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> And Cloudflare are nearly as well behaved as they could possibly be. This is not true. There has been at least two high profile cases where Cloudflare droppe

> And Cloudflare are nearly as well behaved as they could possibly be. This is not true. There has been at least two high profile cases where Cloudflare dropped their commitment to free speech when under no real legal pressure(kiwifarms and stormfromt). Maybe you think they did the right thing, but it's clear that they are not a neutral party.

ratsmack 3y ago
They also dropped the Daily Stormer from what I remember.
- zeroCalories 3y ago
  You're right, I mixed the two sites up.
TylerE 3y ago
[flagged]
- jimbob45 3y ago
  [flagged]
- autoexec 3y ago
  And that's where problems arise. Most of us are comfortable oppressing people we disagree with. The reality is that you can't silence voices you don't like without making yourself vulnerable to the same treatment. We either value the freedom to express ourselves within the limits of the law or we don't. As soon as there are more people who think like you do, none of us are safe and it just becomes a system that silences whatever and whoever is unpopular enough.
  - TylerE 3y ago
    This isn't "people I disagree with". Stromfront, and the groups it enables, are literal nazis. "Stormfront began in 1990 as an online bulletin board supporting white nationalist David Duke's campaign for United States senator for Louisiana. The name "Stormfront" was chosen for its connotations of a political or military front (such as the German Nazi Sturmabteilung (also known as storm troopers or SA)) and an analogy with weather fronts that invokes the idea of a tumultuous storm ending in cleansing.[11] The Stormfront website has been registered at Network Solutions since 1995 and was founded in 1996 by Don Black, a former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1970s and a member of the National Socialist White People's Party." National Socialist White People = The American Nazi Party. That is literal. They changed from the NSWPP to the American Nazi Party in 1983. Their logo has a swastika on it. LITERAL NAZIS.
    - twoodfin 3y ago
      Nobody argues with this. But LITERAL NAZIS have free speech rights in the USA same as anyone else. Once upon a time the ACLU defended a similar group’s right to march loudly through Skokie, Illinois: https://www.aclu.org/documents/aclu-history-taking-stand-free-speech-skokie https://www.aclu.org/documents/aclu-history-taking-stand-fre... If Cloudflare or anyone else wants to have a different standard, that’s their right, too. But the First Amendment line is neon bright, which is a nice feature.
      - TylerE 3y ago
        The Constitution binds the government and the government ONLY.
        twoodfin 3y ago
        What did you think I meant by If Cloudflare or anyone else wants to have a different standard, that’s their right, too. But the First Amendment line is neon bright, which is a nice feature. ?
        TylerE 3y ago
        Because the 1st is completely irrelevant to this discussion.
        nxm 3y ago
        What if the government reaches out to social media company and asks them to police speech that they don’t like, as was the case during Covid/Hunter Biden Laptop?
        Cthulhu_ 3y ago
        And yet it still happened, to the point where thousands died a preventable death. "hunter biden laptop" was always a distraction tactic, just like "but hillary's emails". It was an attempt to muddy the waters and obscure the republican's long list of shit they got up to. Thankfully, we've gone from "fuck around" to the "find out" age now. If Biden did a thing then the legal system will take care of it. That is all.
  - wredue 3y ago
    I strongly disagree with people who seek to suppress freedom of speech. This is not the hypocrisy that you’re painting it as. I question the motives of anyone sympathizing with Nazis as “just a different opinion” Suppressing nazism is not “suppressing freedom of speech”. It is suppressing people who seek to suppress.
    - bllguo 3y ago
      if you claim to support unrestricted free speech then of course this is hypocrisy. how could you possibly argue otherwise? "seeking to suppress" is still a form of speech. you cannot have your cake and eat it too. if you don't support unrestricted free speech that's fine, but don't pretend you do. i personally don't either.
      - wredue 3y ago
        people who optionally break the social contract by pushing hate and genocide as an agenda cannot be protected by the social contract. They are the ones who are breaking it. Not me. Therefore, they are the ones who are removing themselves from the protections of freedom of speech.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - hattmall 3y ago
      [flagged]
      - wredue 3y ago
        Freedom is speech protects people from retaliation by the government. It is not and was never meant to protect the infringing upon other people’s right to a good life. Do you have any more alt-right copy pasta bullshit to spread?
        yesco 3y ago
        I think people who consider Freedom of Speech, the principle, to be exclusively a government thing, are stupider than people who think the right to Free Speech applies to everything. Wonder why this misaligned perspective seems so popular with pseudo-intellectuals these days.
  - afavour 3y ago
    > Most of us are comfortable oppressing people we disagree with. The reality is that you can't silence voices you don't like without making yourself vulnerable to the same treatment. I’m deeply ambivalent about a site like Cloudflare censoring anything but the logic here… absolutely not. You can classify speech. It’s not terribly difficult to classify when something is an outright call for racial warfare. If I were a person calling for a ban to such speech my own speech wouldn’t automatically be subject to the same criteria.
