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We take down Al Qaeda terrorist websites all the time because they can be used to radicalize people. Nazis are no different. They are calling for the systematic

by Akujin 9y ago

We take down Al Qaeda terrorist websites all the time because they can be used to radicalize people. Nazis are no different. They are calling for the systematic violent overthrow of the US government and for the extermination of many millions of so called undesirables. This is a terrorist threat. I take this threat very seriously as do many people in the Jewish, Hispanic, and African American community. There are literally thousands of hosts out there in and outside the United States. The idea that Cloudflare is a public space requiring the protection of the first amendment from a company's policies is laughable. The idea that I'm seeing any of these comments arguing to the contrary means HN is already infiltrated by /pol/ and other Nazi sympathizing groups.

supremesaboteur 9y ago
Everyone who disagrees with you may not be a Nazi sympathizer
- invisible 9y ago
  Not everyone who makes rational statements about this discussion is saying that other's disagreement is a sign of them being a Nazi sympathizer. Look through the comments and it's pretty clear what is being said by akujin.
chvid 9y ago
"The idea that I'm seeing any of these comments arguing to the contrary means HN is already infiltrated by /pol/ and other Nazi sympathizing groups." Exactly. Thank you for this beautiful statement. Dear writer of faul thoughts; have you considered that maybe one day this HN forum that you love so much will be closed due your writings here? Let's keep our forum clean from your Nazi sympathizing so that HN can continue as a part of the beautiful open web.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
abalone 9y ago
That's not why they took them down. You can argue for censoring threatening dangerous terrorist speech all you want but it is incorrect to suggest that is the stance cloudflare took. They censored because stormfront falsely claimed cloudflare sympathized with their cause and pissed of the CEO. Not because the speech itself presented a clear and present danger. Foreign hosts are not really the right solution to freedom of speech on the internet. First of all it depends on the agreeability with the opinion rather than the right to express it. But moreover they can be DDoS'd just the same without a service like cloudflare. Cloudflare is a proxy not a host. The core problem is that the Internet is a modern public space while its management has been handled by private entities. Cloudflare is essentially performing the function of the police permitting the KKK to march, which the US constitution permits. They don't have to do it as a private entity, but if DDoS becomes the norm for unpopular speech then the internet is no longer a public space, just a space for views that don't get DDoS'd.
- aluhut 9y ago
  What is this "public space" statement based on? Only because I can go there? Like in a shop or restaurant? So if I set up a server as a private person, it's a "public space" too? Looks like some heavy reality bending for a questionable cause to me.
  - abalone 9y ago
    No, your server, shops and restaurants are private spaces. The Internet, the park and the street are public spaces. The questionable cause you speak of is the right to express views in public spaces. DDoS is the internet equivalent of a mob censoring public speech. Proxies like cloudflare are the equivalent of the police protecting the right to speak, no matter the view. Remember that these principles, which date to the Enlightenment, work for all views and have benefited the civil rights, antiwar, suffragist, environment and other movements immeasurably.
    - Akujin 9y ago
      You do realize that "the internet" is a giant web of mostly private servers right? And therefor not a public space. It's not a park or a street. But even if it was. You must get a permit just like in real life. Which a private entity doesn't have to grant you. Because you know... personal freedom.
matttproud 9y ago
^^^ The parent comment hits the ball out of the park. The commentary on past posts on HN and elsewhere floors me. It seems one or two things are prevalent: 1. Folks will gladly loan the hangman the rope that he will use to hang you, your family, and your neighbors — all because of "purity of belief" in free speech. Sorry, hate to break it to you, but these illiberal forces are a clear and present danger to this comfortable society you call home. 2. Support for Cryptofascism (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto-fascism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto-fascism) is rampant. Either folks don't know that they already support it, or they wittingly do and are too afraid to say it out in the open. Immensely disturbing. As someone who cherishes the rule of law over the rule of man, not aiding and these illiberal parties is the minimum. They are not pluralists; they don't care about the rules of the game. They won't politely tolerate you. Deviants will be chastised, expelled/expatriated, jailed, or killed. Ignoring prudence (preservation of self and the society at-large) is perilous.
- aaron-lebo 9y ago
  Get out of here with the crying wolf. Sorry, hate to break it to you, but these illiberal forces are a clear and present danger to this comfortable society you call home. No, it's the last gasps of a dying breed of racists, empowered by the Internet and that look a lot more popular than they are due to media focus. Nazis are lame, but you leave them alone and there's nothing to fuel the fire. You send out counterprotesters, get in fights with them, act like these people are on the verge of starting a civil war and in their minds you've proved them right (delusional though they may be), and they get energized and then you have a real problem. Kicking nazis off the Internet is one thing, but yours (and the grandparent) is the language that causes the slippery slope arguments. That people can't even discuss the issue of free speech without being assumed to be nazi sympathizers or "cryptofascists" or whatever we want to label people we don't agree with isn't ok. Someone having a debate about the right of nazis to use modern services is not by extension a nazi.
