7 ms·

Tech companies declare war on hate speech and conservatives are worried

OtterCoder 9y ago
It's absolutely a threat to free speech, but I don't think the article goes far enough. Consider the following from Randall Munroe: https://xkcd.com/1357/ https://xkcd.com/1357/ On the surface, he's right. You don't have to listen to what you don't want to. On the other hand, I have seen his comic frequently cited as justification for not ignoring, but actively hunting down and quashing dissent. In many oppressive regimes, it's not the government enforcing speech restrictions, but rather the party and its independent zealots.
- wallace_f 9y ago
  Ok, private entities can refuse you business--or can they? The court system told us that we actually do have to bake that cake. In other words, we can't selectively serve customers based on our disagreements with their personal lives or politics. But if you're a libertarian congressman, and Google doesn't like your videos, apparently that is not the case anymore. If you dont think these infringements on free speech will be used to serve the 1%, empower authoritarianism, and be selectively applied: you are already wrong.
  - NegativeLatency 9y ago
    That's a bit of a false equivalence. Hate speech and harassment are not equal to being openly gay. I agree with your last point, care to explain more?
    - paulddraper 9y ago
      Uh huh. And what exactly is "hate speech"? Black lives matter? White lives matter? The NRA? Abortionists?
      - pdkl95 9y ago
        > And what exactly is "hate speech"? Generally, it's public speech intended offend, harass, or threaten a group of people that is defined by an inherent trait (e.g. skin color, sex/gender, sexual orientation), in addition to legally defined protected classes (e.g. religion, disability). The SCOTUS has generally ruled that hate speech is protected by the first amendment, with only very narrow exceptions (e.g. credible, imminent threats). > Black lives matter? Obviously not hate speech. Asking for the rights of black people to be respected isn't a threat or harassment. > White lives matter? Assuming you are referring to groups such as those protesting recently in Charlottesville, then this might be hate speech. A lot of speech wouldn't qualify, but the chants that specifically targeted protected groups probably do count as hate speech. Details matter a lot, but it's probably reasonably safe to assume the protest became hate speech when the chant "You will not replace us!" became "Jews will not replace us!" > Black lives matter? Obviously not hate speech. Political opinions are never a protected class.
    - wallace_f 9y ago
      >hate speech != speech professing homosexuality I have never come across anything Congressman Paul has said that is remotely close to qualifying ads hate speech. He is actually all about granting individuals rights and freedoms. Can you explain? But anyways, is it really a false equivalence, or is the false equivalence based on newly-invented terms? In other words, even if we both agree we dont like what currently qualifies as hate speech; if we start the process of compartmentalizing speech into acceptable and unacceptable baskets, what is going to stop it? After they finish with Ron Paul and libertarians, who is next up to be silenced? Now you may think, 'they're just crushing a the alt right and moving on towards libertarians.' "I won't protest because I find the alt right repulsive, and I am not a libertarian." So tell me, when is the time to protest? When "there's no one left to speak for me?" To me, we need to protect free speech, not to protect hate speech, but to protect the right to say things unacceptable to say, even if your government, or Google, or anyone, doesn't want you to say it. If you care about the 90%, this fundamental right will always be one of the strongest safe-guards possible against authoritarianism.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
yasp 9y ago
Another poster hit the nail on the head in a related thread earlier today https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15152412 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15152412
Mikeb85 9y ago
It's all good, just reinforces that they never were free platforms to begin with. Free speech has always been an illusion, society always ostracises those who go against the status quo anyway. Seriously though, you can use neo-Nazis to justify censorship, but then what about the less extreme alt-right? How about the slightly less extreme religious right? How about economically right-wing libertarians? Neo-conservatives? Where do you draw the line? At what point do you decide to move the line slightly one way or the other? This is the problem. You'll always need to draw the line, and wherever you draw it, you're essentially imposing your worldview since your worldview governs where you think that line should be. And for the record, I don't think tech companies are akin to utilities, they can do what they want within the law, but just drop the charade that their platforms were ever totally free...
- userbinator 9y ago
  Seriously though, you can use neo-Nazis to justify censorship, but then what about the less extreme alt-right? How about the slightly less extreme religious right? How about economically right-wing libertarians? Neo-conservatives? Where do you draw the line? As I mentioned a few days ago on a related article, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15122311 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15122311 , the extremists are good "canaries" for indicating the gradual erosion of freedom of speech. When the edges collapse, the line moves just a slightly bit closer to the mainstream, and a new set of views are considered extremist. Repeat until everyone is brainwashed into a monoculture. That's the scariest part.
  - ubernostrum 9y ago
    Several places in Europe have so far failed to empirically verify your hypothesis after passing laws to ban certain types of extremist (i.e., Nazi) speech and symbols.
    - hegojuko 9y ago
