11 ms·

Exactly. The court isn't saying you can't moderate out the cesspool posts. They are saying that you can't choose political sides.

guipsp 4y ago
Every decision is inherently "political"
- andrew_ 4y ago
  I often see this sentiment associated with those who wish to regulate political speech they find offensive. It's convenient if everything is political so that everything said can be regulated.
  - krapp 4y ago
    Regulating political speech for whatever reason (including offense), should be considered a legitimate exercise of moderation. It happens on Hacker News all the time - political speech is only considered on topic if and when it contains evidence of a "new or interesting phenomenon," and even then, users will mod down anything they don't like. And given the quality of most political threads here, I don't think many people here would prefer it if that were allowed to run amok. If I'm running a car forum, I should be able to ban pro-Nazi rhetoric if I want, regardless of whether I find it offensive or merely technically off topic. Not every space on the internet needs to be /pol/.
    - andrew_ 4y ago
    - MiddleEndian 4y ago
      Yeah, internet content laws are becoming increasingly conflicting. On one hand, you have places that are making it more difficult to legally moderate websites. On the other, you have legislation like SESTA and FOSTA where websites are being held legally responsible for content that others may post on the website. Section 230 was an unusually great piece of internet legislation, and it's not great to see it start to crumble with these new changes. Just let every site be its own site.
  - SamoyedFurFluff 4y ago
    I think quite literally lots of things are political. This discussion is political. Anything to talk about h1b visa is political. Immigration is political. The most offensive speech is arguably political speech, such as advocating for genocide.
    - luckylion 4y ago
      There's a bit of a gap between "everything" and "lots of things" though. I agree with you that lots of things are political, but everything?
      - bombcar 4y ago
        If you want to sell X to group Y which coincides mostly with party Z and has little overlap with the opposite party, it is worth your while to make buying X a political activity, however you can go about doing that.
      - o_1 4y ago
        I think the only thing that is clearly not political is people sharing pictures of pets. Everything else including Insta Thotts and what have you have been co-opted.
      - BlueTemplar 4y ago
        Using the widest definition, "affairs of the citizens", it's literally about everything outside of your private home. The twist though, is that since pretty much everything has consequences (including inaction), you are not safe from eventually having an outside impact even there. As the meme goes, "we live in a society". (Also why you should want to keep good relations with the other citizens...)
- Kamq 4y ago
  Perhaps in the technical definition of political, but not in the layman's definition of political. The definition of political used by the populace is almost always the narrow subset of societal/cultural fights that are actively being argued. Generally speaking these arguments are headed by politicians. There is also a space in the definition for arguments directly impact the structure/scope of the government. Although this may be separate enough that it may warrant being considered a second definition instead of an additional category within the first definition.
- Eddy_Viscosity2 4y ago
  Exactly, grey zones can happen really quickly. For example if someone says "I think Candidate X from Party Y is a total a-hole." Is that a political statement or a cesspool comment? I see legitimate arguments for either.
  - intrasight 4y ago
    And this is why the us supreme court will throw out this appellate ruling. They really don't like grey zones.
  - MichaelCollins 4y ago
    > For example if someone says "I think Candidate X from Party Y is a total a-hole." Is that a political statement or a cesspool comment? That's not even remotely gray, it's both a political statement and a "cesspool comment"; you're suggesting a false dichotomy.
- dotnet00 4y ago
  Whether or not pineapple on pizza is acceptable can technically be brought to a political argument but anyone not turned into a rage monster by current social media can tell that it isn't a political debate in the current environment.
slavak 4y ago
[flagged]
- pclmulqdq 4y ago
  You get invocations of the reductio ad Hitlerum fallacy.
  - slavak 4y ago
    Firstly, that is _not_ what reductio ad Hitlerum means. More importantly, it's not a fallacy. It's pretty well documented by now that what you get when you have a social network with very little moderation is, almost inevitably, a social network for Nazis: https://www.newsweek.com/nazis-free-speech-hate-crime-jews-social-media-gab-weev-668614 https://www.newsweek.com/nazis-free-speech-hate-crime-jews-s... https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2017/05/voat-the-alt-right-reddit-is-circling-the-drain.html https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2017/05/voat-the-alt-right-r... https://thehill.com/policy/technology/456415-founder-i-wish-i-could-uncreate-8chan-due-to-neo-nazi-users/ https://thehill.com/policy/technology/456415-founder-i-wish-... Just because people like bringing up Nazis a little too often doesn't mean every reference to Nazis is fallacious. Sometimes, it really is about [neo-]Nazis.
    - pclmulqdq 4y ago
      The exact fallacy that occurs (almost all the time) when you invoke Hitler is called poisoning the well (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_the_well https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_the_well). You are trying to make a position indefensible by associating it with an indefensible thing, without properly justifying the connection. In this case, it might also be a slippery slope fallacy. The US has had unmoderated social networks, referred to as pubs, churches, clubs, and town squares, for the last few hundred years. Nazis never gained prominence in any of those fora. It is not a given that reducing the level of moderation leads to Nazis taking over. The truth is that Nazism is such a distasteful ideology that it pretty much never takes over the discourse in places where it is allowed. Rather, Nazis end up creating small hate groups in all sorts of fora, including the heavily-moderated ones (Facebook and Twitter) where they use euphemisms. Here are a few other sources for you about Nazi communities on mainstream social networks: https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/neo-nazis-facebook-theyre-making-money-80225218 https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/neo-nazis-facebook... https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2021/07/07/we-make-mistakes-twitters-embrace-extreme-far-right https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2021/07/07/we-make-mista... About the alternate platforms you cited: I signed up for Gab in 2016 (internet drama voyeurism can be fun), and I got off in 2017. Neo-Nazis on Gab were about as prominent as neo-Nazis on Twitter: a few small neo-Nazi communities existed on both platforms. Gab had a lot of right-wing/pro-Trump users, and was also weirdly Christian, but there weren't many actual neo-Nazis. A platform for right-wingers isn't automatically a social network for Nazis. The same is true of Voat, by the way. It was started when /r/fatpeoplehate and a bunch of racist subreddits were banned, and it attracted a ton of trolls and mean people, but very few actual Nazis. AFAIK /r/nazi migrated to Voat, so there were some Nazis there, but Voat was not a "social network for Nazis" by any means. Reddit still has many Nazi subreddits with far more users than Voat's Nazi groups at their peak. I know that /pol/ on 8chan, at least, was full of Nazis and I think it was one of the biggest communities on 8chan. That was a social network for Nazis. Gab and Voat (as well as other right-wing-focused social networks like Parler) ended up being the target of journalists and left-wing activists because there weren't many people they valued on those platforms, and a lot of people they wanted to hurt. They continue to largely ignore the presence of distasteful communities on Twitter and Facebook (see Jan 6 organizing as a good example of this - it was attributed to Parler, but most of it actually happened on Facebook and Twitter) and put other fora under a microscope to try to find Nazis - particularly if the forum has an overt right-wing bias. The presence of a small community of Nazis is then used to attack and take down the entire platform. Nazis are on every platform in small, niche communities. They are surprisingly hard to ban. They don't take over platforms no matter how free their speech is. They are shitty people and their ideas are wrong, and everyone knows that.
themitigating 4y ago
Where did they say you can't choose a side? It's also possible that I moderate content, the majority is conservative, and I'm not choosing a side.

