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I think this author has a really odd definition of authoritarianism. People who you don't agree with politically being allowed to have a voice isn't authoritari

I think this author has a really odd definition of authoritarianism. People who you don't agree with politically being allowed to have a voice isn't authoritarianism, quite the opposite actually. They spend a lot of time focusing on Richard Spencer which is really strange because there's always been fringe white supremacists out there and I don't see how the internet has made Spencer any more relevant than the Nazis Geraldo used to have on his show in the 80s.

KozmoNau7 8y ago
The internet has allowed him and his ilk a bigger voice, platforms to more efficiently spread their ideology and organize. In the past, neonazis and fascists had to lay low and work in the shadows. But the internet has a hell of a lot of shadows, and they're all accessible from everywhere. They are also getting better at hiding their true intent behind "identity" and "heritage" and other "soft" forms of their ideologies. That is precisely why fascism is now a real actual threat to millions of people, and the reason why we must never let down our guard, we have to root them out and expose them for what they are.
- zozbot123 8y ago
  > The internet has allowed him and his ilk a bigger voice, platforms to more efficiently spread their ideology and organize. And that's parent commenter's point: for all the "efficiency" of modern social media, these groups are still as fringe as they always were. And "identity and heritage" were always a part of the appeal too, so there's nothing new in that either - but let's not pretend that there aren't plenty of genuinely "softer" ideologies that appeal to the exact same things.
- agsdfgsd 8y ago
  >The internet has allowed him and his ilk a bigger voice, platforms to more efficiently spread their ideology and organize. But again, that's not authoritarianism. Quite the contrary, the left demanding that people like him not be allowed to speak, and in many cases demanding he be attacked or even killed, that is authoritarian.
  - KozmoNau7 8y ago
    We must not tolerate intolerance, because that kills tolerance overall. When an ideology is built on intolerance, it must be opposed and deplatformed at every turn.
    - someguydave 8y ago
      So we must use the power of the state and/or big business to crush thier speech? Do you know how to define fascist?
      - KozmoNau7 8y ago
        Nowhere did I state that. Rather we must expose the fascists for what they are, drive them back to their hiding holes. We're not forcing anyone, simply showing social media platforms etc. that the presence of hate-spewing and minority-oppressing fascists is not wanted. They react by simple mechanisms of capitalism, by removing them, in order to not lose ad revenue. The fascists are free to find other platforms, no one is censoring them.
        agsdfgsd 8y ago
        >that the presence of hate-spewing and minority-oppressing fascists is not wanted. But the bulk of the people being targeted are none of those things. What the average person is seeing is that anyone who dares to state a fact that far left ideologues don't like gets attacked and called racist. And if twitter doesn't censor them, twitter gets attacked too, and called "a haven for white supremacists and nazis". In reality, Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris are wanted, it is only a small group of vocal objectors that insist they are unwanted. >The fascists are free to find other platforms, no one is censoring them. The former does not support the latter. People moving to an uncensored platform does not mean the censored platform is not censored.
    - agsdfgsd 8y ago
      >We must not tolerate intolerance, because that kills tolerance overall. I see people repeat that, but I don't see anything to indicate it is true. Quite the contrary, it would appear that one of the main factors in the growing white nationalist population is censorship and other attempts to silence people (calling them some thought terminating cliche like "racist" or "bigot" when they aren't saying anything racist or bigoted). When you say that someone's words are dangerous and they must be silenced, you imply that their views are so overwhelmingly convincing that large numbers of people will be swayed if they hear them. Since you can't actually silence them, all you do is cause them to move somewhere you don't control and then point to your censorship on platforms you do control as evidence that you know they are correct and fear the truth. You end up portraying yourself as the evil authoritarian empire, and the people you are trying to silence as the valiant freedom fighting rebels. People are sympathetic to the rebels, not the empire. >When an ideology is built on intolerance, it must be opposed and deplatformed at every turn. But that very ideology is built on intolerance. I presume you are going to delete your account so as to "deplatform" yourself?
