"[W]e strongly believe that what GoDaddy, Google, and Cloudflare did here was dangerous. That’s because, even when the facts are the most vile, we must remain vigilant when platforms exercise these rights. Because Internet intermediaries, especially those with few competitors, control so much online speech, the consequences of their decisions have far-reaching impacts on speech around the world."
Well said. I'm glad EFF is not burrying their heads in the sand and hiding behind the "but they're nazis!" Excuse.
Indeed. It seems as though the entire West has lost its collective mind about the importance of free speech and free expression as bedrock principles which ensure peace, stability and prosperity.
Additionally, I view these acts of censorship as a great opportunity for blockchain and other nascent decentralized web technologies to take off. It's a classic case of the innovator's dilemma - when a company or industry seems ascendant, it becomes complacent to new threats, and the seeds of its destruction are sown right underneath it. Sometimes it even assists in the process. (Microsoft's neglect of IE, allowing Mozilla to flourish in the mid-2000s, is one of my favorite examples.) With their suppression of speech, these centralized services are quite possibly hastening their own demise.
One more quote because I think it sums things up very well:
"Protecting free speech is not something we do because we agree with all of the speech that gets protected. We do it because we believe that no one—not the government and not private commercial enterprises—should decide who gets to speak and who doesn’t."
It can't be phrased clearer while still distancing themselves from the cause clearly and coherently... unlike other people.
On that same note: Good riddance. Policy and processes are probably in no case ever too slow to take effect. Thanks to Google and GoDaddy for Pavlov'ing me towards reasonable human understanding, and thanks for EFF for making me aware that that there's a problem with "learning" things that way.
It was dangerous, but also their right to do. The CEO of Cloudflare called out his own action as capricious and not good practice, but he still did it. Because hey, they're literally nazis. And anyways, one of Cloudflare's major services is filtering out spam, noise, and malicious traffic...
Can't agree more. Today it's Nazis, tomorrow it's not showing enough support for the chosen candidate. This is the one slippery slope. It's evident in PC-speech. Today's PC speech is not the PC speech from the 90s.
And it's not that I don't like Pc speech. I prefer it. But I also don't want it to be the only kind of speech one can use for discussion. Try and have any good philosophical argument without breaking PC boundaries.
It's a scary thing when one group controls the narrative of what is acceptable and unacceptable speech.
There are many good quotes on freedom of speech to ponder.[1]
I think my favourite is Mencken's.
> The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.
A close second is Wilde's:
> “I may not agree with you, but I will defend to the death your right to make an ass of yourself.”
Mencken was of course famously anti-semetic and racist, though the claims of his support of the Nazi's may be overstated.
One interesting quote in this regard is this:
"Any defense of Germany was impossible, he concluded, ''so long as the chief officer of the German state continues to make speeches worthy of an Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, and his followers imitate, plainly with his connivance, the monkey-shines of the American Legion at its worst.''"
Weird to see Hitler, before he became the go-to bad guy, being compared with classic American racism and political violence, with the implication that better is expected of him.
1. A Reasonable Position is expressed, in this case - 'Nazi's are very bad'. The Reasonable Position often involves an Enemy that must be stopped. Most reasonable people will agree with the Reasonable Position.
2. The Reasonable Position becomes the overriding factor in any situation that involves it. All other factors and considerations are dwarfed by it and forgotten.
3. Because the Reasonable Position comes to dominate the thinking of the Extremist - who often means well - they come to believe one can only ever be for or against the Reasonable Position. There is no room for moderate positions that try to balance the Reasonable Position with other important considerations and values - in this case, freedom of speech.
4. In order to show support for the Reasonable Position, third parties are forced to action in accordance with the world view of the Extremist. If they try to balance other considerations against the Reasonable Position, they are seen by the Extremist as sympathizing with the Enemy.
5. The fervor of extremism charges through society, trampling on other values and considerations.
But how do you know the reasonable position isn't "Freedom of speech is good"?
And it seems that the "Freedom of speech" position is the one that has expanded more in context than "Nazis are very bad". Thus far people don't seem to be applying the badness of Nazis to non-Nazis (at least not intentionally), but we do seem to be expanding Freedom of speech slowly beyond government censorship to asking private entities to propagate speech.
