yikes... I'm conflicted. Not a huge fan of Torba, first of all. I checked out Gab a few times, and while I think intentions were good, there is a lot of hateful stuff there.
That said, Gab as a platform and app doesn't itself promote hate, so I'm not sure I agree with removing it. That would be like removing Telegram because terrorists have been found to use it.
Much of it depends how public it is. For instance something like whisper needs to remove nudity/hate speech else they'll be kicked off iOS/playstore. But, you can still send it directly without issue.
Let's take Torba out of the equation and just say innocent Dev A wants to create a truly free speech platform, where anything goes and only illegal things get removed. Like voat, per se. We all see how that turned out.
I'm kind of curious why we can't have an uncensored platform that represents both sides. Is it because good people prefer censorship?
It's because when a mob is at your door, regardless of the issue, you have two choices: Stand and fight, or cave in to the mob. Silicon Valley is being bullied and forced into making a choice. They have chosen to preserve their business and promote PR, rather than fight.
That is incorrect, and I respectfully disagree. You're half-way there. Hate speech is protected speech. Incitement of violence is completely different from hate speech, and it is absolutely illegal. Consider the following scenarios:
1) Standing up and saying "I hate black people. I wish they would all die."
2) Standing up and saying: "I hate black people, if you see them, kill them."
There's a clear difference here. The first is speech, an opinion, not directing action, advocating for violence, or to break a law. I say that's protected, as distasteful as it may be. The second is clearly criminal, and illegal. It is speech, but it is directing violence, and a law to be broken. That is the incitement of violence and a crime.
a) there's a lot more demand for alternatives among groups that have been kicked off analogous platforms. You almost have to hide them to avoid the stain. And of course, when a Buzzfeed editor asks why you haven't kicked off $UNPOPULAR_GROUP_X, they're not going to convey your actual principled response; they're going to convey that you're a closet $BAD_THING.
b) people remember offense and want to stay very far away from things that have offended them. Most judgments, by necessity, are made subconsciously. The association between "Reddit Name and Mascot" and "Bad Thing I Saw on the Front Page" is going to be made automatically and take many times more effort to undo.
"Don't shoot the messenger" is a phrase because our inclination is to lash out at the perceived vessel. It requires additional abstraction to take the immediate/physical association out of the mental blame loop.
This is why Facebook starts totally empty. It's why Twitter starts totally empty and then suggests the most banal/run-of-the-mill initial follows. It's why reddit can't shake the edgy atheist college sophomore as it's primary demographic (that demographic upvotes things that appeal to their niche only to the front page, scaring away everyone else).
People don't want a neutral point of view, they don't want both sides. They want their views reinforced and their egos stroked. Nothing else will suffice. Consumers are very unforgiving.
The fact that we can now retreat into an infinite echo chamber via the internet has had highly deleterious effects on civility.
Because the last time we let nazis spew their bile unchecked it led to a world war and millions of innocent people murdered. We're not going down that road again. End of discussion.
For public forums it may be that People just prefer to be isolated from the other side by a barrier larger than a single platform and therefore a single overarching takedown policy can provide.
I think Facebook skirts it because it doesn't really have a public forum rather it has a large buffet of build your own forums that are not publicly visible from each users friends feed and a "let's solve for a feed of content likely as possible to keep said user on our site using as much history / personal information we can datamine about them, their k-nn's, and users in general"
For example "how voat turned out" seems to be ideal for a certain portion of internet users unwelcome by other sites and so perhaps they congregate there thus skewing the sample towards the way it turned out.
Following the same standards chrome, youtube (or any video player) and any IRC client should be removed from the play store because they can all be vehicles for hate speech. Chrome allows me to visit the daily stormer, how can that be allowed in the store?
I get there's ugly stuff on the internet, but when did all the platforms decide to start being the moral center of determining what's acceptable speech. Hate speech is still protected speech (in the US anyways)[1] no matter how horrible it is.
> A law that can be directed against speech found offensive to some portion of the public can be turned against minority and dissenting views to the detriment of all. The First Amendment does not entrust that power to the government’s benevolence. Instead, our reliance must be on the substantial safeguards of free and open discussion in a democratic society.
"when did all the platforms decide to start being the moral center of determining what's acceptable speech"
When it became more profitable to do so, or they saw a PR angle. IMO businesses will cater to death cults that murder kittens if it makes money, but only until it becomes a PR problem. Real or imagined.
Or maybe they are private businesses run by people like you and me who like to have a say in what is published on their platform?
For a community that is very pro-company founders, I have a hard time getting a lot of the kneejerk reactions here.
Should physical stores not have a right to decide what they want and don't want to sell? Why should it be any different for Google's digital store?
Even if their reason is "the 3rd pixel on the 2nd row of their app icon is too red for our liking, we're taking it down", they're perfectly in their right. You, of course, are also perfectly in your right to not do business with them, or even launch your own competing business.
I don't think that's the argument free speech advocates are making.
The argument is that facebook/twitter as well as some of these other platforms cloudflare/app stores, etc are a form of speech & they have a somewhat debateable stronghold on facilitating speech.
So, when they deny speech to a specific group of people, they're not just denying service, but denying speech.
The argument is debateable, but that is why people are upset, not that they don't think companies can act however they like towards their customers.
To add to that argument, GAB, StormFront, and other websites and services like it have been around a LONG time. Since the internet began. Yet we are only now seeing a reaction from those platforms that host such content. Why? What made Gab and Stormfront ok two weeks ago, but not ok now? That's the hypocrisy that needs greater focus.
But there’s one huge difference: These newer offshoots have been far more successful than we could ever have dreamed. When you see crowds of hundreds marching through the streets with their faces uncovered, when white supremacist leader Richard Spencer holds a press conference a few days after a woman was killed by one of his fellow travelers and hosts reporters in his home, it becomes clear just how much more terrifying this new generation of extremists is. They’re savvier than we were. Better connected.
Crowds of hundreds isn't a lot. Crowds of hundreds from all over the country is absolutely nothing, you'd get more Muslim extremists from a small fraction of the population.
I hope you're as worried about Islamic extremists as you are about Nazi ones?
With a name like "Overton Window" I suspect you are entirely aware why.
To spell it out: the Overton window has moved to a point where people matching in the streets with Nazi flags yelling about killing Jews is not beyond the pale.
That's what Gab did when they were banned from Twitter. Now an alliance of tech companies are banning it en masse, even though they are far more benign than some of the other apps on the Apple store and Google Play store (4chan, for example).
This isn't about freedom of expression. This is a coordinated attack against an emerging alternative tech industry.
The platforms are not deciding to be the arbiter of morality, that's just a straw man. They are, however, deciding what they want to see and not want to see on their own platform, which bandwidth/maintenance/etc costs they are footing the bill for, which is perfectly acceptable.
They are private businesses, they are not discriminating against a protected class (to cut short any "but what about refusing to sell cakes to gay people" argument), so they are free to ban whatever users/apps/etc they want off of their platform.
Hey, maybe if Twitter had banned Trump for some of the crap he said, we wouldn't be in this mess.
This is no different from a book publisher refusing to publish your book. Free speech considerations do not apply.
They aren't the moral center. They're firmly on the left and banning their political opponents. Hate speech exists on all platforms and comes from both sides; it's only an excuse here.
If they favored the left then they would have implemented much stronger anti-harassment policies a long time ago. Instead the greatest sin you can do is dox someone, which will get you banned forever.
To make it clear: On Twitter, you can have a Swastika for an avatar, and post oven memes while tagging Jewish members and you won't get banned. OTOH, if you unmask one of the people posting those memes you will get banned.
I'm not sure what political stand that is, but it doesn't seem particularly left (or right!) wing to me.
You realize that is after Obama left office, right?
My argument isn't that Evan William's doesn't have political opinions. It is that Twitter's policies don't reflect them.
Your point was:
> They're [Twitter] firmly on the left and banning their political opponents.
I'm sure you can point to many right-leaning commentators who have been banned, and I can point to many left-learning.
But as far as I can see they don't ban people for political views, instead they bad them for specific behaviors; specifically direct threats or doxing.
I'm not talking about Twitter's actions here. I don't know everyone they've banned so I can't tell if they are biased.
I'm talking about Gab being right-wing and therefore banned by Apple and Google, while Twitter, which also hosts hate speech, is not banned, because they are left-wing.
I mean, I'm talking about Twitter's politics, not their bans.
They get away with hosting hate speech because they're on the left. Meanwhile, another platform that's on the right is banned by Apple and Google with that excuse.
Protected speech has nothing to do with private entities allowing you to use their platform to promote your message, it only curbs the government from prohibiting/punishing your speech.
So for example you have every right to wear a jean jacket in court that says "fuck the draft" and the government can't prohibit or punish you for it (famous 1st amendment case) but a church can have you removed for wearing an article of clothing that says "fuck the church". See public vs private. Alternatively the government can prohibit and punish (I.e. Criminalize) burning of draft cards, because such speech interferes with the public function; therefore, is not protected (another famous 1st amendment court case). And high schools can prohibit students from wearing armbands as a silent protest (I.e. Not protected speech), because the government has more powers than normal when they are the wards of minors (again another famous 1st amendment case).
And while hate speech may be protected, it can also be criminalized when used in conjunction with the commission of a crime and enhance the penalties of said crime.
Still none of this is applicable to private business, and you would probably be glad to know if you are a business owner you Wouldn't have to permit hate speech in your establishment.
