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I really don't get that logic. Of course, everyone agrees that hate speech is bad (and so are a lot of things, but I digress). But how is it not censorship when

by valvar 6y ago

I really don't get that logic. Of course, everyone agrees that hate speech is bad (and so are a lot of things, but I digress). But how is it not censorship when one of the world's most powerful companies does it? Do they get a free pass because they are governed by shareholders and make a lot of money? I can see how it's not censorship if Bob does not want people to post things he disagrees with on his cat picture forum with 200 users. When a few massive companies effectively control the possibility of reaching 95ish% of the audience on the Internet, it's censorship in the very worst sense of the word, and I don't see how it's possible to support it without being an unequivocal opponent of free speech.

orclev 6y ago
It's a question of what is meant by the term censorship. In the strictest sense, moderation and censorship are very often the same thing. If for instance, I post something terrible in a comment on here, and the administration of HN deletes that comment, then that's censorship. However, when most people talk about censorship they're using it not in the strict sense, but rather as a shorthand for someone violating their first amendment right. In this case this is really only a crime when it's a government entity doing it, although people don't typically differentiate between the government and any large organization, which technically are legally allowed to censor you on their platform or property. There's a larger discussion that needs to happen with regards to censorship. There are two extremes at play here, on the one hand there's the absolute freedom stance of literally nothing censored (only example I can think of for this is maybe the dark web, but really everyone censors if only a little), even shouting fire in a crowded theater or posting child pornography. On the other extreme is the absolute censorship of someplace like China, where only permitted thoughts and expressions can be posted. The US and most of the rest of the world tends to fall somewhere in the middle. The big struggle right now is that everyone has recognized that there's clearly some kind of problem. We're seeing unprecedented levels of misinformation, and a frankly weaponization of social media both for profit, and for international politics. I don't know that anyone has a good solution for how to address that problem, but the pendulum seems to be swinging towards a more censorship focused response.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- knolax 6y ago
  > other extreme is the absolute censorship of someplace like China, where only permitted thoughts and expressions can be posted. The US and most of the rest of the world tends to fall somewhere in the middle. It's like other countries only exist as rhetorical devices for most of HN. If you actually used the fediverse you'll see that there are plenty of Chinese users on it criticizing the state. It's the Western fediverse users being censored for wrongthink this time. Even the creator of Mastodon straight up doesn't believe in free speech wrt. to certain far right beliefs.
djsumdog 6y ago
> everyone agrees that hate speech is bad but does everyone agree on what hate speech is? That's the danger. You can just claim any opinion you don't like is hate speech. You can say endorsing a particular candidate is hate speech and those people can justifiably be censored; their views invalid (and in some places; justifiably killed). It was once considered offensive, in many places a crime, to say homosexuality is morally okay or that the Bible should be translated into German and English or to say God doesn't exist. There is no distinction between "Free speech" and "hate speech," because it requires you to qualify the former. There are exceptions in many countries, but they are for very specific things: child abuse and advocating specific violence against individuals.
- tshaddox 6y ago
  Does everyone agree on what murder is? Of course not. Does that mean murder should be legal?
  - pyronik19 6y ago
    Well a bunch of people are running around now saying speech is violence...so in the not too distant future we might be saying someone was murdered by words.
    - baddox 6y ago
      There have always been limitations on freedom of speech, including speech that incites violence. So your example, while deliberately hyperbolic (I don't think anyone would say that words literally murder people), has always been a normal thing.
      - djsumdog 6y ago
        > while deliberately hyperbolic It's not hyperbolic at all, or have you not seen the "Silence is Violence" rhetoric everywhere? It could literally come from Orwell's world of "War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength" The book, The Coddling of the American Mind, does a great job of showing how the goalposts for what is and isn't violent have been moved considerably in the past few years in academic circles. Finally, violence is okay, so long as it's against the "wrong people," like the professor who was put on probation for assaulting an opposing party member with a bicycle lock, or the guy in Charlottesville who was fined $1 for assault: https://battlepenguin.com/politics/war-is-hell/#the-normalization-of-violence https://battlepenguin.com/politics/war-is-hell/#the-normaliz... > I don't think anyone would say that words literally murder people There are people who are literally saying that now.
thu2111 6y ago
everyone agrees that hate speech is bad The first amendment would like to differ! Anyway it's meaningless to believe hate speech is bad, because hate speech is an undefined term. It just means something someone somewhere would like to punish someone else for saying.
yellowbanana 6y ago
Google regardless of it's size is still private, and should be allowed to host who it wants or doesn't, same as you should be forced to host visitors you dont want. Free speech is that they shouldn't be a law by a government to punish expression of ideas or opinions. citizens or companies should be allowed to host and not host whoever they want.
- MiroF 6y ago
  > citizens or companies should be allowed to host and not host whoever they want. So should ISPs be allowed to not deliver a website (say Netflix's) content to you unless you pay extra?
  - yellowbanana 6y ago
    In my opinion yes, I wouldn't like it but it's their network, i would hope that that wouldn't be a good business decision and their competitors would not do that.
chromatin 6y ago
> Of course, everyone agrees that hate speech is bad That sounds like an unjustified premise. _Note to the casual downvoter not critically examining my argument: I am not saying that I personally do not think hate speech is bad._
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
reificator 6y ago
> Of course, everyone agrees that hate speech is bad As an extreme example: Do you really think the KKK believe hate speech is bad? Even if they do agree, do you think their definition looks anything like your own? I find it hard to believe that someone who has lived through the last four years can say with a straight face that everyone agrees hate speech is bad. One would think the last US election cycle would have gone differently if that premise were true.
baddox 6y ago
Do you consider is censorship if a huge Internet/media company removes illegal content like child pornography, explicit calls to "imminent lawless action," phishing/fraud attempts, explicit misinformation (like false claims that an election date has been moved), or content that goes against their own community guidelines (pornography, violence, etc.)? Do you consider those things censorship or opposition to free speech?
- josephcsible 6y ago
  You're mixing up two different things: sites removing illegal content because they're mandated to do so, and sites removing legal content because they choose to do so.
  - baddox 6y ago
    Not all of the examples I gave were illegal content.
    - josephcsible 6y ago
      So like I said, you're mixing them up.
      - baddox 6y ago
        No, I'm not mixing them up. I'm asking questions about them to try to understand people's viewpoints.

