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I'm not sure at what level the tolerance would end: if there's a group on the Internet which occasionally launches or encourages random acts of violence such as

I'm not sure at what level the tolerance would end: if there's a group on the Internet which occasionally launches or encourages random acts of violence such as beating up LGBTQ people or a bombing or truck attack, does it deserve to be left in peace? Should only the people who commit the real-world violence be suppressed, and site itself left alone to prepare the next attack? Or does a group need to rise to the level of outright rebellion, like ISIS creating its own state in the Middle East, before it needs to be shut down?

samatman 7y ago
I'm not a big believer in collective guilt. If someone hangs out and shitposts on a marginal forum, what is the responsibility of the other people on that forum for their criminal actions? If they're co-conspirators, that's one thing, but making shitty memes and shooting up a synagogue are very different things. I've noticed that every single one of the recent mass murderers from the white supremacist camp has a Facebook account, but no one seems to want to shut down Facebook, just 8chan or whatever. You mentioned truck attacks; someone recently drove a van through a tent full of people canvassing for Trump in Florida. Do we deplatform wherever he was hanging out online, or is it just the combination of "did a terrible thing" and "has opinions that we don't like" that justifies censorship? I don't know what the line is, exactly, only that a lot of people are really eager to draw it way before the point I'm prepared to.
- claudiawerner 7y ago
  >You mentioned truck attacks; someone recently drove a van through a tent full of people canvassing for Trump in Florida. Do we deplatform wherever he was hanging out online, or is it just the combination of "did a terrible thing" and "has opinions that we don't like" that justifies censorship? This would make the paradox of tolerance laughably restricted - it would require that we think only on the level of individual action, and that there would need to be nothing short of completely unanimous support for an action. This misses out on the idea of stochastic terrorism. From another angle, let's say there were a society of Nazis in the real world. Most, but not all of the group argue that the Jews should be murdered. One of the group murders a Jew. By your metric, we would only be allowed to revoke tolerance of the group if every member murders a Jew. Isn't that a very high price to pay? Would we only be justified in revoking tolerance from a child porn forum if every member has abused a child?

samatman 7y ago

I'm not a big believer in collective guilt. If someone hangs out and shitposts on a marginal forum, what is the responsibility of the other people on that forum for their criminal actions? If they're co-conspirators, that's one thing, but making shitty memes and shooting up a synagogue are very different things. I've noticed that every single one of the recent mass murderers from the white supremacist camp has a Facebook account, but no one seems to want to shut down Facebook, just 8chan or whatever. You mentioned truck attacks; someone recently drove a van through a tent full of people canvassing for Trump in Florida. Do we deplatform wherever he was hanging out online, or is it just the combination of "did a terrible thing" and "has opinions that we don't like" that justifies censorship? I don't know what the line is, exactly, only that a lot of people are really eager to draw it way before the point I'm prepared to.

claudiawerner 7y ago
>You mentioned truck attacks; someone recently drove a van through a tent full of people canvassing for Trump in Florida. Do we deplatform wherever he was hanging out online, or is it just the combination of "did a terrible thing" and "has opinions that we don't like" that justifies censorship? This would make the paradox of tolerance laughably restricted - it would require that we think only on the level of individual action, and that there would need to be nothing short of completely unanimous support for an action. This misses out on the idea of stochastic terrorism. From another angle, let's say there were a society of Nazis in the real world. Most, but not all of the group argue that the Jews should be murdered. One of the group murders a Jew. By your metric, we would only be allowed to revoke tolerance of the group if every member murders a Jew. Isn't that a very high price to pay? Would we only be justified in revoking tolerance from a child porn forum if every member has abused a child?