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Society in the west seems to not know how to deal with this new variety of bullying. By cloaking their bullying in the veil of righteousness, bullies are able t

Society in the west seems to not know how to deal with this new variety of bullying. By cloaking their bullying in the veil of righteousness, bullies are able to engage in self-aggrandisement to satisfy the tyrannical need to shape the world in the image that they desire, without engaging in the civilized discourse and debate that would preclude such decision making. The justification thrown around is that the cause is righteous and therefore the ends justify the means, which is pretty much the same justification that has been used by every tyrant in the past. Standing up to them comes at a high cost, but when has it ever been easy. Perhaps the rest of society has too much to lose now.

Barrin92 6y ago
>Society in the west seems to not know how to deal with this new variety of bullying Society in the West in contrast to... what exactly? Are you under the impression non-Western societies don't shape culture based on norms and expectations about what's proper or right? How is Spotify deleting episodes from their own platform tyranny? Jesus people have become so dramatic and whiny. Here's a crazy idea, if you don't want your episodes deleted don't sell rights to your intellectual property for 100 million bucks to another party
- ziftface 6y ago
  Comments like the one you replied to honestly seem kind of silly. The "problem" you're describing is as old as time, it's not some new phenomenon the west bumped into.
  - ethbr0 6y ago
    People across the world calling you a fascist / communist, with 30 seconds of effort, to their and your 1,000 closest friends, seems like a pretty new phenomenon.
    - krapp 6y ago
      "your 1,000 closest friends?"
      - klyrs 6y ago
        Sarcasm really doesn't help online communication. I think they're referring to a phenomenon called "dogpiling" where a twitterer says something about a person they don't like, and their followers have a field day trashing the person. The phenomenon isn't new, but the magnitude is. Come to think of it, maybe just the speed and availability. Mass letter writing campaigns are totally a thing, but they require significant efforts to coordinate
        ethbr0 6y ago
        The push (vs pull) / broadcasting nature seems different to me. Previously, more interaction was personal and ephemeral. If I said something to someone on the street, maybe the 5 closest people heard me. In a small town, word would probably get around in ~2 weeks of social interactions, if it was scandalous enough. Now, on the majority of social media platforms, if you reply to me then all of my friends + all of your friends immediately see the reply. Both the broadcasting and immediacy seem relatively novel.
- hattmall 6y ago
  Removing random episodes offering no reasoning is tyrannical. It being "their platform" is a non-statement as that's the only place they can be tyrants.
  - Barrin92 6y ago
    No, it's not. It's about as tyrannical as a chef deciding what meals she serves in her own restaurant. While we're on the topic of Western civilization, people deciding what they do with their own property in their private businesses is actually the basis of Western civilization, in contrast to the apparently now mainstream take that they ought to be compelled to host something they don't want to host. A tyrant is someone who puts dissidents up against the wall and puts a bullet in their head, not a streaming platform deciding what they want to stream.
  - dlp211 6y ago
    How is it tyranny? Under the most liberal definition tyranny is: "cruel, unreasonable, or arbitrary use of power or control." It certainly is not cruel for any definition of cruel I am familiar with. It certainly isn't arbitrary, Spotify is not doing this on a whim and it isn't taking down all the episodes, it clearly is being very deliberate, though you may disagree with their process. The only one could be unreasonable, but what exactly makes this unreasonable? Again, you may disagree with their reasoning, but it is not an unreasonable position. Why don't we back off this extreme rhetoric that plagues our conversations today?
    - roenxi 6y ago
      > It certainly isn't arbitrary... [a]gain, you may disagree with their reasoning, but it is not an unreasonable position. Those are slightly incorrect interpretations of the words 'arbitrary' and 'unreasonable'. Reasonable doesn't mean 'has reasons'. Every decisions has reasons. If a king decides to chop someone's head off he had reasons - he felt like it. Being reasonable/unreasonable is about whether an opinion can be changed by evidence and argument. Almost all moderation is unreasonable, I've very rarely seen a moderator make a call and then not stick with it (being unreasonable isn't always a bad thing). Reasonableness is a judgement call on the quality of the reasons behind a decision. Similarly, arbitrary doesn't mean unpredictable. It is a judgement call on whether the reasons behind an action are reasonable. Being done on behalf of a policy doesn't make an action reasonable. It is quite an easily sustainable argument that any content moderation policy is arbitrary. Compare European vs American media norms around moderating sex - it is pretty easy to argue by comparison some of the standards floating around are arbitrary, because standards differ but both continents produce great media which involves sex.
- slg 6y ago