I'm super proud to be a member of the EFF. It's hard to keep a clear head in emotionally tense times like these. It's groups like the EFF that help everyone.
I agree. The ACLU, on the other hand, has begun to rationalize their way out of defending white nationalists. Not exactly a very good defender of civil liberties if they start drawing ideological lines as to who they defend.
I had just started donating to them in the last week, too; I felt a bit silly canceling so soon.
The takeaway from this for me is not, "Don't get rid of Nazis", but rather, "Have a clear criteria and process for when you will remove content. Follow that process."
Great, 100% agreed with that. Be clear and up front about terms of service, and be clear and open when they are violated.
That said, I'm not 100% agreed that "Whatever you use against Neo-Nazis will be used 'against the ones you love'." That's a slippery slope argument that I personally don't believe. Neo-nazis are such a different class of evil, that it's hard for me to see the same practices being used against someone who is not them.
And that's fine. You get to draw that line in the sand, but you have to do two things:
1) Don't say you are for freedom of expression. you aren't.
2) Be consistent. ISIS propaganda websites must be wholly refused to be hosted. Many (not as fringe as you'd like to think) websites in the Middle East, Eastern Bloc and Russia must also be taken down when discussing the Jews, as well. Any website that blatantly talks about the overthrow of the US government because it is run by the "white patriarchy" (yes, you can be racist against whites too). The lists go on. Denying that a lot of people were killed needlessly in the advancement of a Stalinist ideal, etc. etc.
You get to have that opinion. You get to think that the slippery slope argument is bullshit. That is your right. People told me that I was using a slippery slope argument when I said using the wartime powers act against "terrorism" was a quick sink to unjust presidential powers.
I stand by my argument then and I stand by my slippery slope argument now.
Apparently the term "neo-nazi" doesn't really carry the same meaning it used to, going by the number of people who are being accused of being neo-nazis in the last week.
Are you so sure the same tactics will not be used against non-literal nazis? Or that non-nazis won't be named as such in order to then use the same practices on them "justifiably"?
If there's one thing we know with absolute confidence, is that if it's "just to protect the children" or "just to use against the nazis", it's really just that the technique/technology is still in beta test, and GA release is coming soon.
I'm not 100% agreed that "Whatever you use against Neo-Nazis will be used 'against the ones you love'." That's a slippery slope argument that I personally don't believe. Neo-nazis are such a different class of evil, that it's hard for me to see the same practices being used against someone who is not them.
You could say the same about digital surveillance of potential terrorists.
Well, didn't the Nazis themselves prevent people from voicing concerns for the Jews? I guess I don't see how that's not the same thing, except that it was the bad guys who did it?
Ok then, lets give Trump, the DOJ and Jeff Sessions the impetus to start drafting legislation to fight 'internet hate speech' and see what they come up with.
edit:
> That's a slippery slope argument
Its not. These discussions will be taken over by the political establishment and the courts very quickly with very real consequences.
This is a multifaceted debate; cloudflare is under no obligation what-so-ever to keep retain any customer - unless it has placed itself under a contractual obligation to do so.
The neo-nazi sites themselves should in general not be interfered with from a governmental level - but there should be limitations of even this restriction, when it comes to the advocacy, planning and execution of violence.
In a more general sense I see the silencing of free-speech on the internet as a call to move to a more decentralised structure - as per what seemed to be the original intent - we generally seem to be moving yet further away from such a structure; although there are a significant number of emerging distributed technologies - as yet they seem to be niche in their utilisation.
(Somewhat tangentally, I see the free speech and public emergence of the now emboldened neo-nazis as somewhat a good thing, they were always there - but now they're in the public eye.)
It actually makes me incredibly optimistic about the future of humanity to know that such people exist. It's important to fight for the rights of all - you never know when your cause or beliefs will be in the crosshairs instead of a group as obviously vile as neo-nazis.
I'm pretty sure to fight for people's rights, you have to fight against nazis. At least that's what all my history books told me we did in world war 2.
