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Looks like this guy is from Europe. Do they have the same stigma for those words? Are we okay applying American standards to their words? That would be a slippe

Looks like this guy is from Europe. Do they have the same stigma for those words? Are we okay applying American standards to their words? That would be a slippery slope. Some nations consider speech against their sultans or their deens as hate speech. Will patreon take the side of those governments or the vast majority of those populations (who will gladly watch blasphemers get imprisoned)? On the other hand, should they take a progressive stance on a global scale? For example, should they ban Arabs who use “abeed” too? Should they ban the quasi antisemetic vitriol spewed out by many in MENA? (Example that Kuwaiti “Instagram influencer” who ranted about her Filipino maid) Maybe neither. Perhaps as a private company, they should do whatever they like. Let competitors fill the gaps if needed.

darkpuma 8y ago
From the context, it seems he was using the words because he knew they were offensive. Also maybe that excuse works for ESL Europeans, but I'm not very convinced it works for somebody who's British.
- tomp 8y ago
  many words are offensive while not being such a taboo as the n-word in the US
  - darkpuma 8y ago
    He seems to have made his 'career' (if you can really call it that) on commentary about politics, with a heavy emphasis on American politics. I don't think he can plausibly plead ignorance.
krick 8y ago
I won't be speaking for all Europeans, as all this craze you labeled as "American standards" certainly has it's influence, but I can confirm all these stories are pretty funny to read for a person, whom I'd label as a "sane European". But I don't think it is the issue here, anyway. I might not feel the righteous rage reading the quotations from these Benjamin guy, but I might on the other topic. So imagining that I do feel offended by his words (and there's plenty ways to make it so): is it still ok to ban him from the platform? I'll leave you to decide for yourself, but either you want the freedom of speech or you want the society where everybody thinks and behaves exactly as everybody else.
- vowelless 8y ago
  Or let private corporations do whatever they want. Let there be new ones that come in and fill the gaps. Make competition easier by busting monopolies.
  - krick 8y ago
    I kinda support your point, but at the same time I'm not sure it's entirely realistic. Here we assume that everything will have competition given the free market. But this is hardly true, some markets are biased towards having a monopoly. Because of the economies of scale, because in practice some services have only so much demand and, the most importantly for our discussion, some services are the more valuable for the user, the more users there are using it. This is especially true for all social-network-like services, like Facebook and, yeah, Patreon.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
ianleeclark 8y ago
> Do they have the same stigma for those words? We both know a dude from the UK, who primarily speaks English, and who talks about American politics would be aware of the stigma of the word. > Are we okay applying American standards to their words? It's important to look at the context of the situation to determine what's happening. In this situation, Sargon was appealing emotionally to white supremacists by saying they are as low as black people and that they should be better by acting white--this implies black people are lower than white people. It's racist and that's pretty obvious.
- vowelless 8y ago
  Would you ban her from Instagram? https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/27/middleeast/kuwait-philippines-domestic-workers-intl/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/27/middleeast/kuwait-philippines... I can assure you the life of domestic indentured servants in the Khaleej is much worse than that of blacks in america today.
  - ianleeclark 8y ago
    > Would you ban her from Instagram? Honestly I don't find free speech to be an interesting topic, so I'm not interested in continuing this. I just wanted to point out that it's possible to be so charitable that you say something naive.
    - vowelless 8y ago
      I don’t think he was naive in saying what he said and neither do I think he was being charitable to blacks or to whites for that matter. Maybe the simplest thing is to let profit motivated corporations do whatever it takes to increase their revenues, and leave the moralities out of the door. If they want to deny service to people because of their speech in the pursuit of growing their business, why not?
      - ianleeclark 8y ago
        > I don’t think he was naive in saying what he said and neither do I think he was being charitable to blacks or to whites for that matter. No, you're being too naive when you're so charitable to assume that a Brit, of his background and who does what he does for a living, isn't aware of the stigma of the n-word.

darkpuma 8y ago

From the context, it seems he was using the words because he knew they were offensive. Also maybe that excuse works for ESL Europeans, but I'm not very convinced it works for somebody who's British.

tomp 8y ago
many words are offensive while not being such a taboo as the n-word in the US
- darkpuma 8y ago
  He seems to have made his 'career' (if you can really call it that) on commentary about politics, with a heavy emphasis on American politics. I don't think he can plausibly plead ignorance.

krick 8y ago

I won't be speaking for all Europeans, as all this craze you labeled as "American standards" certainly has it's influence, but I can confirm all these stories are pretty funny to read for a person, whom I'd label as a "sane European". But I don't think it is the issue here, anyway. I might not feel the righteous rage reading the quotations from these Benjamin guy, but I might on the other topic. So imagining that I do feel offended by his words (and there's plenty ways to make it so): is it still ok to ban him from the platform? I'll leave you to decide for yourself, but either you want the freedom of speech or you want the society where everybody thinks and behaves exactly as everybody else.

vowelless 8y ago
Or let private corporations do whatever they want. Let there be new ones that come in and fill the gaps. Make competition easier by busting monopolies.
- krick 8y ago
  I kinda support your point, but at the same time I'm not sure it's entirely realistic. Here we assume that everything will have competition given the free market. But this is hardly true, some markets are biased towards having a monopoly. Because of the economies of scale, because in practice some services have only so much demand and, the most importantly for our discussion, some services are the more valuable for the user, the more users there are using it. This is especially true for all social-network-like services, like Facebook and, yeah, Patreon.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]

ianleeclark 8y ago

> Do they have the same stigma for those words? We both know a dude from the UK, who primarily speaks English, and who talks about American politics would be aware of the stigma of the word. > Are we okay applying American standards to their words? It's important to look at the context of the situation to determine what's happening. In this situation, Sargon was appealing emotionally to white supremacists by saying they are as low as black people and that they should be better by acting white--this implies black people are lower than white people. It's racist and that's pretty obvious.

vowelless 8y ago
Would you ban her from Instagram? https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/27/middleeast/kuwait-philippines-domestic-workers-intl/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/27/middleeast/kuwait-philippines... I can assure you the life of domestic indentured servants in the Khaleej is much worse than that of blacks in america today.
- ianleeclark 8y ago
  > Would you ban her from Instagram? Honestly I don't find free speech to be an interesting topic, so I'm not interested in continuing this. I just wanted to point out that it's possible to be so charitable that you say something naive.
  - vowelless 8y ago
    I don’t think he was naive in saying what he said and neither do I think he was being charitable to blacks or to whites for that matter. Maybe the simplest thing is to let profit motivated corporations do whatever it takes to increase their revenues, and leave the moralities out of the door. If they want to deny service to people because of their speech in the pursuit of growing their business, why not?
    - ianleeclark 8y ago
      > I don’t think he was naive in saying what he said and neither do I think he was being charitable to blacks or to whites for that matter. No, you're being too naive when you're so charitable to assume that a Brit, of his background and who does what he does for a living, isn't aware of the stigma of the n-word.