  - steve_musk 9y ago
    "No, it's the last gasps of a dying breed of racists, empowered by the Internet and that look a lot more popular than they are due to media focus." Really? Because yesterday the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES defended white nationalists and neo-nazis on national TV. This discussion also shouldn't have much to do with free speech. If private companies do not want to allow pro-nazi websites to use their servers, they should be allowed to refuse them. The only slippery slope here is the idea that Nazis are dying and there is no need to take them seriously. People in Germany did not take them seriously when Hitler started his rise to power, then the country fell into disarray and Hitler had simple answers to hard questions. After everything that has happened over the past year, it is time to stop thinking that something like Hitler's rise to power could never happen again. We are in uncharted waters.
illuminati1911 9y ago
The last sentence is the main reason why the world is so fucked up today. "Unless you agree with my radical leftist agenda you are a nazi/racist/<some_imaginary_word>"-mentality and the complete unreasonability of the left is the reason why normal people are fed up with all this crap and are voting for Trump, Brexit etc. No matter how evil some group is (may they be pedophiles, satan worshippers, nazis, whatever...) silencing them and assaulting them is a crime and is against freedom of expession. The problem with making these exceptions like "Let's have freedom of speech but not for these and these people...yadayadayada" is we can never be sure where to draw the line. (Neo-)Nazis are sure dumb as hell but as long as they have peaceful protest and they don't harm anybody physically (unlike their counter-protesters) it doesn't matter. And don't even start with the car-thing. An individual psycho does not compare to organized widely accepted violence. If we were to ban nazis and far-right organizations because they are racist and apparently a "threat" then what about anarchists? They also are extremely violent and want to overthrow the government. (and in the US officially categorized as terrorist threat) What about BLM which is openly racist and violent (July 2016 anti-white/police sniper attack, riots, assaults, highway blockings etc.) If we start going down this slippery slope will have shitloads of organizations and ideas to ban.
- jrimbault 9y ago
  Anarchists and communists have long been banned from entering the US. And I've noticed a strong push back against most of the more mild socialists ideas. The US have not been "the land of the free" for a long time. And I will argue that communism is fundamentally a good ideology. While fascism has never leaned on the good side of human nature. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_Control_Act_of_1954 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_Control_Act_of_1954 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideological_restrictions_on_naturalization_in_U.S._law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideological_restrictions_on_na... PS: statues of Lenin and Stalin were removed without much second thought, only USians would keep statues of their (war criminals)|(rebels) for 150 years. And political bronzes are not art, they are at best political camping and grandiloquence.
  - aaron-lebo 9y ago
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
seikilos 9y ago
> Nazis are no different. Be careful of this. There are very few actual national socialists in the United States, and they certainly aren't all part of a single organisation like Al Qaeda. Even among them the majority are probably against genocide since they all deny the holocaust. What you say does however apply to The Daily Stormer. So I agree that they're a threat and should have been taken down years ago.
- pjc50 9y ago
  Holocaust denial is a pro-genocide ideology. To deny the holocaust of the past is part of denying violence in the present day. It also implies that Jews are liars - it's a very strong piece of anti-semitism.
  - seikilos 9y ago
    > Holocaust denial is a pro-genocide ideology. No that simply isn't true. Contemporary Nazis deny the holocaust because they can't morally justify following mass-murderers to themselves.
  - Malice 9y ago
    > Holocaust denial is a pro-genocide ideology Can you make this case more clearly? I get that it's anti-semitic (the lying point) but not how it's pro-genocide.
    - pjc50 9y ago
      Holocaust denial is not something people come to accidentally or through a rational evaluation of the evidence. It's something people reach through anti-semitism. What do you think the reactions of someone denying the holocaust in the past would be to evidence of more genocide being planned in the present or future? Deniers are signalling their willingness to help genocide by turning a blind eye to it. They're showing that fear or hatred of Jews is more important to them than facts.
      - jimmyk 9y ago
thedrbrian 9y ago
Do /pol/ actually sympathise with the Nazis or are they just trying and getting a rise out of people ?
- EJTH 9y ago
  /pol/ is not one person and it is in no way an organized movement. Some obviously sympathizes, other are edgelords. /pol/ seems like one of the last places where you can actually have a conversation with political adversaries without risking getting banned / shadowbanned or downvoted to obvlivion for having violated some snowflake safespace.
- darpa_escapee 9y ago
  It's a mixture of teenagers trying out shock humor, people trying to be ironic, people who don't identify as Nazis but certainly identify with many of their ideals and straight up Nazis. There's a lot of abyss-gazing that pushes people over the edge into extremism.
  - glenstein 9y ago
    Exactly. People who are subjected to that imagery and messaging, even if "ironically" risk internalizing it over time.
zug_zug 9y ago
Well, should we be taking down Alqueda websites? There seems to be an implicit assumption in this whole philosophy that if you prevent people from speaking their socially-backward beliefs (online, in person, in websites, in writing) then you'll somehow prevent negative behaviors. I'm not convinced that's the case. I think progress requires a more nuanced approach than "punish the baddy," but an examination into the psychology and a discourse that shows you understand the frustrations that are being channeled into blind-rage.
