Blargh... yes and no. Nothing torrentable is explicitely bannable in the US... it's just that some methods of attaining the media are being banned. I'm not sure but I suspect the Chinese government could ban physical copies of the NYT as well as the web portal and no one would be able to do anything about it. This is not true in the US.
You know I see this a lot: we have valid grievances in the US, absolutely. But we also need to be able to see our own issues within a greater world context. There is a massive spectrum and we should be very grateful for the freedom we have and institutions that enable it. If we conflate what we've got with places that truly have materially less freedom, we risk not being able to fight the most important battles.
The discussion is about attitudes towards censorship. The point of my comment was that Americans are willing to accept censorship, as long as it's "legal". And I think history is on my side. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_the_United_States
Press Freedom Index scores:
- United States: 14
- China: 136
Let's not lose focus of this very drastic difference. Sure 14 is too high, but it's not appropriate to bring it up in the context of China, in my opinion. But then, I shouldn't censor you, should i?
Did I claim China was freer than the US? I didn't mean to, and would have been outside the scope of the point I was trying to make.. which was American's are tolerant of censorship.
I'm sure NYT is at odds with the laws of China by publishing things that blatantly (and I'm sure falsely) accuse the ruling elite. That does not mean they should be compared. However, your argument is flawed (and you can do much better than this to prove why they should not be compared).
Why not? NYT has now been deemed "illegal" in the eyes of Chinese rulers, just as these torrent sites have been deemed "illegal" in the eyes of US rulers.
It is not deemed illegal in China, there is no transparent policy to blocking sites. If you call a Chinese ISP and ask them why Facebook isn't working, they'll tell you it must be Facebook's fault.
It's not difficult to argue that torrenting websites -- and ThePirateBay in particular -- are treated particularly harshly due to their obstinate flouting of American civil law, in addition to so quickly dismissing legal challenges to their existence.
Or more to the point it is retribution, and punitive measures are imposed as a warning to others.
I am by no means arguing for (or against) the concept of IP and the laws surrounding it, however the entire situation leaves a sour taste in my mouth.
I really wish people would stop posting about this most recent bout of reddit drama on HN. Are people not noticing that every article so far has been deleted?
Huh. I didn't view this as a Reddit vs. HN elitism post. I viewed it as a solid example of the inherent problems with balancing anonymity, legality of content and freedom of speech on a user-generated website.
This comment is an excellent summary of my problems with reddit. I spend way, way more time than I should arguing with people who think that "it's just a joke" is a defense of anything. Or with people who treat the pointing out of sexism as worse than sexism. If you don't think /r/CreepShots was exploitative of women, we have very different opinions on this subject. And finally, you defend /r/jailbait, going as far as to blame the people in the photos.
I hope people upvote you just because you provided such a concise summary of every bad argument used to defend reddit.
"It's just a joke" is a defense of everything. It's a reflection on the human condition - it's how intelligent people cope with the horrors of humanity.
Or do you think we should still be mourning six million Jews? Slavery? Cancer? AIDS? Terrorism?
We're all going to die some day. We're all going to go through some horrible shit before we die. At least some of us can laugh about it.
I'd never been to /r/creepshots, and I'm not blaming anyone with regards to /r/jailbait - I don't know what blame there is to place.
This has certainly been an interesting act of an interesting drama, with unsavory players on either side. Not mentioned in this article are purported acts of blackmail which led to the initial closure of /r/CreepShots, which is what I've been most interested in so far as that seems like the most likely part of this drama to result in some sort of legal action.
Whoever, under a threat of informing, or as a consideration for not informing, against any violation of any law of the United States, demands or receives any money or other valuable thing, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both.
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No, it's not blackmail and no legal action will be taken. The ability of some reddit users to be completely blind to either facts or any kind of realistic analysis continues to amaze me.
I also read the Wikipedia article on blackmail, but I then proceeded to read a bunch of other articles on the web as well. The purported blackmail act was a demand that /r/CreepShots be closed or else information about the moderator would be made available. From what I've read, blackmail doesn't only have to be about money- it can be anything of worth or value, and one could argue this has worth.
I'm on the side of Gawker and the admins, but I'm still interested in anything illegal that might have happened.
I bet you've been eagerly awaiting the moment when you could bring up Homestuck and the Kickstarter on HN...unfortunately, you didn't read the article and jumped the gun.
It was automatically blocked by my work filter as porn. First time I've even noticed a .xxx extension, and I didn't notice it until I noticed it was blocked.
I care if he's lying because his story was re-printed in The Guardian, where I read it, as truth. If it's not a true story, it's wrong to present it as such.
If it's not a true story, it's wrong to present it as such.
But why? Can you (or someone) please articulate what exactly is so bad about it?
Some of the best and most influential stories in human history were precisely that: lies presented as truth. Were the authors "bad" for doing this? At what point does it become bad? (And why?)
Hey look buddy, I'm an engineer; that means I solve problems.
Not problems like 'Why is lying wrong?', because that would fall within the purview of your conundrums of philosophy.
I solve practical problems.
I'm not sure that makes a lot of sense. Stuff like what's mentioned in this article, weird PayPal stuff, or random Google account banning doesn't get fixed unless it gets publicity and outrage. There's good reason to believe that Kickstarter would ignore this unless/until people start to get upset about it. The whole point of this being at the top of HN is to get Kickstarter to say/do something.