    - autoexec 3y ago
      > You can classify speech. It’s not terribly difficult to classify when something is an outright call for racial warfare. We already have laws against speech that incites violence and you might be surprised how contested the lines themselves are. There are a lot of people these days who outright state that speech itself == violence and should carry the same consequences. I'm not a free speech absolutist. When pressed, I don't think very many people are. I just think we need to be extremely careful when it comes to expanding those boundaries and that we're better off to err on the side of freedom because of the importance of what we stand to lose.
      - Spivak 3y ago
        > speech itself == violence What's the argument against? Folks have been driven to suicide by targeted harassment and doxxing labeled "speech." The whole reason we have laws about public accommodation is because in a society you can drive someone to ruin by everyone collectively refusing to do business with them which was (and still is for the gays) backed by 1A. The threat of violence is violence, speech that is an implicit threat of violence is violence. Speech that makes people feel unsafe due that implicit threat is violence (say a neighborhood where every house had a flag with a black man hung by a noose). Verbal abuse is still abuse. Everyone who's ever been to school knows that bullying doesn't actually require anyone lay a hand on you to make you live in constant fear and that dynamic doesn't just go away when you become an adult. Sure, we could coin a term like "diet violence" to mean actions that cause in people the behave as if they were under the threat of violence but which doesn't cause bodily harm but what would be the point? Legally it makes sense to do that to discourage escalation but to the victim the only difference is usually but not always the severity. I'm sympathetic to folks when their messaging or iconography becomes recognized as an implicit threat of violence due to it being co-opted by others when they didn't mean it that way but if a bunch of people started flying communist flags and lynching people I would take mine down even if I was just really pro-workers rights. To me speech is about the content, the ideas, not any particular expression. In opposite world where "we're here we're queer" was a line that caused people to hide in their homes in fear I would be like yeah that's violence if I used that phrase in a speech. I can't separate cause and effect. I can still express my totally fine idea that queer folks do and will always exist, just using different words.
  - causality0 3y ago
    If you don't believe in freedom of speech for people you hate you don't believe in it at all. The refusal to use force to stop opinions the majority doesn't like is the only thing that makes any progress possible. Being able to say things other people want to stop you from saying is the defining characteristic of free speech.
    - shadowgovt 3y ago
      You're right; I don't believe in it as a categorical virtue. I believe in it as an extremely useful feature of a system of government as a check against the failure mode of the leadership becoming so disconnected from the public that they fall to corruption. In short, "It's not okay for the government to turn the public square into an echo chamber." Private people, groups, companies though? Not only may they curtail speech more or less arbitrarily in places they own, I believe quite firmly that they may respond to the exercise of freedom of speech by exercising their freedom of association and refraining from further commerce with the speaker because of the information the speaker has revealed. And with very few, narrow, specific cut-outs, American law agrees with that premise.
      - causality0 3y ago
        Oh certainly, I agree with you fully, at least unless and until we manage to get service providers classified as common carriers.
      - autoexec 3y ago
        > I believe quite firmly that they may respond to the exercise of freedom of speech by exercising their freedom of association and refraining from further commerce with the speaker because of the information the speaker has revealed. "freedom of association" is what a lot of people who owned diners felt enabled them to deny services to black people. Maybe you still feel that they should have been able to refuse service to anyone for any reason including skin color. We collectively decided that society works a lot better when we infringed on the rights of diner owners in order to protect the rights of everyone who wanted a seat at the lunch counter. There's an argument to be made that in exchange for the privilege of corporate personhood, any company offering services to the general public should be required to serve any member of that public no matter what their beliefs. I'm not yet convinced that's an ideal situation personally, but situations like this make me more sympathetic to the idea. I'd rather see our government take steps to make sure that no company is allowed to be in a position to oppress the American people leaving them without recourse. I'd sooner see companies with monopoly power broken up or pathways cleared to bring in meaningful competition. That should help protect the American people from oppression by non-governmental agencies while preserving the rights of companies to discriminate according to ideology (if that's a value we think is worth protecting).
  - andrepd 3y ago
    No, you're drawing a false equivalence. Advocating for genocide of entire ethnic groups is not "an opinion I disagree with", in fact: the crucial point is that it is an opinion that if taken up would mean the end of freedom for other people. It's the old paradox of tolerance/freedom/etc. If you would like to preserve e.g. free speech and rule of law then you must resist, by force if necessary, people who would abolish that very same free speech under whose cover they propagate the idea of dismantling it. Other than that it's fair game.
    - autoexec 3y ago
      The paradox of tolerance is about "unlimited tolerance" which already isn't a thing. We have exemptions to the first amendment for words that rise to the level of incitement of violence. The author of that paradox also states: "I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be unwise." He only recommends such an extreme action when all else has failed and we're up against "fists and pistols". I have yet to hear an argument for genocide that can't be countered by rational argument. When hate groups commit acts of violence (not just acts of speech), the US is certainly not sitting around tolerating that. We don't need to fear words. In fact, I much prefer it when racists make themselves known by their words rather than their actions.