  > Here's a crazy idea, if you don't want your episodes deleted don't sell rights to your intellectual property for 100 million bucks to another party It is especially weird considering this was basically a foregone conclusion the moment Rogan signed with Spotify. Take a look at the HN comments when the news broke[1]. Spotify has a policy that says they won't host certain content. Rogan and his guests have a history of saying things that don't fit that content policy. It didn't take a genius to see those two things were incompatible. I'm not sure there is any convincing argument that Rogan is being mistreated for walking right into this easily predictable situation. [1] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23239304 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23239304
  - imgabe 6y ago
    > Spotify has a policy that says they won't host certain content. Rogan and his guests have a history of saying things that don't fit that content policy. Citation needed This is Spotify's content policy: https://support.spotifyforpodcasters.com/hc/en-us/articles/360047226672-Content-prohibited-on-Spotify https://support.spotifyforpodcasters.com/hc/en-us/articles/3... Assuming we're not talking about infringing or illegal content, we're left to conclude that Rogan "promotes, advocates, or incites hatred or violence against a group or individual based on characteristics, including, race, religion, gender identity, sex, ethnicity, nationality, sexual orientation, veteran status, or disability." Note, that does not mean "has an un-PC take on something", it very specifically says promotes, advocates or incites hatred or violence. Where and when has Rogan ever done that?
    - slg 6y ago
      I don't listen to Rogan. I can't speak to the specifics of what he says on his podcast. I know that he has had on multiple recurring guests that have been deplatformed elsewhere such as Alex Jones and Milo Yiannopoulos. Rogan also can't seem to go more than a few months without receiving accusations of transphobia[1]. You are also welcome to click through the link in my previous comment and see the issue discussed in depth including my thoughts on it. "Promotes hate" is an impossible to define phrase, but many people feel he is guilty of it. [1] - https://www.google.com/search?q=joe+rogan+transphobic https://www.google.com/search?q=joe+rogan+transphobic
- kryogen1c 6y ago
  > How is Spotify deleting episodes from their own platform tyranny? Jesus people have become so dramatic and whiny. to use the overlycommon parable of a frog slowly being boiled to death, you are the frog saying "jesus people, the water raised 0.5 degrees, no ones dying here" the problem is that youre focusing on one move that might be meaningless by itself, but is a part of a larger game of chess. the pieces are moving in the direction of the authoritarian left. > Society in the West in contrast to... what exactly? previous western societys. not saying the west is special, just that a lot of longterm cultures have suffered under leftist extremism (china, russia, various middle eastern countries) but its been a long time since the extreme left catastrophized in the west. we seem unable to cope.
  - barbazoo 6y ago
    Regarding boiling frog metaphor: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2006/09/the-boiled-frog-myth-stop-the-lying-now/7446/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2006/09/the-b...
- galuggus 6y ago
  A good contrast is China. China is very careful not to have another cultural Revolution. The solutions they use may be unpalatable to many westerners.
- montagg 6y ago
  Every channel owner should be forced to host any speech anyone makes. That's what free speech means. /s
- sedeki 6y ago
  That the difference in canceling between the Western vs non-Western world is only in the cultural/norms dimension, is intellectually dishonest in my humble opinion. A professor being canceled for saying e.g. that male and female brains are anatomically different, or worse, that non-binary genders is not a thing, has more to do with something else than culture/norms. That something else is an interesting subject which has actually been discussed on JRE. :)
- fareesh 6y ago
  > Society in the West in contrast to... what exactly? The brief period in time during which enlightenment values were held in higher regard. > How is Spotify deleting episodes from their own platform tyranny? The parent comment referred to staff within large tech companies. Anecdotally I hear plenty of stories about how activists have essentially bullied their way into positions of influence at some of the large tech companies, particularly to influence these types of decisions. Perhaps it is a coincidence in this case.
- JPKab 6y ago
  It's ironic that somebody who is promoting ideological censorship is calling other people whiny.
  - Barrin92 6y ago
    Yes, I support the right of any private business to engage in ideological censorship if they want to. I don't care if it's Spotify and Rogan or a Christian business censoring atheists or a homophobic cake shop not selling gay wedding cakes. They all ought to have the right to choose how they do business. If you don't like it, don't sell your rights away, and go somewhere else. That's how free societies work. Private citizen can lobby, workers can protest, customers can boycott, and everyone's free to start their own venture with their own rules, that's how you deal with it.
alkonaut 6y ago
What's the "bullying" here exactly? Removing Alex Jones episodes?
- krona 6y ago
  Presumably Spotify employees bullying their colleagues and employer with sanctimonious moralistic arguments such as harm avoidance.
JumpCrisscross 6y ago
> Society in the west seems to not know how to deal with this new variety of bullying If by new you mean new to the Roman Republic, sure. But pretty much every politician from the first kings and village elders justified what they did, good or bad, as part of the fight for righteousness.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
born_a_skeptic 6y ago
well said...