      Really because I see people in Britain, France, and Germany being arrested for anti Islamic sentiment expressed on social Media. It isn't just nazi speech that's criminalised, more and more speech is added to the list of what cannot be said. Soon it will be any speech critical of the government, aka living in a totalitarian regeim.
Iv 9y ago
I say yes. Because you probably disagree with what most people will call hate speech. Criticism of religion, criticism of some historical events, is considered by some as hate speech. Ex-muslims routinely complain that youtube censors their videos criticizing islam. Videos of brutality (that often contains legal proofs of crimes) are removed if they are used by some hate groups, even if the intent of the recorder was to denounce violence. In France, hate speech laws are now extended to jail terrorism apologists. OK, why not, I don't have a lot more love for them than I have for nazis. But we are also at war with ISIS, that is labeled a terrorist group. So taking its defense potentially leads to jail and censorship (it has already, actually) And this is a worrying situation for a democracy: we are at war but we can't have a debate on the justification of that war, because such a debate would require making arguments in favor of ISIS, which is illegal. Remember, fascism is an ideology that comes from many sides. It is not because there is a racist buffoon in the white house that we must not watch the other fronts it could come from.
- 2_listerine_pls 9y ago
  It's interesting to see these censorship trends come up after trigger events: -war on fake news -war on hate speech
  - briantakita 9y ago
    Problem/Reaction/Solution
    - brylie 9y ago
      "Now you have two problems."
- idibidiart 9y ago
  "Ex-Christians _routinely_ complain that youtube censors their videos criticizing Christianity." Has that not happened, too? Just reversing roles for the sake of argument. Curiously wondering...
TheCowboy 9y ago
I was directed to a good talk on the idea of "legal talismans" or legal terms like free speech that can end up being out of place, such as in terms of service: https://cyber.harvard.edu/events/luncheons/2016/10/Albert https://cyber.harvard.edu/events/luncheons/2016/10/Albert (transcript) http://opentranscripts.org/transcript/beyond-legal-talismans/ http://opentranscripts.org/transcript/beyond-legal-talismans... (Also accessible as a podcast) This isn't to mean they should avoid supporting "freedom of expression" but that these terms come with history and obligations that aren't always obvious. If a company mentions 1st amendment rights, it isn't realistic to assume it will also have the capacity to correctly and quickly adjudicate all cases of expression that will occur within its service boundaries. People forget how parts of constitutional law itself are specializations with a lot of legal history and precedents. The summary takeaway seems to be that service providers should avoid using these shorthand legal terms in their terms of service. Providers should try to spell out ToS specifically avoiding as much legalese as possible. Avoid using shorthand legal terms to give the illusion of a neutral position in an attempt to avoid liability.
cgb223 9y ago
One of the things that bothers me about recent censorship on hate speech is how selective, and how inconsistently it's applied, if it is to be applied at all. My grandfather escaped the Soviet Union. Stalin's regime killed all of his siblings. All of them. But yet when I check YouTube, Twitter, and so on I see lots of videos professing communisms values. Hell I've seen a pro-communist march in a city I recently moved from. Neo-nazis are awful, and Nazis have done unspeakable terrible things in this world. But to me the Neo-nazis are being actively forbidden from expressing support for another ideology that has been responsible for tens of millions of deaths, while the communists are allowed to do the same thing. I hate nazis and I hate communists. But to pick and choose which people are allowed to express support for these regimes is inconsistent at best, and tacticitly implying a preference at absolute worst. This needs to change.
- TheCowboy 9y ago
  This is always going to be a challenge with managing the content of any platform. It's not easy to be a moderator of different views. Arguably, Nazism tends to ring more obvious to moderators. There is more than one form of communism that has been implemented, and it's likely these videos alll aren't professing a support of Stalin's bloody reign. Communism also (usually) lacks a racial/nationalist superiority component that calls for the decimation of all others. But that doesn't mean people should be free to use Marx's good intentions to let terrible communist regimes off the hook. It's probably not a bad idea for people with your experiences to attempt to organize with the goal to inform users and moderators about propaganda videos on their platforms.
  - pdkl95 9y ago
    > Arguably, Nazism tends to ring more obvious to moderators. Unfortunately, white nationalist (neo-nazi) groups learned a long time ago that PR matters. The average person starts to notice anything that actually looks similar to stereotypical Nazism. The Southern Strategy with Lee Atwater's use of dog whistle terms like "forced busing" and "state's rights" as indirect codes for racism demonstrated not only is public perception very important, but also how easy it is to make fascist beliefs palatable to the average citizen by wrapping it with carefully chosen euphemisms and coded language. I highly encourage everyone to watch this[1] very well made overview of the current language and other propaganda techniques used by fascists. Unless you have been spending a lot of time over the last few years involved with "alt-right"/etc groups, it can be had to follow because confusion about facts is the goal. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sx4BVGPkdzk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sx4BVGPkdzk
rayiner 9y ago