I'm not trying to be snotty. I'm trying to explain what the "free speech" side of the argument is.
I'm not saying his is invalid, or that he didn't bring up point, but I'm stating why there is concern from those concerned with free speech and "de-platforming."
I don't think asking for a debate is "snotty" or "insufferable", but if I am, please let me know where I'm wrong :)
Linking to your own comment without adding anything implies the you don't need to dignify their comment with a response. That's not asking for debate, it's actively avoiding a debate while implying their commment has no substance, and they have limited reading comprehension.
Unless I am mistaken that is the comment I replied to and it does not address the public vs private concern. Moreover, you are calling a private website a moral center for determining acceptable speech for exercising their right to censor their own website.
To extend the idea, I noticed you have a personal website linked in your bio, are you under moral obligation to allow other people to post hate speech to your website or allow anyone to post anything to your website? Do you feel you have complete control over the content posted to your website or does that make you some sort of moral censor and dictator of acceptable speech?
Edit: Your giving site may provide a better example, because presumably you feel you can pick a choose what charitable group(s) can join and receive funds through your platform, effectively limiting the speech of all the other programs you haven't allowed to join.
I understand where you're going, but the purpose of my site isn't to host multiple viewpoints from multiple people. The giving site is more of who we've partnered with - it's never been open to any & all charities.
I think the issue specifically with the app store is that there are other players who could similarly violate the "hate speech" metric (telegram/whatsapp/twitter/etc), but Google doesn't take those down. That calls into question how consistent they are with their policing and what constitutes the "line."
The larger argument I was trying to get at in the other comment was that there seems to be a few companies that are aggregating power over "speech" online. At some point, they start to either look monopolistic (and using their base to prevent other players from growing - see fb v snapchat), or start to seem more similar to utility companies (which are regulated to some extent).
Should your electric company be able to shut you off because you attended a rally? Should your phone company be able to terminate your service? Maybe, maybe not, but the utility analogy seems apt (to me) for this scenario.
>I think the issue specifically with the app store is that there are other players who could similarly violate the "hate speech" metric(telegram/whatsapp/twitter/etc), but Google doesn't take those down. That calls into question how consistent they are with their policing and what constitutes the "line."
According to 1st amendment law, the remedy is to boycott the business, and truthfully it's the greatest tool people have to level the playing field, and it's seriously underleveraged especially in the internet age. However, the logic goes if you can't get the public to boycott a company, then your speech has basically failed in what's called the marketplace of ideas. So maybe while it's worth while to call attention to the power of these big companies and promote a boycott to keep them in check, you shouldn't be surprised when the boycott fails to gain momentum based them prohibiting hate speech, meaning find a clear cut example where they abused their power in a clearly controversial way where enough of the public will support the boycott to hurt the companies bottom line.
As to your last paragraph, denial of service is not always protected or even speech for that matter. Another famous Supreme Court Case is Ollie's BBQ which prohibited African Americans from eating there, and that was found to be unconstitutional under the commerce clause. The commerce clause is kind of a running joke in law that gives the Federal Government the right to regulate everything on the basis of effecting interstate commerce, and while I of course agree with the result of the case, I despise the logic and use of the commerce clause. See: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katzenbach_v._McClung
What do you do when the boycott is ineffective because the service has a network effect that borders on monopolistic that doesn't allow for others to compete?
How do you boycott your power company? There aren't a lot of options...
So take a look back in history to the civil rights, take just a single example, the Montgomery Bus Boycott organized in part by MLK in response to Rosa Parks not giving up her seat. The 13 month protest resulted in the Supreme Court ruling that segregation on public buses was unconstitutional.
Before that look towards US Homestead Steel workers strike to protect unions and wages, that literally ended in a fire fight between 10,000 townspeople and the private security firm the Pinkertons. There were legal battles and boycotts, all of which failed.
So there is no guarantee you prevail and I don't mean to make real change sound easy, but we live in a different day and age, and I don't think you need to worry about Google hiring private security firms and actual fire fights, but who knows, could you imagine everyone in the US boycotting Google Search until they repatriated HQ to the US to pay normal corporate taxes and pay their back taxes? What would that look like, I have no idea but maybe just a single day of boycotting. And as unrealistic as that might sound, would it really be such a disturbance for everyone to collectively use bing or duckduckgo for a day to avoid Google? Compared to facing the Pinkertons or the hell people faced fighting for their civil rights, it seems pretty easy.
So its not just a matter of how, the how is easy if there is a good enough why that will prevail in the marketplace of ideas. Give workers a reason and they can strike, give consumers a reason and they can boycott. Such things make it untenable for the shareholders and they can elect a new board who can elect new corporate officers, if they continue to fight, make in untenable politically and they lose their support all the way around. Again in the internet age its easier than ever to organize, promote a message and hold people accountable...but that doesn't mean its easy.
I of course don't argue that Internet sites, like Twitter or the Google Play Store, are not private places. They are not public forums.
But to me, the concerning point, is that the Internet is quickly becoming a place with no public forums. And I don't mean public forum in the legal sense (though that is also true), but in the sense of a place where everyone is welcome, and where people of all sides are actually present.
I think public forums are an important part of our society because they force exposure to other members of society and create shared experiences. I think a major part of protests, like occupy wallstreeet, BLM or the Women's March is to get people's attention by being in a public space. You can get your ideas out into the area and even the country on television.
If we are all living in our little bubbles, how can we have dialog and solve problems? Conservatives will have their little bubble, liberals will have their little bubble, and there will be no interaction. Twitter used to be a place where you could hear any kind of thought. You could hear one side of the story from the president of the US and the other side from al qaeda. Not anymore.
Now, it may not seem like a big deal as the people being kicked off are bigots. But are you sure your opinion will always be in the majority? Take for example the recent Google Memo, which was quickly labeled sexist by most media outlets. Conversation on HN the past weeks indicates many on HN disagree with that label. It's bigots today, but it might be "sexists" tomorrow.
So, yes I agree corporations have no duty to maintain a public forum. But if all businesses choose not to be public forums, do you think that is a good thing?
Again as a business owner, yes, I value my right to prohibit others from taking over with their message.
I tend to use the church example a lot, because conceptualize small towns where the church maybe the epicenter for the majority of the community, and what it would mean to have to allow hate speech inside these places of worship (say a temple having to allow neo nazi's in to promote their message in the middle of a service).
I don't think it's good to ignore the law in this area, because it's developed over a hundred years and has considered facts you and I would never come up with in a million years and the logic is well thought out of nothing else, even if I disagree with certain decisions on free speech.
As to the internet it's the closest thing to what is called the marketplace of ideas from 1st amendment law, because even the government can shut you otherwise protected speech down in real life public forums based on safety, permitting, etc... moreover, anyone can get a personal website, just like the OP has listed in his bio, and it's available 24/7, and as I mentioned direct to OP, just like I have no rights to post hate speech or any speech on his website, there is no absolute right to post anything anywhere else either, even here on HN where many of my posts that made the front page have been killed/taken down even when they didn't violate HN terms.
I am not advocating forcing businesses to become public forums, nor did I do so in my post above. I don't advocate government intervention as the solution to every societal ill, and definitely do not in this case.
I am just asking the question, if all businesses choose to not be public forums (as in their right, which I do not dispute), is that good for society? Some would argue that all Internet platforms deciding to regulate speech is a positive because it removes hate speech, for example. I would argue that it is not good because it eliminates public spaces.
The key thing about the public square is interaction with the public. If all that people wanted was free speech they would just go shout in the woods. And the Internet is becoming that. The liberals will shout with the liberals and the conservatives with the conservatives.
>The key thing about the public square is interaction with the public. If all that people wanted was free speech they would just go shout in the woods. And the Internet is becoming that.
Again anyone can create their own website, nothing is limiting the exercise of their protected speech and if the speech wins in the marketplace of ideas nothing can stop it, and history has shown when speech has won in the marketplace of ideas the people who try to stop it only magnify it. Showing my age a little but look the show Married with Children, it was going to be cancelled until the politicians tried to take it off the air and then it became a hit, or when politicians tried to ban 2 Live Crew's album and they went to the Supreme Court and won, it only promoted the album/speech more. If you have a good enough idea you publish on your own website, that simultaneously all the existing platforms prohibit they are likely going to be doing you a favor in terms of promotion of your idea and your platform(website), but if its a idea that fails in the marketplace of ideas don't expect much one way or another.
As to the idea about shouting in the woods, that highlights my point just as much as yours. At some point Facebook.com was just empty woods, they bought it and made it what it is, it was never a public space, in fact in the beginning it was more restrictive limiting the people who could join to people with .edu email addresses, meaning at one point Facebook's platform was less public than it is today. And if they turned the switch back tomorrow, my opinion would be that it wouldn't be a loss of a public space because it never was a public space, it would still admittedly be a loss of some kind.
Moreover, I am just not sure these internet platforms have the ability to eliminate public spaces because they were not and never have been public spaces. Nothing, about these platforms ever guaranteed an audience for anyone's speech, in fact they are all subject to disappearing tomorrow due to competition or simply going out of business. Also, I see many alternatives to publishing speech on the internet, admittedly it may be about the same as shouting in empty woods but again even facebook at onetime was empty woods and still may as well be for many content publishers.
>>Again anyone can create their own website, nothing is limiting the exercise of their protected speech
Can they though? Domains Registries, Data-centers, ISP, all have terms of service, Storm Front learned that the hard way.