Barrin92 6y ago

>Society in the west seems to not know how to deal with this new variety of bullying Society in the West in contrast to... what exactly? Are you under the impression non-Western societies don't shape culture based on norms and expectations about what's proper or right? How is Spotify deleting episodes from their own platform tyranny? Jesus people have become so dramatic and whiny. Here's a crazy idea, if you don't want your episodes deleted don't sell rights to your intellectual property for 100 million bucks to another party

ziftface 6y ago
Comments like the one you replied to honestly seem kind of silly. The "problem" you're describing is as old as time, it's not some new phenomenon the west bumped into.
- ethbr0 6y ago
  People across the world calling you a fascist / communist, with 30 seconds of effort, to their and your 1,000 closest friends, seems like a pretty new phenomenon.
  - krapp 6y ago
    "your 1,000 closest friends?"
    - klyrs 6y ago
      Sarcasm really doesn't help online communication. I think they're referring to a phenomenon called "dogpiling" where a twitterer says something about a person they don't like, and their followers have a field day trashing the person. The phenomenon isn't new, but the magnitude is. Come to think of it, maybe just the speed and availability. Mass letter writing campaigns are totally a thing, but they require significant efforts to coordinate
      - ethbr0 6y ago
        The push (vs pull) / broadcasting nature seems different to me. Previously, more interaction was personal and ephemeral. If I said something to someone on the street, maybe the 5 closest people heard me. In a small town, word would probably get around in ~2 weeks of social interactions, if it was scandalous enough. Now, on the majority of social media platforms, if you reply to me then all of my friends + all of your friends immediately see the reply. Both the broadcasting and immediacy seem relatively novel.
hattmall 6y ago
Removing random episodes offering no reasoning is tyrannical. It being "their platform" is a non-statement as that's the only place they can be tyrants.
- Barrin92 6y ago
  No, it's not. It's about as tyrannical as a chef deciding what meals she serves in her own restaurant. While we're on the topic of Western civilization, people deciding what they do with their own property in their private businesses is actually the basis of Western civilization, in contrast to the apparently now mainstream take that they ought to be compelled to host something they don't want to host. A tyrant is someone who puts dissidents up against the wall and puts a bullet in their head, not a streaming platform deciding what they want to stream.
- dlp211 6y ago
  How is it tyranny? Under the most liberal definition tyranny is: "cruel, unreasonable, or arbitrary use of power or control." It certainly is not cruel for any definition of cruel I am familiar with. It certainly isn't arbitrary, Spotify is not doing this on a whim and it isn't taking down all the episodes, it clearly is being very deliberate, though you may disagree with their process. The only one could be unreasonable, but what exactly makes this unreasonable? Again, you may disagree with their reasoning, but it is not an unreasonable position. Why don't we back off this extreme rhetoric that plagues our conversations today?
  - roenxi 6y ago
    > It certainly isn't arbitrary... [a]gain, you may disagree with their reasoning, but it is not an unreasonable position. Those are slightly incorrect interpretations of the words 'arbitrary' and 'unreasonable'. Reasonable doesn't mean 'has reasons'. Every decisions has reasons. If a king decides to chop someone's head off he had reasons - he felt like it. Being reasonable/unreasonable is about whether an opinion can be changed by evidence and argument. Almost all moderation is unreasonable, I've very rarely seen a moderator make a call and then not stick with it (being unreasonable isn't always a bad thing). Reasonableness is a judgement call on the quality of the reasons behind a decision. Similarly, arbitrary doesn't mean unpredictable. It is a judgement call on whether the reasons behind an action are reasonable. Being done on behalf of a policy doesn't make an action reasonable. It is quite an easily sustainable argument that any content moderation policy is arbitrary. Compare European vs American media norms around moderating sex - it is pretty easy to argue by comparison some of the standards floating around are arbitrary, because standards differ but both continents produce great media which involves sex.
slg 6y ago
> Here's a crazy idea, if you don't want your episodes deleted don't sell rights to your intellectual property for 100 million bucks to another party It is especially weird considering this was basically a foregone conclusion the moment Rogan signed with Spotify. Take a look at the HN comments when the news broke[1]. Spotify has a policy that says they won't host certain content. Rogan and his guests have a history of saying things that don't fit that content policy. It didn't take a genius to see those two things were incompatible. I'm not sure there is any convincing argument that Rogan is being mistreated for walking right into this easily predictable situation. [1] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23239304 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23239304