Free speech is the wrong framework for thinking about this. Tech companies are not government actors, so this is not a free speech issue. The better way to think about it is to analogize to gun sales. Gun sellers are within their rights to refuse to sell guns to people with nazi affiliations, etc. But they wisely choose not to go down that road, because if they did (1) they’d be enlisted into screening all sorts of other people (hate groups, abusive spouses, mentally ill people, etc.) and (2) when one of those people inevitably did buy a gun, there would be increased pressure to hold the gun seller/maker liable for failure to use their discretion to prevent to the tragedy.
- thomas_howland 9y ago
  This is very silly. FFLs are already prohibited from selling to abusive spouses (if there is any sort of domestic violence conviction or restraining order) and the mentally ill. They also reserve full rights to decline any sale, which they do regularly with people who seem unbalanced or give indication they're intending on misusing the weapon. Seriously, try to buy a rifle with a swastika sharpie'd on your forehead and see how many gun shops you get ejected from.
Ace17 9y ago
This is closely related to the "paradox of tolerance" by Karl Popper: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance (whose TL;DR is "Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance." ) Of course, it raises the question of who's to say what/who should be "not-tolerated".
- pdkl95 9y ago
  https://extranewsfeed.com/tolerance-is-not-a-moral-precept-1af7007d6376 https://extranewsfeed.com/tolerance-is-not-a-moral-precept-1... > [Tolerance] is an agreement to live in peace, not an agreement to be peaceful no matter the conduct of others. A peace treaty is not a suicide pact.
thomas_howland 9y ago
I don't see this in terms of whether tech co's should "ban hate speech". I see it in terms of whether they should decide to turn themselves and their employees into political targets, especially in the context of escalating political violence and willingness by political actors to go after oppositional infrastructure (cf, hostility towards left wing journalists). Con Ed doesn't have this problem and manages to make tons of money, despite providing power to I assume some number of literal nazis.
eighthnate 9y ago
The war on "hate speech", just like the war on "terror" is just a cover to take away and restrict rights. Why did the media collectively declare war on "hate speech" the past few years - culminating in the absurd hit piece on pewdiepie? Isn't it strange that all the establishment news organizations WSJ, NYTimes, WaPo, etc all went on a industry-wide campaign? It had nothing to do with "hate speech". Neo-nazis, kkk, etc have always existed. It's about corralling social media and pressuring them to consolidate "news" around the established media. It's easier to justify taking away your rights/free speech if you can say it is part of the war on "hate speech". Just like it is easier to get people to accept intrusive TSA if you tell them it's part of the war on "terror". Just like war on "reds/communism/etc" allowed for rights of many to be abrogated by mccarthy. Or the war on drugs allowed for wholesale incarceration of minorities and the toppling of latin american governments.
- frik 9y ago
  Thanks, well said. More and more sites remove comment functionality or hide comments they don't like, forced real-name policy for accounts, etc. Many sites lost any credibility these days.
neelkadia 9y ago
I'm doing a bit to improve Sarahah - (that Anonymous feedback app) by making it's Open source alternative with Text Sentiment analysis, so people anonymously can't submit abusive and hateful feedback
identitarian94 9y ago
Before Donald Trump's election—and before racist gunman Dylann Roof murdered nine black people in Charleston last year—it was easier to dismiss sites like the Daily Stormer. Yes, these were watering holes for evil ideology, but they fundamentally felt like powerless kooks. Nowadays, more people are taking words and threats from extremist groups seriously. Liberal activists have mobilized against these groups, and they've found a receptive audience among technology leaders. It's amazing how catalyzing white racial violence against blacks is, considering that black-on-white violence dwarfs it, both in magnitude as well as proportion. 85% of interracial violent crime involving blacks and whites is black-on-white--despite blacks comprising only 13% of the population and non-Hispanic whites comprising 64%. As one example, there are roughly 19,000 black-on-white rapes a year versus at most several hundred white-on-black rapes. You'd likely never learn that truth without these "hate sites" publishing the raw data (which I dare not link to, but the words "color" and "crime" should be enough to find it) that supposedly reputable news organizations like the NY Times and Washington Post won't publish. The mainstream media simply ignores or outright denies this reality, instead affording the rare Roofs of America wall-to-wall coverage while providing minimal ink to the comparatively common black perpetrators of racial violence against whites, like this one: http://www.kansascity.com/news/local/crime/article170340652.html http://www.kansascity.com/news/local/crime/article170340652.... Make no mistake; this push to censor hate speech is really a push to censor white speech exclusively. Militant anti-white black racists like Boyce Watkins, Tariq Nasheed, and Umar Johnson will not be silenced. Meanwhile, simply informing whites of just how disproportionately they are violently victimized by blacks will soon be sufficient grounds to banish you from the internet.
RickJWag 9y ago
Yet another left-leaning article working to demonize freedom of expression. Note there is no condemnation of antifa or BLM-- two organizations prone to violence, intimidation and destruction. The left must stop their downward spiral and restore a decent balance to politics. Help right the ship, please.
juancn 9y ago
This is the paradox of tolerance, Karl Popper put it this way: "Less well known is the paradox of tolerance: Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them. — In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant."