EJTH 9y ago
> The idea that I'm seeing any of these comments arguing to the contrary means HN is already infiltrated by /pol/ and other Nazi sympathizing groups. Infiltrated? You talk like having a different opinion than you justifies social stigma and exclusion, do you really think that helps anyone? I didn't realize that HN was full of 16 year old communists.
- rootlocus 9y ago
  > I didn't realize that HN was full of 16 year old communists. Was the irony on purpose?
  - EJTH 9y ago
    Why would you even reply? This is so out of context, and its a petty attempt at being snarky. I think its funny that /pol/ is better at engaging soberly in a political debate than a forum such as Y-combinator. At least add something more, an argument or you know just an actual REPLY.
    - rootlocus 9y ago
      Out of context? You're accusing someone of shaming a group of people an then proceed to shame him for being a 16 yr old communist. That's just blatant hypocrisy.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
FooHentai 9y ago
"If a society is tolerant without limit, their ability to be tolerant will eventually be seized or destroyed by the intolerant. Popper came to the seemingly paradoxical conclusion that in order to maintain a tolerant society, the society must be intolerant of intolerance." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance IMO this is the ideal rebuttal to the 'be tolerant' argument.
- dnadler 9y ago
  This makes me think of the game theory site linked in an HN comment the other day. I suppose 100% tolerant people would be the naive "always cooperate" players, and 100% intolerant people would be the "always cheat" players. Interesting to think about how we should behave in this context... If I recall correctly, the ideal behavior would be the copy-cat? This seems to validate the 'intolerant of intolerance' objective.
- peoplewindow 9y ago
  It's a circular argument that leads nowhere. Just recurse one more time to see it: the people shutting down StormFront, Milo Whatshisname, James Damore, Brendan Eich etc are paragons of intolerance. They scream, they shout, they blockade, they demand firings and other forms of retribution, they DDoS and sometimes they get violent. Meanwhile many in the media and at places like Google stand by and do nothing to stop them. So by your own argument, should we start tossing Google executives in prison, for tolerating intolerance?
- scrumper 9y ago
  Nassim Taleb talks a bit about this in his draft book on Medium. There's a concept of group renormalization which is quite interesting in relation to hardliner absolutists and how the majority must inevitably accommodate their positions. https://medium.com/incerto/the-most-intolerant-wins-the-dictatorship-of-the-small-minority-3f1f83ce4e15 https://medium.com/incerto/the-most-intolerant-wins-the-dict...
- iuguy 9y ago
  > IMO this is the ideal rebuttal to the 'be tolerant' argument. It's an interesting point, but at what point does the intolerance of intolerance become intolerance in it's own right? If the compromise on things we stand for (Freedom of speech, due process, equality for all) where is the line where we cease to be the things we claim to stand for? FWIW I'm all for charging Nazis with crimes and putting them in jail whenever they commit them. I would be happier if they weren't covered in the media at all. I'd be over the moon if they didn't exist. But if we allow mob rule (which negates the rule of law) to take over, then we risk claiming to stand for things that we do not. Popper's Paradox illustrates the theoretical. I would argue as a counterpoint that we're successfully as a society not tolerant without limit because of the rule of law.
rayiner 9y ago
We don't actually take down Al Qaeda websites in the US.
rogual 9y ago
You make a good point, though I feel you undermine yourself somewhat by adding the "and anyone who disagrees is a Nazi" onto the end there.
atypicaluser 9y ago
Not all of us will argue to the contrary. On the other hand, expect no sympathy when the powers-that-be decide to knock your favorite site(s) off the grid because they haven't passed the (next fashionable) purity test. You've no leg to stand on.
wvh 9y ago
But I want to know exactly what and how the people who "hate" me think. The idea that censorship solves the problem is pretty flawed; I assume Trump got elected in part by people who felt they couldn't speak their own thoughts out loud anymore. Just like with the Google memo, you create silent resentment instead of keeping a debate open (in as far as some of these people are capable of debate – that's another discussion). You can stick a Nazi label on pretty much anything you don't like, it doesn't mean it's a good idea to censor the other side to death and pretend their concerns don't exist, even if some of those concerns are inapprehensible or appalling. In some European countries, you were (and well, still are) not allowed to say certain politically incorrect things out loud, which in some countries gave the far right a lot of votes and almost a majority. So people didn't grieve their concerns out loud, but the resentment came out amplified in votes and by other means... While an open debate would likely have created a better atmosphere and perhaps have presented some solutions. In the long run, you are doing yourself a disservice not pulling everybody into the debate, including terrorists and people sliding into that direction. I think censorship should be avoided, unless there is a direct and unambiguous call to violent action or a clear violation of other peoples' personal privacy (e.g. "doc'ing", releasing personal information that harms a person). Cloudflare here admits that large companies are increasingly gatekeeps to the internet, especially in the case of controversial content. They have made a trade-off, and this is probably more about philosophical considerations or personal ideology, but I'd have put freedom of speech and neutrality before censorship of questionable content.
- CJKinni 9y ago
