Well said. I'm glad EFF is not burrying their heads in the sand and hiding behind the "but they're nazis!" Excuse.
Additionally, I view these acts of censorship as a great opportunity for blockchain and other nascent decentralized web technologies to take off. It's a classic case of the innovator's dilemma - when a company or industry seems ascendant, it becomes complacent to new threats, and the seeds of its destruction are sown right underneath it. Sometimes it even assists in the process. (Microsoft's neglect of IE, allowing Mozilla to flourish in the mid-2000s, is one of my favorite examples.) With their suppression of speech, these centralized services are quite possibly hastening their own demise.
"Protecting free speech is not something we do because we agree with all of the speech that gets protected. We do it because we believe that no one—not the government and not private commercial enterprises—should decide who gets to speak and who doesn’t."
On that same note: Good riddance. Policy and processes are probably in no case ever too slow to take effect. Thanks to Google and GoDaddy for Pavlov'ing me towards reasonable human understanding, and thanks for EFF for making me aware that that there's a problem with "learning" things that way.
The problem is that the centralization of these services gives them so much power that it's problematic for free speech that they do it.
The latter is the problem.
They say "we agree with the ban" but then say "it's dangerous!"
of course it's dangerous, and yes, the speech is vile. but freedom of speech doesn't stop when we are insulted.
And it's not that I don't like Pc speech. I prefer it. But I also don't want it to be the only kind of speech one can use for discussion. Try and have any good philosophical argument without breaking PC boundaries.
It's a scary thing when one group controls the narrative of what is acceptable and unacceptable speech.
I'd encourage you to check out material from groups like Life after Hate that specialize in deradicalization of former white nationalists to get their first-hand perspective on the psychology of fascism.
In other words, what they advocate is what exists at the bottom of the slope. You know, Godwin's Law and all that?
I think my favourite is Mencken's.
> The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.
A close second is Wilde's:
> “I may not agree with you, but I will defend to the death your right to make an ass of yourself.”
One interesting quote in this regard is this:
"Any defense of Germany was impossible, he concluded, ''so long as the chief officer of the German state continues to make speeches worthy of an Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, and his followers imitate, plainly with his connivance, the monkey-shines of the American Legion at its worst.''"
Weird to see Hitler, before he became the go-to bad guy, being compared with classic American racism and political violence, with the implication that better is expected of him.
1. A Reasonable Position is expressed, in this case - 'Nazi's are very bad'. The Reasonable Position often involves an Enemy that must be stopped. Most reasonable people will agree with the Reasonable Position.
2. The Reasonable Position becomes the overriding factor in any situation that involves it. All other factors and considerations are dwarfed by it and forgotten.
3. Because the Reasonable Position comes to dominate the thinking of the Extremist - who often means well - they come to believe one can only ever be for or against the Reasonable Position. There is no room for moderate positions that try to balance the Reasonable Position with other important considerations and values - in this case, freedom of speech.
4. In order to show support for the Reasonable Position, third parties are forced to action in accordance with the world view of the Extremist. If they try to balance other considerations against the Reasonable Position, they are seen by the Extremist as sympathizing with the Enemy.
5. The fervor of extremism charges through society, trampling on other values and considerations.
Some historical examples:
>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution
And it seems that the "Freedom of speech" position is the one that has expanded more in context than "Nazis are very bad". Thus far people don't seem to be applying the badness of Nazis to non-Nazis (at least not intentionally), but we do seem to be expanding Freedom of speech slowly beyond government censorship to asking private entities to propagate speech.
Because it's the best (probably only) way to prevent every actual Reasonable Position from overriding every other factor and consideration. If freedom of speech is the default, there's no way an extremist group will stop conversation about any particular issue.
> Thus far people don't seem to be applying the badness of Nazis to non-Nazis (at least not intentionally)
This is Godwin's Law, which is in itself a testament to how common this is.
If you can: https://supporters.eff.org/donate
I had just started donating to them in the last week, too; I felt a bit silly canceling so soon.
Great, 100% agreed with that. Be clear and up front about terms of service, and be clear and open when they are violated.
That said, I'm not 100% agreed that "Whatever you use against Neo-Nazis will be used 'against the ones you love'." That's a slippery slope argument that I personally don't believe. Neo-nazis are such a different class of evil, that it's hard for me to see the same practices being used against someone who is not them.
You get to have that opinion. You get to think that the slippery slope argument is bullshit. That is your right. People told me that I was using a slippery slope argument when I said using the wartime powers act against "terrorism" was a quick sink to unjust presidential powers. I stand by my argument then and I stand by my slippery slope argument now.