So I would not keep claiming "Again anyone can create their own website" because that is factually false
Anyone can get a website under the terms of conditions of the massive companies offering web hosting services, domain registrations, Internet Access, and all of the other private pieces need to run a website. This assumes you have the technical knowledge to do so, you are basically claiming Free Speech is only for server admins, dont know how to run your own web server, well make sure you conform to ever increasing strict "acceptable speech" codes if you do not want to be shut down
today society has a general aversion to or out right hate for Free Speech, and terms of service are becoming more and more restrictive.
Society its self is attacking the concept of Free Expression today far more effectively than any government ever could
It would seem this will be how Free Speech dies.... with Thunderous Applause from those too short sighted to see the forest because of a few racist trees....
First they came for the nazi's I did no protest for I am not a nazi... then they came for.....
I wonder which group will be next... and How long will it be before they come for me, that something I desire to speak out about will be "wrong think". I am Libertarian so I suspect it will not be long. Authoritarianism is the word of the day
Well think about the pre internet days, how did people exercise their free speech? On a soapbox on the corner? Well maybe, but again you might need a city/county permit depending on the corner, that costs money. Maybe for people outside of yelling distance you need a megaphone, that costs money. To not get arrested for indecency you need clothes, that costs money, or for anyone to take you/your message serious you probably need nice clothes, those cost more money.
Want to print and distribute your protected speech, the printing press cost money.
I'd say a domain/hosting/web builder can be done cheaper than the printing press and certainly cheaper than getting a city permit. The actual knowledge involved? About 5-10 minutes of YouTube videos. Your right many of the services you might leverage have terms, the real world is not without similar terms.
Certainly today it is far cheaper and easier to set up a website for your message than anytime in the internets history. I think free speech like any other right dies through ignorance, lack of historical understanding and just lack of strength of character. To that end anyone can contractually limit their rights as you suggest but it's always been that way, it's not as though the internet was ever free of these terms in the beginning. Don't like the terms, then organize/boycott, take action, and I'm not pretending it's easy to take action against a company like Google, but think it wasn't hard to exercise free speech and fight for civil rights in the face of police, military, fire hoses, etc... It's not the US but think it was easy for Gandhi to be arrested and go on food strikes all those times, or Nelson Mandela to spend the greater part of his life in prison and later become the first Black South African President, or Ali to refuse the draft before the Vietnam war lost public support and giving up his championship (prime of his boxing career) fighting in the courts facing jail?
Pick and choose your causes as you wish, that's your right, but using other people private property whether it be real property or an online website that's where your rights end. But be willing to back up your ideals like the great heros above and host nazi parties at your house, let them burn crosses in your yard, but keep in mind your also advocating for everyone else including anti nazis to have the same rights to use your property in the same manner.
Absolutely! We are all on the plantation. It's like i woke up one day and realized that free speech is gone. I despize the crap going on in the south. what scares me more is how our masters, fb, twtr, ggle, et,al., rationalize Orwellian tyranny.
Did anyone else see the "schizophrenic" letter written by the cloudflare CEO this morning? I dare a psychologist to read that wacko-mole CEO's letter and sign-off on a clean bill of health.
We are like fish in the sea who abruptly realize we're trapped in a fisherman's net. The free platforms that run our social infrastructure around are not free.
Gab, one of the more librertarian network/apps, was shot in the gut today by google. The first thing Gab sould do is hire a fire breathing trial attorney to file a lawsuite and go after google for antitrust offensives. This is opportunistic and preditory shrouded in SJW moral arrogance. Never let a good crisis go to waste, crush a competitor instead.
This is the issue with any "unmoderated" or "anti-censorship" network/project. We see it over and over again. If this is your mantra, you're going to be used by unsavory characters, and that toxin will eclipse your entire brand/project. Tor is a good example of this, and to some extent, it has happened with Reddit.
We need censorship-resistant networks, but they should not be advertised that way, because that will attract entirely the wrong type of early adopters. As if the chicken-and-egg problem needed additional complication.
Just to make a respectful point of clarification; there is a difference between uncomfortable free speech and illegal content. Tor traffic is illegal. Hate speach or any speech the social signaling echo chamber of silicon valley that is coding our world is legal and protected under the first amendment.
Until all the facts come out and a person is proven to be guilty, we (Americans) assume they are innocent of any crimes. This is a protection for the individual against the tyranny of the mob. It's a culture thing as much as it is a legal thing, this assumption of innocence.
> Until all the facts come out and a person is proven to be guilty,
> we (Americans) assume they are innocent of any crimes.
> This is a protection for the individual against the
> tyranny of the mob. It's a culture thing as much as
> it is a legal thing, this assumption of innocence.
Bollocks. This is the case in quite a few countries but America is an exception to this rule. Let me explain why: In America, contrary to many other countries the accused has his mug shot, full name, house address and plenty of other details including conversation with his neighbors and his grade school teacher paraded in the media some times even before they've been properly charged.
When Hans Reiser was accused of the murder of his wife I was one of very few people on HN asking for people to hold back their judgment until the facts were in and until he was declared guilty (which eventually happened).
One reason for this is that there was at that point in time no evidence at all that he had actually committed that crime, all there was was a substantial amount of circumstantial evidence.
Now, if there had been a home video of Reiser killing his wife on youtube then that would have held me back from making that comment, even if for legal purposes the judge would still have had to go through the whole 'presumed innocent' routine the facts would have proven to me that he would be found guilty with a likelihood close enough to certainty that advocating his innocence until proven guilty would border on the grotesque.
So, if you want to take a stand here and advocate that this person, who used his car to attempt to murder dozens and who successfully murdered at least one person and who is on the record as being a supporter of a group of people which has made no bones about their willingness to do violence and of who we have some pretty good video of him doing that particular deed of which he stands accused them I'm fine wit h that, that's your right. In the meantime the accused has his name plastered all over the media and he's going to have a hard time even finding a jury that is not already roughly where I am: that if he's going to plead 'not guilty' he's going to have to pull an outside size rabbit out of his hat.
FWIW and if you haven't seen it yet, go watch the video footage (which to me is some pretty strong proof) of this persons actions and then come back here and argue their innocence.
And if you are really so concerned about the rights of the accused put in a cent or two towards protecting their privacy in the media until they've been found guilty, you know, like countries do that really care about protection of the individual against the tyranny of the mob.
I suspect you and I agree on more than we disagree.
> Bollocks. This is the case in quite a few countries but America is an exception to this rule.
I was speaking to you, the individual jacquesm, not your tribe. I was trying to be "that guy" who always says, "now let's not rush to judgment" all while the mob is grinding their axes and reaching for their pitchforks.
> When Hans Reiser was accused of the murder of his wife I was one of very few people on HN asking for people to hold back their judgment until the facts were in and until he was declared guilty.
I think I was too, (I hope I was too, it was a long time ago, I don't remember). Too many lazy folks rush to judge after they're fed whatever line they get in the media.
> So, if you want to take a stand here and advocate that this person, who used his car to attempt to murder dozens and who successfully murdered at least one person and who is on the record as being a supporter of a group of people which has made no bones about their willingness to do violence and of who we have some pretty good video of him doing that particular deed of which he stands accused them I'm fine with that, that's your right. In the meantime the accused has his name plastered all over the media and he's going to have a hard time even finding a jury that is not already roughly where I am: that if he's going to plead 'not guilty' he's going to have to pull an outside size rabbit out of his hat.
I can't rush to judge the guy even though there's video evidence showing vicious killing. He might have chosen the wrong day to go off his meds and was insane that day. Let the facts come out and pray justice is properly served.
Whether he's guilty or not, I don't want to live with him. I want him put away forever at the very least, irregardless of his motives or frame of mind when he went on the rampage.
I simply won't call the guy a murderer until he's judged that way, but other than that I hope we don't disagree much.
> And if you are really so concerned about the rights of the accused put in a cent or two towards protecting their privacy in the media until they've been found guilty, you know, like countries do that really care about protection of the individual against the tyranny of the mob.
America is so screwed up, I know. The bloodsuckin' media whores, corporations getting the finest government they can buy, the broken culture. It's enough to drive me to the bottle.
I can't do much to fix the brokenness, but I can at least speak and encourage others to the good. Based on what you've written in the past, I think your heart in the right place, and I don't think I can lecture you where good is concerned.
Like many in this thread, you do not understand the difference between constitutional protection from the state and your interaction with private businesses.
Maybe it's because the "first impression" of Gab when the reviewer uses it is that it's a bunch of trolls; while for e.g. Tor you have to dig a bit to find the drugs that everyone is using it to buy.
Maybe a better angle would be having a place / tab / section where it's contained or marked as such? Marking vile content is one thing - wholesale censorship is another.
Does Google still stand for "free and open Internet"?
"Our values remain the same: The Internet should be competitive and open. That’s how it works today and how it has always worked. It’s a level playing field, where new entrants and established players can reach users on an equal footing. If Internet access providers can block some services and cut special deals that prioritize some companies’ content over others, that would threaten the innovation that makes the Internet awesome."
Pretty sure some equal footing is more equal than other.
I have no doubt even Stalinist Russia had something in its constitution about being a workers paradise where everyone's needs were equally met etc etc"
That's basically how propaganda works by changing and redefining words and concepts.
No, it's because the dominant ideology cannot survive debate.
There's a reason why ethnic nationalism and race realism have exploded in popularity in the past five years, and it's not because the ringleaders are a bunch of trained hypnotists.