It's absolutely a threat to free speech, but I don't think the article goes far enough. Consider the following from Randall Munroe: https://xkcd.com/1357/ https://xkcd.com/1357/ On the surface, he's right. You don't have to listen to what you don't want to. On the other hand, I have seen his comic frequently cited as justification for not ignoring, but actively hunting down and quashing dissent. In many oppressive regimes, it's not the government enforcing speech restrictions, but rather the party and its independent zealots.

wallace_f 9y ago
Ok, private entities can refuse you business--or can they? The court system told us that we actually do have to bake that cake. In other words, we can't selectively serve customers based on our disagreements with their personal lives or politics. But if you're a libertarian congressman, and Google doesn't like your videos, apparently that is not the case anymore. If you dont think these infringements on free speech will be used to serve the 1%, empower authoritarianism, and be selectively applied: you are already wrong.
- NegativeLatency 9y ago
  That's a bit of a false equivalence. Hate speech and harassment are not equal to being openly gay. I agree with your last point, care to explain more?
  - paulddraper 9y ago
    Uh huh. And what exactly is "hate speech"? Black lives matter? White lives matter? The NRA? Abortionists?
    - pdkl95 9y ago
      > And what exactly is "hate speech"? Generally, it's public speech intended offend, harass, or threaten a group of people that is defined by an inherent trait (e.g. skin color, sex/gender, sexual orientation), in addition to legally defined protected classes (e.g. religion, disability). The SCOTUS has generally ruled that hate speech is protected by the first amendment, with only very narrow exceptions (e.g. credible, imminent threats). > Black lives matter? Obviously not hate speech. Asking for the rights of black people to be respected isn't a threat or harassment. > White lives matter? Assuming you are referring to groups such as those protesting recently in Charlottesville, then this might be hate speech. A lot of speech wouldn't qualify, but the chants that specifically targeted protected groups probably do count as hate speech. Details matter a lot, but it's probably reasonably safe to assume the protest became hate speech when the chant "You will not replace us!" became "Jews will not replace us!" > Black lives matter? Obviously not hate speech. Political opinions are never a protected class.
  - wallace_f 9y ago
    >hate speech != speech professing homosexuality I have never come across anything Congressman Paul has said that is remotely close to qualifying ads hate speech. He is actually all about granting individuals rights and freedoms. Can you explain? But anyways, is it really a false equivalence, or is the false equivalence based on newly-invented terms? In other words, even if we both agree we dont like what currently qualifies as hate speech; if we start the process of compartmentalizing speech into acceptable and unacceptable baskets, what is going to stop it? After they finish with Ron Paul and libertarians, who is next up to be silenced? Now you may think, 'they're just crushing a the alt right and moving on towards libertarians.' "I won't protest because I find the alt right repulsive, and I am not a libertarian." So tell me, when is the time to protest? When "there's no one left to speak for me?" To me, we need to protect free speech, not to protect hate speech, but to protect the right to say things unacceptable to say, even if your government, or Google, or anyone, doesn't want you to say it. If you care about the 90%, this fundamental right will always be one of the strongest safe-guards possible against authoritarianism.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]