- malvosenior 8y ago
  > The internet has allowed him and his ilk a bigger voice, platforms to more efficiently spread their ideology and organize. This sounds like speculation and doesn't match what I've seen in real life. Do you have any data to back up that white supremacy is more popular now than it was in the past?
  - KozmoNau7 8y ago
    This is not something I'm simply making up, this is verified by countless sources, who keep an eye on white nationalists and white supremacists, and related far-right groups. https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/2018/02/22/number-white-and-black-hate-groups-surge-under-trump-extremist-tracking-organization-says/363978002/ https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/2018/02/22/number-white-a... https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/2018/2017-year-hate-and-extremism https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/... https://edition.cnn.com/2017/02/15/politics/hate-groups-spiked-in-2016/index.html?no-st=1545649684 https://edition.cnn.com/2017/02/15/politics/hate-groups-spik... https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/17/lens/documenting-rise-white-nationalism-eugene-smith-grant.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/17/lens/documenting-rise-whi... It is also blatantly obvious to anyone who spends any time at all on social media or forums. White supremacist and alt-right viewpoints are sneaking in, hiding under banners such as "appreciating heritage" or by trying to co-opt historic traditions and symbols as ethnically exclusionary.
agsdfgsd 8y ago
>I don't see how the internet has made Spencer any more relevant than the Nazis Geraldo used to have on his show in the 80s. Talk shows are a controlled medium. The "nazis" that appeared on them were usually actors hired to make a TV show. The few real "nazis" they conned into appearing on the shows were heavily censored and the TV audience only got to hear the parts of what they had to say that the producers wanted them to hear. The internet allows them to bypass the editors and censors and have their words heard directly. This is a very big difference to people who are afraid of those words, so they want to stop it.
- KozmoNau7 8y ago
  It is not a matter of "being afraid", it is a matter of those people propagating an ideology based on the subjugation and extermination of minorities, and calling for violence and direct action against said minorities. When one side is literally Nazis, there is no middle ground and reasoned dialogue, because they've already shown countless times that they cannot be reasoned with. They simply use any talking time to further spread their hate.
  - agsdfgsd 8y ago
    >it is a matter of those people propagating an ideology based on the subjugation and extermination of minorities, and calling for violence and direct action against said minorities. Could you provide a quote from someone doing that? All I find is people saying things like that when the person in question actually said something like "Africans can have African countries, Asians can have Asian countries, why can't Europeans have European countries?". >When one side is literally Nazis, there is no middle ground and reasoned dialogue, because they've already shown countless times that they cannot be reasoned with When have they shown that? They're the ones wanting to reason with you while you want every person, company and government in the world to silence them. You're showing the exact opposite, that you categorically refuse to even attempt to reason with them. >They simply use any talking time to further spread their hate. Again, quote? The problem is that you are telling me that I am not allowed to hear other people's opinions based on what you think of them. Just because you call something hate, doesn't mean I would agree. I am a big girl, I would like to hear for myself and make my own judgements rather than base my opinions on hearsay.

