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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
by 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 agoSeriously 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 agoSeveral 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 agoReally 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.
- cgb223 9y agoWasn't there some guy in the U.K. Who was investigated by the police for tweeting something vaguely homophobic?
- Caveman_Coder 9y agoYes. https://www.theverge.com/2016/3/24/11297128/matthew-doyle-arrest-muslim-tweet-brussels https://www.theverge.com/2016/3/24/11297128/matthew-doyle-ar... "A man in the UK has been arrested on charges of inciting racial hatred on social media, after he tweeted about asking a Muslim woman to "explain" the terror attacks in Brussels. As The Guardian reports, London's Metropolitan Police on Wednesday arrested a 46-year-old man believed to be Matthew Doyle, a partner at a London PR agency."
- dashundchen 9y agoSources, please on Germany, or any of those countries where somebody has been arrested simply for being against Islam.