yasp 9y ago

Another poster hit the nail on the head in a related thread earlier today https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15152412 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15152412

Mikeb85 9y ago

It's all good, just reinforces that they never were free platforms to begin with. Free speech has always been an illusion, society always ostracises those who go against the status quo anyway. Seriously though, you can use neo-Nazis to justify censorship, but then what about the less extreme alt-right? How about the slightly less extreme religious right? How about economically right-wing libertarians? Neo-conservatives? Where do you draw the line? At what point do you decide to move the line slightly one way or the other? This is the problem. You'll always need to draw the line, and wherever you draw it, you're essentially imposing your worldview since your worldview governs where you think that line should be. And for the record, I don't think tech companies are akin to utilities, they can do what they want within the law, but just drop the charade that their platforms were ever totally free...

userbinator 9y ago
Seriously though, you can use neo-Nazis to justify censorship, but then what about the less extreme alt-right? How about the slightly less extreme religious right? How about economically right-wing libertarians? Neo-conservatives? Where do you draw the line? As I mentioned a few days ago on a related article, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15122311 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15122311 , the extremists are good "canaries" for indicating the gradual erosion of freedom of speech. When the edges collapse, the line moves just a slightly bit closer to the mainstream, and a new set of views are considered extremist. Repeat until everyone is brainwashed into a monoculture. That's the scariest part.
- ubernostrum 9y ago
  Several places in Europe have so far failed to empirically verify your hypothesis after passing laws to ban certain types of extremist (i.e., Nazi) speech and symbols.
  - hegojuko 9y ago
    Really because I see people in Britain, France, and Germany being arrested for anti Islamic sentiment expressed on social Media. It isn't just nazi speech that's criminalised, more and more speech is added to the list of what cannot be said. Soon it will be any speech critical of the government, aka living in a totalitarian regeim.

Iv 9y ago

I say yes. Because you probably disagree with what most people will call hate speech. Criticism of religion, criticism of some historical events, is considered by some as hate speech. Ex-muslims routinely complain that youtube censors their videos criticizing islam. Videos of brutality (that often contains legal proofs of crimes) are removed if they are used by some hate groups, even if the intent of the recorder was to denounce violence. In France, hate speech laws are now extended to jail terrorism apologists. OK, why not, I don't have a lot more love for them than I have for nazis. But we are also at war with ISIS, that is labeled a terrorist group. So taking its defense potentially leads to jail and censorship (it has already, actually) And this is a worrying situation for a democracy: we are at war but we can't have a debate on the justification of that war, because such a debate would require making arguments in favor of ISIS, which is illegal. Remember, fascism is an ideology that comes from many sides. It is not because there is a racist buffoon in the white house that we must not watch the other fronts it could come from.

2_listerine_pls 9y ago
It's interesting to see these censorship trends come up after trigger events: -war on fake news -war on hate speech
- briantakita 9y ago
  Problem/Reaction/Solution
  - brylie 9y ago
    "Now you have two problems."
idibidiart 9y ago
"Ex-Christians _routinely_ complain that youtube censors their videos criticizing Christianity." Has that not happened, too? Just reversing roles for the sake of argument. Curiously wondering...