by valvar 6y ago

orclev 6y ago

It's a question of what is meant by the term censorship. In the strictest sense, moderation and censorship are very often the same thing. If for instance, I post something terrible in a comment on here, and the administration of HN deletes that comment, then that's censorship. However, when most people talk about censorship they're using it not in the strict sense, but rather as a shorthand for someone violating their first amendment right. In this case this is really only a crime when it's a government entity doing it, although people don't typically differentiate between the government and any large organization, which technically are legally allowed to censor you on their platform or property. There's a larger discussion that needs to happen with regards to censorship. There are two extremes at play here, on the one hand there's the absolute freedom stance of literally nothing censored (only example I can think of for this is maybe the dark web, but really everyone censors if only a little), even shouting fire in a crowded theater or posting child pornography. On the other extreme is the absolute censorship of someplace like China, where only permitted thoughts and expressions can be posted. The US and most of the rest of the world tends to fall somewhere in the middle. The big struggle right now is that everyone has recognized that there's clearly some kind of problem. We're seeing unprecedented levels of misinformation, and a frankly weaponization of social media both for profit, and for international politics. I don't know that anyone has a good solution for how to address that problem, but the pendulum seems to be swinging towards a more censorship focused response.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
knolax 6y ago
> other extreme is the absolute censorship of someplace like China, where only permitted thoughts and expressions can be posted. The US and most of the rest of the world tends to fall somewhere in the middle. It's like other countries only exist as rhetorical devices for most of HN. If you actually used the fediverse you'll see that there are plenty of Chinese users on it criticizing the state. It's the Western fediverse users being censored for wrongthink this time. Even the creator of Mastodon straight up doesn't believe in free speech wrt. to certain far right beliefs.

