5 ms·

I wounder if this is the start of a significantly less free internet. In the past if one site started censoring ideas, one could open up a new site to express t

by mejin 9y ago

I wounder if this is the start of a significantly less free internet. In the past if one site started censoring ideas, one could open up a new site to express those ideas. Now that a hosting site is removing a site for hateful ideas, I wounder what would come next. Maybe in the not so distant future, sites that publish mainstream Republican news will be removed from GoDaddy, or maybe sites that disagree with SOPA [1] or that shooting wild elephants is wrong[1]. While I think that posting an article titled "Heather Heyer: Woman Killed in Road Rage Incident was a Fat, Childless 32-Year-Old Slut" shows that you are a terrible person, there has to be a media for them to express their ideas. If the government wont "sell" domains directly to people then there should be a rule similar to net neutrality that will require private companies to treat all sites equal no matter how much they disagree with the idea. The alternative to that is to make sure that you don't post anything on your own website that will anger the domain name registras. Who knows if in the future your idea will become an idea that many others disagree with. [1] GoDaddy supported SOPA and their CEO hunted a wild elephant.

zimpenfish 9y ago
> there has to be a media for them to express their ideas. No, there doesn't. Nazism had its chance. We fought a world war over it. I think popular opinion came down on the side of "hang Nazis and prevent this ever happening again." > there should be a rule similar to net neutrality Unfortunately, Trump and his cabinet are against net neutrality.
- Turing_Machine 9y ago
  > No, there doesn't. Nazism had its chance. We fought a world war over it. As did Communism, and we fought a Cold War over that. A "white nationalist" (apparently) ran someone over with his car, while a communist is currently threatening to nuke the United States. Nuking a country has to be worse than running over a single person, right? If not, why not? Maybe next we can shut down all communist web sites. After the communists, then we can move on to socialists of any kind. Then people who don't salute the flag. Then atheists. Then people who don't go to church on Sunday. Then... This doesn't end up where you imagine that it ends up. For example: https://townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2017/08/14/conservatives-must-regulate-google-and-all-of-silicon-valley-into-submission-n2368118 https://townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2017/08/14/co... (note that I do not necessarily agree with this article)
  - zimpenfish 9y ago
    > As did Communism, and we fought a Cold War over that. You know this is a false equivalence - they're not even remotely comparable. > a communist is currently threatening to nuke the United States [...] has to be worse than running over a single person Again with the false equivalences. Also I don't think Kim Jong-Un is a Communist - they have collective farms, sure, but the country is much more a dictatorship than anything.
    - Turing_Machine 9y ago
      > You know this is a false equivalence - they're not even remotely comparable. "False equivalence" how? Communists have murdered way more people than the Nazis ever did. > Also I don't think Kim Jong-Un is a Communist - they have collective farms, sure, but the country is much more a dictatorship than anything. Can you give me an example of a Communist country that isn't a dictatorship? The "But that wasn't real communism!" argument doesn't fly any more.
      - true_religion 9y ago
        How about china?
        Turing_Machine 9y ago
        Mao wasn't a dictator? China has certainly made some significant steps away from dictatorship, though it's still damned authoritarian. It's also made significant steps away from communism (I mean, it has billionaires and everything). That's not a coincidence.
        dismantlethesun 9y ago
        China is a communist autocracy where the leadership is a ruling counsel. It has divisions of power, and peaceful transitions of power. It's not a dictatorship characterized of a single leader ruling by force, with no stable transitions of power. As an aside, North Korea is a stable hereditary monarchy, and not a dictatorship. Neither him nor his father took power via force. Now that doesn't make them "good people". Mary Queen of Scots, and King John of England, were legitimate monarchs and terrible leaders.
- charlesism 9y ago
  > I think popular opinion came down on the side > of "hang Nazis and prevent this ever happening again." I doubt you really believe in the "wisdom of crowds", or that the march of progress is an irreversible cosmic force, or that God will suddenly start intervening before fascism can take hold. I don't understand what you're basing your confidence on, aside from optimism.
  - zimpenfish 9y ago
    Insert "do all we can to" before "prevent" if you need it.
- veryserioustho 9y ago
  Popular opinion had the same attitude towards witches. Times change. We had the same attitude towards communists and communist sympathizers, yet its making a comeback in 'popular culture'. America came down on the side of 'I don't agree with what you have to say, but I will defend your right to say it.' That being said, this whole debacle is a slippery slope and that should be the key takeaway here, regardless of which way your political spectrum leans.
  - zimpenfish 9y ago
    > America came down on the side of 'I don't agree with what you have to say, but I will defend your right to say it.' That's a nice aphorism but isn't even slightly true given the number of wars they've been involved in (even just this century!) and regimes they've plotted to overthrow and organisations the government has infiltrated and ... etc. For a recent example, compare and contrast the police responses to white supremacist marches vs BLM marches. If your hokey aphorism was true, both would be treated equally.
    - veryserioustho 9y ago
      We're talking about Americans. Not other nations that cry about American imperialism out one side of their face, then demand protection, food and money out the other. If America ceased all humanitarian services and closed all military bases in other nations you would see unprecedented loss of life as we would be labeled an uncaring nation that let women and children starve. You're right about the different police responses, though, as BLM was allowed to burn an entire city while the white people were kicked out of a park. Labeling all gatherings of white people as 'white supremacists' is disingenuous and racist in and of itself.
int_19h 9y ago
For there to be a media to express their ideas, you need to force some people - private actors, not government - to provide them with such a media. For most people, this is highly unacceptable, because it makes them complicit in spreading this kind of speech. It's one thing to accept that the speech itself should be legal and not prosecuted, and quite another to assist (even if involuntarily) in spreading it. So, what's more important: the right of Nazis to free speech, or the right of everyone else to freedom of association?

