6 ms·

Despite Crackdowns, Neo-Nazi YouTube Videos

11 points by uniqueid 8y ago

giardini 8y ago
Of course. Free speech reigns. What could possibly be better - banning them from speaking, pushing them underground, jailing them, torturing them, or worse? Giving people freedom of speech is our only hope of engaging them at some future time in dialogue and of possibly bringing them to some other conclusions. Consider it an application of the "Golden Rule". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Rule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Rule And take some solace that, as a group or groups, "neo-Nazis" are not nearly as much a problem as were the original German Nazis, both for their own society and for the world.
- charlesism 8y ago
  Giving people freedom of speech is our only hope of engaging them at some future time in dialogue The diehard ones generally end up in jail. You can pay them a visit there, to engage them. In the meantime, pushing them underground means that elementary school students won't watch their videos when they auto-play after a make-up tutorial, or RDR2 gameplay video.
  - zzzzzzzza 8y ago
    personally I avoid recommendation algorithms whenever possible because I don't like or trust them (e.g. use adblock to block youtube recommendations). Having established that I think recommendation systems are highly suspect in the first place, there is a difference between de platforming someone and avoiding giving them a platform. Not to argue for or against censorship, just saying that your example doesn't require "pushing them underground" to solve (just fixing your recommendation algorithm ... or maybe, just maybe, not trying to manipulate people in the first place). Quite possibly there are plenty of other examples that do require pushing them underground, I don't blame new zealand for blocking 4chan at all.
  - FakeComments 8y ago
    Where do you stop? Hitler and his political organization did terrible things, and we certainly should try to stop those kinds of events from repeating. But the same could be said of Stalin or Mao: should we ban all of the neo-communist videos on YouTube?
    - charlesism 8y ago
      I'm not Youtube, so it's not my call, but if they had any sense of responsibility, they should certainly ban Nazis and terrorists. Whatever they don't want on their platform beyond that is their business. If they don't like videos of baby sea lions, well, I'd have to find my baby sea lion videos elsewhere.
      - luckylion 8y ago
        Who defines the terms "Nazis" and "terrorists", who defines who to ban? Is it the original "Nazi" definition, or some modern diluted definition where the number of Nazis has skyrocketed? Do we allow content from "freedom fighters" and "rebels"?
        charlesism 8y ago
        Who defines the terms "Nazis" and "terrorists" By your logic, Youtube would have to host child pornography, because "how do you define child pornography?" These terms are whatever the moderator says they are. If their definition does not match up with mine, I complain. If it does match, I don't.
        spaginal 8y ago
        Hyperbolic non sense. Child porn is illegal and has a clear legal definition. We don’t argue as a society over what is or isn’t child pornography. We don’t look at puppy videos and complain to others that it’s child pornography. We do have people simply express discomfort with how our government behaves, legitimate concerns with immigration, civil rights, or other aspects of society, blanket labeled as nazi’s or extremists and banned from online forums. It’s dangerous, and it’s being used as an excuse to shutdown speech and information now, specifically more and more to one side of the debate. So he asked a legitimate question. Define nazi, because much like labeling people as communists simply because they want better access to healthcare, these terms are being used fast and loose these days to describe anyone someone else may politically disagree with, even when it bears no resemblance to the person being labeled.
- samdung 8y ago
  ... as long as people recognise that freedom of speech does not mean freedom from the consequences of that speech.
  - muxkel 8y ago
    Freedom of speech is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or a community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or legal sanction.
    - Throwway32 8y ago
