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It hasn't lost meaning with me, when I read "alt-right" I read "racist trolls". If you're saying it doesn't apply here, that's possibly fair, but one incorrect

It hasn't lost meaning with me, when I read "alt-right" I read "racist trolls". If you're saying it doesn't apply here, that's possibly fair, but one incorrect application doesn't wipe out the term. And to echo the point in my sibling comment, these new sites that emphasize free speech (definitely a good cause) tend to immediately face the question of, "how free is speech, really?" I honestly don't know if Reddit or Twitter, if started today, would have survived the onslaught. I don't know if anyone's figured out what to do that feels both "adhering to free speech concepts" as well as not becoming the next alt-right forum.

sparkie 8y ago
Your delusion is that you associate everyone on these platforms with the alt-right because some of them are alt-right. The reason alt-right flock to those platforms is because they are de-platformed elsewhere. This does not make the non alt-right people on those platforms suddenly become alt-right. And the reason "alt-right" and "racist troll" mean nothing is because they are used so liberally where they do not apply, and a few minutes of investigation would conclude that they do not apply. Consistent incorrect usage of language applied to something that it is not makes them lose their meaning. A solution to the "adhering to free speech" would be to allow free speech on platforms, and make it clear what is or isn't allowed on the platform, instead of using vague terms like "hate speech", which could be literally anything that some person finds undesirable.
- diminoten 8y ago
  It's not a delusion, it's the association that kills new startups. You can rail against suppression of speech all you want, a company whose loudest and most active users are white supremacists either has to lean-in to that culture, remove it from the site entirely, or hide it. The first option is moral bankruptcy, the second option is an uncomfortable practicality on the limits of free speech, and the third option makes your new site look dead from the outside. You act like this is a simple problem to solve, but it's far from simple, and getting it even slightly wrong means startup death, period.
  - sparkie 8y ago
    What kills startups is a cartel of payment processors colluding to limit competition. A free market would allow users to make their own decisions about what platforms they wish to use. The entrenched players simply do not want to allow competition, and moreso, they want to involve regulators so that they become in effect "utility providers," which will cement their market positions, otherwise under threat due to their failure to continue innovating. In a free market, the majority of people would not entertain far-right or far-left forums and would congregate on the services which are providing engaging and meaningful content. This is the case for say, Youtube right now, but if they have an asymmetric approach to censorship (failing to ban far left ideologues), then they'll end up a far-left cesspit that people will leave in droves.
    - diminoten 8y ago
      What kills startups is a flock of alt-right users who scare away people not like them (the xenophobia is definitional to "alt-right"), so if you let them stay and don't hide them, you immediately cap your growth substantially. If you let them stay and do somehow hide them, you're hiding your growth which also kills you. A free market would (and does) kill a startup that allows such toxic members of any affiliation, regardless of what payment processors decide to do.
    - diminoten 8y ago
      You make a lot of comments about the "far-left", I'm guessing this is personal for you.
      - sparkie 8y ago
        The far-left has been getting more extreme over the last few years, probably largely due to "trump derangement syndrome". I care very deeply about fundamental human rights such as free speech. Many people do not seem to understand what free speech is. I also care about due process and putting people before a jury of their peers. The witch hunting needs to stop. I'd consider myself moderate right. I used to lean to the left, but there is no way I can associate myself with what the left has become.
pdkl95 8y ago
> It hasn't lost meaning with me, when I read "alt-right" I read "racist trolls" It's stronger than simply "trolls". "Alt-right" is just the latest PR rebranding used by neo-nazis/white-supremacists. Obviously, generalizations about any group of people is problematic; trolls and other not-explicitly-neo-nazi people use the label "alt-right".. Those people might want to consider that if you hang out with neo-nazis and repeat their memes/trolls, people might start to assume you are a neo-nazi. If someone likes to spend time in hang out with ${sport} fans, uses slang associated with ${sport_team}, most people are going to assume they are fan of that sport even if they claim* otherwise. I suspect a lot of people might think I'm misinformed because someone in the "alt-right" said they were not nazis, and would never support racial violence. Remember that neo-nazis lie. Is your opinion abased on their public PR-focused interviews? If you have any doubt whatsoever that these are neo-nazis dreaming of bringing back the holocaust, I suggest watching this[1] video at 41:12, which is footage from a popular "alt-right" discord stream inside the Charllottesville rally. In their own words: Speaker: Did Hitler do anything wrong? Audience: [loud "no"] Speaker: One more, I want everybody to repeat after me.., ,,,this is the first precept of the true alt-right: Gas the [slur]s, race war now! Audience: [even louder cheering] [1] https://youtu.be/zcoYKuoiUrY?t=2472 https://youtu.be/zcoYKuoiUrY?t=2472
- mpweiher 8y ago
  I think you misunderstand the problem. It's not that there are actual Nazis in the alt-right or how horrible they are. It's that people like Peterson, (gasp) Harris and Weinstein get labeled with that term.