  - gmerc 3y ago
    We learned the hard way what happens if you don’t oppress Nazis. Paradox of tolerance.
    - autoexec 3y ago
      The Paradox of tolerance doesn't mean what you think it does. It talks about "unlimited tolerance" which already doesn't exist under law or the first amendment. We have many restrictions on freedom of speech, such as incitements to violence. The author also states explicitly that his words shouldn't be used to "suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument" and that such extreme action should be reserved for situations where all else has failed and we're up against "fists or pistols" Violence, not words, is the problem. Thankfully we're not tolerating their violence.
  - _cenw 3y ago
    No, most of you seem to be comfortable ignoring when things turn into safety hazards for people who are not you. That includes Nazis for a sliding scale of people who are not part of majority culture (trying really hard to not say white men adjacent for your sensibilities). The luxury of liberal principles - facing the threat of the rise of fascism - really can only be exercised by those least affected by such a rise. I'd be really interested to hear how you think Hitler should've been handled in the 1920s and early 1930s. Could a debate parler have saved Germany's democracy?
  - seanhunter 3y ago
    This is an argument that seems reasonable but lacks important nuance and addressing it forms the center of "The Open Society and its Enemies" by Karl Popper, which I would recommend reading. Popper's argument is essentially that tolerance is essential to open society and therefore to maintain openness, society must ironically be intolerant of those who are intolerant themselves or would spread intolerance. Nazis were specifically on his mind, WW2 having just occurred, and Popper uses them as an example of people who use tolerance by others to spread intolerance and therefore reduce freedom overall. For society to defend freedom, it has to not permit that.
    - autoexec 3y ago
      Karl Popper discusses "unlimited tolerance" which literally no one is demanding. With very very few exceptions, we all accept limitations on speech. We have specific exemptions to free speech like incitements to violence for this reason. Popper also states: "I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be unwise." He only recommends such an extreme action when all else has failed and we're up against "fists and pistols". When hate groups are committing acts of violence (not just acts of speech), the US is certainly not sitting around tolerating that behavior.
  - Cthulhu_ 3y ago
    It's not the opinion I disagree with, it's the actions and policy changes that result from it, which turn into genocide. If a website has people talking politics, that's fine; if a website has doxxing and organizing lynchings, that's not fine. The problem is that one thing (opinions) can lead to the other (genocide) if not kept in check.
    - autoexec 3y ago
      Thankfully we already have laws against lynchings and genocide so there is no reason to violate the ideals of freedom of speech. If anyone is doing either of those things we can (and absolutely should) throw the book at them.
- voidpointercast 3y ago
  So censorship is okay as long as it's politically aligned with the powers that be? I'm not a nazi, but that seems dangerous...
  - TylerE 3y ago
    Neo-nazis are domestic terrorists and should be treated as such.
    - nomdep 3y ago
      According to you, not the government, or we wouldn’t have this conversation. There are people that believe the BLM movement are also domestic terrorist, see how dangerous is to try to classify every one you don’t like as such?
      - ssklash 3y ago
        People who believe they should be treated equally and people who literally believe in a master race and genocide are not equivalent, and anyone trying to make an equivalence is either intellectually dishonest, or agrees with the Nazis. "Some people think" is not an argument. Much of life is gray, this is not one of those times.
        cf141q5325 3y ago
        They dont need to be equivalent, they just need to be treated the same. What do you think will happen once "your side"/"the correct side" gets removed from power and replaced by the unguided reaction it created? Thanks to all this stupid nazi fearmongering and virtue signaling i am currently faced with a far right party possibly wining my next election as a reaction. With the government having gained unprecedented powers to quell and control dissenting opinions.
      - MallocVoidstar 3y ago
        The operator of the Daily Stormer, Andrew Anglin, is currently a fugitive. He lost a lawsuit regarding harassment he organized on the site and went into hiding instead of paying what the government ordered him to.
- sergiotapia 3y ago
  This is literally what we're discussing.
- random97531 3y ago
  i'm not scared of nazis in america. i am scared of people like you.
- richbell 3y ago
  What constitutes a "Nazi"? I remember when people were up in arms claiming that Jordan Peterson (who I do not support) a Nazi and trying to get him deplatformed; there are countless other examples of people being branded as Nazis for being unpopular and distasteful.
  - bb88 3y ago
    What constitutes a Nazi? Support for Adolf Hitler or his beliefs.
    - richbell 3y ago
      How do you reconcile witj people who define Nazi differently? Is Ron DeSantis a Nazi? Is Matt Walsh a Nazi? etc.