guipsp 4y ago

Every decision is inherently "political"

andrew_ 4y ago
I often see this sentiment associated with those who wish to regulate political speech they find offensive. It's convenient if everything is political so that everything said can be regulated.
- krapp 4y ago
  Regulating political speech for whatever reason (including offense), should be considered a legitimate exercise of moderation. It happens on Hacker News all the time - political speech is only considered on topic if and when it contains evidence of a "new or interesting phenomenon," and even then, users will mod down anything they don't like. And given the quality of most political threads here, I don't think many people here would prefer it if that were allowed to run amok. If I'm running a car forum, I should be able to ban pro-Nazi rhetoric if I want, regardless of whether I find it offensive or merely technically off topic. Not every space on the internet needs to be /pol/.
  - andrew_ 4y ago
  - MiddleEndian 4y ago
    Yeah, internet content laws are becoming increasingly conflicting. On one hand, you have places that are making it more difficult to legally moderate websites. On the other, you have legislation like SESTA and FOSTA where websites are being held legally responsible for content that others may post on the website. Section 230 was an unusually great piece of internet legislation, and it's not great to see it start to crumble with these new changes. Just let every site be its own site.
- SamoyedFurFluff 4y ago
  I think quite literally lots of things are political. This discussion is political. Anything to talk about h1b visa is political. Immigration is political. The most offensive speech is arguably political speech, such as advocating for genocide.
  - luckylion 4y ago
    There's a bit of a gap between "everything" and "lots of things" though. I agree with you that lots of things are political, but everything?
    - bombcar 4y ago
      If you want to sell X to group Y which coincides mostly with party Z and has little overlap with the opposite party, it is worth your while to make buying X a political activity, however you can go about doing that.
    - o_1 4y ago
      I think the only thing that is clearly not political is people sharing pictures of pets. Everything else including Insta Thotts and what have you have been co-opted.
    - BlueTemplar 4y ago
      Using the widest definition, "affairs of the citizens", it's literally about everything outside of your private home. The twist though, is that since pretty much everything has consequences (including inaction), you are not safe from eventually having an outside impact even there. As the meme goes, "we live in a society". (Also why you should want to keep good relations with the other citizens...)
Kamq 4y ago
Perhaps in the technical definition of political, but not in the layman's definition of political. The definition of political used by the populace is almost always the narrow subset of societal/cultural fights that are actively being argued. Generally speaking these arguments are headed by politicians. There is also a space in the definition for arguments directly impact the structure/scope of the government. Although this may be separate enough that it may warrant being considered a second definition instead of an additional category within the first definition.
Eddy_Viscosity2 4y ago
Exactly, grey zones can happen really quickly. For example if someone says "I think Candidate X from Party Y is a total a-hole." Is that a political statement or a cesspool comment? I see legitimate arguments for either.
- intrasight 4y ago
  And this is why the us supreme court will throw out this appellate ruling. They really don't like grey zones.
- MichaelCollins 4y ago
  > For example if someone says "I think Candidate X from Party Y is a total a-hole." Is that a political statement or a cesspool comment? That's not even remotely gray, it's both a political statement and a "cesspool comment"; you're suggesting a false dichotomy.
dotnet00 4y ago
Whether or not pineapple on pizza is acceptable can technically be brought to a political argument but anyone not turned into a rage monster by current social media can tell that it isn't a political debate in the current environment.