  >> But I want to know exactly what and how the people who "hate" me think. Then go ask them. If there are people that you think probably hate you nearby, I am almost sure there are places in a city where you could go to talk to them. I know, personally, there has never been a time where I couldn't call the right evangelical church and find out exactly why I am hated. I've experienced my share of drunk homophobic comments in my direction that do occasionally get violent. I certainly now where to go to find out 'exactly what and how the people who "hate" me think,' I don't for a minute believe they need the internet, let alone cloudflare, to achieve this goal.
jrs95 9y ago
The problem with this is that your definition applies to literal Nazis, and it's effectively become a fad to call people Nazis who aren't even remotely. The media being partly to blame with the Trump/Bannon/Brietbart 'fascist'/'white supremacist' hysteria.
losvedir 9y ago
> The idea that I'm seeing any of these comments arguing to the contrary means HN is already infiltrated by /pol/ and other Nazi sympathizing groups. This is an extremely frightening statement to me. I'm terrified by the fact that you'd paint me as a Nazi sympathizer because my meta-level beliefs that text and speech should be protected are stronger than my object-level beliefs that Nazi philosophy is evil. The Nazis are not reviled today because they had disgusting beliefs. They're reviled because they actually murdered millions of innocent citizens. I'm okay with neonazis saying disgusting things, as long as they play by the rules and don't commit any violence. (Hell, people brought AK-47's and AR-15's to Charlottesville but didn't use them, despite the violent clashes.) Whatever happened to "sticks and stones"? Do kids not learn that mantra anymore? To be clear, this is a separate question from whether major internet infrastructure providers should be considered de facto public systems and fall under the 1st amendment. I don't think they should, so I think this falls within Cloudflare's rights (although I wish they had done otherwise). I'm just objecting to the characterization that the only people who could possibly object to Cloudflare here are neonazis or their sympathizers. For what it's worth, I tried to find the Daily Stormer site to see what it is they actually advocate for, but I was unable to. I'm not sure if it's because of the domain name issues, Cloudflare, Google search or what, but it's a little disconcerting to me that ideas can be so easily expunged from the internet. So much for the "right to forget" controversy - I guess it is possible after all, if the companies were motivated to do so.
- cbuq 9y ago
  If you are referring to "sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never break me", clearly you have other problems with sympathy and empathy. Free speech does not protect dangerous speech.
  - drunkenmonkey 9y ago
    See, and now you're attacking the character of a person: "clearly you have other problems". This type of psychological attack is precisely the issue at hand with counter-nazi progress online at this precise moment in time.
z0r 9y ago
An atmosphere of free speech that allows for satire and conversation are the best weapons against extremist ideology. Your post is incredible; you are stating that advocates for free speech are Nazis and shit posters. You are stating that there are no good faith defenders of free speech.
redm 9y ago
Except it is different. The CEO has clearly stated that they won't take terrorist sites down, or any other kind of site, because it's not their job as a utility provider. [1] Its concerning because of its a violation of clearly established policy with an arbitrary decision by the CEO. If it were policy, it wouldn't be a big deal, my own company has anti-terrorism/hatred etc policies. We take this stuff down. It sets a bad precedent for them, they can't have it both ways. https://blog.cloudflare.com/cloudflare-and-free-speech/ https://blog.cloudflare.com/cloudflare-and-free-speech/
idibidiart 9y ago
Yup, I've been saying for a while that HN has a vocal majority of racists and sexists. They're now being exposed. Great. There should be a legal fund to sue the entire white supremacist and sexist assholes for damages, every time they speak.
lr4444lr 9y ago
Al Qaeda websites are not taken down in the US because they can be used to radicalize people; they're taken down when they are used to radicalize people.
wu-ikkyu 9y ago
>The idea that I'm seeing any of these comments arguing to the contrary means HN is already infiltrated by /pol/ and other Nazi sympathizing groups. If you're not with me, then you're my enemy. Spoken like a true Sith Lord.
Ajedi32 9y ago
> The idea that I'm seeing any of these comments arguing to the contrary means HN is already infiltrated by /pol/ and other Nazi sympathizing groups. Are you serious? "And anyone who disagrees with me must be a Nazi or Nazi sympathiser." Combined with the fact that the rest of your comment seems to be calling for Nazis to be silenced... I don't think I'm comfortable with where this is going.
Frondo 9y ago
"The idea that I'm seeing any of these comments arguing to the contrary means HN is already infiltrated by /pol/ and other Nazi sympathizing groups." What it comes down to is that the people arguing for "free speech" here feel safe in this world, with a growing neo-nazi presence. They don't feel threatened--they're not a target, the system will protect them, maybe they even have guns or plans to live off the grid, whatever. They can argue that neo-nazi speech is OK because it isn't an existential threat to them. They may even look at the terrorist car attack in Charlottesville and think "lone wolf, random unplanned attack," but what it comes down to is: they're going to be OK. Cops will protect them, their stuff, the system is on their side. Those of us who are OK with Cloudflare shutting down the Nazis, we don't trust the system to keep us safe. Cops won't protect us, the system is not on our side. We see the actual threat of nazi violence and death coming our way, and the "free speech" people are doing nothing to stop it.
freech 9y ago
This comment perfectly illustrates the need for free spreech absolutism. First, it's just about denying speech to Nazis. Then, everyone who "argues to the contrary" is also a Nazi, and presumably doesn't deserve free speech either. And voila, when you want to deny speech to anyone in the future, you can shut down anyone defending them as well.