I think we should examine the effectiveness of bans on speech r.e. limitation of the spread of an ideology.
For example, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center (not a group with an incentive to deflate numbers), at its peak the National Alliance had 1,200 members. All together, there are a few thousand active Neo-Nazis in the United States.
In contrast, let's take 2 countries where advocating Nazi ideology is illegal: Austria and Germany.
In Austria, the Freedom Party, founded by a former SS officer, has 50,000 members, 13 seats in the Upper House (similar to the Senate in the US) and 38 seats in the lower house as well as 4 in the European Parliament.
In Germany, the NPD received over 600,000 votes in the most recent election and now has a seat in the European Parliament.
I don't think comparing the adoption rate of Nazi ideology in nations where it was historically successful to nations where it was historically unsuccessful is appropriate.
A more equivalent comparison is Nazi ideology in Germany/Austria to Klanist ideology in the United States. The list of US politicians with Klan affiliation is long.
The bigger issue I see is that by taking away these people's ability to discuss their beliefs they are going to be further radicalized. If they don't believe they can change things peacefully through protest they will become violent.
That's the main reason I don't agree with the banning of daily stormer and google banning Gab.ai from the play store. They are only further enforcing these people's beliefs that the powers that be are against them.
> SUSPENSION AND CANCELLATION. Google may in its sole discretion, suspend or cancel Registrant’s Registered Name registration (a) if Registrant breaches this Agreement (including a breach of any of the representations and warranties in Section 7); (b) to comply with a court order or other legal requirement; (c) as required by ICANN, a Registry Operator, or law enforcement; (d) to protect the integrity and stability of the Services; (e) if there was an error in the registration process for such Registered Name, or (f) if Registrant’s Account is disabled or terminated.
Interesting. I'm not a lawyer. Could the DailyStorm sue Google over this? I don't see anything in that agreement that says Google could've put their domain on client hold.
"It’s unclear whether this is for a limited amount of time, or whether Google has decided to effectively take ownership of the dailystormer.com domain permanently"
Wait, what, they can do this? So if I get Google to host my domain they can just take it at will? Given the value of some domains that's insane. Google must be on shaky legal ground here.
I was surprised by this too, but Google is one of the biggest kids on the playground right now, so I guess it's natural for them to throw their weight around.
Obvious note: Outsourcing your stuff to a 3rd party like that is risky, and should be considered so
That is a scary, clever manipulation of language. Inciting violence is an exception to free speech because it is directly linked to a specific violent result.
"Hate" is non-specific, and not an action at all. It often means nothing more than offending someone or violating some political correctness. Hate speech is and should be protected speech.
Hate speech is protected from the government interfering with it. Other than that, there are no protections. Google or any other company or individual is perfectly free to give a platform to only the speech they decide to. Because they too are protected from government interference.
I really don't understand the resistance here. I have heard no arguments against no-platforming isis propaganda. Youtube, twitter, facebook all have a policy of removing such content. I don't really have a problem with white supremacists also being no-platformed. These are private entities, deciding for themselves that they refuse to be party to such content. Let the dipshits buy their own damn servers.
Now, the minute either group is harassed or arrested by the government over things is when it becomes a problem. That is actual censorship, and should be resisted.
I'm amazed at how the HN's Libertarian streak gets subdued when discussing free speech (which only enjoins the government). Private individuals and corporations should be free to decide who they want to do business with (even if it's under duress of bad PR).
When Brendan Eich was ousted[1] from Mozilla, I warned that the boycott threat set a bad precedent. The counter argument at the time was that "his donation wasn't free speech" and rights weren't negotiable. In the aftermath of 3 people losing their lives in Charlottesville, supporting the Daily Stormer is clearly Bad for Business™ - even if none of the companies are explicitly stating how commercially toxic DS has become.
1. He was ousted, his resignation was a technicality
>I'm amazed at how the HN's Libertarian streak gets subdued
I'm not. The moral lukewarmness and willingness to stick to quite literally the HN (obviously comprised of white suburbanites) echo chamber should be quite obvious at this point on the site, to anyone willing to observe such patterns and how political rhetoric on this site is contained. Commenters seem to do damn near anything to not even so much as turn their heads to the left socially. Look at which comments are being downvoted in this thread and objectively ask yourself whether those downvotes have actual merit.