> hurrr nazis ps my worldview requires me to remain this uninformed
Hey did you hear that 13 people died to a jihadi truck in Barcelona today? How many Muslim websites did Google knock offline in response? Or Cloudflare? How many Muslim accounts did Facebook and Twitter shut down?
I'm sure they're all scurrying to do just that, now that The Gloves Are Off in The War on Hate. Let's just wait and see.
We've banned this account for ideological trolling, i.e. using HN for ideological battle to the point of flamebait no-return.
The issues dividing society right now can be discussed on HN where relevant, but not like this. Comments here need to become more civil and substantive, not less, as the topic becomes more divisive. When accounts flout this rule to the point of arson, we ban them.
I find this odd. One person died at Charlottesville, potentially from an accident. Meanwhile there's been at least one intentional shooting with a higher death toll related to BLM, but there was no widespread "we need to shut this down" backlash there. But all of a sudden some random site writing mostly nonsense is some huge threat that we're gonna put aside neutrality and free speech for?
Regardless of your personal thoughts on BLM, the violence you're referring to is incidental; people involved in the violence may have ties to BLM but the did not commit the violence on behalf of BLM (indeed, BLM denounces all violence).
On the other hand, the neo-nazi terrorists in this country are killing people explicitly to serve their ideology. Hate leads to action, and the last time we let these guys preach hate unchecked it led to a world war and millions of innocent people murdered. We will not let them do this again.
Nobody wants to defend neo-nazis, but it's unfair to give BLM a pass simply because they're a loosely defined group that doesn't explicitly call for violence. They organize events knowing people supporting their cause will become violent, and it has happened many times. They don't skirt all responsibility simply because they don't issue official membership cards.
I'm not sure you are serious, but do you genuinely believe that this was potentially from an accident? The kind of accident where you get into your car, aim at a crowd and boot the accelerator?
It's a common talking point among the 'alt-right'. That and the weird obsession with antifa.
EDIT: I feel I should clarify a bit. I'm not saying that merely mentioning antifa or the 'accident' interpretation by definition means you're alt-right.
Furthermore, after spending quite a bit of time as a 'tourist' on some of the extreme right forums, I'm more sad and frustrated than angry. I can totally see how someone would actually end up believing the ridiculous extreme right conspiracies after spending enough time in such communities.
My words were too strong. I mean to say that it's possible this guy will claim it was an accident, that he panicked after being struck, and he only was hoping they'd move out of the way. Or that he didn't intend to kill anyone.
It's a totally different level than the BLM-related killings where the murderers flat-out say "I just wanted to kill white people".
At any rate, my point is that there wasn't any huge counter-reaction to silencing people when "the other side" did it. But one person dies due to right-wing-related idiots and suddenly this requires even Cloudflare to change their position?
The obsession with Antifa is probably that they seem like they're the same just on the other side. They idolize people that killed as many as Hitler did. They act violent, write all sorts of shit on social media, openly promote violence, intimidate people into not speaking, but there doesn't seem to be a reaction. Thus "alt-right" folks are going to view this simply as being unfairly targeted. I'd bet if people on the left were also silenced online they would not feel this way.
Can you please post your sources on what you are saying? I'm inclined to say that the opinion of this incident being "potentially from an accident" is extremely misguided.
You have leaders of the alt-right movements - speakers at their events - advocating violence on tape. The BLM leadership on the other hand is strictly anti-violence.
Little by little, Silicon Valley is supplanting the government. At this point it should be obvious that Silicon Valley companies feel no need to follow regulations imposed on them by the government. Some do, but those that don't aren't punished and generally wind up with faster growing businesses because of it. The government makes a symbolic effort to prevent hate speech, but where their efforts end Silicon Valley's begin. SVs efforts are much farther reaching and much more swiftly applied. And, of course, there is no oversight, no law or set of guidelines that Google must follow to decide what is and isn't "hate speech." Google gets to decide, they have the power.
Do you think you have a right to privacy in this country? You might have that right, as long as the SV companies decide to stick up for it. But it should be obvious at this point that, that right won't eve be enforced by the nominal "government."
Yes, conditions for the web as an open publication platform are rapidly deteriorating. This has major implications for everything that's changed during the PC revolution, not just political speech.
EDIT: Welp, this is the last comment from me for a while. HN's anti-thoughtcrime metering, which was activated on my account when I shared the illegal opinion that Kubernetes is not always a good thing to use for your production server infrastructure (n.b., HN is invested in Docker, and closely associated with Google), has kicked in to prevent me from sharing any more dangerous sentiments like "If you make a censorship-resistant network, don't let the people who have recently been censored know about it."
I look forward to the next five hours of watching every comment that isn't "Great! Delete everything I hate!" drop into the grey, and watching replies to my comments without being able to engage in the conversation. Very fishy stuff going on at HN recently. Source: user for 3315 days.
By supplanting the government I really only meant The United States government. Google, it seems, is still willing to payout to foreign governments. Since they might actually Something that our government does often too, so it seems to sort of come with the territory of being one of the most powerful organizations in The US.
I'd be astonished if our government had the spine to levy such a fine against Google or start an anti-trust investigation for stuff like this which, to me, seems like a pretty obvious abuse of their power as a platform.
A cursory Google search shows they paid a fine to the US government that is only 1/5 the EU fine, and that was in 2011, when its stock was 1/5 what it is today.
Wonder if the already-installed app is still usable or if it relied on some Google services.
If it was still usable I hope Google did a remote removal of it.
next dilemma for a startup - figuring out which bit of the splinternet you are going to target - the chinese, the confederate, the islamic or the general part.
I really like this comment. It's almost a mini sci-fi novel.
Plus it has insights.
Although the splinternet is huge. You have the Koreans and Japanese who have (had?) huge mega networks outside of "the general part" kept at bay by language and cultural reasons. But these walls wills fall and the one who does it will make a mint.
I don't think there will be a general part once it gets splintered.
It will probably be like China except every nation state will have their own version with their own censorship.
The open web started dying with the great firewall.
Splinternet. Wow, that is a very good point. The real scary part is when it gets super, super easy to get on the Darknet. When everything is highly encrypted, and those who want to wallow in hate can do so, to their hearts content, because they will be off into the ether on their own, without supervision, without oversight. Then the only recourse will be full and total government control over the internet. Outlandish as it may seem, it's possible.
> Gab is aimed at people interested in “Western values, individual liberty, and the free exchange of ideas” looking to avoid the “special interests pushing a very specific agenda” in tech. If that dog whistle isn’t loud enough...
Not sure that's a dog whistle.
With even the article admiting they can't find a valid reason for it to have been kicked from the Play Store, it's almost a self fulfilling prophecy.
Once you start believing that all your political enemies are utilizing "dog whistles" and "code language", it's basically a lost cause. There's no arguing with someone who will literally assign a negative meaning to otherwise innocuous words and statements if they can't find anything real to nitpick.
> Once you start believing that all your political enemies are utilizing "dog whistles" and "code language"
Heh, just a month ago someone told me that Trump was using secret hand gestures towards Putin during dinner at some summit there were at. I thought ok sure, how do you disprove that.
"He scratched his nose, it seems". "Nah, that's code for body was buried in concrete successfully". "Alrighty then..."
First they came for the murderers, and I said nothing because I was not a murderer.
Then they came for the rapists, and I said nothing because I was not a rapist.
Sorry to comment twice on a thread...but after thinking more, I really feel this is a dangerous precedent. The internet has been largely dominated by a few companies. I'd go as far as to call them nearly ubiquitous. When these companies start pushing political views, and start banning or otherwise blocking dissent, it becomes dangerous. What if, in retaliation, farmers of the Midwest banned shipments to California? Sure they'd survive, but not as conveniently. This is how civil wars start, and I think the two sides should start recognizing this and not pandering to the loudest voice.
The "second" best time would be the instant following the first best time! :) That leaves a continuum of "next best times" in between the first best time and now that one could have planted a tree.
Haha...the first time I read that proverb I thought the same thing, but I still like the message. I've thought about rewording it a bit like "The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The best time to plant a tree is now.". What do you think, too confusing?
This is what civil wars look like. Politicians being shot, people calling for the assassination of a sitting president, public institutions deciding which side they're on.
"Alt-left" is a fabricated term that does not refer to a movement. It creates a false equivalency between white supremacists and people who protest them.
There have always been deranged lunatics. The question is whether he was part of or influenced by a larger movement, which doesn't seem to be the case. Similarly, do you have anyone defending his actions the way some of the neo-Nazi groups have?
As a comparison, Timothy McVeigh was quickly condemned by just about everyone and is often used as an example of a lone wolf. This guy will be remembered as a [thankfully less successful] left-wing counterpart.
Exactly. Alt-left is a term made up by literal white supremacists to make violent leftist terrorists look like they're a broad, organized movement. They use it to excuse themselves for the violence their side commits. It gives them non sequiturs to distract in conversation, as you and the root comment successfully did.
In March 2017 Foreign Policy magazine (which is known for boring political analysis) polled a set of national security experts, and the consensus likelihood of civil war was 30% within the next 15 years.
It's got worse since then. Civil leadership of the armed forces is weakening, states are repudiating federal laws, the Republican party no longer exists as a unified block.
If you aren't personally outraged by this, you should take a step back..try to be as objective as you possibly can...and consider what it really means.
We are watching the collapse of the First Amendment.
No matter how much we may hate what someone has to say, we should DEFEND the right for them to say it. That's a principle that makes this country what it is.
