Neocities.org

Excellent analysis. I have not heard of this quotation before, but it is indeed a great one. Very disheartening that so few people hold this belief in this modern age of censorship and cancellation.

A generation ago (during the 1990s), it was considered a good thing that the Internet would increase the amount of speech in the world, and permit everybody to broadcast their beliefs to a potentially global audience. It is very sad that attitudes have changed so quickly, and people say now that there is "too much" freedom and free speech in cyberspace! If anything, freedom has been decreasing, not increasing.

This is a terrific little conspectus on the CDA, the first of a few such quashed acts that never should've existed. I'm convinced that technology will eventually render broader censorship obsolescent, but until people eschew bloated, censorial corporate networks for superior independent alternatives, they elect to be cattle rather than people.

Nota bene: that obiter dictum by Dalzell (a constructionist to the bone), is yet more evidence substantiating my longheld conviction that Silents appreciated the quiddity, functions and potential of home computing and the Internet with far more acuity than Boomers, who've never been as comfortable with technology produced after the '70s as the preceding and succeeding generations...

Of all the abysmal legislative articles signed by Clinton, this is easily among the five worst. He's rightly overshadowed by Bush and Obama, who were far worse, but as might be expected from the Obamamaniacs and Magapedes who succeeded them, Clintonistas just pretended he never had anything to do with it. The supreme hypocrisy required to sign anti-porn bills while consorting with Jeffrey Epstein is staggering.

A lot of the good values that used to be accepted as common sense on the Internet in the 90s have sadly been eroded since the normiefication of the Internet ran its course. People used to also praise the fact that the Internet was a decentralised free-for-all, and now they embrace everything being in the hands of a few websites/companies.

It also was common sense to never reveal any personal information on the Internet, while now you can't even participate on many websites without doxxing yourself somehow. One could argue that the latter happened because the powers that be knew that it would decrease free speech.

I will always stick to the old values of the Internet, because I still feel, to some degree, that it's separate from the real world, with its own unique culture and customs which should be respected. Also: "Of all the abysmal legislative articles signed by Clinton, this is easily among the five worst." Thanks for reminding me that the DMCA still exists, Robert...

Completely agreed. "When in Rome, do as the Romans do," as they say. The Internet was meant to be an almost magical place that was completely separate from the real world, not a toxic extension of the real world.

koshka: the personal solution is simple: don't do it. Anonymize all accounts on social media and other corporate sites, regard all of them as potentially disposable and assiduously back up all of your data. Encourage others to do likewise; experience will often confirm your counsel.

lolwut: the trouble with the DMCA isn't its purported intention, but rather that it's so readily abused by design, as in antinomy of Fair Use when some elite, cosseted cunt's feefees are contused. As a copyright maven, I abominate that popular conflation of copyright as it's intended and how it's abused by corporations.

koshka: I agree entirely, but the Internet's greater transformation into that extension was inevitable. Its popularization facilitates far too much, commercial and otherwise. Even if that vast, demotic dreck can't be turned back, it can be shunned and diminished...after all, every major social media site is shrinking, and not only for managerial abuse and ineptitude...