So what is being defended here in reference to the ideal of free speech? Actual Nazis with a known ideology, and known consequences of that ideology, are trying to spread their message. This isn't a matter of some moral ambiguity or merely silencing those we have "disagreements" with. I'd be nice if people in the U.S. would stop feigning ignorance or neutrality all to put up some faux enlightened defense of an abstract ideal. Be practical. It's not going to be a slippery slope. We're not going to turn into 1984. A private company chose to not do business with a group of people hellbent on spreading a totalitarian racist ideology. An ideology that speaks to some pretty primal fears and habits of humans. It's okay to correct for it.
I'll repeat it again, just to end: it's okay and necessary to silence these people. It's not going to open Pandora's box. Not addressing the problem will. I think the EFF's take on this, while noble, is naively idealistic.
Even more disturbing to me is that Youtube has started banning UFO research channels like Steve Greer's CSETI. I don't really bother watching these channels and consider the UFO thing a bit of a quasi-religion, but they aren't inciting violence or hate against anybody.
Has Google decided they are now the truth police? Is Google taking it upon themselves to be like the Chinese censorship bureaus except for the whole world? I think this shows that the hate speech censorship is a real slippery slope.
The Daily Stormer is still expressing itself freely at http://dstormer6em3i4km.onion/ Latest featured story "Atari Promises Faggots It’ll Produce Homo Video Games." Does it really matter that Cloudflare dropped them? You have a right to free speech, not a right to be promoted by Cloudflare and Google.
I understand the argument that they're making, but the EFF also offers a browser extension to block adware (privacy badger). Is hate speech somehow more justifiable than adware?
It's an abuse of HN to use it primarily for ideological battle, which you've been doing for months now. This is destructive of what the site is for—and so is the inevitably attendant incivility—regardless of how correct your underlying points are. We ban accounts that do this, so would you please stop? A flamewar about Nazis vs. communists is a sort of reductio ad absurdum on the internet.
(No, this is not because we're secretly Nazis or communists.)
And since we're talking about nazis and historical references, allow me to bring up four relevant words about something we've learned about their murderous regime and their abuse of power:
Eh, on the inverse... In this situation, GoDaddy, Google, et. al. are the technocratic equivalent to Kim Davis. While, I respect their right to decide what they "host" on their platforms, as registrars, DNS is separate. Their authorization as Registrar is only authorized by ICAAN->US->IANA->(UN/WTO/etc...). They in practice, register (i.e. recored) DNS name to entity and are bound to list said DNS name to registered entity. So while they might have a right to not physically host the bytes of data for a controversial domain, they cannot, as Registrar for the domain, not record the fact that somedomain.com -> xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx because they are only proxies for the authority to say somedomain.com -> xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx.
[edit]
If the Kim Davis analogy is too loose. If the US decided to remove a book from the ISBN system. Might not have it in libraries... but there is still a gap in your number system... Sure it, is Mein Kampf today. But in today's world, it is not hard to imagine that the missing number might be the Quran...
In Brandenburg v Ohio, Supreme court stated that only speech that is "directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action" should be punished. This is called Brandenburg paradigm and it's currently a legal standard for what's considered hate speech in US.
Google is rightly protected from government interference of their right to exercise free speech just like all individuals and companies in the US.
The EFF is confusing a free speech problem with a monopoly problem. One would hope they aren't suggesting that the government be allowed to interfere with Google's speech.
So if they aren't, they are basically saying "bad boy, shame on you" to Google and others. It will have zero impact.
The right way to solve this problem is to name the actual problem and forget about free speech: monopoly. Break up Google and these other companies and problem solved.
I've sided with the EFF on many, many, many causes.
I've sided against Google on numerous causes.
The EFF are wrong. Google is correct.
And yes, the reasons are complicated. But "slippery slope" is a facile fallacy.
Ultimately, society can, does, and must defend itself from attacks. Including attacks on the underprivileged (of whom the Fascists and Nazis at question here are not).