What you are suggesting does not fall under the First Amendment, and indeed would be hugely freedom-denying.
Private individuals and businesses have always had the right to (non-violently) restrict speech in their private spaces. As long as they do not victimize a protected class, private businesses may reserve the right not to serve anyone.
Now, I am a statist so I am all for designating businesses as "essential infrastructure" and tightly regulating them. That being said, I'm not sure all the libertarian-types on HN would like it all that much.
1. of or relating to a centralized government that does not tolerate parties of differing opinion and that exercises dictatorial control over many aspects of life.
2. exercising control over the freedom, will, or thought of others; authoritarian; autocratic.
What's amazing is the same people who blog or tweet saying that it is right that these companies ban these organizations based on content are the same people who seem to believe they believe in net neutrality. These people also spend tons of time online tweeting about how some group is acting to get rid of net neutrality. So are you for or against net neutrality? Make up your own mind if you're going to be criticizing others.
It's such a hypocrisy but nobody can speak out about this hypocritical behavior because then automatically they will be branded a nazi.
It's also stupid that every time I make comments like this that I have to clarify, double clarify, triple clarify that I am against these hate speech groups (which should be obvious), because if I don't include this line, I'm also suddenly a nazi.
All I'm saying is it's a hypocrisy if you passionately advocate for things that are completely contradictory to each other.
How are they contradictory? The goal of net neutrality is to have physical internet lines be regulated in the same way that phone lines are: as a part of the communication infrastructure of the country.
Is Google Play a fundamental part of the infrastructure of the country? I wouldn't even call Google search fundamental (or infrastructure at all, for that matter)!
"Net neutrality is the principle that Internet service providers and governments regulating the Internet must treat all data on the Internet the same, not discriminating or charging differentially by user, content, website, platform, application, type of attached equipment, or mode of communication"
And yes, google play IS a fundamental part of the infrastructure of not just america but the entire world, most Android users (excluding those who use samsung modified os) download apps through google play store. Google.com is different because people have the freedom to choose another search engine. If you're an android user you don't have an alternative.
Which of these is Google? You seem to have reiterated my argument back to me.
> If you're an android user you don't have an alternative.
Cell phone operating systems are not a fundamental part of the communication infrastructure of the country. If you really did think that, you'd be asserting that people have a right to an Android phone, and that governments should compel Google to sell them to everyone at a fair price. According to you, the gov't doesn't get to do that for iPhones or Blackberries or whatever Amazon is doing in this space.
I hope you see how ridiculous that idea is. If you replaced your smartphone with a dumb phone today you'd get along fine and barely notice. None of your rights would be infringed. There are reasonable alternatives to having an Android phone for anything you'd want to do on an Android phone. You can't say the same thing of access to the infrastructure of the internet.
Nobody is saying Google doesn't have a lot of influence, and nobody's saying that isn't problematic. Nobody's calling you a Nazi for warning about censure that comes from centralization (the EFF is on your side). But you're spitting hypocrisy at other people and erecting straw men when you haven't thought your own ideas through. I get you're angry, but try to reflect more.
This seems backwards: network neutrality ensures that anyone is free to setup a host with whatever rules they want. If you treat the network as a neutral layer, there's less risk if a particular service chooses not to support something — whereas in a world of paid prioritization you'd have to worry about, say, paid prioritization or outright blocking as well as the other costs.
(This is one of the reasons I'm not a fan of Facebook's subsidized internet — the intentions can be pure but it's still unsettling to see the barriers to entry for a competitor)
My point was not about whether net neutrality is right or wrong, but that the same person sometimes protests AGAINST net neutrality when it fits their agenda, and sometimes pretend as if they're the guardian of the justice who's supposed to guard net neutrality. That's hypocritical.
People should instead have rational conversation about pros and cons and make an informed decision, but that's impossible nowadays because people can easily label one another nazi.
You seem to be conflating network neutrality with requiring companies to host content which violates their terms of service. I think it's reasonable to distinguish between those layers — someone who wants to find content Twitter won't host can easily go to gab or 4chan but it's much harder to switch ISPs.
Someone who wants to publish an app to Android cannot easily go somewhere else to publish their app.
I do get your point and I understand what you're saying, but at the same time this is not the same as "if you don't like Twitter just go somewhere else to post your microblog", because Android users don't have any other alternative.
Yes, in fact your point was exactly my point. I do believe this is something that needs to be discussed in the context of net neutrality but people seem to have hard time thinking that way for some reason. I think it's some sort of a "boiling the frog" phenomenon where people have a fixed notion of what "net neutrality" is in terms of examples, but if you think about it it's all about how a network needs to be neutral.
What makes it worse is a lot of people advocate for net neutrality but when it comes to things like this they think it's the right thing for the "network" to be not neutral.
Mods, why is this flagged off the front page? It's definitely news worthy that the day Gab raised $1 million dollars, they get booted off the Play store.
cannot wait till this Google gets broken up as monopolies should be.
Social networks should be in federated out in separate companies (may be even more than one).
Search engine ... same thing.
"..
Woodrow Wilson was right when he said in 1913, “If monopoly persists, monopoly will always sit at the helm of the government.” We ignore his words at our peril.
..."
169 comments
[ 4.1 ms ] story [ 242 ms ] thread~ ~ ~ Don't be evil ~ ~ ~
The article even mentions twitter and youtube have hate speech too.
I'm kind of curious why we can't have an uncensored platform that represents both sides. Is it because good people prefer censorship?
Hate speech and incitement of violence is a felony in most free democracies that protect speech.
1) Standing up and saying "I hate black people. I wish they would all die." 2) Standing up and saying: "I hate black people, if you see them, kill them."
There's a clear difference here. The first is speech, an opinion, not directing action, advocating for violence, or to break a law. I say that's protected, as distasteful as it may be. The second is clearly criminal, and illegal. It is speech, but it is directing violence, and a law to be broken. That is the incitement of violence and a crime.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/05/30/ha...
a) there's a lot more demand for alternatives among groups that have been kicked off analogous platforms. You almost have to hide them to avoid the stain. And of course, when a Buzzfeed editor asks why you haven't kicked off $UNPOPULAR_GROUP_X, they're not going to convey your actual principled response; they're going to convey that you're a closet $BAD_THING.
b) people remember offense and want to stay very far away from things that have offended them. Most judgments, by necessity, are made subconsciously. The association between "Reddit Name and Mascot" and "Bad Thing I Saw on the Front Page" is going to be made automatically and take many times more effort to undo.
"Don't shoot the messenger" is a phrase because our inclination is to lash out at the perceived vessel. It requires additional abstraction to take the immediate/physical association out of the mental blame loop.
This is why Facebook starts totally empty. It's why Twitter starts totally empty and then suggests the most banal/run-of-the-mill initial follows. It's why reddit can't shake the edgy atheist college sophomore as it's primary demographic (that demographic upvotes things that appeal to their niche only to the front page, scaring away everyone else).
People don't want a neutral point of view, they don't want both sides. They want their views reinforced and their egos stroked. Nothing else will suffice. Consumers are very unforgiving.
The fact that we can now retreat into an infinite echo chamber via the internet has had highly deleterious effects on civility.
We still all agree that Communism's little "quirk" of killing millions every time it's tried is user error or whatever? Right?
I think Facebook skirts it because it doesn't really have a public forum rather it has a large buffet of build your own forums that are not publicly visible from each users friends feed and a "let's solve for a feed of content likely as possible to keep said user on our site using as much history / personal information we can datamine about them, their k-nn's, and users in general"
For example "how voat turned out" seems to be ideal for a certain portion of internet users unwelcome by other sites and so perhaps they congregate there thus skewing the sample towards the way it turned out.
It's because most people fall into 3 camps:
- those who want an uncensored platform so they can be assholes
- those who want an uncensored platform, without wanting to be an asshole (many of the people on this site)
- those who don't want to be on a platform where random people can be assholes to them
The third camp is the largest, and it doesn't take many people in the first camp to make the platform not worth using for them.
They worked around it, or at least the users did.
Anyway, my guess is that this was caused by Andrew Anglin, editor in chief of the Daily Stormer, taking up residence at Gab.ai[1].
[1] https://gab.ai/andrewanglin
How about Unsavory/Ungood Resource Locator.
Thought Limiter Security
I get there's ugly stuff on the internet, but when did all the platforms decide to start being the moral center of determining what's acceptable speech. Hate speech is still protected speech (in the US anyways)[1] no matter how horrible it is.
> A law that can be directed against speech found offensive to some portion of the public can be turned against minority and dissenting views to the detriment of all. The First Amendment does not entrust that power to the government’s benevolence. Instead, our reliance must be on the substantial safeguards of free and open discussion in a democratic society.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech#Hate_speech_laws
When it became more profitable to do so, or they saw a PR angle. IMO businesses will cater to death cults that murder kittens if it makes money, but only until it becomes a PR problem. Real or imagined.
For a community that is very pro-company founders, I have a hard time getting a lot of the kneejerk reactions here.
Should physical stores not have a right to decide what they want and don't want to sell? Why should it be any different for Google's digital store?
Even if their reason is "the 3rd pixel on the 2nd row of their app icon is too red for our liking, we're taking it down", they're perfectly in their right. You, of course, are also perfectly in your right to not do business with them, or even launch your own competing business.
The argument is that facebook/twitter as well as some of these other platforms cloudflare/app stores, etc are a form of speech & they have a somewhat debateable stronghold on facilitating speech.
