liberal_098

IF we proceed from the hypothesis that X is "a hate site, filled with conspiracy theories, radicalization and racism"

AND we want to ban the whole platform X,

THEN it would be logical to ban also all the layers down the technological stack: AWS, Google Play Store, Telecoms that transported the traffic etc.

Indeed, X platform has approximately the same responsibility as other platform layers and hence they all should be punished.

Another idea is to punish them proportionally to their ability to check the content published on the platform so that telecoms probably will not be punished at all because they are not able to read encrypted traffic.

The question can be reformulated as whether non-existence (nothingness) exists which is obviously a contradiction. Nothingness is the opposite of existence and hence it does not exist by definition.

> Freedom of speech is specifically freedom from the government interfering with your speech

Yes, it is an important point but somewhat old. Nowadays it can be generalized: freedom of speech is a protection of the stage from monopolization by anyone (being it a government, company or private person). I would say, now it is more important and much more difficult to protect the communication channels from giant companies which are much stronger than most governments (and in many cases actually control the governments).

> The government controlling social media platforms is vastly different from a collection of companies controlling social media platforms that they built

If the difference is measured by the effect produced then in many cases it is zero, that is, there is no any difference. For example,we frequently see collective censorship which effectively means the absence of freedom of speech.

In fact, there exist also other interesting forms like collective (or democratic) racism or collective (democratic) totalitarism. For normal people, the origin of these rules does not really matter.

> brutality is kind of a global phenomenon

I am afraid that it is not limited by police. You can see it everywhere. For example, downvoting a post with an alternative opinion and trying to have one opinion is a sign that you will be a good policeman. People like diversity only if it is a minor deviation which in this sense only confirm the dominance of one opinion. And this behavior is visible almost everywhere: police, governments, protests against police, forum moderation etc.

> If Hetzner ( Also from Germany ) cant / isn't competing with AWS, why does Lidl thinks they can?

Probably they want to repeat the success of AWS and apply the same pattern. Their retail businesses will provide base load for the cloud. Their own services can be developed in such a way that they can sell them to other retailers as cloud services. Or they develop a market place and switch to platform business.

> Downvotes don't mean censorship.

Good question. I think it does if downvotes result in inability to express an opinion (as opposed to simply having downvotes shown).

If downvotes are used to suppress freedoms then downvoting is a means of censorship. In other words, there is no big difference between prohibiting something by one person (dictatorship) or by 10 persons (collective dictatorship) (if it is not prohibited by law of course).

> Yeah I agree that most in China don’t think much of it (or often don’t even realize censorship is happening on their exchanges). But it’s still tragic.

Hm... Why is it tragic? Simply rephrase it: most Americans do not even realize there is censorship". Is it tragic? If yes then for whom? Probably not for them but rather for external observers.

> USSR took back territories that Poland took from USSR in the 1919-1921 Polish-Soviet war

Essentially, Poland was occupying these territories between 1921 and 1939. Also, Poland had a dictatorship (quite typical in Europe at that time) and they were highly aggressive with respect to their neighbors: Polish-Ukrainian War (1918–19), Polish-Lithuanian War (1920, culminating in Żeligowski's Mutiny), Polish-Czechoslovak border conflicts (beginning in 1918).

Not only a smart move but also quite typical for that time. Note that Pilsudski was a kind of dictator and the Polish government was rather aggressive with respect to all its neighbors. Therefore, the war between Germany and Poland was a collision of two dictators - Hitler and Pilsudski.