7 ms·

If content is posted onto a site that is obviously hateful, the site has the choice to keep it up or take it down. The outcome of that choice is a political act

If content is posted onto a site that is obviously hateful, the site has the choice to keep it up or take it down. The outcome of that choice is a political act (to not act is to act). The severity of the hate speech might matter, but ultimately regardless of which path they take, they've taken a path. In your whiteboard analogy, if you were giving an interview to a candidate and walked into a meeting room that had a swastika on a whiteboard and opted not to erase it, as a candidate I would assume that was an endorsement. Not taking a side is taking the side of whoever is being most aggressive. "I don't want to get involved" is getting involved.

dmingod666 6y ago
Someday people will realize that there is something called laws and law enforcement.. till that day tech companies can keep playing that part..
- bird_monster 6y ago
  What do laws have to do with this?
manfredo 6y ago
Not getting involved is not getting involved. You might take this as an indirect endorsement of content. But by that logic, a site with no moderation simultaneously liberal, conservative, and centrist because all are allowed. I guess you can say that it's political, but because it allows all content it's political nature is all-encompassing. Calling a completely apolitical stance political is sort of like calling Atheism a religion. It's arguably correct but it's really the absence of religion. Also, I think your whiteboard with a swatstika analogy demonstrates the shortsightedness of this sort of "inaction is endorsement" line of thinking. What about a candidate who's family was personally affected by the Holocaust and is so mortified to see the swatstika that they are too uncomfortable to even do anything about it? What about a South Asian candidate for whom the symbol doesn't elicit a reaction because of it's prevalence in South Asian culture? Or what about a candidate who thinks, "the people at this company definitely aren't Nazis, clearly this was part of diagram or something."
- bird_monster 6y ago
  > Not getting involved is not getting involved. No. > But by that logic, a site with no moderation simultaneously liberal, conservative, and centrist because all are allowed. We aren't (and haven't been) talking about political ideals, but hate speech. A website that doesn't take action on hate speech is allowing and condoning hate speech. > Calling a completely apolitical stance political is sort of like calling Atheism a religion. It's arguably correct but it's really the absence of religion. We're not talking about apolitical stances like "I like chocolate." We're talking about hate speech, which is implicitly political. > Also, I think your whiteboard with a swatstika analogy demonstrates the shortsightedness of this sort of "inaction is endorsement" line of thinking. What about a candidate who's family was personally affected by the Holocaust and is so mortified to see the swatstika that they are too uncomfortable to even do anything about it? Isn't this just even more evidence to suggest that an employee not taking action is an action itself? What-aboutism is great, but it doesn't really matter in this context, right? "What about a candidate who's blind" etc etc. I defined a hypothetical scenario to prove a point in response to the above hypothetical scenario.
  - manfredo 6y ago
    Reducing the scope to content you categorize as "hate speech" doesn't change the problems with trying to claim that refusal to remove content condoning that content. Say group X posts content proclaiming superiority over group Y. And group Y also posts content proclaiming superiority over group X. Say website does not take action on either instance of hate speech. It would follow that the website is condoning two contradictory views. The reality is that hosting content is not condoning it. An approach of "we're treating this like a whiteboard, we are not going to be involved in taking action against particular content" isn't an endorsement of anything. Whatever objectionable content someone might post, another person could post the complete opposite. Not getting involved is exactly that: not getting involved. Ultimately, this claim that refusal to take action against hate speech is the same "inaction with respect to _____ is condoning ______" rhetoric that's been trotted out time and time again. At best, it's a misguided effort to inspire opposition to harmful views.

dmingod666 6y ago

Someday people will realize that there is something called laws and law enforcement.. till that day tech companies can keep playing that part..

bird_monster 6y ago
What do laws have to do with this?

manfredo 6y ago

Not getting involved is not getting involved. You might take this as an indirect endorsement of content. But by that logic, a site with no moderation simultaneously liberal, conservative, and centrist because all are allowed. I guess you can say that it's political, but because it allows all content it's political nature is all-encompassing. Calling a completely apolitical stance political is sort of like calling Atheism a religion. It's arguably correct but it's really the absence of religion. Also, I think your whiteboard with a swatstika analogy demonstrates the shortsightedness of this sort of "inaction is endorsement" line of thinking. What about a candidate who's family was personally affected by the Holocaust and is so mortified to see the swatstika that they are too uncomfortable to even do anything about it? What about a South Asian candidate for whom the symbol doesn't elicit a reaction because of it's prevalence in South Asian culture? Or what about a candidate who thinks, "the people at this company definitely aren't Nazis, clearly this was part of diagram or something."

bird_monster 6y ago
> Not getting involved is not getting involved. No. > But by that logic, a site with no moderation simultaneously liberal, conservative, and centrist because all are allowed. We aren't (and haven't been) talking about political ideals, but hate speech. A website that doesn't take action on hate speech is allowing and condoning hate speech. > Calling a completely apolitical stance political is sort of like calling Atheism a religion. It's arguably correct but it's really the absence of religion. We're not talking about apolitical stances like "I like chocolate." We're talking about hate speech, which is implicitly political. > Also, I think your whiteboard with a swatstika analogy demonstrates the shortsightedness of this sort of "inaction is endorsement" line of thinking. What about a candidate who's family was personally affected by the Holocaust and is so mortified to see the swatstika that they are too uncomfortable to even do anything about it? Isn't this just even more evidence to suggest that an employee not taking action is an action itself? What-aboutism is great, but it doesn't really matter in this context, right? "What about a candidate who's blind" etc etc. I defined a hypothetical scenario to prove a point in response to the above hypothetical scenario.
- manfredo 6y ago
  Reducing the scope to content you categorize as "hate speech" doesn't change the problems with trying to claim that refusal to remove content condoning that content. Say group X posts content proclaiming superiority over group Y. And group Y also posts content proclaiming superiority over group X. Say website does not take action on either instance of hate speech. It would follow that the website is condoning two contradictory views. The reality is that hosting content is not condoning it. An approach of "we're treating this like a whiteboard, we are not going to be involved in taking action against particular content" isn't an endorsement of anything. Whatever objectionable content someone might post, another person could post the complete opposite. Not getting involved is exactly that: not getting involved. Ultimately, this claim that refusal to take action against hate speech is the same "inaction with respect to _____ is condoning ______" rhetoric that's been trotted out time and time again. At best, it's a misguided effort to inspire opposition to harmful views.