So, when they deny speech to a specific group of people, they're not just denying service, but denying speech.
The argument is debateable, but that is why people are upset, not that they don't think companies can act however they like towards their customers.
But there’s one huge difference: These newer offshoots have been far more successful than we could ever have dreamed. When you see crowds of hundreds marching through the streets with their faces uncovered, when white supremacist leader Richard Spencer holds a press conference a few days after a woman was killed by one of his fellow travelers and hosts reporters in his home, it becomes clear just how much more terrifying this new generation of extremists is. They’re savvier than we were. Better connected.
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/08/18/former-neo...
I hope you're as worried about Islamic extremists as you are about Nazi ones?
Of course. I think all violent extremism is despicable.
To spell it out: the Overton window has moved to a point where people matching in the streets with Nazi flags yelling about killing Jews is not beyond the pale.
That's what Gab did when they were banned from Twitter. Now an alliance of tech companies are banning it en masse, even though they are far more benign than some of the other apps on the Apple store and Google Play store (4chan, for example).
This isn't about freedom of expression. This is a coordinated attack against an emerging alternative tech industry.
They are private businesses, they are not discriminating against a protected class (to cut short any "but what about refusing to sell cakes to gay people" argument), so they are free to ban whatever users/apps/etc they want off of their platform.
Hey, maybe if Twitter had banned Trump for some of the crap he said, we wouldn't be in this mess.
This is no different from a book publisher refusing to publish your book. Free speech considerations do not apply.
There's plenty on the right who are more than happy to condemn Nazis.
If they favored the left then they would have implemented much stronger anti-harassment policies a long time ago. Instead the greatest sin you can do is dox someone, which will get you banned forever.
To make it clear: On Twitter, you can have a Swastika for an avatar, and post oven memes while tagging Jewish members and you won't get banned. OTOH, if you unmask one of the people posting those memes you will get banned.
I'm not sure what political stand that is, but it doesn't seem particularly left (or right!) wing to me.
Of course they favor the left. The founder even said he was sorry about Twitter helping elect Trump.
http://www.ebony.com/news-views/obama-foundation-tech-billio...
My argument isn't that Evan William's doesn't have political opinions. It is that Twitter's policies don't reflect them.
Your point was:
> They're [Twitter] firmly on the left and banning their political opponents.
I'm sure you can point to many right-leaning commentators who have been banned, and I can point to many left-learning.
But as far as I can see they don't ban people for political views, instead they bad them for specific behaviors; specifically direct threats or doxing.
I'm talking about Gab being right-wing and therefore banned by Apple and Google, while Twitter, which also hosts hate speech, is not banned, because they are left-wing.
> How many donated a million dollars to Obama? [Twitter founder Evan Williams]
> I'm not talking about Twitter's actions here.
Hu?
They get away with hosting hate speech because they're on the left. Meanwhile, another platform that's on the right is banned by Apple and Google with that excuse.
they always have, they all have content policies. for example, very few of them allow porn.
as opposed to picking the side that aren't Nazis?
So for example you have every right to wear a jean jacket in court that says "fuck the draft" and the government can't prohibit or punish you for it (famous 1st amendment case) but a church can have you removed for wearing an article of clothing that says "fuck the church". See public vs private. Alternatively the government can prohibit and punish (I.e. Criminalize) burning of draft cards, because such speech interferes with the public function; therefore, is not protected (another famous 1st amendment court case). And high schools can prohibit students from wearing armbands as a silent protest (I.e. Not protected speech), because the government has more powers than normal when they are the wards of minors (again another famous 1st amendment case).
And while hate speech may be protected, it can also be criminalized when used in conjunction with the commission of a crime and enhance the penalties of said crime.
Still none of this is applicable to private business, and you would probably be glad to know if you are a business owner you Wouldn't have to permit hate speech in your establishment.
> https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15042314
I'm not trying to be snotty. I'm trying to explain what the "free speech" side of the argument is.
I'm not saying his is invalid, or that he didn't bring up point, but I'm stating why there is concern from those concerned with free speech and "de-platforming."
I don't think asking for a debate is "snotty" or "insufferable", but if I am, please let me know where I'm wrong :)
That comes across as snotty and insufferable.
You're welcome to join.
To extend the idea, I noticed you have a personal website linked in your bio, are you under moral obligation to allow other people to post hate speech to your website or allow anyone to post anything to your website? Do you feel you have complete control over the content posted to your website or does that make you some sort of moral censor and dictator of acceptable speech?
Edit: Your giving site may provide a better example, because presumably you feel you can pick a choose what charitable group(s) can join and receive funds through your platform, effectively limiting the speech of all the other programs you haven't allowed to join.
I think the issue specifically with the app store is that there are other players who could similarly violate the "hate speech" metric (telegram/whatsapp/twitter/etc), but Google doesn't take those down. That calls into question how consistent they are with their policing and what constitutes the "line."
The larger argument I was trying to get at in the other comment was that there seems to be a few companies that are aggregating power over "speech" online. At some point, they start to either look monopolistic (and using their base to prevent other players from growing - see fb v snapchat), or start to seem more similar to utility companies (which are regulated to some extent).
Should your electric company be able to shut you off because you attended a rally? Should your phone company be able to terminate your service? Maybe, maybe not, but the utility analogy seems apt (to me) for this scenario.
According to 1st amendment law, the remedy is to boycott the business, and truthfully it's the greatest tool people have to level the playing field, and it's seriously underleveraged especially in the internet age. However, the logic goes if you can't get the public to boycott a company, then your speech has basically failed in what's called the marketplace of ideas. So maybe while it's worth while to call attention to the power of these big companies and promote a boycott to keep them in check, you shouldn't be surprised when the boycott fails to gain momentum based them prohibiting hate speech, meaning find a clear cut example where they abused their power in a clearly controversial way where enough of the public will support the boycott to hurt the companies bottom line.
As to your last paragraph, denial of service is not always protected or even speech for that matter. Another famous Supreme Court Case is Ollie's BBQ which prohibited African Americans from eating there, and that was found to be unconstitutional under the commerce clause. The commerce clause is kind of a running joke in law that gives the Federal Government the right to regulate everything on the basis of effecting interstate commerce, and while I of course agree with the result of the case, I despise the logic and use of the commerce clause. See: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katzenbach_v._McClung
How do you boycott your power company? There aren't a lot of options...
(p.s. thanks for the civil discussion).
Before that look towards US Homestead Steel workers strike to protect unions and wages, that literally ended in a fire fight between 10,000 townspeople and the private security firm the Pinkertons. There were legal battles and boycotts, all of which failed.
So there is no guarantee you prevail and I don't mean to make real change sound easy, but we live in a different day and age, and I don't think you need to worry about Google hiring private security firms and actual fire fights, but who knows, could you imagine everyone in the US boycotting Google Search until they repatriated HQ to the US to pay normal corporate taxes and pay their back taxes? What would that look like, I have no idea but maybe just a single day of boycotting. And as unrealistic as that might sound, would it really be such a disturbance for everyone to collectively use bing or duckduckgo for a day to avoid Google? Compared to facing the Pinkertons or the hell people faced fighting for their civil rights, it seems pretty easy.
So its not just a matter of how, the how is easy if there is a good enough why that will prevail in the marketplace of ideas. Give workers a reason and they can strike, give consumers a reason and they can boycott. Such things make it untenable for the shareholders and they can elect a new board who can elect new corporate officers, if they continue to fight, make in untenable politically and they lose their support all the way around. Again in the internet age its easier than ever to organize, promote a message and hold people accountable...but that doesn't mean its easy.
But to me, the concerning point, is that the Internet is quickly becoming a place with no public forums. And I don't mean public forum in the legal sense (though that is also true), but in the sense of a place where everyone is welcome, and where people of all sides are actually present.
I think public forums are an important part of our society because they force exposure to other members of society and create shared experiences. I think a major part of protests, like occupy wallstreeet, BLM or the Women's March is to get people's attention by being in a public space. You can get your ideas out into the area and even the country on television.
If we are all living in our little bubbles, how can we have dialog and solve problems? Conservatives will have their little bubble, liberals will have their little bubble, and there will be no interaction. Twitter used to be a place where you could hear any kind of thought. You could hear one side of the story from the president of the US and the other side from al qaeda. Not anymore.
Now, it may not seem like a big deal as the people being kicked off are bigots. But are you sure your opinion will always be in the majority? Take for example the recent Google Memo, which was quickly labeled sexist by most media outlets. Conversation on HN the past weeks indicates many on HN disagree with that label. It's bigots today, but it might be "sexists" tomorrow.
So, yes I agree corporations have no duty to maintain a public forum. But if all businesses choose not to be public forums, do you think that is a good thing?
I tend to use the church example a lot, because conceptualize small towns where the church maybe the epicenter for the majority of the community, and what it would mean to have to allow hate speech inside these places of worship (say a temple having to allow neo nazi's in to promote their message in the middle of a service).
I don't think it's good to ignore the law in this area, because it's developed over a hundred years and has considered facts you and I would never come up with in a million years and the logic is well thought out of nothing else, even if I disagree with certain decisions on free speech.
As to the internet it's the closest thing to what is called the marketplace of ideas from 1st amendment law, because even the government can shut you otherwise protected speech down in real life public forums based on safety, permitting, etc... moreover, anyone can get a personal website, just like the OP has listed in his bio, and it's available 24/7, and as I mentioned direct to OP, just like I have no rights to post hate speech or any speech on his website, there is no absolute right to post anything anywhere else either, even here on HN where many of my posts that made the front page have been killed/taken down even when they didn't violate HN terms.
