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Everything about your response I agree with except the tongue-in-cheek “these individuals are free to create their own businesses and websites which facilitate

by zaroth 8y ago

Everything about your response I agree with except the tongue-in-cheek “these individuals are free to create their own businesses and websites which facilitate whatever kind of discourse they please, nobody can take that away from them...” The reality is no, there is enough privatized centralization in payment and networks that certain companies can choose not to do business with someone, based on otherwise legal speech, and effectively stifle that speech. Maybe that’s better than the alternative, which is that companies are forced to carry speech they don’t agree with or even find “repulsive”. However there is a concept of “public forum” and at some point it is incumbent on private enterprises controlling key internet infrastructure like DNS, IP allocation, peering, DDoS, and even payments at some point, to become neutral carriers which cannot and should not interfere with providing services based on content. This to me is an even more fundamental neutrality than what is referred to as “network neutrality” because we’re talking about blocking service entirely not just prioritizing packets for higher paying customers. This is a critical stance to take now, not 10 years from now after the frog is boiled. I think the average entitled American has absolutely no clue how quickly a regime can become repressive, and how much repression is going on out there. We tip toe around talking about Daily Stormer when countries today are inspecting packets to cart people off to new age gulags. Nazis are a pathetic boogeyman to justify this kind of censorship. Laying this kind of groundwork to kick out a “radical anti-feminist” I personally hope that Patreon users rebel against that.

beat 8y ago
Business itself is inherently amoral (not evil, just lacking any sense of morality one way or another). Businesses don't refuse particular customers out of a sense of social justice - they do it because continuing to service their customers harms their reputation, and thus their business. I know I don't want to do business with businesses that tell me fascism is just "speech", and I'll go to their competitors instead. And I'll free admit, just so the purists can get it out of the way, that I think there are types of speech that should not be socially tolerated. Hate speech shouldn't get public protection. Shun me for it if you like. From these two things, I find that businesses refusing to do business with the likes of Stormfront, or this "radical anti-feminist", or whatever, is a very good proxy for social standards. Why? Because like I said, business is amoral. It doesn't care about hate speech. But when that speech is so repulsive that businesses worry about the general public, their other customers, punishing them for supporting it, then that's a good point to say "No, this is not acceptable". And to be clear, I'm drawing a line about the freedom to not do business with someone - not a law to punish speech. I'm not saying throw them in jail for speaking in hate. I'm saying that it's not good to require business to provide a platform for their hate.
- apostacy 8y ago
  Someone like Jordan Paterson is absolutely not like Stormfront. Refusing to support a best selling author and professor because some vocal activists have launched a smear campaign against him is not some sort of proxy for morality. Businesses are doing things because their owners want to punish certain opinions, regardless of how popular they are. Visa and Mastercard are using their monopoly power as payment processors to interfere in elections and punish people who say certain things. And people on Hacker News are fine with this, because muh you should just make your own banking infrastructure! Free Market.
  - darkpuma 8y ago
    As far as I know Patreon haven't booted Jordan Paterson, the article suggests he's breaking his association with Patreon willingly.
  - wsy 8y ago
    Jordan Peterson is not banned by Patreon.
  - beat 8y ago
    And yet, you believe Jordan Peterson is banned, when he is not. Think about how you came to that belief. Now, think about how much we want the people who convinced you of it to have an unrestricted platform.
    - zaroth 8y ago
      You’re assuming GP read a fake news article saying Peterson was banned. Much more charitable, and a safer assumption, is that this was a misunderstanding by the OP. Jordan Peterson was the one who, by boycotting Patreon in response to their behavior, created the association which led to this misunderstanding. He tied his leaving to this event directly. I seems to me that Peterson no longer felt safe putting his revenue stream in the hands of Patreon, because of what he saw as unfair and improper political bias which could one day disrupt his own finances. That to me is a lot more worrisome than someone being wrong on the Internet.

by zaroth 8y ago

beat 8y ago

Business itself is inherently amoral (not evil, just lacking any sense of morality one way or another). Businesses don't refuse particular customers out of a sense of social justice - they do it because continuing to service their customers harms their reputation, and thus their business. I know I don't want to do business with businesses that tell me fascism is just "speech", and I'll go to their competitors instead. And I'll free admit, just so the purists can get it out of the way, that I think there are types of speech that should not be socially tolerated. Hate speech shouldn't get public protection. Shun me for it if you like. From these two things, I find that businesses refusing to do business with the likes of Stormfront, or this "radical anti-feminist", or whatever, is a very good proxy for social standards. Why? Because like I said, business is amoral. It doesn't care about hate speech. But when that speech is so repulsive that businesses worry about the general public, their other customers, punishing them for supporting it, then that's a good point to say "No, this is not acceptable". And to be clear, I'm drawing a line about the freedom to not do business with someone - not a law to punish speech. I'm not saying throw them in jail for speaking in hate. I'm saying that it's not good to require business to provide a platform for their hate.

apostacy 8y ago
Someone like Jordan Paterson is absolutely not like Stormfront. Refusing to support a best selling author and professor because some vocal activists have launched a smear campaign against him is not some sort of proxy for morality. Businesses are doing things because their owners want to punish certain opinions, regardless of how popular they are. Visa and Mastercard are using their monopoly power as payment processors to interfere in elections and punish people who say certain things. And people on Hacker News are fine with this, because muh you should just make your own banking infrastructure! Free Market.
- darkpuma 8y ago
  As far as I know Patreon haven't booted Jordan Paterson, the article suggests he's breaking his association with Patreon willingly.
- wsy 8y ago
  Jordan Peterson is not banned by Patreon.
- beat 8y ago
  And yet, you believe Jordan Peterson is banned, when he is not. Think about how you came to that belief. Now, think about how much we want the people who convinced you of it to have an unrestricted platform.
  - zaroth 8y ago
    You’re assuming GP read a fake news article saying Peterson was banned. Much more charitable, and a safer assumption, is that this was a misunderstanding by the OP. Jordan Peterson was the one who, by boycotting Patreon in response to their behavior, created the association which led to this misunderstanding. He tied his leaving to this event directly. I seems to me that Peterson no longer felt safe putting his revenue stream in the hands of Patreon, because of what he saw as unfair and improper political bias which could one day disrupt his own finances. That to me is a lot more worrisome than someone being wrong on the Internet.