TheCowboy 9y ago

I was directed to a good talk on the idea of "legal talismans" or legal terms like free speech that can end up being out of place, such as in terms of service: https://cyber.harvard.edu/events/luncheons/2016/10/Albert https://cyber.harvard.edu/events/luncheons/2016/10/Albert (transcript) http://opentranscripts.org/transcript/beyond-legal-talismans/ http://opentranscripts.org/transcript/beyond-legal-talismans... (Also accessible as a podcast) This isn't to mean they should avoid supporting "freedom of expression" but that these terms come with history and obligations that aren't always obvious. If a company mentions 1st amendment rights, it isn't realistic to assume it will also have the capacity to correctly and quickly adjudicate all cases of expression that will occur within its service boundaries. People forget how parts of constitutional law itself are specializations with a lot of legal history and precedents. The summary takeaway seems to be that service providers should avoid using these shorthand legal terms in their terms of service. Providers should try to spell out ToS specifically avoiding as much legalese as possible. Avoid using shorthand legal terms to give the illusion of a neutral position in an attempt to avoid liability.

cgb223 9y ago

One of the things that bothers me about recent censorship on hate speech is how selective, and how inconsistently it's applied, if it is to be applied at all. My grandfather escaped the Soviet Union. Stalin's regime killed all of his siblings. All of them. But yet when I check YouTube, Twitter, and so on I see lots of videos professing communisms values. Hell I've seen a pro-communist march in a city I recently moved from. Neo-nazis are awful, and Nazis have done unspeakable terrible things in this world. But to me the Neo-nazis are being actively forbidden from expressing support for another ideology that has been responsible for tens of millions of deaths, while the communists are allowed to do the same thing. I hate nazis and I hate communists. But to pick and choose which people are allowed to express support for these regimes is inconsistent at best, and tacticitly implying a preference at absolute worst. This needs to change.

TheCowboy 9y ago
This is always going to be a challenge with managing the content of any platform. It's not easy to be a moderator of different views. Arguably, Nazism tends to ring more obvious to moderators. There is more than one form of communism that has been implemented, and it's likely these videos alll aren't professing a support of Stalin's bloody reign. Communism also (usually) lacks a racial/nationalist superiority component that calls for the decimation of all others. But that doesn't mean people should be free to use Marx's good intentions to let terrible communist regimes off the hook. It's probably not a bad idea for people with your experiences to attempt to organize with the goal to inform users and moderators about propaganda videos on their platforms.
- pdkl95 9y ago
  > Arguably, Nazism tends to ring more obvious to moderators. Unfortunately, white nationalist (neo-nazi) groups learned a long time ago that PR matters. The average person starts to notice anything that actually looks similar to stereotypical Nazism. The Southern Strategy with Lee Atwater's use of dog whistle terms like "forced busing" and "state's rights" as indirect codes for racism demonstrated not only is public perception very important, but also how easy it is to make fascist beliefs palatable to the average citizen by wrapping it with carefully chosen euphemisms and coded language. I highly encourage everyone to watch this[1] very well made overview of the current language and other propaganda techniques used by fascists. Unless you have been spending a lot of time over the last few years involved with "alt-right"/etc groups, it can be had to follow because confusion about facts is the goal. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sx4BVGPkdzk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sx4BVGPkdzk

rayiner 9y ago

Free speech is the wrong framework for thinking about this. Tech companies are not government actors, so this is not a free speech issue. The better way to think about it is to analogize to gun sales. Gun sellers are within their rights to refuse to sell guns to people with nazi affiliations, etc. But they wisely choose not to go down that road, because if they did (1) they’d be enlisted into screening all sorts of other people (hate groups, abusive spouses, mentally ill people, etc.) and (2) when one of those people inevitably did buy a gun, there would be increased pressure to hold the gun seller/maker liable for failure to use their discretion to prevent to the tragedy.

thomas_howland 9y ago
This is very silly. FFLs are already prohibited from selling to abusive spouses (if there is any sort of domestic violence conviction or restraining order) and the mentally ill. They also reserve full rights to decline any sale, which they do regularly with people who seem unbalanced or give indication they're intending on misusing the weapon. Seriously, try to buy a rifle with a swastika sharpie'd on your forehead and see how many gun shops you get ejected from.