The history of media and new-media utilisation in demagoguery, totalitarianism, mob incitement and rule, and fascism is rich. It should give strong cause to pause to those who've sung (and believed) the narrative of the all-positive, peace-and-harmony bringing Internet. As I long had.
And am now pausing.
Epistemic systems gain significance when they can be abused for personal, political, nationalistic, or fascistic gain. That was the insight of a friend of mine some months back. Call it "the paradox of epistemic systems".
This includes Hacker News itself, which seems to have quite the fascist problem, and an unwillingness, at the moderator level itself, to face that, over concerns of "dignity".
Those concerns are very, very, desperately and sadly misplaced.
> This includes Hacker News itself, which seems to have quite the fascist problem
And here we go.
For all the people who (correctly) wondered "how broad will the definition of 'nazi' get", well, parent just helpfully illustrated it for you. The Hacker News comments section has been declared full of fascist unpersons who must be silenced at all costs.
The way you get people to not care about real Nazis is to cry wolf every time you encounter a political position you don't like.
If we apply those same standards to antifa, they too are a violent, irrational hatemob with blood on their hands. The only difference is they have nice excuses about how it's ok when they do it because of systemic oppression. Even as they wield establishment power against their opponents.
Neonazis are not a significant threat. An abandonment of enlightenment values due to media induced hysteria is. We already saw what passes for unacceptable speech with Damore, even if it's eminently reasonable and moderate. The same people who can whip up a giant shitstorm over nothing are now saying you should trust them in knowing what fascism is.
No thank you. If you justify the means with the ends, you enable people who thrive in such an environment, and they are far more dangerous and insidious than a neonazi clearly advertising being an intolerant twat.
Overtonwindow|8 years ago
Well said. I'm glad EFF is not burrying their heads in the sand and hiding behind the "but they're nazis!" Excuse.
johnrichardson|8 years ago
Additionally, I view these acts of censorship as a great opportunity for blockchain and other nascent decentralized web technologies to take off. It's a classic case of the innovator's dilemma - when a company or industry seems ascendant, it becomes complacent to new threats, and the seeds of its destruction are sown right underneath it. Sometimes it even assists in the process. (Microsoft's neglect of IE, allowing Mozilla to flourish in the mid-2000s, is one of my favorite examples.) With their suppression of speech, these centralized services are quite possibly hastening their own demise.
Overtonwindow|8 years ago
"Protecting free speech is not something we do because we agree with all of the speech that gets protected. We do it because we believe that no one—not the government and not private commercial enterprises—should decide who gets to speak and who doesn’t."
mar77i|8 years ago
On that same note: Good riddance. Policy and processes are probably in no case ever too slow to take effect. Thanks to Google and GoDaddy for Pavlov'ing me towards reasonable human understanding, and thanks for EFF for making me aware that that there's a problem with "learning" things that way.
mcbruiser3|8 years ago
leggomylibro|8 years ago
novaleaf|8 years ago
They say "we agree with the ban" but then say "it's dangerous!"
of course it's dangerous, and yes, the speech is vile. but freedom of speech doesn't stop when we are insulted.
mc32|8 years ago
And it's not that I don't like Pc speech. I prefer it. But I also don't want it to be the only kind of speech one can use for discussion. Try and have any good philosophical argument without breaking PC boundaries.
It's a scary thing when one group controls the narrative of what is acceptable and unacceptable speech.
emmelaich|8 years ago
I think my favourite is Mencken's.
> The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.
A close second is Wilde's:
> “I may not agree with you, but I will defend to the death your right to make an ass of yourself.”
[1] https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/freedom-of-speech
ZeroGravitas|8 years ago
One interesting quote in this regard is this:
"Any defense of Germany was impossible, he concluded, ''so long as the chief officer of the German state continues to make speeches worthy of an Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, and his followers imitate, plainly with his connivance, the monkey-shines of the American Legion at its worst.''"