KozmoNau7 8y ago

The internet has allowed him and his ilk a bigger voice, platforms to more efficiently spread their ideology and organize. In the past, neonazis and fascists had to lay low and work in the shadows. But the internet has a hell of a lot of shadows, and they're all accessible from everywhere. They are also getting better at hiding their true intent behind "identity" and "heritage" and other "soft" forms of their ideologies. That is precisely why fascism is now a real actual threat to millions of people, and the reason why we must never let down our guard, we have to root them out and expose them for what they are.

zozbot123 8y ago
> The internet has allowed him and his ilk a bigger voice, platforms to more efficiently spread their ideology and organize. And that's parent commenter's point: for all the "efficiency" of modern social media, these groups are still as fringe as they always were. And "identity and heritage" were always a part of the appeal too, so there's nothing new in that either - but let's not pretend that there aren't plenty of genuinely "softer" ideologies that appeal to the exact same things.
agsdfgsd 8y ago
>The internet has allowed him and his ilk a bigger voice, platforms to more efficiently spread their ideology and organize. But again, that's not authoritarianism. Quite the contrary, the left demanding that people like him not be allowed to speak, and in many cases demanding he be attacked or even killed, that is authoritarian.
- KozmoNau7 8y ago
  We must not tolerate intolerance, because that kills tolerance overall. When an ideology is built on intolerance, it must be opposed and deplatformed at every turn.
  - someguydave 8y ago
    So we must use the power of the state and/or big business to crush thier speech? Do you know how to define fascist?
    - KozmoNau7 8y ago
      Nowhere did I state that. Rather we must expose the fascists for what they are, drive them back to their hiding holes. We're not forcing anyone, simply showing social media platforms etc. that the presence of hate-spewing and minority-oppressing fascists is not wanted. They react by simple mechanisms of capitalism, by removing them, in order to not lose ad revenue. The fascists are free to find other platforms, no one is censoring them.
      - agsdfgsd 8y ago
        >that the presence of hate-spewing and minority-oppressing fascists is not wanted. But the bulk of the people being targeted are none of those things. What the average person is seeing is that anyone who dares to state a fact that far left ideologues don't like gets attacked and called racist. And if twitter doesn't censor them, twitter gets attacked too, and called "a haven for white supremacists and nazis". In reality, Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris are wanted, it is only a small group of vocal objectors that insist they are unwanted. >The fascists are free to find other platforms, no one is censoring them. The former does not support the latter. People moving to an uncensored platform does not mean the censored platform is not censored.
  - agsdfgsd 8y ago
    >We must not tolerate intolerance, because that kills tolerance overall. I see people repeat that, but I don't see anything to indicate it is true. Quite the contrary, it would appear that one of the main factors in the growing white nationalist population is censorship and other attempts to silence people (calling them some thought terminating cliche like "racist" or "bigot" when they aren't saying anything racist or bigoted). When you say that someone's words are dangerous and they must be silenced, you imply that their views are so overwhelmingly convincing that large numbers of people will be swayed if they hear them. Since you can't actually silence them, all you do is cause them to move somewhere you don't control and then point to your censorship on platforms you do control as evidence that you know they are correct and fear the truth. You end up portraying yourself as the evil authoritarian empire, and the people you are trying to silence as the valiant freedom fighting rebels. People are sympathetic to the rebels, not the empire. >When an ideology is built on intolerance, it must be opposed and deplatformed at every turn. But that very ideology is built on intolerance. I presume you are going to delete your account so as to "deplatform" yourself?
malvosenior 8y ago
> The internet has allowed him and his ilk a bigger voice, platforms to more efficiently spread their ideology and organize. This sounds like speculation and doesn't match what I've seen in real life. Do you have any data to back up that white supremacy is more popular now than it was in the past?
- KozmoNau7 8y ago
  This is not something I'm simply making up, this is verified by countless sources, who keep an eye on white nationalists and white supremacists, and related far-right groups. https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/2018/02/22/number-white-and-black-hate-groups-surge-under-trump-extremist-tracking-organization-says/363978002/ https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/2018/02/22/number-white-a... https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/2018/2017-year-hate-and-extremism https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/... https://edition.cnn.com/2017/02/15/politics/hate-groups-spiked-in-2016/index.html?no-st=1545649684 https://edition.cnn.com/2017/02/15/politics/hate-groups-spik... https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/17/lens/documenting-rise-white-nationalism-eugene-smith-grant.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/17/lens/documenting-rise-whi... It is also blatantly obvious to anyone who spends any time at all on social media or forums. White supremacist and alt-right viewpoints are sneaking in, hiding under banners such as "appreciating heritage" or by trying to co-opt historic traditions and symbols as ethnically exclusionary.

agsdfgsd 8y ago

>I don't see how the internet has made Spencer any more relevant than the Nazis Geraldo used to have on his show in the 80s. Talk shows are a controlled medium. The "nazis" that appeared on them were usually actors hired to make a TV show. The few real "nazis" they conned into appearing on the shows were heavily censored and the TV audience only got to hear the parts of what they had to say that the producers wanted them to hear. The internet allows them to bypass the editors and censors and have their words heard directly. This is a very big difference to people who are afraid of those words, so they want to stop it.

KozmoNau7 8y ago
It is not a matter of "being afraid", it is a matter of those people propagating an ideology based on the subjugation and extermination of minorities, and calling for violence and direct action against said minorities. When one side is literally Nazis, there is no middle ground and reasoned dialogue, because they've already shown countless times that they cannot be reasoned with. They simply use any talking time to further spread their hate.
- agsdfgsd 8y ago
  >it is a matter of those people propagating an ideology based on the subjugation and extermination of minorities, and calling for violence and direct action against said minorities. Could you provide a quote from someone doing that? All I find is people saying things like that when the person in question actually said something like "Africans can have African countries, Asians can have Asian countries, why can't Europeans have European countries?". >When one side is literally Nazis, there is no middle ground and reasoned dialogue, because they've already shown countless times that they cannot be reasoned with When have they shown that? They're the ones wanting to reason with you while you want every person, company and government in the world to silence them. You're showing the exact opposite, that you categorically refuse to even attempt to reason with them. >They simply use any talking time to further spread their hate. Again, quote? The problem is that you are telling me that I am not allowed to hear other people's opinions based on what you think of them. Just because you call something hate, doesn't mean I would agree. I am a big girl, I would like to hear for myself and make my own judgements rather than base my opinions on hearsay.