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Actually inciting violence or conspiring to do so is covered under common law statutes and can be easily prosecuted. This is far different, it is companies deci

Actually inciting violence or conspiring to do so is covered under common law statutes and can be easily prosecuted. This is far different, it is companies deciding on their own volition to unilaterally ban entities from accessing the very "pipes". Today it's at the domain level, so the convenience of being able to type in a name versus an IP is what's at stake. What next, ISP's blocking traffic?.. Like I've said it's the principle. I believe in free speech and a free and open internet, if there is criminal activity the FBI, et al. can easily get involved. This is about the fact that the very infrastructure of the internet is largely dictated by private entities who are now imposing their own discretion based on content they object to, odious as it may be. I for one am not keen on allowing the sociopolitical whims of the time to dictate who is allowed on this great thing called the internet. I see something once pure, beautiful, and glorious entering its first stages of death.

b1daly 8y ago
I’m responding to your comment more as a representative of a general sentiment. The implicit psychological construct behind this little “mini-panic” around fringe groups be “de-platformed” is a common one: something bad is happening, and we are losing freedoms/rights/capabilities we (society) has in the past. It’s a variation on the notion that “the world is going to hell a hand basket.” The rhetorical fallacy is called “false idealization of the past.” In fact, the access of everyday people to a variety of mediated forms of communication is at historically unprecedented levels. In virtually the entire history of human society, access to powerful methods of communication was completely under the control of the elite power structures of the society. The problem that these new communication platforms are trying to deal with is unprecedented. It turns out there are unexpected consequences of allowing access to mass communication, and means of spreading propaganda, to “fringe” groups like “white supremecists” The problem is unique in a couple of ways. One is that it is only very recently, very recently, in our society (the US in this case) that the precepts of white supremacy have been “fringe!” In fact these are the hateful ideologies that built much of our modern world, on the backs of those unfortunate to have not been born “white.” This has been hard fought-for progress, and banishment to the “fringe” of these ideas is a major success. The attempts to drive these ideas even further to the fringe represents a triumph of humanistic values. Especially as reactionary groups inevitably fight back with whatever means they have at hand. It just happens to have happened right around the time that technology put methods of mass media into the hands of more and more everyday people. Using “De-Platforming” as a method of social control is entirely civilized, and justified. We have bedrock principles of free speech in the US, but those are almost entirely based around the idea of preventing the government from jailing speakers it diagrees with. To raise an alarm about, “well, what if your currently considered ‘progressive’ movement is deemed deserving of De-Platforming in the future” is a false alarm, because there simply are no historical examples to draw from. These technologies are too new. (Not just the technology, also the increasing ubiquitousness of networked communication.) It also pretends that in some philosophical sense, all ideas are equally valid, and is divorcing the content of ideas from the form. I don’t agree that all points of view are equally valid, and viewing ideas through the lens of “form” over “content” is antithetical to the very core concept of ideas and thought itself. IMO, people are too quick to trot out “slippery slope” fears about difficult problems. However, we can’t get “off of the slope” in a metaphysical sense. We are alive, until we aren’t,and must navigate the treacherous slopes of reality to the best of our capabilities. As both individuals and as members of society.
- cousin_it 8y ago
  > The problem that these new communication platforms are trying to deal with is unprecedented. The early internet had to deal with the same problems, yet it was much more free than the internet of today. This isn't a false idealization of the past - I was around at the time. To me the only reason the internet matters is to let individual people speak and be heard - without being silenced by advertisers, the government, or the mob. If we let these entities institute censorship for the common good, we might as well have TV.
  - b1daly 8y ago
    The rise of ubiquitous networked social platforms is very new. In the earlier days of the internet, it simply did not have the reach it does today. It is the mass effects that are causing problems, especially since you can now purchase direct access to millions for the purpose of spreading propaganda.
  - wpietri 8y ago
    I was around at the time, too, and you're missing that the early Internet wasn't free at all: the great majority of the users were part of some postsecondary educational organization. Those places strongly select for very specific kinds of people (smart, collaborative, curious, reasonable, not murder-y), and imposed both formal and informal controls on what was said. Your notion is that 3 corporate-run, lowest-common-denominator TV channels controlling nationwide communication is exactly the same thing as a global network where everybody can participate and they can talk publicly about anything except, say, "Hey, we should kill all the Jews and brown people"? That seems woefully unsubtle to me. I see a useful middle ground. One where people are radically more free to communicate than they were at any point in human history. Not also that neither advertisers, the government, or "the mob" are silencing anything here. People are exercising their right to freedom of speech and freedom of association. This is the same thing that happened in the real world pre-Internet when people would throw Nazis out and refuse to support businesses who made Nazis welcome. Businesses are free to host Gab or not; everybody else is free to use those businesses or not based on their desire to support companies that support people getting minorities killed.
michaelmrose 8y ago
As far as I am aware people can usually call for nonspecific violence without ending up locked up in America today either de jure or de facto. At the very least I have seldom seen lunatics locked up for sharing such sentiments as "Kill all the jews" I would be happy if this changed.
wpietri 8y ago
I understand the principle. I understand you have a belief. I share the principle, and used to have the belief. What I am asking you to do is test the belief on the basis of evidence. I am also asking you to do a cost-benefit evaluation of the principle in terms of other principles. As you point out, free speech isn't absolute. There are many crimes of pure speech, from false advertising to inciting violence and soliciting murder. Society already has a complicated balance between principles like "free speech is good" and "people shouldn't be murdered". There is also conflict here between "free speech is good" and "ethnic cleansing is bad". America has a long history of ethnic violence and ethnic cleansing (see, e.g., the Trail of Tears, or the Tulsa Race Riot, where white Americans carried out a ground and air assault on a prosperous black district, killing 100-300 and terrorizing thousands). As we saw in Pittsburgh, that era is not over. Reasonable people have concluded that a) Gab aided Bowers in his path to radicalization, and b) they do not personally want to support that. Now you could argue that you are ok with some level of ethnic violence as a cost of free speech. You could even argue that unfettered communication is so important that we should diminish the freedom of association of people and their companies, requiring them to host Nazi. But if you are going to argue that, you have to argue that. Talking about warm and fuzzy principles is great, but if you aren't grappling with the costs, then at best it's useless. At worst, though, it's taken as a sign that you don't care about the body count. And it gets taken that way both by the marginalized groups supplying the bodies and by the people who are looking to create more corpses to further their principles.