Weird to see Hitler, before he became the go-to bad guy, being compared with classic American racism and political violence, with the implication that better is expected of him.
unknown|8 years ago
[deleted]
meri_dian|8 years ago
1. A Reasonable Position is expressed, in this case - 'Nazi's are very bad'. The Reasonable Position often involves an Enemy that must be stopped. Most reasonable people will agree with the Reasonable Position.
2. The Reasonable Position becomes the overriding factor in any situation that involves it. All other factors and considerations are dwarfed by it and forgotten.
3. Because the Reasonable Position comes to dominate the thinking of the Extremist - who often means well - they come to believe one can only ever be for or against the Reasonable Position. There is no room for moderate positions that try to balance the Reasonable Position with other important considerations and values - in this case, freedom of speech.
4. In order to show support for the Reasonable Position, third parties are forced to action in accordance with the world view of the Extremist. If they try to balance other considerations against the Reasonable Position, they are seen by the Extremist as sympathizing with the Enemy.
5. The fervor of extremism charges through society, trampling on other values and considerations.
Some historical examples:
>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution
>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism
>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salem_witch_trials
kenjackson|8 years ago
And it seems that the "Freedom of speech" position is the one that has expanded more in context than "Nazis are very bad". Thus far people don't seem to be applying the badness of Nazis to non-Nazis (at least not intentionally), but we do seem to be expanding Freedom of speech slowly beyond government censorship to asking private entities to propagate speech.
JustBirk|8 years ago
[deleted]
CaptSpify|8 years ago
If you can: https://supporters.eff.org/donate
tortasaur|8 years ago
I had just started donating to them in the last week, too; I felt a bit silly canceling so soon.
randrews|8 years ago
Pfhreak|8 years ago
Great, 100% agreed with that. Be clear and up front about terms of service, and be clear and open when they are violated.
That said, I'm not 100% agreed that "Whatever you use against Neo-Nazis will be used 'against the ones you love'." That's a slippery slope argument that I personally don't believe. Neo-nazis are such a different class of evil, that it's hard for me to see the same practices being used against someone who is not them.
UnpossibleJim|8 years ago
You get to have that opinion. You get to think that the slippery slope argument is bullshit. That is your right. People told me that I was using a slippery slope argument when I said using the wartime powers act against "terrorism" was a quick sink to unjust presidential powers. I stand by my argument then and I stand by my slippery slope argument now.
zaroth|8 years ago
Are you so sure the same tactics will not be used against non-literal nazis? Or that non-nazis won't be named as such in order to then use the same practices on them "justifiably"?
If there's one thing we know with absolute confidence, is that if it's "just to protect the children" or "just to use against the nazis", it's really just that the technique/technology is still in beta test, and GA release is coming soon.
nerdponx|8 years ago
You could say the same about digital surveillance of potential terrorists.
apo|8 years ago
Do you remember how Communists were treated during the McCarthy era?
CaptSpify|8 years ago
generic_user|8 years ago
edit: > That's a slippery slope argument
Its not. These discussions will be taken over by the political establishment and the courts very quickly with very real consequences.
davidreiss|8 years ago
[deleted]
duncan_bayne|8 years ago
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/24/safe-spaces-un...
yarg|8 years ago
The neo-nazi sites themselves should in general not be interfered with from a governmental level - but there should be limitations of even this restriction, when it comes to the advocacy, planning and execution of violence.
In a more general sense I see the silencing of free-speech on the internet as a call to move to a more decentralised structure - as per what seemed to be the original intent - we generally seem to be moving yet further away from such a structure; although there are a significant number of emerging distributed technologies - as yet they seem to be niche in their utilisation.
(Somewhat tangentally, I see the free speech and public emergence of the now emboldened neo-nazis as somewhat a good thing, they were always there - but now they're in the public eye.)
cal5k|8 years ago
ebola1717|8 years ago
ameister14|8 years ago
For example, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center (not a group with an incentive to deflate numbers), at its peak the National Alliance had 1,200 members. All together, there are a few thousand active Neo-Nazis in the United States.
In contrast, let's take 2 countries where advocating Nazi ideology is illegal: Austria and Germany.
In Austria, the Freedom Party, founded by a former SS officer, has 50,000 members, 13 seats in the Upper House (similar to the Senate in the US) and 38 seats in the lower house as well as 4 in the European Parliament.
