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Anecdotal, but I notice a lot more people clamoring about freedom of speech when it's white supremacists being affected and a lot less when it's ISIS or Al-Qaed

Anecdotal, but I notice a lot more people clamoring about freedom of speech when it's white supremacists being affected and a lot less when it's ISIS or Al-Qaeda. I find it very hard to take them seriously because of this, despite agreeing with a lot of the sentiment.

fiblye 7y ago
I’m pretty tired of people linking any sort of complaint, worry, and defense of their rights to white supremacy or whatever hate group. Plenty of people stand up for their rights because they legitimately care about freedom. It’s not all some conspiracy by hate groups to defend themselves.
- Apocryphon 7y ago
  Perhaps, but there is also a cultural trend of alt-right/far right groups clamoring about free speech in response to de-platforming and being uninvited to speak at college campuses. Most contemporary American free speech protests aren't apolitical affairs where nonsectarian activists are just "standing up for their rights because they legitimately care about freedom" for the sake of free speech as an ideal- they view freedom as a means to promote their ideology.
  - fiblye 7y ago
    If people try to crush speech they don’t like, and fringe groups are the only ones saying they support freedom, otherwise neutral people who are concerned about their rights are going to side with one of those groups. The number of people siding with those groups will be more than zero. Support will grow and they’ll push their message farther and farther into extremism. It’s not the first time this has happened. But each generation thinks they’re enlightened and extremism won’t take over again. Political extremists work with a grain of truth (“Look! They really ARE oppressing us”). If they were absolutely false nobody would support them.
  - manfredo 7y ago
    > Perhaps, but there is also a cultural trend of alt-right/far right groups clamoring about free speech in response to de-platforming and being disinvited to speak at college campuses. For public universities, this is a breach of the first amendment no matter how heinous the speakers' viewpoints are. And for private universities it's a big blow to the institution's reputations for all but the most objectionable speakers. > Most contemporary American free speech protests aren't apolitical affairs where nonsectarian activists are just "standing up for their rights because they legitimately care about freedom" for the sake of free speech as an ideal- they view freedom as a means to promote their ideology. I don't disagree with you. But you're drawing the wrong conclusions from this observation. If the concerns over free speech is more prevalent on one end of the political spectrum, it could easily be due to the fact that said end of the political spectrum is being censored more frequently and more aggressively. And I can't argue with that, I've seen very stark disparities in enforcement over the past several years.
    - spamizbad 7y ago
      > And for private universities it's a big blow to the institution's reputations for all but the most objectionable speakers. Numerous private universities (Christian schools in particular) enforce strict student code of conduct rules that severely limit the student body's freedom of expression as to way to enforce religious or secular compliance. And it doesn't hurt their reputation but instead is an integral component of the school's identity. I know it's an unpopular opinion, but I'd argue that colleges and universities should have the right to police speech and expression: they should just be upfront about it. "Our house: our rules" as they say.
      - manfredo 7y ago
        > Numerous private universities (Christian schools in particular) enforce strict student code of conduct rules that severely limit the student body's freedom of expression as to way to enforce religious or secular compliance. And it doesn't hurt their reputation but instead is an integral component of the school's identity. Perhaps you're coming from a different cultural context than, but in my circles such universities absolutely are mocked and looked down upon. Some people don't even consider applicants from BYU, and other heavily religious universities because they don't want to reward such institutions. > I know it's an unpopular opinion, but I'd argue that colleges and universities should have the right to police speech and expression: they should just be upfront about it. "Our house: our rules" as they say. For public universities, the First Amendment legally obligates them otherwise. For private universities they already have the right to police speech and expression. It is, as you say, their house and their rules. They don't police (or rather they are very liberal in their policing) because freedom of speech and expression are central to an effective academy. Once universities start policing heavy-handedly, or on ideological grounds people start to doubt whether the ideas voiced are genuine or whether people are censoring themselves out of fear of retaliation from the institution. This cloud of doubt hangs overall the research published by that university, and the reputation of that university suffers considerably.
- gremlinsinc 7y ago
  People also need to get over the fact that on a business platform like Facebook Google, Reddit -- you have no rights (except those spelled out in their editable tos/privacy policy/etc...), None of these entities has ANY legal requirement to give you a platform for hate speech, and has EVERY right to ban said speech. Unless we'd rather the government take over Facebook and have full on communism, and make all these businesses public entities, etc...