      Free speech absolutists love talking about unfettered free speech as being a universal good, without ever providing evidence. Has there ever been a society without any limits on speech anywhere in human history? How do we prevent people with limited cognitive and critical thinking skills, including those who are young and immature, from being influenced by malicious actors? It's telling that even in the "land of the free" members of certain groups are proscribed from expressing their vilest and most murderous ideas without heavy-handed state intervention (to the point that some have been killed by drones for doing so), while other groups openly flaunt similar ideas, and hide behind "free speech" when anyone dares to criticize them.
      - spaginal 8y ago
        It’s not up to you to decide the validity of speech or opinions, and who gets exposed to what. In a free society this isn’t your call to make. The benchmark of critical thinking faculties is commonly a political test when it comes to speech, and is a convenient excuse people, and governments use. Look at Twitter. A bunch of people on all political sides of an issue labeling eachother as evil, dangerous, idiots, etc. No one listening to eachother. Everyone judging eachother, no one is immune from it. Now give the power to shut down speech to one of those sides and use your litmus test as the basis for qualifying appropriate speech. What do you think is the end result? Banning speech or ideas is lazy thinking, easy to do and repeatable once accepted as a solution, and most importantly dangerous. Far more dangerous than the idea it’s trying to silence.
- kodz4 8y ago
  The issue is one of scale. Engaging with anyone who is troubled/hurt (esp men) is not a simple thing. Engaging with them, when they are in a troubled environment (full of ever increasing negative triggers), surrounded by or in daily contact with other misguided folk is even more complicated. Just think about it. Say there are N troubled people in your family. And for one reason or another, none of them have access to the right mental healthcare. But instead, they have unlimited access to ever growing signals from the media/social media/internet etc that reinforce their fears, anger, distrust etc. What are your options? Until you are able to get them all access to high quality mental health care, the only other option is to reduce the negative signals they receive. There are many reasons whey high quality mental health care infrastructure and access doesn't exist. That's the main issue here. Not free speech.
toofy 8y ago
The surface level free-speech argument is beaten to death. Yes, we know free-speech is important. We fight hard for it because it is important. Speech is incredibly powerful. We know speech causes material changes to the world, that is why we fight so hard for to protect that freedom. So lets move the conversation forward, to the material changes this rise in anti-intellectual, conspiracy minded, anti-science free speech crusaders are attempting to cause--what world are they attempting to create by using powerful speech? Let's not be disingenuous and pretend these types of speech should be brushed away as if they don't matter, as if speech is harmless, as if it has no impact on the world. We know it has impacts, that is why we fight to protect speech. Speech can't be both powerful enough to protect and simultaneously meaningless to the point that no one should be concerned. We can't say "Speech is the most important thing we have." and then turn around and say "Oh, its just words, ignore it, snowflake." We can't have it both ways. If we protect speech because of it's power, then targets of hate speech have a right to be upset when it takes aim at them. If we protect speech because it is powerful, then we all have a right to be concerned with the enormous rise in anti-science or just plain bad information masquerading as science. Speech matters, we have a right to be pissed when it's used for nefarious purposes or used carelessly--it is not meaningless, it is powerful.
- towaway1138 8y ago
  > the material changes this rise in anti-intellectual, conspiracy minded, anti-science free speech crusaders are attempting to cause You lost me here, as in my experience, such activity has been in significant decline over my lifetime. We're actually living in a golden age where science and reason are ascendant. Using this as a pretext for silencing people that don't agree with us seems particularly pernicious.
  - toofy 8y ago
    Did you respond to the wrong post? I'm certain I didn't mention silencing anyone. In fact, when you take my post as a whole, not partially as you did, over and over again I gush about the importance and the incredible power of speech.

