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Capitalism and communism don't directly invite people to murder or harass who identifies with a different race, creed, gender or political idea (or, at least, t

Capitalism and communism don't directly invite people to murder or harass who identifies with a different race, creed, gender or political idea (or, at least, they don't do so directly). The white supremacist, neo-Nazi, antisemitic and homophobic, on the other hand, does. And that's the core problem. As a tolerant society, we have the obligation to push back on the ideas that are EXPLICITLY violent and intolerant. That's where we draw the line. Everything behind that line is in the gray/white area, but we shouldn't compromise on what is beyond the line. Civilized societies are held together by tolerance and mutual respect. If we start compromising on this founding principle, and legitimize the spread of racially or ideologically motivated hate, and the harassment of people that did nothing wrong to us, then we have lost civilization.

concordDance 4y ago
Both capitalism and communism do lead to murder, this has been empirically shown. Both white supremacism and communism can lead to harassment and murder, but they won't necessarily do so. Homophobia, for example, is not always explicitly violent (e.g. saying that children should not be raised by gay guys is not an explicit call for violence). Btw: Could you be more precise in your meanings and terminology? "Hate" for example is understood in a few different ways by different people.
- blacklight 4y ago
  I'll make a more concrete example. Saying "wealth needs to be redistributed, private property shouldn't exist and the greedy rich shouldn't exist" is not something that should be censored (same goes for "all property should be private, no regulations should exist, and the State shouldn't help those with no means to help themselves"). We can agree or disagree with these statements, they may push small minority towards violence (e.g. against the rich or the "dangerous" communist), but they don't directly convey actionable hate towards somebody else. They don't invite you to slaughter the rich, or the liberal. Saying "all Jews/n*ggers are bastards who deserve to die", instead, and organizing harassment campaigns against them, and publishing content that puts everyone in the same bucket on the basis of whichever arbitrary segmentation of society that we've come up with, is something worth censoring. That's where I draw the line. If your words invite people to direct hate at someone not because of his/her actions or words, but because of their ideology, race or gender, and you even invite people to be abusive towards that person or group of people, then we are weakening the principle of mutual respect on top of which our civilization is built. And if a platform fails to moderate prejudice and invites to being abusive against other human beings, then that platform has failed in its role as a reliable mean of communication in a modern society. Intolerance and violent speech can only escalate on platforms that are tolerant against them. We've seen it with a lot of content posted on 4chan, 9chan and Parler. If people are left free to speculate on hate-fueled conspiracies, then you start with some vanilla conspiracy theories around the Jews controlling the world, and then a coulpe of weeks later you have a mass shooting in a synagogue. Or you start with a stale fantasy about Dems raping kids in a pizza shop, and next thing you know is that somebody turned up full armed into a pizzeria in Washington to slaughter the paedophile. Tolerating prejudice and abusiveness empowers those with violent tendencies who would normally be too ashamed to share their ideas publicly, amid fears of being judged by "normal" people. If a platform puts enough of these people in contact, and it closes both eyes on their dangerous content, then that platform is removing the societal inhibitory brakes that would normally prevent potential jerks and sociopaths from becoming actual jerks and criminals. And it shouldn't be a surprise if at some point one of them picks a rifle and starts putting their words into actions. The seeds of ALL of the mass shootings and terror acts that have happened in the West in the past decade can be traced back to online communities with extremist tendencies that have been left free to radicalize, until at some point somebody stopped being a troll and became a murderer.

concordDance 4y ago

Both capitalism and communism do lead to murder, this has been empirically shown. Both white supremacism and communism can lead to harassment and murder, but they won't necessarily do so. Homophobia, for example, is not always explicitly violent (e.g. saying that children should not be raised by gay guys is not an explicit call for violence). Btw: Could you be more precise in your meanings and terminology? "Hate" for example is understood in a few different ways by different people.

blacklight 4y ago
I'll make a more concrete example. Saying "wealth needs to be redistributed, private property shouldn't exist and the greedy rich shouldn't exist" is not something that should be censored (same goes for "all property should be private, no regulations should exist, and the State shouldn't help those with no means to help themselves"). We can agree or disagree with these statements, they may push small minority towards violence (e.g. against the rich or the "dangerous" communist), but they don't directly convey actionable hate towards somebody else. They don't invite you to slaughter the rich, or the liberal. Saying "all Jews/n*ggers are bastards who deserve to die", instead, and organizing harassment campaigns against them, and publishing content that puts everyone in the same bucket on the basis of whichever arbitrary segmentation of society that we've come up with, is something worth censoring. That's where I draw the line. If your words invite people to direct hate at someone not because of his/her actions or words, but because of their ideology, race or gender, and you even invite people to be abusive towards that person or group of people, then we are weakening the principle of mutual respect on top of which our civilization is built. And if a platform fails to moderate prejudice and invites to being abusive against other human beings, then that platform has failed in its role as a reliable mean of communication in a modern society. Intolerance and violent speech can only escalate on platforms that are tolerant against them. We've seen it with a lot of content posted on 4chan, 9chan and Parler. If people are left free to speculate on hate-fueled conspiracies, then you start with some vanilla conspiracy theories around the Jews controlling the world, and then a coulpe of weeks later you have a mass shooting in a synagogue. Or you start with a stale fantasy about Dems raping kids in a pizza shop, and next thing you know is that somebody turned up full armed into a pizzeria in Washington to slaughter the paedophile. Tolerating prejudice and abusiveness empowers those with violent tendencies who would normally be too ashamed to share their ideas publicly, amid fears of being judged by "normal" people. If a platform puts enough of these people in contact, and it closes both eyes on their dangerous content, then that platform is removing the societal inhibitory brakes that would normally prevent potential jerks and sociopaths from becoming actual jerks and criminals. And it shouldn't be a surprise if at some point one of them picks a rifle and starts putting their words into actions. The seeds of ALL of the mass shootings and terror acts that have happened in the West in the past decade can be traced back to online communities with extremist tendencies that have been left free to radicalize, until at some point somebody stopped being a troll and became a murderer.