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Would you also support banning hip hop albums that talk about shooting cops or other violent crime? Or glam metal albums that glorify satanism? We've been thr

Would you also support banning hip hop albums that talk about shooting cops or other violent crime? Or glam metal albums that glorify satanism? We've been through this before.

shadowgovt 6y ago
I'm not sure how satanism factors into it; let's table that. > Would you also support banning hip hop albums that talk about shooting cops or other violent crime? If we're talking no-platforming, I don't think the question is whether society bans it; I think the question is "Would you compel Wal-Mart to sell hip hop albums that talk about shooting cops or other violent crime?" And I would not. But it's a sliding scale which is, as you've noted, tied to the likelihood of the group in question seizing enough power to concretize their ideas. In the US at least, hip-hop artists aren't an organized political structure intent on overthrowing the US government. White supremacists are another story entirely. It's pretty unambiguous what "blood and soil" or "Jews will not replace us" mean. And a lot of Americans are deeply concerned with the risk that that ideology has its tentacles extremely deeply embedded in one of the two primary parties at the federal level in the US.
- free_rms 6y ago
  I was referring to this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parents_Music_Resource_Center https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parents_Music_Resource_Center The conclusion was that parental advisory stickers are cool and will help sell your album, and I'm glad we got there as a society. Incidentally, Wal-mart in particular was on the conservative side of that culture war episode, and they did in fact refuse to sell those albums while also selling entire racks of guns.
  - shadowgovt 6y ago
    > Incidentally, Wal-mart in particular was on the conservative side of that culture war episode, and they did in fact refuse to sell those albums Indeed they did. And the US government did not compel them to sell the albums, nor should they have. The albums found their audience in spite of some channels deciding it wasn't a kind of speech they would tolerate on their premises. Similarly, some of the speakers who have been no-platformed will find their audience without a university's help; that doesn't imply the universities should be compelled to help them. And some toxic moderators and editors will continue to be toxic on some other site; that doesn't imply that site must be Wikipedia.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - free_rms 6y ago
      There's an argument that certain information systems have become 'common carriers' in a way that wal-mart never was, and maybe we should regulate them differently. But I was mostly just nitpicking improper usage of the paradox of tolerance. Righteous censorship of 'bad' ideas might feel good but it's probably not a great instinct to have in the long term -- this cultural moment will pass, the meta-ideas about when it's ok to censor are longer-lasting.
      - zozbot234 6y ago
        > in a way that wal-mart never was Wal-Mart carries plenty of stuff, though. If you're going to move towards that kind of regulation for free information services, there has to be some other basis for it.
        free_rms 6y ago
        I don't know the solution, but I definitely wouldn't want my phone carrier deplatforming me for counter-revolutionary speech. There are plenty of other places to go if Wal-Mart doesn't sell a CD. Not so much in Twitter or Wikipedia's case. Some alt-right 'competitor' with 30 users isn't really a substitute.
        shadowgovt 6y ago
        I think you implied an analogy between your phone carrier and Twitter / Wikipedia that doesn't hold water. Your phone carrier is a service provider that is constrained by the FCC. Twitter is one of many broadcast sites one could go via a phone carrier. But the US, to my knowledge, has never recognized anything approximating a right to broadcast. Not even freedom of the press implies freedom to spew signal over the airwaves, for instance (because the radio spectrum is finite and shared). Freedom of the press has never implied freedom to use someone else's press, and telecommunications hardware providers aren't in the same category. If your phone carrier cuts you off, nobody on the Internet can read your signal; if Twitter cuts you off, they've merely taken their megaphone out of your hands.

Would you also support banning hip hop albums that talk about shooting cops or other violent crime? Or glam metal albums that glorify satanism? We've been through this before.

shadowgovt 6y ago

I'm not sure how satanism factors into it; let's table that. > Would you also support banning hip hop albums that talk about shooting cops or other violent crime? If we're talking no-platforming, I don't think the question is whether society bans it; I think the question is "Would you compel Wal-Mart to sell hip hop albums that talk about shooting cops or other violent crime?" And I would not. But it's a sliding scale which is, as you've noted, tied to the likelihood of the group in question seizing enough power to concretize their ideas. In the US at least, hip-hop artists aren't an organized political structure intent on overthrowing the US government. White supremacists are another story entirely. It's pretty unambiguous what "blood and soil" or "Jews will not replace us" mean. And a lot of Americans are deeply concerned with the risk that that ideology has its tentacles extremely deeply embedded in one of the two primary parties at the federal level in the US.

free_rms 6y ago
I was referring to this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parents_Music_Resource_Center https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parents_Music_Resource_Center The conclusion was that parental advisory stickers are cool and will help sell your album, and I'm glad we got there as a society. Incidentally, Wal-mart in particular was on the conservative side of that culture war episode, and they did in fact refuse to sell those albums while also selling entire racks of guns.
- shadowgovt 6y ago
  > Incidentally, Wal-mart in particular was on the conservative side of that culture war episode, and they did in fact refuse to sell those albums Indeed they did. And the US government did not compel them to sell the albums, nor should they have. The albums found their audience in spite of some channels deciding it wasn't a kind of speech they would tolerate on their premises. Similarly, some of the speakers who have been no-platformed will find their audience without a university's help; that doesn't imply the universities should be compelled to help them. And some toxic moderators and editors will continue to be toxic on some other site; that doesn't imply that site must be Wikipedia.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - free_rms 6y ago
    There's an argument that certain information systems have become 'common carriers' in a way that wal-mart never was, and maybe we should regulate them differently. But I was mostly just nitpicking improper usage of the paradox of tolerance. Righteous censorship of 'bad' ideas might feel good but it's probably not a great instinct to have in the long term -- this cultural moment will pass, the meta-ideas about when it's ok to censor are longer-lasting.
    - zozbot234 6y ago
      > in a way that wal-mart never was Wal-Mart carries plenty of stuff, though. If you're going to move towards that kind of regulation for free information services, there has to be some other basis for it.
      - free_rms 6y ago
        I don't know the solution, but I definitely wouldn't want my phone carrier deplatforming me for counter-revolutionary speech. There are plenty of other places to go if Wal-Mart doesn't sell a CD. Not so much in Twitter or Wikipedia's case. Some alt-right 'competitor' with 30 users isn't really a substitute.
        shadowgovt 6y ago
        I think you implied an analogy between your phone carrier and Twitter / Wikipedia that doesn't hold water. Your phone carrier is a service provider that is constrained by the FCC. Twitter is one of many broadcast sites one could go via a phone carrier. But the US, to my knowledge, has never recognized anything approximating a right to broadcast. Not even freedom of the press implies freedom to spew signal over the airwaves, for instance (because the radio spectrum is finite and shared). Freedom of the press has never implied freedom to use someone else's press, and telecommunications hardware providers aren't in the same category. If your phone carrier cuts you off, nobody on the Internet can read your signal; if Twitter cuts you off, they've merely taken their megaphone out of your hands.