by Akujin 9y ago

supremesaboteur 9y ago

Everyone who disagrees with you may not be a Nazi sympathizer

invisible 9y ago
Not everyone who makes rational statements about this discussion is saying that other's disagreement is a sign of them being a Nazi sympathizer. Look through the comments and it's pretty clear what is being said by akujin.

chvid 9y ago

"The idea that I'm seeing any of these comments arguing to the contrary means HN is already infiltrated by /pol/ and other Nazi sympathizing groups." Exactly. Thank you for this beautiful statement. Dear writer of faul thoughts; have you considered that maybe one day this HN forum that you love so much will be closed due your writings here? Let's keep our forum clean from your Nazi sympathizing so that HN can continue as a part of the beautiful open web.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

abalone 9y ago

That's not why they took them down. You can argue for censoring threatening dangerous terrorist speech all you want but it is incorrect to suggest that is the stance cloudflare took. They censored because stormfront falsely claimed cloudflare sympathized with their cause and pissed of the CEO. Not because the speech itself presented a clear and present danger. Foreign hosts are not really the right solution to freedom of speech on the internet. First of all it depends on the agreeability with the opinion rather than the right to express it. But moreover they can be DDoS'd just the same without a service like cloudflare. Cloudflare is a proxy not a host. The core problem is that the Internet is a modern public space while its management has been handled by private entities. Cloudflare is essentially performing the function of the police permitting the KKK to march, which the US constitution permits. They don't have to do it as a private entity, but if DDoS becomes the norm for unpopular speech then the internet is no longer a public space, just a space for views that don't get DDoS'd.

aluhut 9y ago
What is this "public space" statement based on? Only because I can go there? Like in a shop or restaurant? So if I set up a server as a private person, it's a "public space" too? Looks like some heavy reality bending for a questionable cause to me.
- abalone 9y ago
  No, your server, shops and restaurants are private spaces. The Internet, the park and the street are public spaces. The questionable cause you speak of is the right to express views in public spaces. DDoS is the internet equivalent of a mob censoring public speech. Proxies like cloudflare are the equivalent of the police protecting the right to speak, no matter the view. Remember that these principles, which date to the Enlightenment, work for all views and have benefited the civil rights, antiwar, suffragist, environment and other movements immeasurably.
  - Akujin 9y ago
    You do realize that "the internet" is a giant web of mostly private servers right? And therefor not a public space. It's not a park or a street. But even if it was. You must get a permit just like in real life. Which a private entity doesn't have to grant you. Because you know... personal freedom.

matttproud 9y ago

^^^ The parent comment hits the ball out of the park. The commentary on past posts on HN and elsewhere floors me. It seems one or two things are prevalent: 1. Folks will gladly loan the hangman the rope that he will use to hang you, your family, and your neighbors — all because of "purity of belief" in free speech. Sorry, hate to break it to you, but these illiberal forces are a clear and present danger to this comfortable society you call home. 2. Support for Cryptofascism (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto-fascism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto-fascism) is rampant. Either folks don't know that they already support it, or they wittingly do and are too afraid to say it out in the open. Immensely disturbing. As someone who cherishes the rule of law over the rule of man, not aiding and these illiberal parties is the minimum. They are not pluralists; they don't care about the rules of the game. They won't politely tolerate you. Deviants will be chastised, expelled/expatriated, jailed, or killed. Ignoring prudence (preservation of self and the society at-large) is perilous.

aaron-lebo 9y ago
Get out of here with the crying wolf. Sorry, hate to break it to you, but these illiberal forces are a clear and present danger to this comfortable society you call home. No, it's the last gasps of a dying breed of racists, empowered by the Internet and that look a lot more popular than they are due to media focus. Nazis are lame, but you leave them alone and there's nothing to fuel the fire. You send out counterprotesters, get in fights with them, act like these people are on the verge of starting a civil war and in their minds you've proved them right (delusional though they may be), and they get energized and then you have a real problem. Kicking nazis off the Internet is one thing, but yours (and the grandparent) is the language that causes the slippery slope arguments. That people can't even discuss the issue of free speech without being assumed to be nazi sympathizers or "cryptofascists" or whatever we want to label people we don't agree with isn't ok. Someone having a debate about the right of nazis to use modern services is not by extension a nazi.
- steve_musk 9y ago
  "No, it's the last gasps of a dying breed of racists, empowered by the Internet and that look a lot more popular than they are due to media focus." Really? Because yesterday the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES defended white nationalists and neo-nazis on national TV. This discussion also shouldn't have much to do with free speech. If private companies do not want to allow pro-nazi websites to use their servers, they should be allowed to refuse them. The only slippery slope here is the idea that Nazis are dying and there is no need to take them seriously. People in Germany did not take them seriously when Hitler started his rise to power, then the country fell into disarray and Hitler had simple answers to hard questions. After everything that has happened over the past year, it is time to stop thinking that something like Hitler's rise to power could never happen again. We are in uncharted waters.