- imgabe 6y ago
  > Spotify has a policy that says they won't host certain content. Rogan and his guests have a history of saying things that don't fit that content policy. Citation needed This is Spotify's content policy: https://support.spotifyforpodcasters.com/hc/en-us/articles/360047226672-Content-prohibited-on-Spotify https://support.spotifyforpodcasters.com/hc/en-us/articles/3... Assuming we're not talking about infringing or illegal content, we're left to conclude that Rogan "promotes, advocates, or incites hatred or violence against a group or individual based on characteristics, including, race, religion, gender identity, sex, ethnicity, nationality, sexual orientation, veteran status, or disability." Note, that does not mean "has an un-PC take on something", it very specifically says promotes, advocates or incites hatred or violence. Where and when has Rogan ever done that?
  - slg 6y ago
    I don't listen to Rogan. I can't speak to the specifics of what he says on his podcast. I know that he has had on multiple recurring guests that have been deplatformed elsewhere such as Alex Jones and Milo Yiannopoulos. Rogan also can't seem to go more than a few months without receiving accusations of transphobia[1]. You are also welcome to click through the link in my previous comment and see the issue discussed in depth including my thoughts on it. "Promotes hate" is an impossible to define phrase, but many people feel he is guilty of it. [1] - https://www.google.com/search?q=joe+rogan+transphobic https://www.google.com/search?q=joe+rogan+transphobic
kryogen1c 6y ago
> How is Spotify deleting episodes from their own platform tyranny? Jesus people have become so dramatic and whiny. to use the overlycommon parable of a frog slowly being boiled to death, you are the frog saying "jesus people, the water raised 0.5 degrees, no ones dying here" the problem is that youre focusing on one move that might be meaningless by itself, but is a part of a larger game of chess. the pieces are moving in the direction of the authoritarian left. > Society in the West in contrast to... what exactly? previous western societys. not saying the west is special, just that a lot of longterm cultures have suffered under leftist extremism (china, russia, various middle eastern countries) but its been a long time since the extreme left catastrophized in the west. we seem unable to cope.
- barbazoo 6y ago
  Regarding boiling frog metaphor: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2006/09/the-boiled-frog-myth-stop-the-lying-now/7446/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2006/09/the-b...
galuggus 6y ago
A good contrast is China. China is very careful not to have another cultural Revolution. The solutions they use may be unpalatable to many westerners.
montagg 6y ago
Every channel owner should be forced to host any speech anyone makes. That's what free speech means. /s
sedeki 6y ago
That the difference in canceling between the Western vs non-Western world is only in the cultural/norms dimension, is intellectually dishonest in my humble opinion. A professor being canceled for saying e.g. that male and female brains are anatomically different, or worse, that non-binary genders is not a thing, has more to do with something else than culture/norms. That something else is an interesting subject which has actually been discussed on JRE. :)
fareesh 6y ago
> Society in the West in contrast to... what exactly? The brief period in time during which enlightenment values were held in higher regard. > How is Spotify deleting episodes from their own platform tyranny? The parent comment referred to staff within large tech companies. Anecdotally I hear plenty of stories about how activists have essentially bullied their way into positions of influence at some of the large tech companies, particularly to influence these types of decisions. Perhaps it is a coincidence in this case.
JPKab 6y ago
It's ironic that somebody who is promoting ideological censorship is calling other people whiny.
- Barrin92 6y ago
  Yes, I support the right of any private business to engage in ideological censorship if they want to. I don't care if it's Spotify and Rogan or a Christian business censoring atheists or a homophobic cake shop not selling gay wedding cakes. They all ought to have the right to choose how they do business. If you don't like it, don't sell your rights away, and go somewhere else. That's how free societies work. Private citizen can lobby, workers can protest, customers can boycott, and everyone's free to start their own venture with their own rules, that's how you deal with it.

alkonaut 6y ago

What's the "bullying" here exactly? Removing Alex Jones episodes?

krona 6y ago
Presumably Spotify employees bullying their colleagues and employer with sanctimonious moralistic arguments such as harm avoidance.

JumpCrisscross 6y ago

> Society in the west seems to not know how to deal with this new variety of bullying If by new you mean new to the Roman Republic, sure. But pretty much every politician from the first kings and village elders justified what they did, good or bad, as part of the fight for righteousness.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

born_a_skeptic 6y ago

well said...