slavak 4y ago

[flagged]

pclmulqdq 4y ago
You get invocations of the reductio ad Hitlerum fallacy.
- slavak 4y ago
  Firstly, that is _not_ what reductio ad Hitlerum means. More importantly, it's not a fallacy. It's pretty well documented by now that what you get when you have a social network with very little moderation is, almost inevitably, a social network for Nazis: https://www.newsweek.com/nazis-free-speech-hate-crime-jews-social-media-gab-weev-668614 https://www.newsweek.com/nazis-free-speech-hate-crime-jews-s... https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2017/05/voat-the-alt-right-reddit-is-circling-the-drain.html https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2017/05/voat-the-alt-right-r... https://thehill.com/policy/technology/456415-founder-i-wish-i-could-uncreate-8chan-due-to-neo-nazi-users/ https://thehill.com/policy/technology/456415-founder-i-wish-... Just because people like bringing up Nazis a little too often doesn't mean every reference to Nazis is fallacious. Sometimes, it really is about [neo-]Nazis.
  - pclmulqdq 4y ago
    The exact fallacy that occurs (almost all the time) when you invoke Hitler is called poisoning the well (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_the_well https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_the_well). You are trying to make a position indefensible by associating it with an indefensible thing, without properly justifying the connection. In this case, it might also be a slippery slope fallacy. The US has had unmoderated social networks, referred to as pubs, churches, clubs, and town squares, for the last few hundred years. Nazis never gained prominence in any of those fora. It is not a given that reducing the level of moderation leads to Nazis taking over. The truth is that Nazism is such a distasteful ideology that it pretty much never takes over the discourse in places where it is allowed. Rather, Nazis end up creating small hate groups in all sorts of fora, including the heavily-moderated ones (Facebook and Twitter) where they use euphemisms. Here are a few other sources for you about Nazi communities on mainstream social networks: https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/neo-nazis-facebook-theyre-making-money-80225218 https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/neo-nazis-facebook... https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2021/07/07/we-make-mistakes-twitters-embrace-extreme-far-right https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2021/07/07/we-make-mista... About the alternate platforms you cited: I signed up for Gab in 2016 (internet drama voyeurism can be fun), and I got off in 2017. Neo-Nazis on Gab were about as prominent as neo-Nazis on Twitter: a few small neo-Nazi communities existed on both platforms. Gab had a lot of right-wing/pro-Trump users, and was also weirdly Christian, but there weren't many actual neo-Nazis. A platform for right-wingers isn't automatically a social network for Nazis. The same is true of Voat, by the way. It was started when /r/fatpeoplehate and a bunch of racist subreddits were banned, and it attracted a ton of trolls and mean people, but very few actual Nazis. AFAIK /r/nazi migrated to Voat, so there were some Nazis there, but Voat was not a "social network for Nazis" by any means. Reddit still has many Nazi subreddits with far more users than Voat's Nazi groups at their peak. I know that /pol/ on 8chan, at least, was full of Nazis and I think it was one of the biggest communities on 8chan. That was a social network for Nazis. Gab and Voat (as well as other right-wing-focused social networks like Parler) ended up being the target of journalists and left-wing activists because there weren't many people they valued on those platforms, and a lot of people they wanted to hurt. They continue to largely ignore the presence of distasteful communities on Twitter and Facebook (see Jan 6 organizing as a good example of this - it was attributed to Parler, but most of it actually happened on Facebook and Twitter) and put other fora under a microscope to try to find Nazis - particularly if the forum has an overt right-wing bias. The presence of a small community of Nazis is then used to attack and take down the entire platform. Nazis are on every platform in small, niche communities. They are surprisingly hard to ban. They don't take over platforms no matter how free their speech is. They are shitty people and their ideas are wrong, and everyone knows that.

themitigating 4y ago

Where did they say you can't choose a side? It's also possible that I moderate content, the majority is conservative, and I'm not choosing a side.