      - bb88 3y ago
        I don't know, do they support Adolf Hitler or his views? If they don't then they're not, right? Sure people get "labelled" as Nazi's. It happens all the time on the internet. Hence Godwin's first law of flamewars.
        richbell 3y ago
        You're ignoring my question. That's your personal definition of a Nazi, which I'd agree with; however, many people have much looser definitions.
        bb88 3y ago
        Merriam webster seems to agree with me. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Nazi https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Nazi I think maybe where you went wrong was asking what a Nazi is and expecting someone to actually answer it.
        3y ago
- Dylan16807 3y ago
  Even a literal Nazi should have access to utilities. Though I would say cloudflare isn't quite up to that level. Edit: Seeing this downvoted is disappointing. Access to utilities needs to be treated as a right. Only the courts should be able to take it away.
  - michaelmrose 3y ago
    The Germans who died in the 30s and 40s would be alive if the Nazis had been denied access to oxygen. As some of their heirs openly talk about murdering us I don't think in the long run we'll still be mutually protecting each others rights. It in fact might be kinder to deny them rights now than life later. People who openly advocate for mass violence even if vague and theoretical belong in prison.
    - Dylan16807 3y ago
      > People who openly advocate for mass violence even if vague and theoretical belong in prison. Okay, so put them in prison! But if they're not in prison they should have electricity, mail, communications. Hell, even if they are in prison they get those things.
      - chonkerz 3y ago
        You think the companies they do business with should be forced against their will to carry their hateful communications?
        Dylan16807 3y ago
        If they choose to enter a utility market, yes. They can leave the market at any time, but ISPs should not be making these choices.
    - vdqtp3 3y ago
      > if the Nazis had been denied access to oxygen >As some of their heirs openly talk about murdering us > People who openly advocate for mass violence even if vague and theoretical belong in prison. Wait.......didn't you just openly advocate for mass violence (denying them oxygen) against the philosophical heirs of Nazis, even if only in a vague and theoretical fashion?
- yanderekko 3y ago
  The line isn't drawn at "literal Nazis", because for all the criticisms one can lob at KF it is clearly not dedicated to Naziism. It platforms Nazis, for sure, but if the argument is either that a large blast radius that hits a lot of non-Nazi content is acceptable or the old "well if you platform literal Nazis you are a literal Nazi, sorry" fallacy, it's not good.
  - habinero 3y ago
    They aren't a Nazi site, sure, but it's dedicated to finding victims to torture because they think it's funny to do so. That's behavior.
    - yanderekko 3y ago
      I'd say KiwiFarms is about as "dedicated to torture" as say the tabloid industry (producers and consumers) is. Seems like a real stretch of language, really.
- Plasmoid 3y ago
  Sorry man, I just don't trust you to correctly identify a nazi.
- hhhhhhhtopaz 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - bb88 3y ago
    No. Not all speech. Speech that amounts to creating a conspiracy isn't.
    - hhhhhhhtopaz 3y ago
      [flagged]
- BirAdam 3y ago
  The problem for me is that banning them makes them think that they’re correct. For many people who take hideous ideas to heart, they do so because they believe themselves to be under attack and fighting for “their people.” In this way, they attempt to justify themselves. By banning them, the attack is made more real. Don’t get me wrong, I dislike Nazis. They believe me to be inhuman. I just believe this to be the wrong strategic move.
- pangolinpouch 3y ago
  [dead]
- at_a_remove 3y ago
  So, I love reminding people of this -- when they dropped the "literal Nazis," they kept supporting ... ISIS Murder Sites. Videos where people were executed with detcord around the neck, toddler terrorists in training shooting people, people put in cages and set on fire. Cloudflare kept those sites up but hey "Nazis." Now, if you're a reasonable human being, you would think that dumping political snuff video sites would take priority over Stormfront. It's just virtue signalling.
- zirgs 3y ago
  What if Chrome started to do this? "We detected a n-word in your comment - your Google account has been suspended." Chrome already autocompletes form fields and does spell checking. Adding something like this would be trivial. They are a private company and can choose to not do business with racists, right?
judge2020 3y ago
It’s clear that it’s only an action they take if there is enough immense pressure from everyone who’s not that site. So while Cloudflare isn’t a diamond in the rough, you could say they’re a.. topaz in the rough.
- zeroCalories 3y ago
  The more social pressure there is, the more meaningful the commitment is. Cloudflare doesn't get points for hosting sites that no cares about. They failed to uphold their promise when it mattered twice, so it's pretty much meaningless. Just use AWS for your DDoS protection at that point.
  - Nathanba 3y ago
    But Amazon dropped Gab for even flimsier reasons
    - _cenw 3y ago
      And yet they're the ISP of choice for the culture war propagandists. The Daily Wire and their german impersonator offspring NIUS both run on AWS. Turning Point USA runs on it, despite inviting a speaker to talk about the dangers of woke AWS censorship.
Cthulhu_ 3y ago
Kiwifarms is not just a site about "opinions", they organize destroying people's lives and celebrating when someone kills themselves. There's a clear moral distinction between "I believe trans women do not belong in women's bathrooms" and "Here's their address, do your thing until they are gone!".
