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I frequently come across tweets by neo-nazis promoting their hateful ideas. We can't let this go on in the name of free speech.

adventured 9y ago
Let's see how your logic extrapolates.... I frequently come across Socialists and Communists promoting their violent, hateful ideas. We can't let this go on in the name of free speech. After all, Communism murdered over a hundred million people in the 20th century. All Socialist and Communist propaganda - including all images of Mao, Che Guevara and the hammer & sickle - must be banned from all platforms, to avoid the promotion of a hateful, murderous ideology. Why would we limit the censorship to just National Socialism, when it was only one quadrant of the vast Statism genocide - involving the murder of hundreds of millions of people in total - in the 20th century that spanned dozens of nations?
- gjulianm 9y ago
  The fundamental difference is that one is an economic ideology from which the genocidal ideas can be separated, and the other is a genocidal ideology. National socialism is an ideology for which certain types of people cannot exist, and such it is wholly incompatible with modern societies. Compare this to the fact that socialists and communists have been part of peaceful modern political systems. It is not that difficult to draw the line.
  - nostromo123 9y ago
    Yep, national socialism sounds like this new "non-racist" ideology that says that white people are oppressors and thus they can be discriminated against...
- Daishiman 9y ago
  This is a willful misinterpretation of the ideas of Marxists and an underplaying of the fact that National Socialism is inextricable from genocide.
- sctb 9y ago
  This is feeding the trolls, and then getting the idea to open up shop and start trolling on your own. Doubly-bad for Hacker News and in obvious violation of the guidelines. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
rebuilder 9y ago
We might have to. Fringe groups like neo-nazis thrive on suppression. Censoring them may serve to validate their narrative of fighting for a cause despite oppression. It also shows them people are taking them seriously.
- panic 9y ago
  This sounds reasonable, but doesn't match the facts: these groups have been on the rise precisely because they've been able to use these platforms for communication and recruitment. We shouldn't give them power just to avoid playing into their narrative; in fact, the reason they push this narrative so hard is to maintain that power.
- noncoml 9y ago
  Censorship, and especially from a private company, doesn’t sound like the solution. If they are breaking some law bring them to justice. It’s not Twitter’s job to decide who gets to say what, is it?
- chiaro 9y ago
  It validates that narrative, but that must be weighed against how access to platforms allows them to influence the dominant narrative, especially where kids etc are concerned. The YouTube recommendation engine is a far bigger culprit. It doesn't take many clicks to go from fairly innocuous, but kid-popular stuff like H3H3 or PewDiePie to one anti-sjw or cultural war video and then the recommendation engine will hand hold them right down the right wing extremism tunnel (or continually show up until they do)
PeachPlum 9y ago
And that's the only hateful idea you've come across? I've seen more #KillAllWhites posts than I've seen Neo Nazis
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
skeleton 9y ago
Remember the use of sarcasm on the internet doesn't usually fare well.
apatters 9y ago
Why not? "Speech that demeans on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, religion, age, disability, or any other similar ground is hateful; but the proudest boast of our free speech jurisprudence is that we protect the freedom to express “the thought that we hate.”" -Justice Samuel Alito, 2017 The debate on this topic has unfolded over hundreds, even thousands of years of Western political thought. The philosophy enshrined in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights is that in fact we should let this speech go on because the alternative of suppressing it is worse for all of us in the long run. There are people of great intelligence and distinction within American society who still feel that this is true. (It bears mentioning that while Twitter is a private entity and not bound by the same rules as a federal entity, the mass movement of speech from public to private platforms is one of the biggest issues under consideration.)

adventured 9y ago

Let's see how your logic extrapolates.... I frequently come across Socialists and Communists promoting their violent, hateful ideas. We can't let this go on in the name of free speech. After all, Communism murdered over a hundred million people in the 20th century. All Socialist and Communist propaganda - including all images of Mao, Che Guevara and the hammer & sickle - must be banned from all platforms, to avoid the promotion of a hateful, murderous ideology. Why would we limit the censorship to just National Socialism, when it was only one quadrant of the vast Statism genocide - involving the murder of hundreds of millions of people in total - in the 20th century that spanned dozens of nations?

gjulianm 9y ago
The fundamental difference is that one is an economic ideology from which the genocidal ideas can be separated, and the other is a genocidal ideology. National socialism is an ideology for which certain types of people cannot exist, and such it is wholly incompatible with modern societies. Compare this to the fact that socialists and communists have been part of peaceful modern political systems. It is not that difficult to draw the line.
- nostromo123 9y ago
  Yep, national socialism sounds like this new "non-racist" ideology that says that white people are oppressors and thus they can be discriminated against...
Daishiman 9y ago
This is a willful misinterpretation of the ideas of Marxists and an underplaying of the fact that National Socialism is inextricable from genocide.
sctb 9y ago
This is feeding the trolls, and then getting the idea to open up shop and start trolling on your own. Doubly-bad for Hacker News and in obvious violation of the guidelines. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

rebuilder 9y ago

We might have to. Fringe groups like neo-nazis thrive on suppression. Censoring them may serve to validate their narrative of fighting for a cause despite oppression. It also shows them people are taking them seriously.

panic 9y ago
This sounds reasonable, but doesn't match the facts: these groups have been on the rise precisely because they've been able to use these platforms for communication and recruitment. We shouldn't give them power just to avoid playing into their narrative; in fact, the reason they push this narrative so hard is to maintain that power.
noncoml 9y ago
Censorship, and especially from a private company, doesn’t sound like the solution. If they are breaking some law bring them to justice. It’s not Twitter’s job to decide who gets to say what, is it?
chiaro 9y ago
It validates that narrative, but that must be weighed against how access to platforms allows them to influence the dominant narrative, especially where kids etc are concerned. The YouTube recommendation engine is a far bigger culprit. It doesn't take many clicks to go from fairly innocuous, but kid-popular stuff like H3H3 or PewDiePie to one anti-sjw or cultural war video and then the recommendation engine will hand hold them right down the right wing extremism tunnel (or continually show up until they do)

PeachPlum 9y ago

And that's the only hateful idea you've come across? I've seen more #KillAllWhites posts than I've seen Neo Nazis

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

skeleton 9y ago

Remember the use of sarcasm on the internet doesn't usually fare well.

apatters 9y ago

Why not? "Speech that demeans on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, religion, age, disability, or any other similar ground is hateful; but the proudest boast of our free speech jurisprudence is that we protect the freedom to express “the thought that we hate.”" -Justice Samuel Alito, 2017 The debate on this topic has unfolded over hundreds, even thousands of years of Western political thought. The philosophy enshrined in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights is that in fact we should let this speech go on because the alternative of suppressing it is worse for all of us in the long run. There are people of great intelligence and distinction within American society who still feel that this is true. (It bears mentioning that while Twitter is a private entity and not bound by the same rules as a federal entity, the mass movement of speech from public to private platforms is one of the biggest issues under consideration.)