I am just asking the question, if all businesses choose to not be public forums (as in their right, which I do not dispute), is that good for society? Some would argue that all Internet platforms deciding to regulate speech is a positive because it removes hate speech, for example. I would argue that it is not good because it eliminates public spaces.
The key thing about the public square is interaction with the public. If all that people wanted was free speech they would just go shout in the woods. And the Internet is becoming that. The liberals will shout with the liberals and the conservatives with the conservatives.
Again anyone can create their own website, nothing is limiting the exercise of their protected speech and if the speech wins in the marketplace of ideas nothing can stop it, and history has shown when speech has won in the marketplace of ideas the people who try to stop it only magnify it. Showing my age a little but look the show Married with Children, it was going to be cancelled until the politicians tried to take it off the air and then it became a hit, or when politicians tried to ban 2 Live Crew's album and they went to the Supreme Court and won, it only promoted the album/speech more. If you have a good enough idea you publish on your own website, that simultaneously all the existing platforms prohibit they are likely going to be doing you a favor in terms of promotion of your idea and your platform(website), but if its a idea that fails in the marketplace of ideas don't expect much one way or another.
As to the idea about shouting in the woods, that highlights my point just as much as yours. At some point Facebook.com was just empty woods, they bought it and made it what it is, it was never a public space, in fact in the beginning it was more restrictive limiting the people who could join to people with .edu email addresses, meaning at one point Facebook's platform was less public than it is today. And if they turned the switch back tomorrow, my opinion would be that it wouldn't be a loss of a public space because it never was a public space, it would still admittedly be a loss of some kind.
Moreover, I am just not sure these internet platforms have the ability to eliminate public spaces because they were not and never have been public spaces. Nothing, about these platforms ever guaranteed an audience for anyone's speech, in fact they are all subject to disappearing tomorrow due to competition or simply going out of business. Also, I see many alternatives to publishing speech on the internet, admittedly it may be about the same as shouting in empty woods but again even facebook at onetime was empty woods and still may as well be for many content publishers.
Sure, but of necessity you'd also need to be your own host, which gets expensive.
Can they though? Domains Registries, Data-centers, ISP, all have terms of service, Storm Front learned that the hard way.
So I would not keep claiming "Again anyone can create their own website" because that is factually false
Anyone can get a website under the terms of conditions of the massive companies offering web hosting services, domain registrations, Internet Access, and all of the other private pieces need to run a website. This assumes you have the technical knowledge to do so, you are basically claiming Free Speech is only for server admins, dont know how to run your own web server, well make sure you conform to ever increasing strict "acceptable speech" codes if you do not want to be shut down
today society has a general aversion to or out right hate for Free Speech, and terms of service are becoming more and more restrictive.
Society its self is attacking the concept of Free Expression today far more effectively than any government ever could
It would seem this will be how Free Speech dies.... with Thunderous Applause from those too short sighted to see the forest because of a few racist trees....
First they came for the nazi's I did no protest for I am not a nazi... then they came for.....
I wonder which group will be next... and How long will it be before they come for me, that something I desire to speak out about will be "wrong think". I am Libertarian so I suspect it will not be long. Authoritarianism is the word of the day
Want to print and distribute your protected speech, the printing press cost money.
I'd say a domain/hosting/web builder can be done cheaper than the printing press and certainly cheaper than getting a city permit. The actual knowledge involved? About 5-10 minutes of YouTube videos. Your right many of the services you might leverage have terms, the real world is not without similar terms.
Certainly today it is far cheaper and easier to set up a website for your message than anytime in the internets history. I think free speech like any other right dies through ignorance, lack of historical understanding and just lack of strength of character. To that end anyone can contractually limit their rights as you suggest but it's always been that way, it's not as though the internet was ever free of these terms in the beginning. Don't like the terms, then organize/boycott, take action, and I'm not pretending it's easy to take action against a company like Google, but think it wasn't hard to exercise free speech and fight for civil rights in the face of police, military, fire hoses, etc... It's not the US but think it was easy for Gandhi to be arrested and go on food strikes all those times, or Nelson Mandela to spend the greater part of his life in prison and later become the first Black South African President, or Ali to refuse the draft before the Vietnam war lost public support and giving up his championship (prime of his boxing career) fighting in the courts facing jail?
Pick and choose your causes as you wish, that's your right, but using other people private property whether it be real property or an online website that's where your rights end. But be willing to back up your ideals like the great heros above and host nazi parties at your house, let them burn crosses in your yard, but keep in mind your also advocating for everyone else including anti nazis to have the same rights to use your property in the same manner.
Did anyone else see the "schizophrenic" letter written by the cloudflare CEO this morning? I dare a psychologist to read that wacko-mole CEO's letter and sign-off on a clean bill of health.
We are like fish in the sea who abruptly realize we're trapped in a fisherman's net. The free platforms that run our social infrastructure around are not free.
Gab, one of the more librertarian network/apps, was shot in the gut today by google. The first thing Gab sould do is hire a fire breathing trial attorney to file a lawsuite and go after google for antitrust offensives. This is opportunistic and preditory shrouded in SJW moral arrogance. Never let a good crisis go to waste, crush a competitor instead.
We need censorship-resistant networks, but they should not be advertised that way, because that will attract entirely the wrong type of early adopters. As if the chicken-and-egg problem needed additional complication.
Bollocks. This is the case in quite a few countries but America is an exception to this rule. Let me explain why: In America, contrary to many other countries the accused has his mug shot, full name, house address and plenty of other details including conversation with his neighbors and his grade school teacher paraded in the media some times even before they've been properly charged.
When Hans Reiser was accused of the murder of his wife I was one of very few people on HN asking for people to hold back their judgment until the facts were in and until he was declared guilty (which eventually happened).
One reason for this is that there was at that point in time no evidence at all that he had actually committed that crime, all there was was a substantial amount of circumstantial evidence.
Now, if there had been a home video of Reiser killing his wife on youtube then that would have held me back from making that comment, even if for legal purposes the judge would still have had to go through the whole 'presumed innocent' routine the facts would have proven to me that he would be found guilty with a likelihood close enough to certainty that advocating his innocence until proven guilty would border on the grotesque.
So, if you want to take a stand here and advocate that this person, who used his car to attempt to murder dozens and who successfully murdered at least one person and who is on the record as being a supporter of a group of people which has made no bones about their willingness to do violence and of who we have some pretty good video of him doing that particular deed of which he stands accused them I'm fine wit h that, that's your right. In the meantime the accused has his name plastered all over the media and he's going to have a hard time even finding a jury that is not already roughly where I am: that if he's going to plead 'not guilty' he's going to have to pull an outside size rabbit out of his hat.
FWIW and if you haven't seen it yet, go watch the video footage (which to me is some pretty strong proof) of this persons actions and then come back here and argue their innocence.
And if you are really so concerned about the rights of the accused put in a cent or two towards protecting their privacy in the media until they've been found guilty, you know, like countries do that really care about protection of the individual against the tyranny of the mob.
> Bollocks. This is the case in quite a few countries but America is an exception to this rule.
I was speaking to you, the individual jacquesm, not your tribe. I was trying to be "that guy" who always says, "now let's not rush to judgment" all while the mob is grinding their axes and reaching for their pitchforks.
> When Hans Reiser was accused of the murder of his wife I was one of very few people on HN asking for people to hold back their judgment until the facts were in and until he was declared guilty.
I think I was too, (I hope I was too, it was a long time ago, I don't remember). Too many lazy folks rush to judge after they're fed whatever line they get in the media.
> So, if you want to take a stand here and advocate that this person, who used his car to attempt to murder dozens and who successfully murdered at least one person and who is on the record as being a supporter of a group of people which has made no bones about their willingness to do violence and of who we have some pretty good video of him doing that particular deed of which he stands accused them I'm fine with that, that's your right. In the meantime the accused has his name plastered all over the media and he's going to have a hard time even finding a jury that is not already roughly where I am: that if he's going to plead 'not guilty' he's going to have to pull an outside size rabbit out of his hat.
I can't rush to judge the guy even though there's video evidence showing vicious killing. He might have chosen the wrong day to go off his meds and was insane that day. Let the facts come out and pray justice is properly served.
Whether he's guilty or not, I don't want to live with him. I want him put away forever at the very least, irregardless of his motives or frame of mind when he went on the rampage.
I simply won't call the guy a murderer until he's judged that way, but other than that I hope we don't disagree much.
> And if you are really so concerned about the rights of the accused put in a cent or two towards protecting their privacy in the media until they've been found guilty, you know, like countries do that really care about protection of the individual against the tyranny of the mob.
America is so screwed up, I know. The bloodsuckin' media whores, corporations getting the finest government they can buy, the broken culture. It's enough to drive me to the bottle.
I can't do much to fix the brokenness, but I can at least speak and encourage others to the good. Based on what you've written in the past, I think your heart in the right place, and I don't think I can lecture you where good is concerned.
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15042291 and marked it off-topic.
"Our values remain the same: The Internet should be competitive and open. That’s how it works today and how it has always worked. It’s a level playing field, where new entrants and established players can reach users on an equal footing. If Internet access providers can block some services and cut special deals that prioritize some companies’ content over others, that would threaten the innovation that makes the Internet awesome."
https://www.google.com/takeaction/action/freeandopen/index.h...