sparkie 8y ago

Your delusion is that you associate everyone on these platforms with the alt-right because some of them are alt-right. The reason alt-right flock to those platforms is because they are de-platformed elsewhere. This does not make the non alt-right people on those platforms suddenly become alt-right. And the reason "alt-right" and "racist troll" mean nothing is because they are used so liberally where they do not apply, and a few minutes of investigation would conclude that they do not apply. Consistent incorrect usage of language applied to something that it is not makes them lose their meaning. A solution to the "adhering to free speech" would be to allow free speech on platforms, and make it clear what is or isn't allowed on the platform, instead of using vague terms like "hate speech", which could be literally anything that some person finds undesirable.

diminoten 8y ago
It's not a delusion, it's the association that kills new startups. You can rail against suppression of speech all you want, a company whose loudest and most active users are white supremacists either has to lean-in to that culture, remove it from the site entirely, or hide it. The first option is moral bankruptcy, the second option is an uncomfortable practicality on the limits of free speech, and the third option makes your new site look dead from the outside. You act like this is a simple problem to solve, but it's far from simple, and getting it even slightly wrong means startup death, period.
- sparkie 8y ago
  What kills startups is a cartel of payment processors colluding to limit competition. A free market would allow users to make their own decisions about what platforms they wish to use. The entrenched players simply do not want to allow competition, and moreso, they want to involve regulators so that they become in effect "utility providers," which will cement their market positions, otherwise under threat due to their failure to continue innovating. In a free market, the majority of people would not entertain far-right or far-left forums and would congregate on the services which are providing engaging and meaningful content. This is the case for say, Youtube right now, but if they have an asymmetric approach to censorship (failing to ban far left ideologues), then they'll end up a far-left cesspit that people will leave in droves.
  - diminoten 8y ago
    What kills startups is a flock of alt-right users who scare away people not like them (the xenophobia is definitional to "alt-right"), so if you let them stay and don't hide them, you immediately cap your growth substantially. If you let them stay and do somehow hide them, you're hiding your growth which also kills you. A free market would (and does) kill a startup that allows such toxic members of any affiliation, regardless of what payment processors decide to do.
  - diminoten 8y ago
    You make a lot of comments about the "far-left", I'm guessing this is personal for you.
    - sparkie 8y ago
      The far-left has been getting more extreme over the last few years, probably largely due to "trump derangement syndrome". I care very deeply about fundamental human rights such as free speech. Many people do not seem to understand what free speech is. I also care about due process and putting people before a jury of their peers. The witch hunting needs to stop. I'd consider myself moderate right. I used to lean to the left, but there is no way I can associate myself with what the left has become.

pdkl95 8y ago

> It hasn't lost meaning with me, when I read "alt-right" I read "racist trolls" It's stronger than simply "trolls". "Alt-right" is just the latest PR rebranding used by neo-nazis/white-supremacists. Obviously, generalizations about any group of people is problematic; trolls and other not-explicitly-neo-nazi people use the label "alt-right".. Those people might want to consider that if you hang out with neo-nazis and repeat their memes/trolls, people might start to assume you are a neo-nazi. If someone likes to spend time in hang out with ${sport} fans, uses slang associated with ${sport_team}, most people are going to assume they are fan of that sport even if they claim* otherwise. I suspect a lot of people might think I'm misinformed because someone in the "alt-right" said they were not nazis, and would never support racial violence. Remember that neo-nazis lie. Is your opinion abased on their public PR-focused interviews? If you have any doubt whatsoever that these are neo-nazis dreaming of bringing back the holocaust, I suggest watching this[1] video at 41:12, which is footage from a popular "alt-right" discord stream inside the Charllottesville rally. In their own words: Speaker: Did Hitler do anything wrong? Audience: [loud "no"] Speaker: One more, I want everybody to repeat after me.., ,,,this is the first precept of the true alt-right: Gas the [slur]s, race war now! Audience: [even louder cheering] [1] https://youtu.be/zcoYKuoiUrY?t=2472 https://youtu.be/zcoYKuoiUrY?t=2472

mpweiher 8y ago
I think you misunderstand the problem. It's not that there are actual Nazis in the alt-right or how horrible they are. It's that people like Peterson, (gasp) Harris and Weinstein get labeled with that term.