- DharmaPolice 3y ago
  Celebrating when someone kills themselves is a matter of opinion. Doxxing is another matter.

ratsmack 3y ago

They also dropped the Daily Stormer from what I remember.

zeroCalories 3y ago
You're right, I mixed the two sites up.

TylerE 3y ago

[flagged]

jimbob45 3y ago
[flagged]
autoexec 3y ago
And that's where problems arise. Most of us are comfortable oppressing people we disagree with. The reality is that you can't silence voices you don't like without making yourself vulnerable to the same treatment. We either value the freedom to express ourselves within the limits of the law or we don't. As soon as there are more people who think like you do, none of us are safe and it just becomes a system that silences whatever and whoever is unpopular enough.
- TylerE 3y ago
  This isn't "people I disagree with". Stromfront, and the groups it enables, are literal nazis. "Stormfront began in 1990 as an online bulletin board supporting white nationalist David Duke's campaign for United States senator for Louisiana. The name "Stormfront" was chosen for its connotations of a political or military front (such as the German Nazi Sturmabteilung (also known as storm troopers or SA)) and an analogy with weather fronts that invokes the idea of a tumultuous storm ending in cleansing.[11] The Stormfront website has been registered at Network Solutions since 1995 and was founded in 1996 by Don Black, a former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1970s and a member of the National Socialist White People's Party." National Socialist White People = The American Nazi Party. That is literal. They changed from the NSWPP to the American Nazi Party in 1983. Their logo has a swastika on it. LITERAL NAZIS.
  - twoodfin 3y ago
    Nobody argues with this. But LITERAL NAZIS have free speech rights in the USA same as anyone else. Once upon a time the ACLU defended a similar group’s right to march loudly through Skokie, Illinois: https://www.aclu.org/documents/aclu-history-taking-stand-free-speech-skokie https://www.aclu.org/documents/aclu-history-taking-stand-fre... If Cloudflare or anyone else wants to have a different standard, that’s their right, too. But the First Amendment line is neon bright, which is a nice feature.
    - TylerE 3y ago
      The Constitution binds the government and the government ONLY.
      - twoodfin 3y ago
        What did you think I meant by If Cloudflare or anyone else wants to have a different standard, that’s their right, too. But the First Amendment line is neon bright, which is a nice feature. ?
        TylerE 3y ago
        Because the 1st is completely irrelevant to this discussion.
      - nxm 3y ago
        What if the government reaches out to social media company and asks them to police speech that they don’t like, as was the case during Covid/Hunter Biden Laptop?
        Cthulhu_ 3y ago
        And yet it still happened, to the point where thousands died a preventable death. "hunter biden laptop" was always a distraction tactic, just like "but hillary's emails". It was an attempt to muddy the waters and obscure the republican's long list of shit they got up to. Thankfully, we've gone from "fuck around" to the "find out" age now. If Biden did a thing then the legal system will take care of it. That is all.
- wredue 3y ago
  I strongly disagree with people who seek to suppress freedom of speech. This is not the hypocrisy that you’re painting it as. I question the motives of anyone sympathizing with Nazis as “just a different opinion” Suppressing nazism is not “suppressing freedom of speech”. It is suppressing people who seek to suppress.
  - bllguo 3y ago
    if you claim to support unrestricted free speech then of course this is hypocrisy. how could you possibly argue otherwise? "seeking to suppress" is still a form of speech. you cannot have your cake and eat it too. if you don't support unrestricted free speech that's fine, but don't pretend you do. i personally don't either.
    - wredue 3y ago
      people who optionally break the social contract by pushing hate and genocide as an agenda cannot be protected by the social contract. They are the ones who are breaking it. Not me. Therefore, they are the ones who are removing themselves from the protections of freedom of speech.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - hattmall 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - wredue 3y ago
      Freedom is speech protects people from retaliation by the government. It is not and was never meant to protect the infringing upon other people’s right to a good life. Do you have any more alt-right copy pasta bullshit to spread?
      - yesco 3y ago
        I think people who consider Freedom of Speech, the principle, to be exclusively a government thing, are stupider than people who think the right to Free Speech applies to everything. Wonder why this misaligned perspective seems so popular with pseudo-intellectuals these days.
- afavour 3y ago
  > Most of us are comfortable oppressing people we disagree with. The reality is that you can't silence voices you don't like without making yourself vulnerable to the same treatment. I’m deeply ambivalent about a site like Cloudflare censoring anything but the logic here… absolutely not. You can classify speech. It’s not terribly difficult to classify when something is an outright call for racial warfare. If I were a person calling for a ban to such speech my own speech wouldn’t automatically be subject to the same criteria.
