FOSTA Fallout
Well, free speech online is basically over. It was good while it lasted
So under the noses of everyone during the March For Our Trojan Horse "protests", FOSTA was passed. The bill, intended to curtail online advertisement of prostitution is so appalling, you'd have to be evil or moronic to say it will work or not have stunning consequences.
By being able to hold the owners of a website criminally accountable for illegal postings of its users, free speech is essentially dead and we can be tried for the acts of others. Glossing over the fact that someone cannot legally sell access to their body for money (unless a camera is involved) and how brain dead this is, since when was it ok for someone to be tried for what someone else did? If someone bought a hammer from Home Depot and decided it was hammer time in the middle of a grocery store, the Home Depot isn't accountable for their actions right?
Already the chilling effects can be seen. Craigslist pulled its entire personals section, reddit has axed a multitude of subreddits, and the FBI has raided and seized backpage, a personals and job listing site.
The backpage.com story is a more complicated than just illegal posting on their website. An investigation found the employees at backpack actually removed descriptive words like young, teenage and rape from classified ads. This was done automatically and sometimes manually. So there's liability there if employees were told to cover up these illegal activities. Probably why they arrested the CEO but a month later a judge in California dropped the charges. Almost like they didn't want this to go to trial.
wow that's crazy. My guess is that they were complicit in what was going on from the coverage I have been seeing. If they get jailed for this, I wouldn't be sad. I still think that due process needs to be followed or else innocent people will be the victim of these practices moving forward.
From what I heard, the indictments were sealed and the trial was closed to the public. Why is that permitted? Seems odd that people can be tried and the entire trial and the charges can be hidden from the public eye.
Steemit INC is next probably.
I swear to god they better not. Im probably gonna do a followup, but basically if the gov sees a website they don't like, all they need to do is get someone to advertise prostitution in a comment or something like that and boom its over.
Hmm... They could go after any Steem screen/website. But it would be nonsense, the blockchain will never be compromised, so more steem sites will come up.
But certainly we now need to be aware of this potential prostitution promotion accounts that could be created.
Yep, they are just accelerating the rate that technology is adopted which cannot be curtailed with government action and force.
Can you describe the relationship between the blockchain and the steemit.com website in more detail? Is it right to think that the blockchain is completely separate from the website? And how trivial or difficult would it be to build a new platform. I like to think that the community is protected by the distributed nature of the blockchain - but who serves the website? And our steem power is linked to wallets associated with this particular website, isn't it?
Well, the way I could totally see this being abused is trolls posting stuff on opponents' websites just to bring them down. Don't like so-and-so? All you have to do is post xyz and then tip off the feds!
that is a huge fear I think. At least the blockchain space cannot really be shut down without arresting every single person who uses it.
An unjust law is to be disobeyed, you are as free as you choose to be.
damn right. After a law, there are 2 groups who disobey: criminals and the intelligent
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