> People told me that I was using a slippery slope argument when I said using the wartime powers act against "terrorism" was a quick sink to unjust presidential powers.
Is it different to you that the actions here were taken by companies, not by the government? To the best of my knowledge, there was no mandate to take these sites down.
> Be consistent
Sure, this is my original takeaway from the article -- establish clear boundaries, openly follow those rules when someone violates those boundaries. It causes confusion and uncertainty when you don't follow your published rules.
Are you so sure the same tactics will not be used against non-literal nazis? Or that non-nazis won't be named as such in order to then use the same practices on them "justifiably"?
If there's one thing we know with absolute confidence, is that if it's "just to protect the children" or "just to use against the nazis", it's really just that the technique/technology is still in beta test, and GA release is coming soon.
You could say the same about digital surveillance of potential terrorists.
Do you remember how Communists were treated during the McCarthy era?
edit: > That's a slippery slope argument
Its not. These discussions will be taken over by the political establishment and the courts very quickly with very real consequences.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/24/safe-spaces-un...
The neo-nazi sites themselves should in general not be interfered with from a governmental level - but there should be limitations of even this restriction, when it comes to the advocacy, planning and execution of violence.
In a more general sense I see the silencing of free-speech on the internet as a call to move to a more decentralised structure - as per what seemed to be the original intent - we generally seem to be moving yet further away from such a structure; although there are a significant number of emerging distributed technologies - as yet they seem to be niche in their utilisation.
(Somewhat tangentally, I see the free speech and public emergence of the now emboldened neo-nazis as somewhat a good thing, they were always there - but now they're in the public eye.)
For example, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center (not a group with an incentive to deflate numbers), at its peak the National Alliance had 1,200 members. All together, there are a few thousand active Neo-Nazis in the United States.
In contrast, let's take 2 countries where advocating Nazi ideology is illegal: Austria and Germany.
In Austria, the Freedom Party, founded by a former SS officer, has 50,000 members, 13 seats in the Upper House (similar to the Senate in the US) and 38 seats in the lower house as well as 4 in the European Parliament.
In Germany, the NPD received over 600,000 votes in the most recent election and now has a seat in the European Parliament.
A more equivalent comparison is Nazi ideology in Germany/Austria to Klanist ideology in the United States. The list of US politicians with Klan affiliation is long.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ku_Klux_Klan_members_in_United...
Also, The Southern Poverty Law Center estimates that there are 190 active KKK groups with between 5,000 and 8,000 Klan members in the U.S. That's a far cry from Austria and Germany.
That's the main reason I don't agree with the banning of daily stormer and google banning Gab.ai from the play store. They are only further enforcing these people's beliefs that the powers that be are against them.
No one is saying they can't discuss their beliefs, they just can't do it with the support of certain private companies. In the same way, if I owned a restaurant, I wouldn't allow them to host an informal "Daily Stormer Night" at my restaurant. I shouldn't be forced to having to have them use my restaurant as their unofficial homebase.
https://payments.google.com/payments/apis-secure/get_legal_d...
I wonder which clause they cited to execute the suspension.
Wait, what, they can do this? So if I get Google to host my domain they can just take it at will? Given the value of some domains that's insane. Google must be on shaky legal ground here.
Obvious note: Outsourcing your stuff to a 3rd party like that is risky, and should be considered so
It's more that their internal extremism means they feel justified in doing this sort of thing because they feel 'dangerous' speech must be suppressed.
I am concluding that Google is no longer trustworthy enough to run a search engine.
That is a scary, clever manipulation of language. Inciting violence is an exception to free speech because it is directly linked to a specific violent result.
"Hate" is non-specific, and not an action at all. It often means nothing more than offending someone or violating some political correctness. Hate speech is and should be protected speech.
Now, the minute either group is harassed or arrested by the government over things is when it becomes a problem. That is actual censorship, and should be resisted.
But due to the SIZE of these operations, their actions practically amount to censorship.
Saying that the right of free speech only protects you against the government does not mean much in practice, in these circumstances.
It also means that, for example, they have the freedom to pool funds and buy their own server, and host it in a datacenter that is willing to do business with them, or they can host their shit on ipfs.
It's not like someone like Level 2 is stepping in and saying "We are going to deep inspect all traffic going across our pipe and filter nazi traffic"
When Brendan Eich was ousted[1] from Mozilla, I warned that the boycott threat set a bad precedent. The counter argument at the time was that "his donation wasn't free speech" and rights weren't negotiable. In the aftermath of 3 people losing their lives in Charlottesville, supporting the Daily Stormer is clearly Bad for Business™ - even if none of the companies are explicitly stating how commercially toxic DS has become.
