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by steveklabnik 4705 days ago
> People can say what they want, regardless of how much you whine and complain.

This is not true. "Fire in an movie theatre," etc.
1 comments
hfsktr 4705 days ago
People like to think that you can say whatever you want online but even there you can't.

Any search combination of: Facebook + teen/jail/sentence gives a pretty good idea. I'd only seen a couple on HN front page but it's apparently there are a lot of examples that don't make it that far(1).

For your fire example there are others that have to do with inciting violence or putting others in danger. I am sure there are more examples.

(1) without reading them all it could be just linkbait or misinformation

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true_religion 4705 days ago
Whilst its true that you can't say anything you want, should it really be up to any corporation to determine if saying X or Y is immoral?

If someone has said something that's illegal (e.g. threatining), then there's legal consequences for that. If anything, we shouuld beg the police to become more proactive. Currently, the stance on most crime involving computers is 'meh, its too hard to catch them unless they're on facebook using their real names'.

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hfsktr 4705 days ago
I think that unless it's actually illegal then it is up to the corporation. Corporations express opinions (morality) all the time (eg, Chick-fil-A/gay marriage, Abercrombie & Fitch/fat people).

So if FB/Reddit/Twitter/$NextThing decided that anyone who ever posted anything about $topic gets banned. If people wanted to use it they would understand that and could decide not to.

If my ISP started filtering things that I could access though that would probably get a different reaction from me.

As to the policing...some of the articles I pulled up when I did those searches were ridiculous and I'd prefer if police didn't waste time and resources on them. Of course there will be someone who thinks it's completely within reason.

Short version: I don't care if $corp censors it's platform based on whatever it wants. I do care if ISP/government censor. Personally I find so little offensive I have to wonder if I'm broken, normal, or just incredibly tolerant.

(sorry feels like I just said a lot of nothing)

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