  - autoexec 3y ago
    > You can classify speech. It’s not terribly difficult to classify when something is an outright call for racial warfare. We already have laws against speech that incites violence and you might be surprised how contested the lines themselves are. There are a lot of people these days who outright state that speech itself == violence and should carry the same consequences. I'm not a free speech absolutist. When pressed, I don't think very many people are. I just think we need to be extremely careful when it comes to expanding those boundaries and that we're better off to err on the side of freedom because of the importance of what we stand to lose.
    - Spivak 3y ago
      > speech itself == violence What's the argument against? Folks have been driven to suicide by targeted harassment and doxxing labeled "speech." The whole reason we have laws about public accommodation is because in a society you can drive someone to ruin by everyone collectively refusing to do business with them which was (and still is for the gays) backed by 1A. The threat of violence is violence, speech that is an implicit threat of violence is violence. Speech that makes people feel unsafe due that implicit threat is violence (say a neighborhood where every house had a flag with a black man hung by a noose). Verbal abuse is still abuse. Everyone who's ever been to school knows that bullying doesn't actually require anyone lay a hand on you to make you live in constant fear and that dynamic doesn't just go away when you become an adult. Sure, we could coin a term like "diet violence" to mean actions that cause in people the behave as if they were under the threat of violence but which doesn't cause bodily harm but what would be the point? Legally it makes sense to do that to discourage escalation but to the victim the only difference is usually but not always the severity. I'm sympathetic to folks when their messaging or iconography becomes recognized as an implicit threat of violence due to it being co-opted by others when they didn't mean it that way but if a bunch of people started flying communist flags and lynching people I would take mine down even if I was just really pro-workers rights. To me speech is about the content, the ideas, not any particular expression. In opposite world where "we're here we're queer" was a line that caused people to hide in their homes in fear I would be like yeah that's violence if I used that phrase in a speech. I can't separate cause and effect. I can still express my totally fine idea that queer folks do and will always exist, just using different words.
- causality0 3y ago
  If you don't believe in freedom of speech for people you hate you don't believe in it at all. The refusal to use force to stop opinions the majority doesn't like is the only thing that makes any progress possible. Being able to say things other people want to stop you from saying is the defining characteristic of free speech.
  - shadowgovt 3y ago
    You're right; I don't believe in it as a categorical virtue. I believe in it as an extremely useful feature of a system of government as a check against the failure mode of the leadership becoming so disconnected from the public that they fall to corruption. In short, "It's not okay for the government to turn the public square into an echo chamber." Private people, groups, companies though? Not only may they curtail speech more or less arbitrarily in places they own, I believe quite firmly that they may respond to the exercise of freedom of speech by exercising their freedom of association and refraining from further commerce with the speaker because of the information the speaker has revealed. And with very few, narrow, specific cut-outs, American law agrees with that premise.
    - causality0 3y ago
      Oh certainly, I agree with you fully, at least unless and until we manage to get service providers classified as common carriers.
    - autoexec 3y ago
      > I believe quite firmly that they may respond to the exercise of freedom of speech by exercising their freedom of association and refraining from further commerce with the speaker because of the information the speaker has revealed. "freedom of association" is what a lot of people who owned diners felt enabled them to deny services to black people. Maybe you still feel that they should have been able to refuse service to anyone for any reason including skin color. We collectively decided that society works a lot better when we infringed on the rights of diner owners in order to protect the rights of everyone who wanted a seat at the lunch counter. There's an argument to be made that in exchange for the privilege of corporate personhood, any company offering services to the general public should be required to serve any member of that public no matter what their beliefs. I'm not yet convinced that's an ideal situation personally, but situations like this make me more sympathetic to the idea. I'd rather see our government take steps to make sure that no company is allowed to be in a position to oppress the American people leaving them without recourse. I'd sooner see companies with monopoly power broken up or pathways cleared to bring in meaningful competition. That should help protect the American people from oppression by non-governmental agencies while preserving the rights of companies to discriminate according to ideology (if that's a value we think is worth protecting).
- andrepd 3y ago
  No, you're drawing a false equivalence. Advocating for genocide of entire ethnic groups is not "an opinion I disagree with", in fact: the crucial point is that it is an opinion that if taken up would mean the end of freedom for other people. It's the old paradox of tolerance/freedom/etc. If you would like to preserve e.g. free speech and rule of law then you must resist, by force if necessary, people who would abolish that very same free speech under whose cover they propagate the idea of dismantling it. Other than that it's fair game.
  - autoexec 3y ago
    The paradox of tolerance is about "unlimited tolerance" which already isn't a thing. We have exemptions to the first amendment for words that rise to the level of incitement of violence. The author of that paradox also states: "I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be unwise." He only recommends such an extreme action when all else has failed and we're up against "fists and pistols". I have yet to hear an argument for genocide that can't be countered by rational argument. When hate groups commit acts of violence (not just acts of speech), the US is certainly not sitting around tolerating that. We don't need to fear words. In fact, I much prefer it when racists make themselves known by their words rather than their actions.
