9 ms·
I agree with you completely, but this whole debacle has highlighted what seems to be hypocrisy in the general public's reaction to this. Remember when The Dail
by cloakandswagger 7y ago
I agree with you completely, but this whole debacle has highlighted what seems to be hypocrisy in the general public's reaction to this.
Remember when The Daily Stormer got kicked off CloudFlare and a whole host of other platforms, to the point that no one would take their business and they were effectively censored? The average take on that seemed to be a mix of "Free speech doesn't apply to private companies" and "If you don't like it, build your own CDN/DNS/Paypal/certificate authority etc"
So what's the difference with this? Again, I agree completely with the concerns here, but what happened to TDS and a lot of other fringe sites was even more blatant and serious: They were de facto banned from the internet, whereas this is all over...a video game.
Did everyone come to the conclusion that corporations are powerful enough to effectively snuff out free speech since that happened, or is it different because this is China, or...?
- thatswrong0 7y agoThe difference is that a country which is committing human rights abuses is pressuring said private company (among _many_ others) to abridge free speech. The other case is a private company not wanting to host right-wing neo-nazi content of which the general public isn’t really accepting. I don’t see the hypocrisy here at all.. tbh I don’t even quite understand how you can conflate the two situations other than the fact the two words “free” and “speech” are involved.
- cloakandswagger 7y agoBoth situations feature people being banned by companies due to their speech because the companies fear backlash from more powerful entities (China or the media/general public respectively). They seem pretty comparable to me.
- vbezhenar 7y agoIt's called double-standards. It's OK to cut free speech for those you don't like, it's not OK to cut free speech for those you like.
- wruza 7y agoFirst they came for the right-wing neo-nazis, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a right-wing neo-nazi. Wonder where this goes this time.
- felipelemos 7y agoThe difference is pretty clear. In a democratic society, the people voices are heard. In a dictatorship, only the small elite that controls the government's voice is heard.
- cthalupa 7y agoI don't follow your argument. Is it that we should not worry about morals and ethics, and instead just look at actions in vacuum, and decide whether or not an action should be taken with no regard to context? It's not hypocritical for someone to believe that Cloudflare should kick nazis off their service and at the same time believe Blizzard should stand up to China. Human beings are capable of exercising nuance and understanding complex topics. I don't want to generally go around punching or kicking people, but if I'm cornered and someone is trying to do harm to me, I'm going to fight back. It's the context around such actiona that defines whether or not it was just.
- dmix 7y agoI love seeing how often people's (mostly on Reddit) answer to the question "how do we determine who're the nazis?" and they answer glibly "easy, they're the literal nazis'. We've seen this all before with the "terrorist" label, the "communist" label in Hollywood blacklists, various Puritan attempts at censorship for sex, films, music, etc. I wished I believed this much in our centralize opaque institutions to create these red lines consistently, reliably, and fairly. Which is amusing because much of the people pushing for this the hardest are often the same people who would never hand over such power in almost any other scenario. The only reliable outcome, that we've seen repeatedly over and over in history is that once you start expanding censorship beyond just the obviously bad-guys (spam, violence, etc) and start wadding into the grey areas of speech is that: a) context and intention, which are critical in day-to-day discourse, are increasing ignored as the system scales and the scope increases b) the line will only keep expanding into a broader and broader group ("you did it for x, why not y?!!") c) false positives dramatically increase d) due process is only afforded in rare situations where the individual is already famous/powerful and can stir up enough controversy forcing the gatekeepers to actually consider it carefully Everything goes great at the beginning as you sweep up the low hanging fruit. It's the long run where this 'solution' really gets tested - which is the phase we're now entering on many platforms.
- falcolas 7y agoFWIW, there is no visible pressure that has been exhibited from China against Blizzard. There have been no statements from China either in support or condemnation of any of the involved actors. The situation is entirely driven by Blizzard, for fear of their potential revenue stream out of China. This is in contrast to the NBA scenario, where China did speak out against the NBA, and later began to cancel contracts.
- zucker42 7y agoThat's because Blizzard did the "right" thing in the government's view. Just because the influence isn't visible doesn't mean it's not there, and invisible influence may be even more pernicious.
- falcolas 7y agoThat doesn't diminish that it was purely Blizzard's decision in the end. Blizzard had a choice, and they picked censoring Blitzchung on their own.
- zucker42 7y agoSo if the U.S. makes a law that fines companies for criticizing the president, and then Blizzard fires an employee for criticizing the president to avoid the fine, it's Blizzard's decision in the end and everything's fine? I don't know if you have considered the implications of this logic.