1. He was ousted, his resignation was a technicality
I'm not. The moral lukewarmness and willingness to stick to quite literally the HN (obviously comprised of white suburbanites) echo chamber should be quite obvious at this point on the site, to anyone willing to observe such patterns and how political rhetoric on this site is contained. Commenters seem to do damn near anything to not even so much as turn their heads to the left socially. Look at which comments are being downvoted in this thread and objectively ask yourself whether those downvotes have actual merit.
So what is being defended here in reference to the ideal of free speech? Actual Nazis with a known ideology, and known consequences of that ideology, are trying to spread their message. This isn't a matter of some moral ambiguity or merely silencing those we have "disagreements" with. I'd be nice if people in the U.S. would stop feigning ignorance or neutrality all to put up some faux enlightened defense of an abstract ideal. Be practical. It's not going to be a slippery slope. We're not going to turn into 1984. A private company chose to not do business with a group of people hellbent on spreading a totalitarian racist ideology. An ideology that speaks to some pretty primal fears and habits of humans. It's okay to correct for it.
I'll repeat it again, just to end: it's okay and necessary to silence these people. It's not going to open Pandora's box. Not addressing the problem will. I think the EFF's take on this, while noble, is naively idealistic.
Has Google decided they are now the truth police? Is Google taking it upon themselves to be like the Chinese censorship bureaus except for the whole world? I think this shows that the hate speech censorship is a real slippery slope.
https://www.reddit.com/r/UFOs/comments/6toeoz/cseti_youtube_...
It seems duplicitous to force someone else to bear the cost of facilitating toxicity.
Google, Cloudflare, etc, not so much.
Should instructions on how to make explosives be accessible and defended?
Like capitalism?
Or free Negroes?
Western Culture?
Who decides who is uneducated? Who decides what ideas are so bad they can't read? What's the enforcement mechanism?
The EFF is confusing a free speech problem with a monopoly problem. One would hope they aren't suggesting that the government be allowed to interfere with Google's speech.
So if they aren't, they are basically saying "bad boy, shame on you" to Google and others. It will have zero impact.
The right way to solve this problem is to name the actual problem and forget about free speech: monopoly. Break up Google and these other companies and problem solved.
> CANTWELL: "a lot more people are gonna die before we're done here" [1]
I'm pretty sure the Daily Stormer said something similar. I don't need that crap in my backyard.
I've sided against Google on numerous causes.
The EFF are wrong. Google is correct.
And yes, the reasons are complicated. But "slippery slope" is a facile fallacy.
Ultimately, society can, does, and must defend itself from attacks. Including attacks on the underprivileged (of whom the Fascists and Nazis at question here are not).
The history of media and new-media utilisation in demagoguery, totalitarianism, mob incitement and rule, and fascism is rich. It should give strong cause to pause to those who've sung (and believed) the narrative of the all-positive, peace-and-harmony bringing Internet. As I long had.
And am now pausing.
Epistemic systems gain significance when they can be abused for personal, political, nationalistic, or fascistic gain. That was the insight of a friend of mine some months back. Call it "the paradox of epistemic systems".
This includes Hacker News itself, which seems to have quite the fascist problem, and an unwillingness, at the moderator level itself, to face that, over concerns of "dignity".
Those concerns are very, very, desperately and sadly misplaced.
https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/5wg0hp/when_ep...
https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/6ufeu1/does_ha...
And here we go.
For all the people who (correctly) wondered "how broad will the definition of 'nazi' get", well, parent just helpfully illustrated it for you. The Hacker News comments section has been declared full of fascist unpersons who must be silenced at all costs.
But remember:
> But "slippery slope" is a facile fallacy.
If we apply those same standards to antifa, they too are a violent, irrational hatemob with blood on their hands. The only difference is they have nice excuses about how it's ok when they do it because of systemic oppression. Even as they wield establishment power against their opponents.
Neonazis are not a significant threat. An abandonment of enlightenment values due to media induced hysteria is. We already saw what passes for unacceptable speech with Damore, even if it's eminently reasonable and moderate. The same people who can whip up a giant shitstorm over nothing are now saying you should trust them in knowing what fascism is.
No thank you. If you justify the means with the ends, you enable people who thrive in such an environment, and they are far more dangerous and insidious than a neonazi clearly advertising being an intolerant twat.