illuminati1911 9y ago

The last sentence is the main reason why the world is so fucked up today. "Unless you agree with my radical leftist agenda you are a nazi/racist/<some_imaginary_word>"-mentality and the complete unreasonability of the left is the reason why normal people are fed up with all this crap and are voting for Trump, Brexit etc. No matter how evil some group is (may they be pedophiles, satan worshippers, nazis, whatever...) silencing them and assaulting them is a crime and is against freedom of expession. The problem with making these exceptions like "Let's have freedom of speech but not for these and these people...yadayadayada" is we can never be sure where to draw the line. (Neo-)Nazis are sure dumb as hell but as long as they have peaceful protest and they don't harm anybody physically (unlike their counter-protesters) it doesn't matter. And don't even start with the car-thing. An individual psycho does not compare to organized widely accepted violence. If we were to ban nazis and far-right organizations because they are racist and apparently a "threat" then what about anarchists? They also are extremely violent and want to overthrow the government. (and in the US officially categorized as terrorist threat) What about BLM which is openly racist and violent (July 2016 anti-white/police sniper attack, riots, assaults, highway blockings etc.) If we start going down this slippery slope will have shitloads of organizations and ideas to ban.

jrimbault 9y ago
Anarchists and communists have long been banned from entering the US. And I've noticed a strong push back against most of the more mild socialists ideas. The US have not been "the land of the free" for a long time. And I will argue that communism is fundamentally a good ideology. While fascism has never leaned on the good side of human nature. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_Control_Act_of_1954 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_Control_Act_of_1954 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideological_restrictions_on_naturalization_in_U.S._law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideological_restrictions_on_na... PS: statues of Lenin and Stalin were removed without much second thought, only USians would keep statues of their (war criminals)|(rebels) for 150 years. And political bronzes are not art, they are at best political camping and grandiloquence.
- aaron-lebo 9y ago

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

seikilos 9y ago

> Nazis are no different. Be careful of this. There are very few actual national socialists in the United States, and they certainly aren't all part of a single organisation like Al Qaeda. Even among them the majority are probably against genocide since they all deny the holocaust. What you say does however apply to The Daily Stormer. So I agree that they're a threat and should have been taken down years ago.

pjc50 9y ago
Holocaust denial is a pro-genocide ideology. To deny the holocaust of the past is part of denying violence in the present day. It also implies that Jews are liars - it's a very strong piece of anti-semitism.
- seikilos 9y ago
  > Holocaust denial is a pro-genocide ideology. No that simply isn't true. Contemporary Nazis deny the holocaust because they can't morally justify following mass-murderers to themselves.
- Malice 9y ago
  > Holocaust denial is a pro-genocide ideology Can you make this case more clearly? I get that it's anti-semitic (the lying point) but not how it's pro-genocide.
  - pjc50 9y ago
    Holocaust denial is not something people come to accidentally or through a rational evaluation of the evidence. It's something people reach through anti-semitism. What do you think the reactions of someone denying the holocaust in the past would be to evidence of more genocide being planned in the present or future? Deniers are signalling their willingness to help genocide by turning a blind eye to it. They're showing that fear or hatred of Jews is more important to them than facts.
    - jimmyk 9y ago

thedrbrian 9y ago

Do /pol/ actually sympathise with the Nazis or are they just trying and getting a rise out of people ?

EJTH 9y ago
/pol/ is not one person and it is in no way an organized movement. Some obviously sympathizes, other are edgelords. /pol/ seems like one of the last places where you can actually have a conversation with political adversaries without risking getting banned / shadowbanned or downvoted to obvlivion for having violated some snowflake safespace.
darpa_escapee 9y ago
It's a mixture of teenagers trying out shock humor, people trying to be ironic, people who don't identify as Nazis but certainly identify with many of their ideals and straight up Nazis. There's a lot of abyss-gazing that pushes people over the edge into extremism.
- glenstein 9y ago
  Exactly. People who are subjected to that imagery and messaging, even if "ironically" risk internalizing it over time.

zug_zug 9y ago

Well, should we be taking down Alqueda websites? There seems to be an implicit assumption in this whole philosophy that if you prevent people from speaking their socially-backward beliefs (online, in person, in websites, in writing) then you'll somehow prevent negative behaviors. I'm not convinced that's the case. I think progress requires a more nuanced approach than "punish the baddy," but an examination into the psychology and a discourse that shows you understand the frustrations that are being channeled into blind-rage.