In Germany, the NPD received over 600,000 votes in the most recent election and now has a seat in the European Parliament.
putsteadywere|8 years ago
A more equivalent comparison is Nazi ideology in Germany/Austria to Klanist ideology in the United States. The list of US politicians with Klan affiliation is long.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ku_Klux_Klan_members_in_United...
derping69|8 years ago
That's the main reason I don't agree with the banning of daily stormer and google banning Gab.ai from the play store. They are only further enforcing these people's beliefs that the powers that be are against them.
deckar01|8 years ago
https://payments.google.com/payments/apis-secure/get_legal_d...
I wonder which clause they cited to execute the suspension.
Miner49er|8 years ago
xupybd|8 years ago
Wait, what, they can do this? So if I get Google to host my domain they can just take it at will? Given the value of some domains that's insane. Google must be on shaky legal ground here.
CaptSpify|8 years ago
Obvious note: Outsourcing your stuff to a 3rd party like that is risky, and should be considered so
jeffdavis|8 years ago
That is a scary, clever manipulation of language. Inciting violence is an exception to free speech because it is directly linked to a specific violent result.
"Hate" is non-specific, and not an action at all. It often means nothing more than offending someone or violating some political correctness. Hate speech is and should be protected speech.
tchaffee|8 years ago
tekromancr|8 years ago
Now, the minute either group is harassed or arrested by the government over things is when it becomes a problem. That is actual censorship, and should be resisted.
gcp|8 years ago
But due to the SIZE of these operations, their actions practically amount to censorship.
Saying that the right of free speech only protects you against the government does not mean much in practice, in these circumstances.
smith_winston|8 years ago
[deleted]
nsnick|8 years ago
sangnoir|8 years ago
When Brendan Eich was ousted[1] from Mozilla, I warned that the boycott threat set a bad precedent. The counter argument at the time was that "his donation wasn't free speech" and rights weren't negotiable. In the aftermath of 3 people losing their lives in Charlottesville, supporting the Daily Stormer is clearly Bad for Business™ - even if none of the companies are explicitly stating how commercially toxic DS has become.
1. He was ousted, his resignation was a technicality
kadenshep|8 years ago
I'm not. The moral lukewarmness and willingness to stick to quite literally the HN (obviously comprised of white suburbanites) echo chamber should be quite obvious at this point on the site, to anyone willing to observe such patterns and how political rhetoric on this site is contained. Commenters seem to do damn near anything to not even so much as turn their heads to the left socially. Look at which comments are being downvoted in this thread and objectively ask yourself whether those downvotes have actual merit.
So what is being defended here in reference to the ideal of free speech? Actual Nazis with a known ideology, and known consequences of that ideology, are trying to spread their message. This isn't a matter of some moral ambiguity or merely silencing those we have "disagreements" with. I'd be nice if people in the U.S. would stop feigning ignorance or neutrality all to put up some faux enlightened defense of an abstract ideal. Be practical. It's not going to be a slippery slope. We're not going to turn into 1984. A private company chose to not do business with a group of people hellbent on spreading a totalitarian racist ideology. An ideology that speaks to some pretty primal fears and habits of humans. It's okay to correct for it.
I'll repeat it again, just to end: it's okay and necessary to silence these people. It's not going to open Pandora's box. Not addressing the problem will. I think the EFF's take on this, while noble, is naively idealistic.
narrator|8 years ago
Has Google decided they are now the truth police? Is Google taking it upon themselves to be like the Chinese censorship bureaus except for the whole world? I think this shows that the hate speech censorship is a real slippery slope.
anigbrowl|8 years ago
https://www.reddit.com/r/UFOs/comments/6toeoz/cseti_youtube_...
julianmarq|8 years ago
tim333|8 years ago
nkristoffersen|8 years ago
ebcode|8 years ago
forthefuture|8 years ago
It seems duplicitous to force someone else to bear the cost of facilitating toxicity.
generic_user|8 years ago
randrews|8 years ago
unknown|8 years ago
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rev_null|8 years ago
gcp|8 years ago
Google, Cloudflare, etc, not so much.
dgudkov|8 years ago
dandersh|8 years ago
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dang|8 years ago
(No, this is not because we're secretly Nazis or communists.)
mixedCase|8 years ago
You're right, they don't.