b1daly 8y ago

I’m responding to your comment more as a representative of a general sentiment. The implicit psychological construct behind this little “mini-panic” around fringe groups be “de-platformed” is a common one: something bad is happening, and we are losing freedoms/rights/capabilities we (society) has in the past. It’s a variation on the notion that “the world is going to hell a hand basket.” The rhetorical fallacy is called “false idealization of the past.” In fact, the access of everyday people to a variety of mediated forms of communication is at historically unprecedented levels. In virtually the entire history of human society, access to powerful methods of communication was completely under the control of the elite power structures of the society. The problem that these new communication platforms are trying to deal with is unprecedented. It turns out there are unexpected consequences of allowing access to mass communication, and means of spreading propaganda, to “fringe” groups like “white supremecists” The problem is unique in a couple of ways. One is that it is only very recently, very recently, in our society (the US in this case) that the precepts of white supremacy have been “fringe!” In fact these are the hateful ideologies that built much of our modern world, on the backs of those unfortunate to have not been born “white.” This has been hard fought-for progress, and banishment to the “fringe” of these ideas is a major success. The attempts to drive these ideas even further to the fringe represents a triumph of humanistic values. Especially as reactionary groups inevitably fight back with whatever means they have at hand. It just happens to have happened right around the time that technology put methods of mass media into the hands of more and more everyday people. Using “De-Platforming” as a method of social control is entirely civilized, and justified. We have bedrock principles of free speech in the US, but those are almost entirely based around the idea of preventing the government from jailing speakers it diagrees with. To raise an alarm about, “well, what if your currently considered ‘progressive’ movement is deemed deserving of De-Platforming in the future” is a false alarm, because there simply are no historical examples to draw from. These technologies are too new. (Not just the technology, also the increasing ubiquitousness of networked communication.) It also pretends that in some philosophical sense, all ideas are equally valid, and is divorcing the content of ideas from the form. I don’t agree that all points of view are equally valid, and viewing ideas through the lens of “form” over “content” is antithetical to the very core concept of ideas and thought itself. IMO, people are too quick to trot out “slippery slope” fears about difficult problems. However, we can’t get “off of the slope” in a metaphysical sense. We are alive, until we aren’t,and must navigate the treacherous slopes of reality to the best of our capabilities. As both individuals and as members of society.