EJTH 9y ago

> The idea that I'm seeing any of these comments arguing to the contrary means HN is already infiltrated by /pol/ and other Nazi sympathizing groups. Infiltrated? You talk like having a different opinion than you justifies social stigma and exclusion, do you really think that helps anyone? I didn't realize that HN was full of 16 year old communists.

rootlocus 9y ago
> I didn't realize that HN was full of 16 year old communists. Was the irony on purpose?
- EJTH 9y ago
  Why would you even reply? This is so out of context, and its a petty attempt at being snarky. I think its funny that /pol/ is better at engaging soberly in a political debate than a forum such as Y-combinator. At least add something more, an argument or you know just an actual REPLY.
  - rootlocus 9y ago
    Out of context? You're accusing someone of shaming a group of people an then proceed to shame him for being a 16 yr old communist. That's just blatant hypocrisy.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]

FooHentai 9y ago

"If a society is tolerant without limit, their ability to be tolerant will eventually be seized or destroyed by the intolerant. Popper came to the seemingly paradoxical conclusion that in order to maintain a tolerant society, the society must be intolerant of intolerance." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance IMO this is the ideal rebuttal to the 'be tolerant' argument.

dnadler 9y ago
This makes me think of the game theory site linked in an HN comment the other day. I suppose 100% tolerant people would be the naive "always cooperate" players, and 100% intolerant people would be the "always cheat" players. Interesting to think about how we should behave in this context... If I recall correctly, the ideal behavior would be the copy-cat? This seems to validate the 'intolerant of intolerance' objective.
peoplewindow 9y ago
It's a circular argument that leads nowhere. Just recurse one more time to see it: the people shutting down StormFront, Milo Whatshisname, James Damore, Brendan Eich etc are paragons of intolerance. They scream, they shout, they blockade, they demand firings and other forms of retribution, they DDoS and sometimes they get violent. Meanwhile many in the media and at places like Google stand by and do nothing to stop them. So by your own argument, should we start tossing Google executives in prison, for tolerating intolerance?
scrumper 9y ago
Nassim Taleb talks a bit about this in his draft book on Medium. There's a concept of group renormalization which is quite interesting in relation to hardliner absolutists and how the majority must inevitably accommodate their positions. https://medium.com/incerto/the-most-intolerant-wins-the-dictatorship-of-the-small-minority-3f1f83ce4e15 https://medium.com/incerto/the-most-intolerant-wins-the-dict...
iuguy 9y ago
> IMO this is the ideal rebuttal to the 'be tolerant' argument. It's an interesting point, but at what point does the intolerance of intolerance become intolerance in it's own right? If the compromise on things we stand for (Freedom of speech, due process, equality for all) where is the line where we cease to be the things we claim to stand for? FWIW I'm all for charging Nazis with crimes and putting them in jail whenever they commit them. I would be happier if they weren't covered in the media at all. I'd be over the moon if they didn't exist. But if we allow mob rule (which negates the rule of law) to take over, then we risk claiming to stand for things that we do not. Popper's Paradox illustrates the theoretical. I would argue as a counterpoint that we're successfully as a society not tolerant without limit because of the rule of law.

rayiner 9y ago

We don't actually take down Al Qaeda websites in the US.

rogual 9y ago

You make a good point, though I feel you undermine yourself somewhat by adding the "and anyone who disagrees is a Nazi" onto the end there.

atypicaluser 9y ago

Not all of us will argue to the contrary. On the other hand, expect no sympathy when the powers-that-be decide to knock your favorite site(s) off the grid because they haven't passed the (next fashionable) purity test. You've no leg to stand on.

wvh 9y ago

But I want to know exactly what and how the people who "hate" me think. The idea that censorship solves the problem is pretty flawed; I assume Trump got elected in part by people who felt they couldn't speak their own thoughts out loud anymore. Just like with the Google memo, you create silent resentment instead of keeping a debate open (in as far as some of these people are capable of debate – that's another discussion). You can stick a Nazi label on pretty much anything you don't like, it doesn't mean it's a good idea to censor the other side to death and pretend their concerns don't exist, even if some of those concerns are inapprehensible or appalling. In some European countries, you were (and well, still are) not allowed to say certain politically incorrect things out loud, which in some countries gave the far right a lot of votes and almost a majority. So people didn't grieve their concerns out loud, but the resentment came out amplified in votes and by other means... While an open debate would likely have created a better atmosphere and perhaps have presented some solutions. In the long run, you are doing yourself a disservice not pulling everybody into the debate, including terrorists and people sliding into that direction. I think censorship should be avoided, unless there is a direct and unambiguous call to violent action or a clear violation of other peoples' personal privacy (e.g. "doc'ing", releasing personal information that harms a person). Cloudflare here admits that large companies are increasingly gatekeeps to the internet, especially in the case of controversial content. They have made a trade-off, and this is probably more about philosophical considerations or personal ideology, but I'd have put freedom of speech and neutrality before censorship of questionable content.

