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I've been saying for a while that we'll get to the point where anyone fighting for Free Speech will get painted as a racist because the censors will claim "free

by jquery 7y ago

I've been saying for a while that we'll get to the point where anyone fighting for Free Speech will get painted as a racist because the censors will claim "free speech is a racist idea" and it appears we're pretty close. How much of our classic liberty are we willing to lose in the pursuit of tribalism? The retort I hear when I complain about censorship is "haha you conservatives used to love the free market", not realizing not everyone who supports free speech and is anti-corporate is a conservative! EDIT: These corporations cynically manipulated society's tribalistic nature to impose something that should've had bipartisan opposition. The good news about things like this is it's a great way to develop that bipartisan opposition, many people who've been wearing blinders will say, "hey wait a minute, that's my voice you're shutting down, and I'm not a bad person." EDIT 2: I'm not here to defend Jordan Peterson or white supremacists. Just saying that moves like this will at least drive more than just two kinds of people away from YouTube, which was "people who love liberty and white supremacists" which of course makes the liberty people miserable.

deanCommie 7y ago
I think that's unnecessarily alarmist. Nobody is saying "Free Speech is a racist idea. However, Free Speech OF racist ideas is a racist idea.
- jquery 7y ago
  In the age where people like Ben Shapiro are identified as "alt-right white supremacists" I don't have much confidence in the ability of people to identify racist content. Here's a post where I go into more thinking on the matter that doesn't need to be repeated here - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20184914 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20184914
  - root_axis 7y ago
    > Israelis like to build. Arabs like to bomb crap and live in open sewage. This is not a difficult issue. That sounds pretty racist to me.
  - deanCommie 7y ago
    Ben Shapiro was the most popular role model for Alexandre Bissonette, a very clear alt-right white supremacist[1]. Before you dismiss Shapiro's responsibility in stoking these ideals, you should watch this in-depth breakdown of his perspectives and ideals[2]. I know it's a lot to ask to watch an hour long youtube video, but it is thorough to dot all the i's and cross all the t's. Shapiro even stokes anti-semitic rhetoric by distinguishing between "ethnic jews" (The Woody Allens of the world, but more broadly liberal hollywood elite jews) and "cultural/religious jews" (Morally-clear good-minded folk like himself). The video covers it. This is how he reconciles his alt-right allies who are anti-semitic and white nationalist, yet use Shapiro as a shield to protect their heinous opinions. And this is before we get to any of his perspectives on arabs, which another commenter already addressed. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2018/04/18/quebec-city-mosque-shooter-scoured-twitter-for-trump-right-wing-figures-before-attack/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.c3919e791261 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2018/04/18... [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDMjgOYOcDw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDMjgOYOcDw
  - sampo 7y ago
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1YENAvOveE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1YENAvOveE
perl4ever 7y ago
Free speech has become a meaningless slogan since it's now used as if there was a wide consensus against all property rights. But nobody is against property rights, just property rights of other people, maybe. I support your right to perform necessary bodily functions, just not on my living room carpet. I wouldn't say that's "tribalistic", more like "territorial".
- jquery 7y ago
  I think we've had a wide consensus against commercial property "rights" since the Civil Rights Act, and probably long before that, but I'm not a historian. AT&T doesn't get to listen to my calls to decide whether carrying them on their network is good for their brand. The big tech companies shouldn't get to claim they're a platform and then arbitrarily censor whoever they want without any due process. It's 2019 and everyone talks online, it's time to stop pretending that the public sidewalk is the only place people have a right to protest. Telling someone they have to go use gab.ai (which is blocked on both on both app stores and has had its payment systems pulled) is like telling a sidewalk protestor they have the right to protest as long as it's somewhere in the wilderness where they will not be discovered, alongside the other miscreants who have a beef. Nobody has ever been against the right of people to protest in invisible places, even China lets you do that. It's like the old saw, that Stalinist Russia had free speech as long as you were praising the party or nobody could hear you.

by jquery 7y ago

deanCommie 7y ago

I think that's unnecessarily alarmist. Nobody is saying "Free Speech is a racist idea. However, Free Speech OF racist ideas is a racist idea.

jquery 7y ago
In the age where people like Ben Shapiro are identified as "alt-right white supremacists" I don't have much confidence in the ability of people to identify racist content. Here's a post where I go into more thinking on the matter that doesn't need to be repeated here - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20184914 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20184914
- root_axis 7y ago
  > Israelis like to build. Arabs like to bomb crap and live in open sewage. This is not a difficult issue. That sounds pretty racist to me.
- deanCommie 7y ago
  Ben Shapiro was the most popular role model for Alexandre Bissonette, a very clear alt-right white supremacist[1]. Before you dismiss Shapiro's responsibility in stoking these ideals, you should watch this in-depth breakdown of his perspectives and ideals[2]. I know it's a lot to ask to watch an hour long youtube video, but it is thorough to dot all the i's and cross all the t's. Shapiro even stokes anti-semitic rhetoric by distinguishing between "ethnic jews" (The Woody Allens of the world, but more broadly liberal hollywood elite jews) and "cultural/religious jews" (Morally-clear good-minded folk like himself). The video covers it. This is how he reconciles his alt-right allies who are anti-semitic and white nationalist, yet use Shapiro as a shield to protect their heinous opinions. And this is before we get to any of his perspectives on arabs, which another commenter already addressed. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2018/04/18/quebec-city-mosque-shooter-scoured-twitter-for-trump-right-wing-figures-before-attack/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.c3919e791261 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2018/04/18... [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDMjgOYOcDw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDMjgOYOcDw
- sampo 7y ago
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1YENAvOveE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1YENAvOveE

perl4ever 7y ago

Free speech has become a meaningless slogan since it's now used as if there was a wide consensus against all property rights. But nobody is against property rights, just property rights of other people, maybe. I support your right to perform necessary bodily functions, just not on my living room carpet. I wouldn't say that's "tribalistic", more like "territorial".

jquery 7y ago
I think we've had a wide consensus against commercial property "rights" since the Civil Rights Act, and probably long before that, but I'm not a historian. AT&T doesn't get to listen to my calls to decide whether carrying them on their network is good for their brand. The big tech companies shouldn't get to claim they're a platform and then arbitrarily censor whoever they want without any due process. It's 2019 and everyone talks online, it's time to stop pretending that the public sidewalk is the only place people have a right to protest. Telling someone they have to go use gab.ai (which is blocked on both on both app stores and has had its payment systems pulled) is like telling a sidewalk protestor they have the right to protest as long as it's somewhere in the wilderness where they will not be discovered, alongside the other miscreants who have a beef. Nobody has ever been against the right of people to protest in invisible places, even China lets you do that. It's like the old saw, that Stalinist Russia had free speech as long as you were praising the party or nobody could hear you.