  - brianpgordon 7y ago
    I'm not getting into the hate speech debate - most of this page of comments so far is depressingly tone-deaf and insensitive - but I have to say that your argument about having no rights on websites is pretty hollow. Nobody with even a modicum of sense ever claims that their actual legal rights are being violated when they complain about being censored on a private website. Any reference to "free speech" is an appeal to shared values, an argument that they think the moderators are acting improperly in light of those shared values. The public debate is over whether platforms like Facebook, Google, Reddit, etc should be neutral marketplaces of ideas, like Greek agora, and to what extent they should be able to privately police such a large part of our public discourse. This is a legitimate topic for debate and potential public policy, even if initially such policy would only serve to provide a voice for some pretty despicable people. You pointing out that Facebook is a private company which can do whatever it wants with its own data is wholly missing the point. Nobody is even having that conversation.
  - fuzz4lyfe 7y ago
    Are they platforms or publishers? Your ISP doesn't police content in a meaningful way and are immune to legal claims that their service is responsible for same, similarly a newspaper is legally responsible for what it prints due to the fact they have a editor who controls what is published. Twitter et al. seem to want to have it both ways.
- intended 7y ago
  Welcome to the world created by faster communication. At a point where each issue is extremely polarizing, where we connect people around the world - blurring the local and the global - and there’s a new crazy event happening every minute around the world minute - people lose nuance and the ability to stop and compartmentalism events. Since everything is now part of a never ending stream of outrageous actions, content consumers have adapted by looking at meta identifiers to get a grip on the world around them. Who is speaking? What are they saying ? Oh? It matches statements used by white supremacists ? Ok, good bye. I don’t have the time or bandwidth to invest in you. When everything is accessible and people have only limited processing space - decisions are made on lossy fast information.
manfredo 7y ago
Keep in mind that the definition of "white supremacy" has been expanded to include things like opposition to affirmative action, or support for enforcement of existing border control regulations (let along their expansion). Of course calls to censor those things are going to garner much more opposition than censoring explicit terrorist organizations.
- ceph_ 7y ago
  The definition of white supremacy isn't expanding, but those are two topics white supremacists vocally support.
  - Chazprime 7y ago
    Stephen Fry might disagree with you there.
    - mffnbs 7y ago
      Being conscious of dog whistles isn't expanding the white supremacist classification. A single false positive by Twitter of all places isn't indicative of a trend.
      - manfredo 7y ago
        > Being conscious of dog whistles isn't expanding the white supremacist classification. It does when allegations of dog whistling are levied against mainstream viewpoints. Saying "build the wall" is a white supremacist dog whistle is absolutely a means of expanding white supremacy to encompass support border enforcement. Nothing about building a wall on a national border is white supremacist. White supremacists may be in favor of such a viewpoint, but that does not make the viewpoint itself white supremacist. Accusations of dog whistling is a very cheap and effective way of stuffing words into one's opponents' mouths and many do use it to try and paint acceptable views as white supremacist.
  - manfredo 7y ago
    Many people, including mainstream media outlets, friends of mine, and co-workers have labeled these positions as white supremacist. Not just identifying them as positions that white supremacists support. The set of views considered "white supremacist" is indeed expanding to include mainstream conservative views like the ones I mentioned.
diebeforei485 7y ago
There is a selection effect going on. The algorithmic censorship of those groups also did a lot of collateral damage to regular folks in the Middle East who didn't have much of an influence or voice (limited or no English-language skills, not much connections to large media outlets or influential tech people, and located in a different part of the world - which affects organic reach of their social media posts even if they did voice their dissatisfaction with what was going on).
gnaritas 7y ago
Fallacious whatabout'ism.
thrower123 7y ago
One of these two groups of people is regularly beheading people on camera and blowing up innocent civilians The other is trolls on 4chan and SS LARPers.
HighValuation 7y ago
I’m Asian and I get called a white supremacist on the internet everyday. I’ve even been called that in person once or twice for arguing against AA. The only time leftists are truly race blind is when they assume everyone that disagrees with them is white. I feel like I’m living in the black and white Twilight Zone, the label has turned into an absolute joke.

fiblye 7y ago

I’m pretty tired of people linking any sort of complaint, worry, and defense of their rights to white supremacy or whatever hate group. Plenty of people stand up for their rights because they legitimately care about freedom. It’s not all some conspiracy by hate groups to defend themselves.