CJKinni 9y ago
>> But I want to know exactly what and how the people who "hate" me think. Then go ask them. If there are people that you think probably hate you nearby, I am almost sure there are places in a city where you could go to talk to them. I know, personally, there has never been a time where I couldn't call the right evangelical church and find out exactly why I am hated. I've experienced my share of drunk homophobic comments in my direction that do occasionally get violent. I certainly now where to go to find out 'exactly what and how the people who "hate" me think,' I don't for a minute believe they need the internet, let alone cloudflare, to achieve this goal.

jrs95 9y ago

The problem with this is that your definition applies to literal Nazis, and it's effectively become a fad to call people Nazis who aren't even remotely. The media being partly to blame with the Trump/Bannon/Brietbart 'fascist'/'white supremacist' hysteria.

losvedir 9y ago

> The idea that I'm seeing any of these comments arguing to the contrary means HN is already infiltrated by /pol/ and other Nazi sympathizing groups. This is an extremely frightening statement to me. I'm terrified by the fact that you'd paint me as a Nazi sympathizer because my meta-level beliefs that text and speech should be protected are stronger than my object-level beliefs that Nazi philosophy is evil. The Nazis are not reviled today because they had disgusting beliefs. They're reviled because they actually murdered millions of innocent citizens. I'm okay with neonazis saying disgusting things, as long as they play by the rules and don't commit any violence. (Hell, people brought AK-47's and AR-15's to Charlottesville but didn't use them, despite the violent clashes.) Whatever happened to "sticks and stones"? Do kids not learn that mantra anymore? To be clear, this is a separate question from whether major internet infrastructure providers should be considered de facto public systems and fall under the 1st amendment. I don't think they should, so I think this falls within Cloudflare's rights (although I wish they had done otherwise). I'm just objecting to the characterization that the only people who could possibly object to Cloudflare here are neonazis or their sympathizers. For what it's worth, I tried to find the Daily Stormer site to see what it is they actually advocate for, but I was unable to. I'm not sure if it's because of the domain name issues, Cloudflare, Google search or what, but it's a little disconcerting to me that ideas can be so easily expunged from the internet. So much for the "right to forget" controversy - I guess it is possible after all, if the companies were motivated to do so.

cbuq 9y ago
If you are referring to "sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never break me", clearly you have other problems with sympathy and empathy. Free speech does not protect dangerous speech.
- drunkenmonkey 9y ago
  See, and now you're attacking the character of a person: "clearly you have other problems". This type of psychological attack is precisely the issue at hand with counter-nazi progress online at this precise moment in time.

z0r 9y ago

An atmosphere of free speech that allows for satire and conversation are the best weapons against extremist ideology. Your post is incredible; you are stating that advocates for free speech are Nazis and shit posters. You are stating that there are no good faith defenders of free speech.

redm 9y ago

Except it is different. The CEO has clearly stated that they won't take terrorist sites down, or any other kind of site, because it's not their job as a utility provider. [1] Its concerning because of its a violation of clearly established policy with an arbitrary decision by the CEO. If it were policy, it wouldn't be a big deal, my own company has anti-terrorism/hatred etc policies. We take this stuff down. It sets a bad precedent for them, they can't have it both ways. https://blog.cloudflare.com/cloudflare-and-free-speech/ https://blog.cloudflare.com/cloudflare-and-free-speech/

idibidiart 9y ago

Yup, I've been saying for a while that HN has a vocal majority of racists and sexists. They're now being exposed. Great. There should be a legal fund to sue the entire white supremacist and sexist assholes for damages, every time they speak.

lr4444lr 9y ago

Al Qaeda websites are not taken down in the US because they can be used to radicalize people; they're taken down when they are used to radicalize people.

wu-ikkyu 9y ago

>The idea that I'm seeing any of these comments arguing to the contrary means HN is already infiltrated by /pol/ and other Nazi sympathizing groups. If you're not with me, then you're my enemy. Spoken like a true Sith Lord.

Ajedi32 9y ago

> The idea that I'm seeing any of these comments arguing to the contrary means HN is already infiltrated by /pol/ and other Nazi sympathizing groups. Are you serious? "And anyone who disagrees with me must be a Nazi or Nazi sympathiser." Combined with the fact that the rest of your comment seems to be calling for Nazis to be silenced... I don't think I'm comfortable with where this is going.

Frondo 9y ago

"The idea that I'm seeing any of these comments arguing to the contrary means HN is already infiltrated by /pol/ and other Nazi sympathizing groups." What it comes down to is that the people arguing for "free speech" here feel safe in this world, with a growing neo-nazi presence. They don't feel threatened--they're not a target, the system will protect them, maybe they even have guns or plans to live off the grid, whatever. They can argue that neo-nazi speech is OK because it isn't an existential threat to them. They may even look at the terrorist car attack in Charlottesville and think "lone wolf, random unplanned attack," but what it comes down to is: they're going to be OK. Cops will protect them, their stuff, the system is on their side. Those of us who are OK with Cloudflare shutting down the Nazis, we don't trust the system to keep us safe. Cops won't protect us, the system is not on our side. We see the actual threat of nazi violence and death coming our way, and the "free speech" people are doing nothing to stop it.

freech 9y ago

This comment perfectly illustrates the need for free spreech absolutism. First, it's just about denying speech to Nazis. Then, everyone who "argues to the contrary" is also a Nazi, and presumably doesn't deserve free speech either. And voila, when you want to deny speech to anyone in the future, you can shut down anyone defending them as well.