cousin_it 8y ago
> The problem that these new communication platforms are trying to deal with is unprecedented. The early internet had to deal with the same problems, yet it was much more free than the internet of today. This isn't a false idealization of the past - I was around at the time. To me the only reason the internet matters is to let individual people speak and be heard - without being silenced by advertisers, the government, or the mob. If we let these entities institute censorship for the common good, we might as well have TV.
- b1daly 8y ago
  The rise of ubiquitous networked social platforms is very new. In the earlier days of the internet, it simply did not have the reach it does today. It is the mass effects that are causing problems, especially since you can now purchase direct access to millions for the purpose of spreading propaganda.
- wpietri 8y ago
  I was around at the time, too, and you're missing that the early Internet wasn't free at all: the great majority of the users were part of some postsecondary educational organization. Those places strongly select for very specific kinds of people (smart, collaborative, curious, reasonable, not murder-y), and imposed both formal and informal controls on what was said. Your notion is that 3 corporate-run, lowest-common-denominator TV channels controlling nationwide communication is exactly the same thing as a global network where everybody can participate and they can talk publicly about anything except, say, "Hey, we should kill all the Jews and brown people"? That seems woefully unsubtle to me. I see a useful middle ground. One where people are radically more free to communicate than they were at any point in human history. Not also that neither advertisers, the government, or "the mob" are silencing anything here. People are exercising their right to freedom of speech and freedom of association. This is the same thing that happened in the real world pre-Internet when people would throw Nazis out and refuse to support businesses who made Nazis welcome. Businesses are free to host Gab or not; everybody else is free to use those businesses or not based on their desire to support companies that support people getting minorities killed.

michaelmrose 8y ago

As far as I am aware people can usually call for nonspecific violence without ending up locked up in America today either de jure or de facto. At the very least I have seldom seen lunatics locked up for sharing such sentiments as "Kill all the jews" I would be happy if this changed.

wpietri 8y ago

I understand the principle. I understand you have a belief. I share the principle, and used to have the belief. What I am asking you to do is test the belief on the basis of evidence. I am also asking you to do a cost-benefit evaluation of the principle in terms of other principles. As you point out, free speech isn't absolute. There are many crimes of pure speech, from false advertising to inciting violence and soliciting murder. Society already has a complicated balance between principles like "free speech is good" and "people shouldn't be murdered". There is also conflict here between "free speech is good" and "ethnic cleansing is bad". America has a long history of ethnic violence and ethnic cleansing (see, e.g., the Trail of Tears, or the Tulsa Race Riot, where white Americans carried out a ground and air assault on a prosperous black district, killing 100-300 and terrorizing thousands). As we saw in Pittsburgh, that era is not over. Reasonable people have concluded that a) Gab aided Bowers in his path to radicalization, and b) they do not personally want to support that. Now you could argue that you are ok with some level of ethnic violence as a cost of free speech. You could even argue that unfettered communication is so important that we should diminish the freedom of association of people and their companies, requiring them to host Nazi. But if you are going to argue that, you have to argue that. Talking about warm and fuzzy principles is great, but if you aren't grappling with the costs, then at best it's useless. At worst, though, it's taken as a sign that you don't care about the body count. And it gets taken that way both by the marginalized groups supplying the bodies and by the people who are looking to create more corpses to further their principles.