by mejin 9y ago

zimpenfish 9y ago

> there has to be a media for them to express their ideas. No, there doesn't. Nazism had its chance. We fought a world war over it. I think popular opinion came down on the side of "hang Nazis and prevent this ever happening again." > there should be a rule similar to net neutrality Unfortunately, Trump and his cabinet are against net neutrality.

Turing_Machine 9y ago
> No, there doesn't. Nazism had its chance. We fought a world war over it. As did Communism, and we fought a Cold War over that. A "white nationalist" (apparently) ran someone over with his car, while a communist is currently threatening to nuke the United States. Nuking a country has to be worse than running over a single person, right? If not, why not? Maybe next we can shut down all communist web sites. After the communists, then we can move on to socialists of any kind. Then people who don't salute the flag. Then atheists. Then people who don't go to church on Sunday. Then... This doesn't end up where you imagine that it ends up. For example: https://townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2017/08/14/conservatives-must-regulate-google-and-all-of-silicon-valley-into-submission-n2368118 https://townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2017/08/14/co... (note that I do not necessarily agree with this article)
- zimpenfish 9y ago
  > As did Communism, and we fought a Cold War over that. You know this is a false equivalence - they're not even remotely comparable. > a communist is currently threatening to nuke the United States [...] has to be worse than running over a single person Again with the false equivalences. Also I don't think Kim Jong-Un is a Communist - they have collective farms, sure, but the country is much more a dictatorship than anything.
  - Turing_Machine 9y ago
    > You know this is a false equivalence - they're not even remotely comparable. "False equivalence" how? Communists have murdered way more people than the Nazis ever did. > Also I don't think Kim Jong-Un is a Communist - they have collective farms, sure, but the country is much more a dictatorship than anything. Can you give me an example of a Communist country that isn't a dictatorship? The "But that wasn't real communism!" argument doesn't fly any more.
    - true_religion 9y ago
      How about china?
      - Turing_Machine 9y ago
        Mao wasn't a dictator? China has certainly made some significant steps away from dictatorship, though it's still damned authoritarian. It's also made significant steps away from communism (I mean, it has billionaires and everything). That's not a coincidence.
        dismantlethesun 9y ago
        China is a communist autocracy where the leadership is a ruling counsel. It has divisions of power, and peaceful transitions of power. It's not a dictatorship characterized of a single leader ruling by force, with no stable transitions of power. As an aside, North Korea is a stable hereditary monarchy, and not a dictatorship. Neither him nor his father took power via force. Now that doesn't make them "good people". Mary Queen of Scots, and King John of England, were legitimate monarchs and terrible leaders.
charlesism 9y ago
> I think popular opinion came down on the side > of "hang Nazis and prevent this ever happening again." I doubt you really believe in the "wisdom of crowds", or that the march of progress is an irreversible cosmic force, or that God will suddenly start intervening before fascism can take hold. I don't understand what you're basing your confidence on, aside from optimism.
- zimpenfish 9y ago
  Insert "do all we can to" before "prevent" if you need it.
veryserioustho 9y ago
Popular opinion had the same attitude towards witches. Times change. We had the same attitude towards communists and communist sympathizers, yet its making a comeback in 'popular culture'. America came down on the side of 'I don't agree with what you have to say, but I will defend your right to say it.' That being said, this whole debacle is a slippery slope and that should be the key takeaway here, regardless of which way your political spectrum leans.
- zimpenfish 9y ago
  > America came down on the side of 'I don't agree with what you have to say, but I will defend your right to say it.' That's a nice aphorism but isn't even slightly true given the number of wars they've been involved in (even just this century!) and regimes they've plotted to overthrow and organisations the government has infiltrated and ... etc. For a recent example, compare and contrast the police responses to white supremacist marches vs BLM marches. If your hokey aphorism was true, both would be treated equally.
  - veryserioustho 9y ago
    We're talking about Americans. Not other nations that cry about American imperialism out one side of their face, then demand protection, food and money out the other. If America ceased all humanitarian services and closed all military bases in other nations you would see unprecedented loss of life as we would be labeled an uncaring nation that let women and children starve. You're right about the different police responses, though, as BLM was allowed to burn an entire city while the white people were kicked out of a park. Labeling all gatherings of white people as 'white supremacists' is disingenuous and racist in and of itself.

int_19h 9y ago

For there to be a media to express their ideas, you need to force some people - private actors, not government - to provide them with such a media. For most people, this is highly unacceptable, because it makes them complicit in spreading this kind of speech. It's one thing to accept that the speech itself should be legal and not prosecuted, and quite another to assist (even if involuntarily) in spreading it. So, what's more important: the right of Nazis to free speech, or the right of everyone else to freedom of association?