- gmerc 3y ago
  We learned the hard way what happens if you don’t oppress Nazis. Paradox of tolerance.
  - autoexec 3y ago
    The Paradox of tolerance doesn't mean what you think it does. It talks about "unlimited tolerance" which already doesn't exist under law or the first amendment. We have many restrictions on freedom of speech, such as incitements to violence. The author also states explicitly that his words shouldn't be used to "suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument" and that such extreme action should be reserved for situations where all else has failed and we're up against "fists or pistols" Violence, not words, is the problem. Thankfully we're not tolerating their violence.
- _cenw 3y ago
  No, most of you seem to be comfortable ignoring when things turn into safety hazards for people who are not you. That includes Nazis for a sliding scale of people who are not part of majority culture (trying really hard to not say white men adjacent for your sensibilities). The luxury of liberal principles - facing the threat of the rise of fascism - really can only be exercised by those least affected by such a rise. I'd be really interested to hear how you think Hitler should've been handled in the 1920s and early 1930s. Could a debate parler have saved Germany's democracy?
- seanhunter 3y ago
  This is an argument that seems reasonable but lacks important nuance and addressing it forms the center of "The Open Society and its Enemies" by Karl Popper, which I would recommend reading. Popper's argument is essentially that tolerance is essential to open society and therefore to maintain openness, society must ironically be intolerant of those who are intolerant themselves or would spread intolerance. Nazis were specifically on his mind, WW2 having just occurred, and Popper uses them as an example of people who use tolerance by others to spread intolerance and therefore reduce freedom overall. For society to defend freedom, it has to not permit that.
  - autoexec 3y ago
    Karl Popper discusses "unlimited tolerance" which literally no one is demanding. With very very few exceptions, we all accept limitations on speech. We have specific exemptions to free speech like incitements to violence for this reason. Popper also states: "I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be unwise." He only recommends such an extreme action when all else has failed and we're up against "fists and pistols". When hate groups are committing acts of violence (not just acts of speech), the US is certainly not sitting around tolerating that behavior.
- Cthulhu_ 3y ago
  It's not the opinion I disagree with, it's the actions and policy changes that result from it, which turn into genocide. If a website has people talking politics, that's fine; if a website has doxxing and organizing lynchings, that's not fine. The problem is that one thing (opinions) can lead to the other (genocide) if not kept in check.
  - autoexec 3y ago
    Thankfully we already have laws against lynchings and genocide so there is no reason to violate the ideals of freedom of speech. If anyone is doing either of those things we can (and absolutely should) throw the book at them.
voidpointercast 3y ago
So censorship is okay as long as it's politically aligned with the powers that be? I'm not a nazi, but that seems dangerous...
- TylerE 3y ago
  Neo-nazis are domestic terrorists and should be treated as such.
  - nomdep 3y ago
    According to you, not the government, or we wouldn’t have this conversation. There are people that believe the BLM movement are also domestic terrorist, see how dangerous is to try to classify every one you don’t like as such?
    - ssklash 3y ago
      People who believe they should be treated equally and people who literally believe in a master race and genocide are not equivalent, and anyone trying to make an equivalence is either intellectually dishonest, or agrees with the Nazis. "Some people think" is not an argument. Much of life is gray, this is not one of those times.
      - cf141q5325 3y ago
        They dont need to be equivalent, they just need to be treated the same. What do you think will happen once "your side"/"the correct side" gets removed from power and replaced by the unguided reaction it created? Thanks to all this stupid nazi fearmongering and virtue signaling i am currently faced with a far right party possibly wining my next election as a reaction. With the government having gained unprecedented powers to quell and control dissenting opinions.
    - MallocVoidstar 3y ago
      The operator of the Daily Stormer, Andrew Anglin, is currently a fugitive. He lost a lawsuit regarding harassment he organized on the site and went into hiding instead of paying what the government ordered him to.
sergiotapia 3y ago
This is literally what we're discussing.
random97531 3y ago
i'm not scared of nazis in america. i am scared of people like you.
richbell 3y ago
What constitutes a "Nazi"? I remember when people were up in arms claiming that Jordan Peterson (who I do not support) a Nazi and trying to get him deplatformed; there are countless other examples of people being branded as Nazis for being unpopular and distasteful.
- bb88 3y ago
  What constitutes a Nazi? Support for Adolf Hitler or his beliefs.
  - richbell 3y ago
    How do you reconcile witj people who define Nazi differently? Is Ron DeSantis a Nazi? Is Matt Walsh a Nazi? etc.
    - bb88 3y ago
      I don't know, do they support Adolf Hitler or his views? If they don't then they're not, right? Sure people get "labelled" as Nazi's. It happens all the time on the internet. Hence Godwin's first law of flamewars.