Apocryphon 7y ago
Perhaps, but there is also a cultural trend of alt-right/far right groups clamoring about free speech in response to de-platforming and being uninvited to speak at college campuses. Most contemporary American free speech protests aren't apolitical affairs where nonsectarian activists are just "standing up for their rights because they legitimately care about freedom" for the sake of free speech as an ideal- they view freedom as a means to promote their ideology.
- fiblye 7y ago
  If people try to crush speech they don’t like, and fringe groups are the only ones saying they support freedom, otherwise neutral people who are concerned about their rights are going to side with one of those groups. The number of people siding with those groups will be more than zero. Support will grow and they’ll push their message farther and farther into extremism. It’s not the first time this has happened. But each generation thinks they’re enlightened and extremism won’t take over again. Political extremists work with a grain of truth (“Look! They really ARE oppressing us”). If they were absolutely false nobody would support them.
- manfredo 7y ago
  > Perhaps, but there is also a cultural trend of alt-right/far right groups clamoring about free speech in response to de-platforming and being disinvited to speak at college campuses. For public universities, this is a breach of the first amendment no matter how heinous the speakers' viewpoints are. And for private universities it's a big blow to the institution's reputations for all but the most objectionable speakers. > Most contemporary American free speech protests aren't apolitical affairs where nonsectarian activists are just "standing up for their rights because they legitimately care about freedom" for the sake of free speech as an ideal- they view freedom as a means to promote their ideology. I don't disagree with you. But you're drawing the wrong conclusions from this observation. If the concerns over free speech is more prevalent on one end of the political spectrum, it could easily be due to the fact that said end of the political spectrum is being censored more frequently and more aggressively. And I can't argue with that, I've seen very stark disparities in enforcement over the past several years.
  - spamizbad 7y ago
    > And for private universities it's a big blow to the institution's reputations for all but the most objectionable speakers. Numerous private universities (Christian schools in particular) enforce strict student code of conduct rules that severely limit the student body's freedom of expression as to way to enforce religious or secular compliance. And it doesn't hurt their reputation but instead is an integral component of the school's identity. I know it's an unpopular opinion, but I'd argue that colleges and universities should have the right to police speech and expression: they should just be upfront about it. "Our house: our rules" as they say.
    - manfredo 7y ago
      > Numerous private universities (Christian schools in particular) enforce strict student code of conduct rules that severely limit the student body's freedom of expression as to way to enforce religious or secular compliance. And it doesn't hurt their reputation but instead is an integral component of the school's identity. Perhaps you're coming from a different cultural context than, but in my circles such universities absolutely are mocked and looked down upon. Some people don't even consider applicants from BYU, and other heavily religious universities because they don't want to reward such institutions. > I know it's an unpopular opinion, but I'd argue that colleges and universities should have the right to police speech and expression: they should just be upfront about it. "Our house: our rules" as they say. For public universities, the First Amendment legally obligates them otherwise. For private universities they already have the right to police speech and expression. It is, as you say, their house and their rules. They don't police (or rather they are very liberal in their policing) because freedom of speech and expression are central to an effective academy. Once universities start policing heavy-handedly, or on ideological grounds people start to doubt whether the ideas voiced are genuine or whether people are censoring themselves out of fear of retaliation from the institution. This cloud of doubt hangs overall the research published by that university, and the reputation of that university suffers considerably.
gremlinsinc 7y ago
People also need to get over the fact that on a business platform like Facebook Google, Reddit -- you have no rights (except those spelled out in their editable tos/privacy policy/etc...), None of these entities has ANY legal requirement to give you a platform for hate speech, and has EVERY right to ban said speech. Unless we'd rather the government take over Facebook and have full on communism, and make all these businesses public entities, etc...
- brianpgordon 7y ago
  I'm not getting into the hate speech debate - most of this page of comments so far is depressingly tone-deaf and insensitive - but I have to say that your argument about having no rights on websites is pretty hollow. Nobody with even a modicum of sense ever claims that their actual legal rights are being violated when they complain about being censored on a private website. Any reference to "free speech" is an appeal to shared values, an argument that they think the moderators are acting improperly in light of those shared values. The public debate is over whether platforms like Facebook, Google, Reddit, etc should be neutral marketplaces of ideas, like Greek agora, and to what extent they should be able to privately police such a large part of our public discourse. This is a legitimate topic for debate and potential public policy, even if initially such policy would only serve to provide a voice for some pretty despicable people. You pointing out that Facebook is a private company which can do whatever it wants with its own data is wholly missing the point. Nobody is even having that conversation.
- fuzz4lyfe 7y ago
  Are they platforms or publishers? Your ISP doesn't police content in a meaningful way and are immune to legal claims that their service is responsible for same, similarly a newspaper is legally responsible for what it prints due to the fact they have a editor who controls what is published. Twitter et al. seem to want to have it both ways.
intended 7y ago
Welcome to the world created by faster communication. At a point where each issue is extremely polarizing, where we connect people around the world - blurring the local and the global - and there’s a new crazy event happening every minute around the world minute - people lose nuance and the ability to stop and compartmentalism events. Since everything is now part of a never ending stream of outrageous actions, content consumers have adapted by looking at meta identifiers to get a grip on the world around them. Who is speaking? What are they saying ? Oh? It matches statements used by white supremacists ? Ok, good bye. I don’t have the time or bandwidth to invest in you. When everything is accessible and people have only limited processing space - decisions are made on lossy fast information.