11 points by uniqueid 8y ago

Of course. Free speech reigns. What could possibly be better - banning them from speaking, pushing them underground, jailing them, torturing them, or worse? Giving people freedom of speech is our only hope of engaging them at some future time in dialogue and of possibly bringing them to some other conclusions. Consider it an application of the "Golden Rule". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Rule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Rule And take some solace that, as a group or groups, "neo-Nazis" are not nearly as much a problem as were the original German Nazis, both for their own society and for the world.

charlesism 8y ago
Giving people freedom of speech is our only hope of engaging them at some future time in dialogue The diehard ones generally end up in jail. You can pay them a visit there, to engage them. In the meantime, pushing them underground means that elementary school students won't watch their videos when they auto-play after a make-up tutorial, or RDR2 gameplay video.
- zzzzzzzza 8y ago
  personally I avoid recommendation algorithms whenever possible because I don't like or trust them (e.g. use adblock to block youtube recommendations). Having established that I think recommendation systems are highly suspect in the first place, there is a difference between de platforming someone and avoiding giving them a platform. Not to argue for or against censorship, just saying that your example doesn't require "pushing them underground" to solve (just fixing your recommendation algorithm ... or maybe, just maybe, not trying to manipulate people in the first place). Quite possibly there are plenty of other examples that do require pushing them underground, I don't blame new zealand for blocking 4chan at all.
- FakeComments 8y ago
  Where do you stop? Hitler and his political organization did terrible things, and we certainly should try to stop those kinds of events from repeating. But the same could be said of Stalin or Mao: should we ban all of the neo-communist videos on YouTube?
  - charlesism 8y ago
    I'm not Youtube, so it's not my call, but if they had any sense of responsibility, they should certainly ban Nazis and terrorists. Whatever they don't want on their platform beyond that is their business. If they don't like videos of baby sea lions, well, I'd have to find my baby sea lion videos elsewhere.
    - luckylion 8y ago
      Who defines the terms "Nazis" and "terrorists", who defines who to ban? Is it the original "Nazi" definition, or some modern diluted definition where the number of Nazis has skyrocketed? Do we allow content from "freedom fighters" and "rebels"?
      - charlesism 8y ago
        Who defines the terms "Nazis" and "terrorists" By your logic, Youtube would have to host child pornography, because "how do you define child pornography?" These terms are whatever the moderator says they are. If their definition does not match up with mine, I complain. If it does match, I don't.
        spaginal 8y ago
        Hyperbolic non sense. Child porn is illegal and has a clear legal definition. We don’t argue as a society over what is or isn’t child pornography. We don’t look at puppy videos and complain to others that it’s child pornography. We do have people simply express discomfort with how our government behaves, legitimate concerns with immigration, civil rights, or other aspects of society, blanket labeled as nazi’s or extremists and banned from online forums. It’s dangerous, and it’s being used as an excuse to shutdown speech and information now, specifically more and more to one side of the debate. So he asked a legitimate question. Define nazi, because much like labeling people as communists simply because they want better access to healthcare, these terms are being used fast and loose these days to describe anyone someone else may politically disagree with, even when it bears no resemblance to the person being labeled.
samdung 8y ago
... as long as people recognise that freedom of speech does not mean freedom from the consequences of that speech.
- muxkel 8y ago
  Freedom of speech is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or a community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or legal sanction.
  - Throwway32 8y ago
    Free speech absolutists love talking about unfettered free speech as being a universal good, without ever providing evidence. Has there ever been a society without any limits on speech anywhere in human history? How do we prevent people with limited cognitive and critical thinking skills, including those who are young and immature, from being influenced by malicious actors? It's telling that even in the "land of the free" members of certain groups are proscribed from expressing their vilest and most murderous ideas without heavy-handed state intervention (to the point that some have been killed by drones for doing so), while other groups openly flaunt similar ideas, and hide behind "free speech" when anyone dares to criticize them.
    - spaginal 8y ago
      It’s not up to you to decide the validity of speech or opinions, and who gets exposed to what. In a free society this isn’t your call to make. The benchmark of critical thinking faculties is commonly a political test when it comes to speech, and is a convenient excuse people, and governments use. Look at Twitter. A bunch of people on all political sides of an issue labeling eachother as evil, dangerous, idiots, etc. No one listening to eachother. Everyone judging eachother, no one is immune from it. Now give the power to shut down speech to one of those sides and use your litmus test as the basis for qualifying appropriate speech. What do you think is the end result? Banning speech or ideas is lazy thinking, easy to do and repeatable once accepted as a solution, and most importantly dangerous. Far more dangerous than the idea it’s trying to silence.
kodz4 8y ago
The issue is one of scale. Engaging with anyone who is troubled/hurt (esp men) is not a simple thing. Engaging with them, when they are in a troubled environment (full of ever increasing negative triggers), surrounded by or in daily contact with other misguided folk is even more complicated. Just think about it. Say there are N troubled people in your family. And for one reason or another, none of them have access to the right mental healthcare. But instead, they have unlimited access to ever growing signals from the media/social media/internet etc that reinforce their fears, anger, distrust etc. What are your options? Until you are able to get them all access to high quality mental health care, the only other option is to reduce the negative signals they receive. There are many reasons whey high quality mental health care infrastructure and access doesn't exist. That's the main issue here. Not free speech.

toofy 8y ago

The surface level free-speech argument is beaten to death. Yes, we know free-speech is important. We fight hard for it because it is important. Speech is incredibly powerful. We know speech causes material changes to the world, that is why we fight so hard for to protect that freedom. So lets move the conversation forward, to the material changes this rise in anti-intellectual, conspiracy minded, anti-science free speech crusaders are attempting to cause--what world are they attempting to create by using powerful speech? Let's not be disingenuous and pretend these types of speech should be brushed away as if they don't matter, as if speech is harmless, as if it has no impact on the world. We know it has impacts, that is why we fight to protect speech. Speech can't be both powerful enough to protect and simultaneously meaningless to the point that no one should be concerned. We can't say "Speech is the most important thing we have." and then turn around and say "Oh, its just words, ignore it, snowflake." We can't have it both ways. If we protect speech because of it's power, then targets of hate speech have a right to be upset when it takes aim at them. If we protect speech because it is powerful, then we all have a right to be concerned with the enormous rise in anti-science or just plain bad information masquerading as science. Speech matters, we have a right to be pissed when it's used for nefarious purposes or used carelessly--it is not meaningless, it is powerful.

towaway1138 8y ago
> the material changes this rise in anti-intellectual, conspiracy minded, anti-science free speech crusaders are attempting to cause You lost me here, as in my experience, such activity has been in significant decline over my lifetime. We're actually living in a golden age where science and reason are ascendant. Using this as a pretext for silencing people that don't agree with us seems particularly pernicious.
- toofy 8y ago
  Did you respond to the wrong post? I'm certain I didn't mention silencing anyone. In fact, when you take my post as a whole, not partially as you did, over and over again I gush about the importance and the incredible power of speech.