Just wow. This is another reason why we need open source and decentralized systems

Seriously? We are just talking about speech here. Everyday, the names of people who have been arrested are released, even though they may not be guilty.

Also, if you do not like what a person is saying on Facebook, you can always block them.

I agree that is a little extreme according the original topic but it was to make a point regarding following what’s legal. Using only that argument to judge is something has to be said (or done) or not is dangerous, period.

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What if people are talking about another person with the same name? What if , for example, it is a referal for a cancer doctor for a person needing help?

People really need to pull their heads out of their rear-ends on blindly allowing censorship.

That’s why you take nuance into consideration when creating rules or law. World isn’t black and white and so shouldn’t be rules.

Actually, US courts have ruled it does have to be black and white. A person has a right to know what precisely they are to follow, or be in violation of. Else how is a person expect to know how to follow something vague?

One more reason to not trust on laws too much.

You keep talking about those rights you have and don’t get me wrong, those are important, but once again you’re totally ignoring my main point – what about rights of others? In this case right to protection of private data? As long there are people with different wants, their rights often will be incompatible with each other. This is complex problem and it’s only natural for it to not have a simple solution. One of those rights comes before the other.

I mentioned things which are NOT ILLEGAL. Sharing some private data is already illegal.

Excuse me butting in to your diatribe, but I keep hearing people go on about “their rights”, not just Americans, we have them too. Mostly these “rights” are not “self evident” but “self granted” by some bunch of founders or constitution or social contract.

What I never hear, (or nearly never hear) is anyone mention the responsibilities and obligations that it seems to me go along with those rights. It seems to me that to work as intended those “rights” have to be subject to some form of compromise, some give and take.

Right, I’ll butt out again and go back to just watching the slanging match you are having.

Anything this important is hard to discuss in tranquility but I feel lucky to be in the presence of people willing.

Good man. @Oldschool’s meme hit close to home too with the outlawing of protesting. A good example is HR 347 which “outlaws protests in instances where certain government officials are nearby, whether or not you even know it.”-lawinfo.com(1)

I’d argue one person’s right can’t be used to take away another right whether it’s their own or someone elses.

For example the right to life is more fundamental than privacy, but would that justify taking away everyone’s privacy if terrorists were threatening everyone’s life?

I like this arguement, but it scares the hell out of me.

Nuance for law is usually imagined to work as “we’d” find obvious and not what the Gov’t is incentivized to find obvious. Laws and rights have to be written to prevent the gov’t from abusing them just as much as they need to stop the public from doing harm.

A good example is Texas classifying certain gov’t employees as a protected class(2) which was intended for personal characteristics like race and gender. If such a simple law can’t be fullproof you can imagine how hijack-able a nuanced law would be.

Another example is the Internet Fraud and Abuse Act which from one perspective kindly allows breathing room for prosecuting malicious hackers but on the other hand makes using a shared password a felony(3) among a long list of ways it can be weaponized against Gov’t whistleblowers or anyone they don’t like who inadvertently broke one of these nuanced interpretations.

(1) https://blog.lawinfo.com/2012/03/16/random-new-law-hr-347-makes-protest-illegal-at-certain-events/
(2) Texas legislature broadens hate crime law to protect police officers, judges - Washington Times
(3) Why Sharing Passwords Is Now Illegal And What This Means for Employers And Digital Businesses

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While I may not agree with them censoring it, I would not consider it a violation of freedom of speech. From my understanding, the freedom is violated if the government attempts to punish someone by censoring them or throwing them in jail for speech. The owner of a platform, like Facebook, can restrict what is allowed on their platform, with the exception of telecom’s, and ISP’s, which fall under certain regulations. There are some calls for platforms like youtube and facebook to be brought in under those same regulations, but that is not currently the case that I am aware of.

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@TerryL This adds complexity to already to already complex problem, but my stance would be
a) some rights are fundamental others age gained
b) some actions nullify rights (like punching someone nullifies your right to not be beaten up by them)
obligations could be easily fit into this model.

For case in question, I believe that providing public with the information is not only fulfilling ones obligations it’s going beyond that, so if anything it should earn extra protection.

In case of terrorism it’s important to notice that going with the demands can lead to more terror – more rights being broken. But generally yeah, it’s complicated and I think it generally makes more sense to discuss this on case to case basis rather than in general.
And sometimes rights should take other rights away. Like my right to having my private property takes away your right of walking into it without invitation. Because in this particular example one of the rights is so much more important.

Luckily, we discuss morals and not laws. But yeah, laws will never be perfect, reality is just too complicated for them. But it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to make them best we can. Whether or not lawmakers want to make them best is different topic.

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