djsumdog 6y ago

> everyone agrees that hate speech is bad but does everyone agree on what hate speech is? That's the danger. You can just claim any opinion you don't like is hate speech. You can say endorsing a particular candidate is hate speech and those people can justifiably be censored; their views invalid (and in some places; justifiably killed). It was once considered offensive, in many places a crime, to say homosexuality is morally okay or that the Bible should be translated into German and English or to say God doesn't exist. There is no distinction between "Free speech" and "hate speech," because it requires you to qualify the former. There are exceptions in many countries, but they are for very specific things: child abuse and advocating specific violence against individuals.

tshaddox 6y ago
Does everyone agree on what murder is? Of course not. Does that mean murder should be legal?
- pyronik19 6y ago
  Well a bunch of people are running around now saying speech is violence...so in the not too distant future we might be saying someone was murdered by words.
  - baddox 6y ago
    There have always been limitations on freedom of speech, including speech that incites violence. So your example, while deliberately hyperbolic (I don't think anyone would say that words literally murder people), has always been a normal thing.
    - djsumdog 6y ago
      > while deliberately hyperbolic It's not hyperbolic at all, or have you not seen the "Silence is Violence" rhetoric everywhere? It could literally come from Orwell's world of "War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength" The book, The Coddling of the American Mind, does a great job of showing how the goalposts for what is and isn't violent have been moved considerably in the past few years in academic circles. Finally, violence is okay, so long as it's against the "wrong people," like the professor who was put on probation for assaulting an opposing party member with a bicycle lock, or the guy in Charlottesville who was fined $1 for assault: https://battlepenguin.com/politics/war-is-hell/#the-normalization-of-violence https://battlepenguin.com/politics/war-is-hell/#the-normaliz... > I don't think anyone would say that words literally murder people There are people who are literally saying that now.

thu2111 6y ago

everyone agrees that hate speech is bad The first amendment would like to differ! Anyway it's meaningless to believe hate speech is bad, because hate speech is an undefined term. It just means something someone somewhere would like to punish someone else for saying.

yellowbanana 6y ago

Google regardless of it's size is still private, and should be allowed to host who it wants or doesn't, same as you should be forced to host visitors you dont want. Free speech is that they shouldn't be a law by a government to punish expression of ideas or opinions. citizens or companies should be allowed to host and not host whoever they want.

MiroF 6y ago
> citizens or companies should be allowed to host and not host whoever they want. So should ISPs be allowed to not deliver a website (say Netflix's) content to you unless you pay extra?
- yellowbanana 6y ago
  In my opinion yes, I wouldn't like it but it's their network, i would hope that that wouldn't be a good business decision and their competitors would not do that.

chromatin 6y ago

> Of course, everyone agrees that hate speech is bad That sounds like an unjustified premise. _Note to the casual downvoter not critically examining my argument: I am not saying that I personally do not think hate speech is bad._

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

reificator 6y ago

> Of course, everyone agrees that hate speech is bad As an extreme example: Do you really think the KKK believe hate speech is bad? Even if they do agree, do you think their definition looks anything like your own? I find it hard to believe that someone who has lived through the last four years can say with a straight face that everyone agrees hate speech is bad. One would think the last US election cycle would have gone differently if that premise were true.

baddox 6y ago

Do you consider is censorship if a huge Internet/media company removes illegal content like child pornography, explicit calls to "imminent lawless action," phishing/fraud attempts, explicit misinformation (like false claims that an election date has been moved), or content that goes against their own community guidelines (pornography, violence, etc.)? Do you consider those things censorship or opposition to free speech?

josephcsible 6y ago
You're mixing up two different things: sites removing illegal content because they're mandated to do so, and sites removing legal content because they choose to do so.
- baddox 6y ago
  Not all of the examples I gave were illegal content.
  - josephcsible 6y ago
    So like I said, you're mixing them up.
    - baddox 6y ago
      No, I'm not mixing them up. I'm asking questions about them to try to understand people's viewpoints.