      - richbell 3y ago
        You're ignoring my question. That's your personal definition of a Nazi, which I'd agree with; however, many people have much looser definitions.
        bb88 3y ago
        Merriam webster seems to agree with me. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Nazi https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Nazi I think maybe where you went wrong was asking what a Nazi is and expecting someone to actually answer it.
        3y ago
Dylan16807 3y ago
Even a literal Nazi should have access to utilities. Though I would say cloudflare isn't quite up to that level. Edit: Seeing this downvoted is disappointing. Access to utilities needs to be treated as a right. Only the courts should be able to take it away.
- michaelmrose 3y ago
  The Germans who died in the 30s and 40s would be alive if the Nazis had been denied access to oxygen. As some of their heirs openly talk about murdering us I don't think in the long run we'll still be mutually protecting each others rights. It in fact might be kinder to deny them rights now than life later. People who openly advocate for mass violence even if vague and theoretical belong in prison.
  - Dylan16807 3y ago
    > People who openly advocate for mass violence even if vague and theoretical belong in prison. Okay, so put them in prison! But if they're not in prison they should have electricity, mail, communications. Hell, even if they are in prison they get those things.
    - chonkerz 3y ago
      You think the companies they do business with should be forced against their will to carry their hateful communications?
      - Dylan16807 3y ago
        If they choose to enter a utility market, yes. They can leave the market at any time, but ISPs should not be making these choices.
  - vdqtp3 3y ago
    > if the Nazis had been denied access to oxygen >As some of their heirs openly talk about murdering us > People who openly advocate for mass violence even if vague and theoretical belong in prison. Wait.......didn't you just openly advocate for mass violence (denying them oxygen) against the philosophical heirs of Nazis, even if only in a vague and theoretical fashion?
yanderekko 3y ago
The line isn't drawn at "literal Nazis", because for all the criticisms one can lob at KF it is clearly not dedicated to Naziism. It platforms Nazis, for sure, but if the argument is either that a large blast radius that hits a lot of non-Nazi content is acceptable or the old "well if you platform literal Nazis you are a literal Nazi, sorry" fallacy, it's not good.
- habinero 3y ago
  They aren't a Nazi site, sure, but it's dedicated to finding victims to torture because they think it's funny to do so. That's behavior.
  - yanderekko 3y ago
    I'd say KiwiFarms is about as "dedicated to torture" as say the tabloid industry (producers and consumers) is. Seems like a real stretch of language, really.
Plasmoid 3y ago
Sorry man, I just don't trust you to correctly identify a nazi.
hhhhhhhtopaz 3y ago
[flagged]
- bb88 3y ago
  No. Not all speech. Speech that amounts to creating a conspiracy isn't.
  - hhhhhhhtopaz 3y ago
    [flagged]
BirAdam 3y ago
The problem for me is that banning them makes them think that they’re correct. For many people who take hideous ideas to heart, they do so because they believe themselves to be under attack and fighting for “their people.” In this way, they attempt to justify themselves. By banning them, the attack is made more real. Don’t get me wrong, I dislike Nazis. They believe me to be inhuman. I just believe this to be the wrong strategic move.
pangolinpouch 3y ago
[dead]
at_a_remove 3y ago
So, I love reminding people of this -- when they dropped the "literal Nazis," they kept supporting ... ISIS Murder Sites. Videos where people were executed with detcord around the neck, toddler terrorists in training shooting people, people put in cages and set on fire. Cloudflare kept those sites up but hey "Nazis." Now, if you're a reasonable human being, you would think that dumping political snuff video sites would take priority over Stormfront. It's just virtue signalling.
zirgs 3y ago
What if Chrome started to do this? "We detected a n-word in your comment - your Google account has been suspended." Chrome already autocompletes form fields and does spell checking. Adding something like this would be trivial. They are a private company and can choose to not do business with racists, right?

judge2020 3y ago

It’s clear that it’s only an action they take if there is enough immense pressure from everyone who’s not that site. So while Cloudflare isn’t a diamond in the rough, you could say they’re a.. topaz in the rough.

zeroCalories 3y ago
The more social pressure there is, the more meaningful the commitment is. Cloudflare doesn't get points for hosting sites that no cares about. They failed to uphold their promise when it mattered twice, so it's pretty much meaningless. Just use AWS for your DDoS protection at that point.
- Nathanba 3y ago
  But Amazon dropped Gab for even flimsier reasons
  - _cenw 3y ago
    And yet they're the ISP of choice for the culture war propagandists. The Daily Wire and their german impersonator offspring NIUS both run on AWS. Turning Point USA runs on it, despite inviting a speaker to talk about the dangers of woke AWS censorship.

Cthulhu_ 3y ago

Kiwifarms is not just a site about "opinions", they organize destroying people's lives and celebrating when someone kills themselves. There's a clear moral distinction between "I believe trans women do not belong in women's bathrooms" and "Here's their address, do your thing until they are gone!".

DharmaPolice 3y ago
Celebrating when someone kills themselves is a matter of opinion. Doxxing is another matter.