Are you suggesting you do?
And since we're talking about nazis and historical references, allow me to bring up four relevant words about something we've learned about their murderous regime and their abuse of power:
"First they came for..."
anaptdemise|8 years ago
[edit] If the Kim Davis analogy is too loose. If the US decided to remove a book from the ISBN system. Might not have it in libraries... but there is still a gap in your number system... Sure it, is Mein Kampf today. But in today's world, it is not hard to imagine that the missing number might be the Quran...
smith_winston|8 years ago
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JustBirk|8 years ago
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cup|8 years ago
Should instructions on how to make explosives be accessible and defended?
solomatov|8 years ago
See more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandenburg_v._Ohio
Overtonwindow|8 years ago
carry_bit|8 years ago
zaroth|8 years ago
gragas|8 years ago
unknown|8 years ago
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Raz2|8 years ago
gcp|8 years ago
Like capitalism?
Or free Negroes?
Western Culture?
cuckcuckspruce|8 years ago
Who decides who is uneducated? Who decides what ideas are so bad they can't read? What's the enforcement mechanism?
axedwool|8 years ago
What are the parameters for "bad"?
tchaffee|8 years ago
The EFF is confusing a free speech problem with a monopoly problem. One would hope they aren't suggesting that the government be allowed to interfere with Google's speech.
So if they aren't, they are basically saying "bad boy, shame on you" to Google and others. It will have zero impact.
The right way to solve this problem is to name the actual problem and forget about free speech: monopoly. Break up Google and these other companies and problem solved.
unityByFreedom|8 years ago
> CANTWELL: "a lot more people are gonna die before we're done here" [1]
I'm pretty sure the Daily Stormer said something similar. I don't need that crap in my backyard.
[1] https://youtu.be/P54sP0Nlngg?t=20m51s
dredmorbius|8 years ago
I've sided against Google on numerous causes.
The EFF are wrong. Google is correct.
And yes, the reasons are complicated. But "slippery slope" is a facile fallacy.
Ultimately, society can, does, and must defend itself from attacks. Including attacks on the underprivileged (of whom the Fascists and Nazis at question here are not).
The history of media and new-media utilisation in demagoguery, totalitarianism, mob incitement and rule, and fascism is rich. It should give strong cause to pause to those who've sung (and believed) the narrative of the all-positive, peace-and-harmony bringing Internet. As I long had.
And am now pausing.
Epistemic systems gain significance when they can be abused for personal, political, nationalistic, or fascistic gain. That was the insight of a friend of mine some months back. Call it "the paradox of epistemic systems".
This includes Hacker News itself, which seems to have quite the fascist problem, and an unwillingness, at the moderator level itself, to face that, over concerns of "dignity".
Those concerns are very, very, desperately and sadly misplaced.
https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/5wg0hp/when_ep...
https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/6ufeu1/does_ha...
piaste|8 years ago
And here we go.
For all the people who (correctly) wondered "how broad will the definition of 'nazi' get", well, parent just helpfully illustrated it for you. The Hacker News comments section has been declared full of fascist unpersons who must be silenced at all costs.
But remember:
> But "slippery slope" is a facile fallacy.
tnone|8 years ago
If we apply those same standards to antifa, they too are a violent, irrational hatemob with blood on their hands. The only difference is they have nice excuses about how it's ok when they do it because of systemic oppression. Even as they wield establishment power against their opponents.
Neonazis are not a significant threat. An abandonment of enlightenment values due to media induced hysteria is. We already saw what passes for unacceptable speech with Damore, even if it's eminently reasonable and moderate. The same people who can whip up a giant shitstorm over nothing are now saying you should trust them in knowing what fascism is.
No thank you. If you justify the means with the ends, you enable people who thrive in such an environment, and they are far more dangerous and insidious than a neonazi clearly advertising being an intolerant twat.
unknown|8 years ago
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