- themacguffinman 7y agoYou can't say there is no visible pressure on Blizzard while mentioning the NBA in the same breath. China's aggressive move on the NBA is the pressure. It's an example to every company that operates in China: toe the party line, or face local obstruction like the NBA.
- bitL 7y ago"If they could do that to NBA, what would they do to me?"
- belltaco 7y ago>is pressuring said private company (among _many_ others) to abridge free speech It was a post-game interview on a Blizzard event in a Blizzard broadcast. How is that different from "a private company not wanting to host <content>" ? The player had supported HK freedom on his Twitter in the past, yet was allowed to play in the tournament. Gaming events have not been places for sharing political ideas, like social media is.
- PeterisP 7y agoI think that there would be no meaningful uproar if Blizzard would simply not host or broadcast that interview because they don't like it for whatever reason, and left it at that.
- mactrey 7y agoCloudFlare banned a site that was far, far outside the American political mainstream. Blizzard banned a player for saying something that is completely within the American political mainstream, to the point that supporting Hong Kong is a rare bipartisan stance. When you go against the mainstream American stance to curry favor with an authoritarian regime that is also a current political enemy, well, that's kind of kicking the hornet's nest.
- magashna 7y ago> Blizzard banned a player for saying something that is completely within the American political mainstream Apparently not, considering how many US companies have decided that this is kind of talk is forbidden.
- AlohaFractal 7y agoAn important tenet of the American ideal of freedom of speech involves specifically protecting unpopular speech, allowing people to express minority viewpoints without fear of suppression by the majority. By this standard, Cloudflare's censorship of TDS is far less defensible that Blizzard's censorship of blitzchung. Saying that speech within the mainstream should be allowed and speech outside the mainstream should not be allowed is a violation of this tenet. If you support freedom of speech, you should support TDS's right to speak as strongly as blitzchung's.
- ican1 7y ago"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" - Evelyn Beatrice Hall, often misattributed to Voltaire.[1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evelyn_Beatrice_Hall https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evelyn_Beatrice_Hall
- ican1 7y agoFree speech only for political mainstream is political mainstream speech, not free speech. E.g. completely open borders and unrestricted immigration is surely outside the American political mainstream, is it okay to ban any discussion of it?
- jknoepfler 7y agoedit: I'm being downvote bombed for this, which is strange. Anyone care to articulate reasons for disagreeing? Would it be correct to boycott CloudFlare for deplatforming the Daily Stormer? No, because there's nothing wrong with deplatforming Nazis, there was nothing morally reprehensible in Cloudflare's actions. Would it be correct to boycott Blizzard for severely over-reacting to a pro Hong Kong political act on one of their streams? Yes, because apologizing to a monstrous, despotic regime by throwing tournament players and casters under the bus for supporting Hong Kong is morally atrocious. (As Brian Kibler and other professional casters have pointed out, some generic slap-on-the-wrist would probably have been appropriate, in line with what they would have done if someone took their victory speech to talk about impeaching/not impeaching Donald Trump or something). This has nothing to do with free speech. I don't care about Blitzcheung or the casters' individual right to political speech on a Blizzard Twitch stream (it doesn't exist). I care about Blizzard's actions, and what they say about the willingness of the company to harm others to protect business interests in a despotic regime during a very important moment in global history. I'm kind of confused about why you're confused, honestly. It's not very difficult to parse out very obvious essential differences between the two scenarios.
- omegaworks 7y agoIt is the business of extremist groups to craft the illusion of difficulty parsing between the two scenarios. The modern neo-nazi movement subverts mechanisms for questioning and checking power, even going as far as subverting the brand power of "free speech" to mean their speech and only their speech, in order to accumulate power around themselves and their interests. It is tragic that we can't have conversations about imperial powers suppressing independence movements without connoting that those principles protect speech suppressing and threatening minority groups.
- falcolas 7y agoI downvoted, since the two incidents are fundamentally about free speech (I have a post attached to a sibling that explains why I think this applies to private companies too). That one form of speech is detested while the other is supported doesn't change that it's fundamentally about free speech. To be slightly hyperbolic, it's impossible to say something of substance that doesn't offend someone. If all we're allowed to say is that which doesn't offend anyone, then nothing of substance can be said.
- flippinburgers 7y agoThe only difference is that one type is a type of free speech that people tend to agree with.