I have no doubt even Stalinist Russia had something in its constitution about being a workers paradise where everyone's needs were equally met etc etc"
That's basically how propaganda works by changing and redefining words and concepts.
No, it's because the dominant ideology cannot survive debate.
There's a reason why ethnic nationalism and race realism have exploded in popularity in the past five years, and it's not because the ringleaders are a bunch of trained hypnotists.
Hey did you hear that 13 people died to a jihadi truck in Barcelona today? How many Muslim websites did Google knock offline in response? Or Cloudflare? How many Muslim accounts did Facebook and Twitter shut down?
I'm sure they're all scurrying to do just that, now that The Gloves Are Off in The War on Hate. Let's just wait and see.
Nobody is being denied from the play store because they are white, nor because they are muslims. That would be illegal.
Why would they shutdown Muslim websites and accounts though? Perhaps you are implying they are all terrorists or something?
That's a good point; one I hadn't thought of.
I hope we can still agree, though, that all people who advocate for white interests are Nazis.
The issues dividing society right now can be discussed on HN where relevant, but not like this. Comments here need to become more civil and substantive, not less, as the topic becomes more divisive. When accounts flout this rule to the point of arson, we ban them.
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15042316 and marked it off-topic.
We clearly didn't watch the same video.
On the other hand, the neo-nazi terrorists in this country are killing people explicitly to serve their ideology. Hate leads to action, and the last time we let these guys preach hate unchecked it led to a world war and millions of innocent people murdered. We will not let them do this again.
I'm not sure you are serious, but do you genuinely believe that this was potentially from an accident? The kind of accident where you get into your car, aim at a crowd and boot the accelerator?
EDIT: I feel I should clarify a bit. I'm not saying that merely mentioning antifa or the 'accident' interpretation by definition means you're alt-right.
Furthermore, after spending quite a bit of time as a 'tourist' on some of the extreme right forums, I'm more sad and frustrated than angry. I can totally see how someone would actually end up believing the ridiculous extreme right conspiracies after spending enough time in such communities.
It's a totally different level than the BLM-related killings where the murderers flat-out say "I just wanted to kill white people".
At any rate, my point is that there wasn't any huge counter-reaction to silencing people when "the other side" did it. But one person dies due to right-wing-related idiots and suddenly this requires even Cloudflare to change their position?
The obsession with Antifa is probably that they seem like they're the same just on the other side. They idolize people that killed as many as Hitler did. They act violent, write all sorts of shit on social media, openly promote violence, intimidate people into not speaking, but there doesn't seem to be a reaction. Thus "alt-right" folks are going to view this simply as being unfairly targeted. I'd bet if people on the left were also silenced online they would not feel this way.
The two are not even close to equivalent.
Do you think you have a right to privacy in this country? You might have that right, as long as the SV companies decide to stick up for it. But it should be obvious at this point that, that right won't eve be enforced by the nominal "government."
EDIT: Welp, this is the last comment from me for a while. HN's anti-thoughtcrime metering, which was activated on my account when I shared the illegal opinion that Kubernetes is not always a good thing to use for your production server infrastructure (n.b., HN is invested in Docker, and closely associated with Google), has kicked in to prevent me from sharing any more dangerous sentiments like "If you make a censorship-resistant network, don't let the people who have recently been censored know about it."
I look forward to the next five hours of watching every comment that isn't "Great! Delete everything I hate!" drop into the grey, and watching replies to my comments without being able to engage in the conversation. Very fishy stuff going on at HN recently. Source: user for 3315 days.
SV is not beyond the power of governments, governments are just slow to catch up. For good reason.
I'd be astonished if our government had the spine to levy such a fine against Google or start an anti-trust investigation for stuff like this which, to me, seems like a pretty obvious abuse of their power as a platform.
[edit formatting and remove snark]
Plus it has insights.
Although the splinternet is huge. You have the Koreans and Japanese who have (had?) huge mega networks outside of "the general part" kept at bay by language and cultural reasons. But these walls wills fall and the one who does it will make a mint.
The open web started dying with the great firewall.
Not sure that's a dog whistle.
With even the article admiting they can't find a valid reason for it to have been kicked from the Play Store, it's almost a self fulfilling prophecy.
Heh, just a month ago someone told me that Trump was using secret hand gestures towards Putin during dinner at some summit there were at. I thought ok sure, how do you disprove that.
"He scratched his nose, it seems". "Nah, that's code for body was buried in concrete successfully". "Alrighty then..."
Then they came for the far-right, and I said nothing because I was not a far-righter...
... what "they" come for is just as relevant.
You're roughly 9 months late with that comment.
This is what civil wars look like. Politicians being shot, people calling for the assassination of a sitting president, public institutions deciding which side they're on.
Republicans were shot at by an alt-left radical. Scalise was in the ICU.
Another alt-left radical Clayton Carter murdered a GOP committee member in front of his wife.
Mainstream Media is completely politicized
An alt-right radical murdered Heather Heyer a protester.
Today a missouri state senator Nadal called for the assasination of a sitting us president. It also trended on twitter. Twitter did nothing.
The only thing that gives me hope of deescalation is both the right and left media is finally denouncing violence on both sides.
CNN pundits and FOX pundits are all denouncing ANTIFA and the alt-left, and the alt-right and racists.
As a comparison, Timothy McVeigh was quickly condemned by just about everyone and is often used as an example of a lone wolf. This guy will be remembered as a [thankfully less successful] left-wing counterpart.
[0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2017/0...
http://www.snopes.com/2017/08/17/is-the-alt-left-a-real-thin...
In March 2017 Foreign Policy magazine (which is known for boring political analysis) polled a set of national security experts, and the consensus likelihood of civil war was 30% within the next 15 years.
It's got worse since then. Civil leadership of the armed forces is weakening, states are repudiating federal laws, the Republican party no longer exists as a unified block.
[1] http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/06/28/what-are-the-chances-of-...
If you aren't personally outraged by this, you should take a step back..try to be as objective as you possibly can...and consider what it really means.
We are watching the collapse of the First Amendment.
No matter how much we may hate what someone has to say, we should DEFEND the right for them to say it. That's a principle that makes this country what it is.
Somehow this power must be reigned in.
Private individuals and businesses have always had the right to (non-violently) restrict speech in their private spaces. As long as they do not victimize a protected class, private businesses may reserve the right not to serve anyone.
Now, I am a statist so I am all for designating businesses as "essential infrastructure" and tightly regulating them. That being said, I'm not sure all the libertarian-types on HN would like it all that much.
adjective
1. of or relating to a centralized government that does not tolerate parties of differing opinion and that exercises dictatorial control over many aspects of life.
2. exercising control over the freedom, will, or thought of others; authoritarian; autocratic.
noun
1. an adherent of totalitarianism.
It's such a hypocrisy but nobody can speak out about this hypocritical behavior because then automatically they will be branded a nazi.
It's also stupid that every time I make comments like this that I have to clarify, double clarify, triple clarify that I am against these hate speech groups (which should be obvious), because if I don't include this line, I'm also suddenly a nazi.
All I'm saying is it's a hypocrisy if you passionately advocate for things that are completely contradictory to each other.
Is Google Play a fundamental part of the infrastructure of the country? I wouldn't even call Google search fundamental (or infrastructure at all, for that matter)!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality
And yes, google play IS a fundamental part of the infrastructure of not just america but the entire world, most Android users (excluding those who use samsung modified os) download apps through google play store. Google.com is different because people have the freedom to choose another search engine. If you're an android user you don't have an alternative.
Which of these is Google? You seem to have reiterated my argument back to me.
> If you're an android user you don't have an alternative.
Cell phone operating systems are not a fundamental part of the communication infrastructure of the country. If you really did think that, you'd be asserting that people have a right to an Android phone, and that governments should compel Google to sell them to everyone at a fair price. According to you, the gov't doesn't get to do that for iPhones or Blackberries or whatever Amazon is doing in this space.
I hope you see how ridiculous that idea is. If you replaced your smartphone with a dumb phone today you'd get along fine and barely notice. None of your rights would be infringed. There are reasonable alternatives to having an Android phone for anything you'd want to do on an Android phone. You can't say the same thing of access to the infrastructure of the internet.
Nobody is saying Google doesn't have a lot of influence, and nobody's saying that isn't problematic. Nobody's calling you a Nazi for warning about censure that comes from centralization (the EFF is on your side). But you're spitting hypocrisy at other people and erecting straw men when you haven't thought your own ideas through. I get you're angry, but try to reflect more.
(This is one of the reasons I'm not a fan of Facebook's subsidized internet — the intentions can be pure but it's still unsettling to see the barriers to entry for a competitor)
People should instead have rational conversation about pros and cons and make an informed decision, but that's impossible nowadays because people can easily label one another nazi.
I do get your point and I understand what you're saying, but at the same time this is not the same as "if you don't like Twitter just go somewhere else to post your microblog", because Android users don't have any other alternative.
What makes it worse is a lot of people advocate for net neutrality but when it comes to things like this they think it's the right thing for the "network" to be not neutral.
That said, I do wish your argument would not be downvoted, even if I think you're wrong.
Social networks should be in federated out in separate companies (may be even more than one). Search engine ... same thing.
".. Woodrow Wilson was right when he said in 1913, “If monopoly persists, monopoly will always sit at the helm of the government.” We ignore his words at our peril. ..."
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/22/opinion/sunday/is-it-time...