Ace17 9y ago

This is closely related to the "paradox of tolerance" by Karl Popper: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance (whose TL;DR is "Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance." ) Of course, it raises the question of who's to say what/who should be "not-tolerated".

pdkl95 9y ago
https://extranewsfeed.com/tolerance-is-not-a-moral-precept-1af7007d6376 https://extranewsfeed.com/tolerance-is-not-a-moral-precept-1... > [Tolerance] is an agreement to live in peace, not an agreement to be peaceful no matter the conduct of others. A peace treaty is not a suicide pact.

thomas_howland 9y ago

I don't see this in terms of whether tech co's should "ban hate speech". I see it in terms of whether they should decide to turn themselves and their employees into political targets, especially in the context of escalating political violence and willingness by political actors to go after oppositional infrastructure (cf, hostility towards left wing journalists). Con Ed doesn't have this problem and manages to make tons of money, despite providing power to I assume some number of literal nazis.

eighthnate 9y ago

The war on "hate speech", just like the war on "terror" is just a cover to take away and restrict rights. Why did the media collectively declare war on "hate speech" the past few years - culminating in the absurd hit piece on pewdiepie? Isn't it strange that all the establishment news organizations WSJ, NYTimes, WaPo, etc all went on a industry-wide campaign? It had nothing to do with "hate speech". Neo-nazis, kkk, etc have always existed. It's about corralling social media and pressuring them to consolidate "news" around the established media. It's easier to justify taking away your rights/free speech if you can say it is part of the war on "hate speech". Just like it is easier to get people to accept intrusive TSA if you tell them it's part of the war on "terror". Just like war on "reds/communism/etc" allowed for rights of many to be abrogated by mccarthy. Or the war on drugs allowed for wholesale incarceration of minorities and the toppling of latin american governments.

frik 9y ago
Thanks, well said. More and more sites remove comment functionality or hide comments they don't like, forced real-name policy for accounts, etc. Many sites lost any credibility these days.

neelkadia 9y ago

I'm doing a bit to improve Sarahah - (that Anonymous feedback app) by making it's Open source alternative with Text Sentiment analysis, so people anonymously can't submit abusive and hateful feedback

identitarian94 9y ago

Before Donald Trump's election—and before racist gunman Dylann Roof murdered nine black people in Charleston last year—it was easier to dismiss sites like the Daily Stormer. Yes, these were watering holes for evil ideology, but they fundamentally felt like powerless kooks. Nowadays, more people are taking words and threats from extremist groups seriously. Liberal activists have mobilized against these groups, and they've found a receptive audience among technology leaders. It's amazing how catalyzing white racial violence against blacks is, considering that black-on-white violence dwarfs it, both in magnitude as well as proportion. 85% of interracial violent crime involving blacks and whites is black-on-white--despite blacks comprising only 13% of the population and non-Hispanic whites comprising 64%. As one example, there are roughly 19,000 black-on-white rapes a year versus at most several hundred white-on-black rapes. You'd likely never learn that truth without these "hate sites" publishing the raw data (which I dare not link to, but the words "color" and "crime" should be enough to find it) that supposedly reputable news organizations like the NY Times and Washington Post won't publish. The mainstream media simply ignores or outright denies this reality, instead affording the rare Roofs of America wall-to-wall coverage while providing minimal ink to the comparatively common black perpetrators of racial violence against whites, like this one: http://www.kansascity.com/news/local/crime/article170340652.html http://www.kansascity.com/news/local/crime/article170340652.... Make no mistake; this push to censor hate speech is really a push to censor white speech exclusively. Militant anti-white black racists like Boyce Watkins, Tariq Nasheed, and Umar Johnson will not be silenced. Meanwhile, simply informing whites of just how disproportionately they are violently victimized by blacks will soon be sufficient grounds to banish you from the internet.

RickJWag 9y ago

Yet another left-leaning article working to demonize freedom of expression. Note there is no condemnation of antifa or BLM-- two organizations prone to violence, intimidation and destruction. The left must stop their downward spiral and restore a decent balance to politics. Help right the ship, please.

juancn 9y ago

This is the paradox of tolerance, Karl Popper put it this way: "Less well known is the paradox of tolerance: Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them. — In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant."