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Interesting, so now we've gone from labelling people Nazis if they vocally defend specific free speech rights, to being suspicious that they might be Nazis if t

Interesting, so now we've gone from labelling people Nazis if they vocally defend specific free speech rights, to being suspicious that they might be Nazis if they don't vocally defend other specific speech rights, speech that may concern topics that might never get to the front page of HN resulting in widespread discussion? Again, personally I tend to fall on the side of the government having less ability to restrict speech but it doesn't really bother me if companies want to restrict the kind of speech their employees can engage in at work, or what kind of speech they'll allow on their platforms. This gets trickier in cases where the companies might have businesses that approach what I would consider a utility, but that's a different topic, and really that has more to do with regulating companies as utilities. I'm not positive in this, but I do suspect that if stories like the one you linked found themselves on the front page for hours at a time, perhaps if some Googlers tried to unionize and they were all fired, we would probably see quite a few people be defensive of their right to speech. I doubt we would see a complete overlap, but it wouldn't surprise me at all if we would see some overlap in the posters defending their speech rights with those defending the speech rights of neo-Nazis. I suspect we might also see some posters who think all Nazi speech should be outlawed but think this kind of unionization related speech should be protected. You're of course correct that these topics do tend to bring out the trolls, but on a site like HN I tend to find it relatively easy to identify trolls, even if not through a specific post they make, a quick glance through their posting history often reveals whether they are engaging with the community in good faith.

pjc50 9y ago
A quick check reveals a discussion of Amazon unionization, which has no mention of speech at all. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14566059 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14566059 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7559869 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7559869 somewhat old, one comment saying "It will be interesting to see whether the people rallying to Eich's free speech rights despite his homophobia will be similarly impassioned about rallying to yours despite your rejection of serfdom." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14905937 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14905937 Nissan: not very highly voted, probably never made it to front page. No mention of speech. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14973506 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14973506 fired for speaking at DEFCON: astonishingly, nobody bothers with the "free speech" argument. > suspicious that they might be Nazis if they don't vocally defend other specific speech rights If someone only bothers to make the "free speech" argument in that context? I'm going to infer some things from that.
- Inconel 9y ago
  Those are all good points, and I don't have much to rebut. I guess the only thing I still take issue with is the notion that so much can be inferred not just from which topics people comment on but which ones they don't. Especially if that inference comes with the tacit accusation of Nazism. Again, going by my own experience, I tend to be pretty limited in the topics I comment on. There are a couple of reasons for this. First, I don't have a ton of time to browse HN so the most likely topics for me are those that are on the front page long enough for me to see. Second, I'm no where near knowledgeable enough to comment substantively on the more technical topics, which leaves me with the more social/political ones. At the same time I don't want to get into the habit of commenting extensively and only on those topics since I don't think that's good for the community. Thirdly, if I'm being honest here, my lack of education and poor writing ability is a constant source of embarrassment, I try very hard to formulate my ideas into coherent comments and I suspect it takes me much longer to do this than it does for the average HN user. I try not to make quick low effort comments, but the alternative requires a pretty serious time commitment on my part. The main point I'm attempting to illustrate here, possibly quite poorly, is that I already feel I have to be very careful in my commenting. This isn't a bad thing, it's arguably what makes HN's comment section so much better than anywhere else I've found, but after your comments I now also feel like in addition to making sure my comments aren't too political, or that I'm not only commenting on political topics, and that my arguments are actually coherent, again all good things to think about when engaging with a community, I now also have to think whether someone might mistake me for a Nazi because I commented on one topic and not on another. This of course is by any measure a pretty meaningless hardship, there are much bigger worries in life, and while I don't think I add much to the HN community, I think we should be extra careful when accusing others of being Nazis. It carries a fairly heavy social penalty, in most places at least, and rightfully so, and can make people more hesitant to speak. I'm not saying this is something you've done, in fact I usually recognize your username and you definitely aren't guilty of this, but I've seen quite a few comments over the last few weeks implying that anyone standing up for certain free speech rights, and in this case I'm specifically referring to government action regarding speech not corporate action, is siding with Nazis. Sorry if this comment is somewhat rambling.

pjc50 9y ago

A quick check reveals a discussion of Amazon unionization, which has no mention of speech at all. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14566059 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14566059 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7559869 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7559869 somewhat old, one comment saying "It will be interesting to see whether the people rallying to Eich's free speech rights despite his homophobia will be similarly impassioned about rallying to yours despite your rejection of serfdom." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14905937 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14905937 Nissan: not very highly voted, probably never made it to front page. No mention of speech. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14973506 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14973506 fired for speaking at DEFCON: astonishingly, nobody bothers with the "free speech" argument. > suspicious that they might be Nazis if they don't vocally defend other specific speech rights If someone only bothers to make the "free speech" argument in that context? I'm going to infer some things from that.

Inconel 9y ago
Those are all good points, and I don't have much to rebut. I guess the only thing I still take issue with is the notion that so much can be inferred not just from which topics people comment on but which ones they don't. Especially if that inference comes with the tacit accusation of Nazism. Again, going by my own experience, I tend to be pretty limited in the topics I comment on. There are a couple of reasons for this. First, I don't have a ton of time to browse HN so the most likely topics for me are those that are on the front page long enough for me to see. Second, I'm no where near knowledgeable enough to comment substantively on the more technical topics, which leaves me with the more social/political ones. At the same time I don't want to get into the habit of commenting extensively and only on those topics since I don't think that's good for the community. Thirdly, if I'm being honest here, my lack of education and poor writing ability is a constant source of embarrassment, I try very hard to formulate my ideas into coherent comments and I suspect it takes me much longer to do this than it does for the average HN user. I try not to make quick low effort comments, but the alternative requires a pretty serious time commitment on my part. The main point I'm attempting to illustrate here, possibly quite poorly, is that I already feel I have to be very careful in my commenting. This isn't a bad thing, it's arguably what makes HN's comment section so much better than anywhere else I've found, but after your comments I now also feel like in addition to making sure my comments aren't too political, or that I'm not only commenting on political topics, and that my arguments are actually coherent, again all good things to think about when engaging with a community, I now also have to think whether someone might mistake me for a Nazi because I commented on one topic and not on another. This of course is by any measure a pretty meaningless hardship, there are much bigger worries in life, and while I don't think I add much to the HN community, I think we should be extra careful when accusing others of being Nazis. It carries a fairly heavy social penalty, in most places at least, and rightfully so, and can make people more hesitant to speak. I'm not saying this is something you've done, in fact I usually recognize your username and you definitely aren't guilty of this, but I've seen quite a few comments over the last few weeks implying that anyone standing up for certain free speech rights, and in this case I'm specifically referring to government action regarding speech not corporate action, is siding with Nazis. Sorry if this comment is somewhat rambling.