines to climate, is against voter rights like mail in ballots/accessible polling stations, against women's and gay rights, with the democrats, even with all their problems. Frankly it is straight evil, or supremely ignorant at best to do so.

Enlightened centrism is indeed a fog used to hide conservatism though, just like "libertarian", "centrist", and "independent" (in the US), but you have to be careful calling out centrism on this forum.

[quitit]

It also stinks of the "I'm the smartest person in the room" phenomena.

As if no one here can plainly see the heavy handed labelling of established scientific facts as a "political opinion".

[arghnoname]

fwiw, I'm not a centrist. I am to the left of both major political parties in the United States on issues of political economy. I worked on democratic political campaigns and grew disillusioned with that party many years ago, largely (but not solely) due to their ties to Wall Street / etc.

I am more centrist on social issues, in that I share mainstream opinions on gay rights, etc (I've always supported gay marriage). It's not great if you think I'm the big evil supremely ignorant person that you think is an enemy in sheep's clothing. Brandishing people with whom you presumably have much in common as evil makes it difficult to build a majoritarian political coalition.

[mptest]

>grew disillusioned with that party many years ago, largely (but not solely) due to their ties to Wall Street / etc.

The first issue I take with your comment. Politics is not a religion you need be fervently impassioned about, it's making a pragmatic choice.

Especially in the US, that means choosing between two corporatists, agreed. But this gives me very big "a lefty was mean to me on twitter and THAT'S why i vote for fascists now" vibes. I don't care what their ties to wall street are. I care which party is the better option for the working class. Which support things like a stronger NLRB? When you stop with the religious purity bs you can ask material questions about who is better for X. And the answer is always democrats if the X is anything but "the .1%".

>I am more centrist on social issues, in that I share mainstream opinions on gay rights, etc (I've always supported gay marriage)

Ok, you must be longggg out of politics or playing glib here. Supporting gay rights is NOT centrist. One party supports gay rights, the other is burning and banning books that mention gay people existing and calling trans people groomers. This is what i mean when I call centrism fucking evil. The sides are NOT comparable.

Saying "durrr but dey both take money so samsies???" is so ignorant and vacuous a statement as to be malicious from someone who has SEEN a college, which I presume most people here have.

>It's not great if you think I'm the big evil supremely ignorant person that you think is an enemy in sheep's clothing

Big evil? Nah, probably not.

>supremely ignorant

Yeah. Much more likely you are. If you think supporting gay rights is a "centrist" position, you are not paying attention.

>Brandishing people with whom you presumably have much in common as evil makes it difficult to build a majoritarian political coalition.

No, the literal fucking fascists in our midst gutting the voting rights act, removing polling stations in democratic counties (look up harris county voting), gerrymandering to the point 65% votes gets you 35% of the legislature, trying to literally stage a fucking coup, deny vaccines, climate science, etc etc etc, are the f'ing problem. If you are a centrist comparing them, you are complicit in their fascism, or supremely ignorant. Which are you?