- wesammikhail 7y agoFree speech isn´t really free speech unless it is granted to dissenting voices. The majority (or acceptable range of discourse) does not need protection by definition. That´s why free speech exists to begin with.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- flukus 7y agoFor a start it's time we created a universal service obligation for online companies that create a high bar for deplatforming or service refusal. This is fairly simple and not particularly radical, through anti-discrimination laws we already force companies to do business with individuals regardless of whether they want to, it just makes it universal.
- falcolas 7y agoI happen to agree with you: There is literally no space on the internet that is public. There are only private spaces on the internet. And the internet is pivotal to modern communication. It's very, very hard to craft a statement that has any meaning that offends nobody. I believe that the ability to have free speech is important to the US; important enough to be codified into law. As such I believe that companies who provide communication platforms, that are based on the morals of the US (or more practically who use US resources while conducting their business), should honor free speech. If they don't - if they only honor convenient speech - genuine and open public discourse will disappear.
- zucker42 7y agoIt's significantly different because in one case the corporations made the decisions without government influence and in the other they made the decision because of government influence.
- Latty 7y agoThe difference between neo-nazis and democratic protest? The difference is content. I hate the tendency to fall back to arguments about free speech when that is not the point. Yes, of course everyone should be able to express views individually, but that doesn't mean I don't care about the content of what is being said. That doesn't mean everyone is entitled to the ability to ram that message down everyone's throat through every possible route. Yeah, companies have a right to self-censor, and consumers have a right to punish them for that. Hell yes I support CloudFlare kicking off neo-nazis, hell no I don't support Blizzard silencing HK protestors. No hypocrisy because what is being said matters.
- mrShekelstein 7y ago>what is being said matters how absolutely braindead
- saagarjha 7y ago> I hate the tendency to fall back to arguments about free speech when that is not the point. What you're saying isn't free speech at all; it's supporting the right to express speech you agree with and being ok with views you don't being taken down. In particular, free speech isn't "the point" to you.
- Latty 7y agoFree speech is about not being arrested for expression. You are talking about companies being compelled to repeat speech, and that begs a lot of questions: what speech, by whom, how much relative time and visibility are different bits of speech given?
- flukus 7y agoFree speech is an ideal, the constitutional protection is only an implementation and in the modern world arguably not the most important one. As for compelling companies to do business with people they don't want to, we crossed that line long ago, they can't refuse service to people on the ground of race, sex, etc. Are you in favor of getting rid of anti-discrimination laws?
- empath75 7y agoIt never fails that someone will come into one of these threads crying crocodile tears for nazis. People are free to associate and do business with whoever they want to and that is all part of the marketplace of ideas. Blizzard is choosing to get into bed with the Chinese government and cloudfare chose to get out of business with nazis and their customers get to decide how to react that. Right now it seems to be going poorly for blizzard and well for cloudflare.
- alasdair_ 7y agoKarl Popper explained in detail why it’s perfectly rational to praise tolerance and still be intolerant of intolerance. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance “if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.”
- yesco 7y ago> Popper took pains to make clear that he did not mean the expression of intolerant words and ideas, but in fact the opposite: They who must not be tolerated are those who wish to silence discussion and debate
- alasdair_ 7y agoRight. Killing “the jews” silences discussion and debate. I’d definitely advocate reading Popper’s own words instead of the potentially ambiguous wikipedia summary.
- ican1 7y agoKarl Popper was talking about intolerance as in a group who resort to violent actions against another group (e.g. killing people for making cartoons). Merely expressing an opinion is never intolerance. Karl Popper, a lifelong supporter of free speech, must be turning over in his grave to know that his opinions are now being used to stifle speech. Also who gets to define who is intolerant? Chinese government will surely say that the Hong Kong protesters are intolerant. Does it make it okay to censor them?
- alasdair_ 7y ago“In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant.” I completely agree that opposing views that can be argued against rationally should always be allowed. But we were talking about literal nazis who advocate (and act upon) VIOLENT intolerance.
- FooHentai 7y ago>highlighted what seems to be hypocrisy in the general public's reaction to this. I don't think there's a hypocrisy here. Private company removes someone from their platform because of a position they've taken that the company disagrees with, and members of the public react in line with their own values. In the example of Cloudflare & TDS, members of the public that disagree with TDS generally support Cloudflare. Those that support TDS or take a stricter view of the private sector's duty to facilitate free speech criticize Cloudflare. In the example of Blizzard & BC, members of the public that disagree with BC generally support Blizzard. Those that support BC or take a stricter view of the private sector's duty to facilitate free speech criticize Blizzard. The difference is the portion of the public agreeing or disagreeing in each case. Which is not hypocracy because TDS and BC do not espouse the same views.