manfredo 7y ago

Keep in mind that the definition of "white supremacy" has been expanded to include things like opposition to affirmative action, or support for enforcement of existing border control regulations (let along their expansion). Of course calls to censor those things are going to garner much more opposition than censoring explicit terrorist organizations.

ceph_ 7y ago
The definition of white supremacy isn't expanding, but those are two topics white supremacists vocally support.
- Chazprime 7y ago
  Stephen Fry might disagree with you there.
  - mffnbs 7y ago
    Being conscious of dog whistles isn't expanding the white supremacist classification. A single false positive by Twitter of all places isn't indicative of a trend.
    - manfredo 7y ago
      > Being conscious of dog whistles isn't expanding the white supremacist classification. It does when allegations of dog whistling are levied against mainstream viewpoints. Saying "build the wall" is a white supremacist dog whistle is absolutely a means of expanding white supremacy to encompass support border enforcement. Nothing about building a wall on a national border is white supremacist. White supremacists may be in favor of such a viewpoint, but that does not make the viewpoint itself white supremacist. Accusations of dog whistling is a very cheap and effective way of stuffing words into one's opponents' mouths and many do use it to try and paint acceptable views as white supremacist.
- manfredo 7y ago
  Many people, including mainstream media outlets, friends of mine, and co-workers have labeled these positions as white supremacist. Not just identifying them as positions that white supremacists support. The set of views considered "white supremacist" is indeed expanding to include mainstream conservative views like the ones I mentioned.

diebeforei485 7y ago

There is a selection effect going on. The algorithmic censorship of those groups also did a lot of collateral damage to regular folks in the Middle East who didn't have much of an influence or voice (limited or no English-language skills, not much connections to large media outlets or influential tech people, and located in a different part of the world - which affects organic reach of their social media posts even if they did voice their dissatisfaction with what was going on).

gnaritas 7y ago

Fallacious whatabout'ism.

thrower123 7y ago

One of these two groups of people is regularly beheading people on camera and blowing up innocent civilians The other is trolls on 4chan and SS LARPers.

HighValuation 7y ago

I’m Asian and I get called a white supremacist on the internet everyday. I’ve even been called that in person once or twice for arguing against AA. The only time leftists are truly race blind is when they assume everyone that disagrees with them is white. I feel like I’m living in the black and white Twilight Zone, the label has turned into an absolute joke.