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The obvious questions are and always have been "what constitutes 'harmful speech'?" and "who gets to decide?". Sure, we can agree that "white supremacy" is harm
by weberc2 8y ago
The obvious questions are and always have been "what constitutes 'harmful speech'?" and "who gets to decide?". Sure, we can agree that "white supremacy" is harmful, but in the last 5 years we've seen the definition of white supremacy slide from "people who espouse views that whites are better than nonwhites" to "people who espouse views that are not in line with progressive orthodoxy".
- djsumdog 8y agoAnd what about more complex things? Twitter and Twitch bans people who question some of the modern beliefs on gender ideology, even if they bring up the discussion respectfully. Not to mention, it just means extremists go to platforms that welcome them (Voat, Gab and others). That means platforms that use to have a big mix of views, like Reddit, are now horribly one sided and those other platforms are all extremist. Keep in mind, we're not seeing the "right" or "moral" view. We're seeing Twitter/Facebook/Reddit's CEOs/Mods/deciders views.
- thecommentary 8y agoTwitter is considering telling journalists to learn to code as hate speech now - we have already slipped down that slope even on the simple things.
- acdha 8y agoDo you have a citation for that? All of the reports which I saw were that specific people harassing specific users were flagged as violating the abusiveness clause of the terms of service. Nobody said anything about hate speech or even non-targeted rude remarks before the usual right-wing grievance machine started whining about a private company enforcing its contractual terms.
- rhcom2 8y agoTwitter said that was part of a "targeted harassment campaign", not hate speech.
- smsm42 8y agoDoes it matter what section they use to classify it? The fact is that they ban it. And many more. When important topics are debated, even the most respectfully formulated argument can be deeply hurtful to the side that is on the opposing end. For example, if you respectfully tell a religious person that their religion is bunk and they are wasting their time on a bunch of fairy tales - it could be deeply hurtful. Should we ban all atheists from social media? Banning such discussion very soon precludes any disagreement with increasingly narrow set of orthodox doctrines. Of course, Twitter has fully legal right to do exactly that - but what's the use of such platform? And if all major platforms do that - what happens to the society where important questions can not be publicly discussed?
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- rhcom2 8y agoYes it matters, because it isn't banned based on the content, but on the context. The context being the repeated harassment of a single person by many. In your example no one is going to get banned for that, but they will get banned if after getting blocked they create a harassment campaign of hundreds of people to repeatedly tell the person their religion is bunk. There is no "discussion" there, it is purely for harassment reasons.
- SamReidHughes 8y agoIn the case of "learn to code" the context was the content, not harassment.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- DuskStar 8y ago> seen the definition of white supremacy slide from "people who espouse views that whites are better than nonwhites" And even there it is debatable - does saying "people with pale skin are better at producing vitamin D in low-light conditions than people with dark skin" make me a white supremacist?
- tnzn 8y agoIf you're saying it in a conversation about wether or not we should allow non-white people to be in a country with low light, yeah. There is no objective, neutral statement.
- DuskStar 8y agoAnd if I'm not saying it in a conversation about creating an ethnostate, but perhaps one about seasonal affective disorder, or about vitamin D deficiencies? My point was that the GGP's definition, even the most restrictive one, was arguably still too broad. (Or perhaps people need to become more accepting of a distinction between better at x and better. Michael Phelps is certainly better at swimming than I am, but that is mostly orthogonal to whether he is a better person than I am)
- rangerpolitic 8y agoYou're re-contextualizing parent's statement and thereby changing it's meaning. That's unfair and dishonest.
- beat 8y agoThat's not what is meant by white supremacy and you damn well know it. Stop making bad imaginary corner cases and stick to the actual problem.
- weberc2 8y ago> That's not what is meant by white supremacy ... stick to the actual problem. That is precisely the actual problem--the term is loosely defined and thus lends itself to partisan equivocation. For example, lots of people assert that the MAGA hat is a symbol of white supremacy (and indeed it is, albeit only for those people who sincerely believe it to be).
- josefresco 8y ago> we've seen the definition of white supremacy slide from "people who espouse views that whites are better than nonwhites" to "people who espouse views that are not in line with progressive orthodoxy". No we haven't. We've seen white supremacy being legitimized at the highest levels, and as a result white supremacists claiming to be "victims" openly because they feel emboldened by the election of white supremacist politicians.
- rangerpolitic 8y ago> We've seen white supremacy being legitimized at the highest levels "White supremacy" is extremely vague. Please define the term in a coherent manner, noting the attributes which must exist for something to be considered white supremacy. Thanks.
- beat 8y agoA wise friend of mine said "If you need to debate the definition of 'Nazi' to make sure it excludes you, you're a Nazi".
- josefresco 8y agoPlease define "progressive orthodoxy" and how it relates to white supremacy.
- beat 8y agoGotta love the downvote storms, huh? You want orthodoxy? Every downvote that you're getting on this is HN political orthodoxy by a bunch of dudes who think they're Free Thinkers who believe in Free Speech.
- komali2 8y ago>"people who espouse views that are not in line with progressive orthodoxy". Nah disagree there. We'll see if Facebook starts arbitrarily banning libertarian content or whatever, but I don't think this spells the doom that conservatives think it will for the bits of their ideology that aren't racist.
- remarkEon 8y agoYou're proving the exact point that you're replying to. You've proceeded to qualify everything except the things you decide of a particular ideology as "racist".
- komali2 8y agoI mean, white nationalism is racist. Do you disagree?
- weberc2 8y agoOf course it is, provided “white nationalism” means “white nationalism” and “racism” means “racism”. The problem, of course, is that lots of people use these terms to refer to moderate political views in a sort of motte and bailey equivocation.
- komali2 8y agoWell call them out if you see that, I guess. Or if you see Facebook doing that. Seems like a non-issue for me. This is the world Muslims deal with every day - radical Islamic terrorism gets shouted about, and suddenly Muslims have to say "so er, we're worried about being labeled as terrorists just arbitrarily." Way I see it this will help, because another class of people will now be aware of that distinction issue and perhaps be more sensitive to the differences between, say, a Muslim and a radical Muslim terrorist.