undefined | Better HN

0 pointsconcordDance5y ago0 comments

> I imagine responding to tech blogs with, "yes, there are white supremacist sub-communities, but you don't have to see them if you don't want to" won't come across as a very satisfying answer from their perspective.

It's always irked me that most people seem to think that people with different politics to them shouldn't be allowed to communicate.

0 comments

TulliusCicero5y ago

1. Referring to them as just "different politics" covers up the hateful, violent ideologies we're talking about.

2. Wanting them to be banned from a particular platform isn't a general ban on communication. Private communities are under no obligation to tolerate the intolerant.

ccatty5y ago

The domain-name removals, the mastercard and visa bans, and the app bans are the actions of private companies in name only. What this is, despite pretending otherwise, is an exercise of a form of state power. When exercised against a nation, we recognize it as a sanction. But when exercised against an individual, it is something different. In reality, there is no practical difference between this and state censorship in China.

Personally, I don't object to this kind of power in principle, I just think that it is used in the wrong direction in the United States. Rather than being used to target and remove individuals who promote instability, it has been used to target and remove individuals who promote stability. Much of the United States now believes property destruction is acceptable if it achieves honorable ends.

TulliusCicero5y ago

> The domain-name removals, the mastercard and visa bans, and the app bans are the actions of private companies in name only.

No, they're completely the actions of private companies.

It turns out, private companies exist in a mostly-shared culture and often have similar ideas about how to behave. Currently -- thank god -- deplatforming blatant bigots is generally agreed upon as A Good Thing. No conspiracy here, just good sense.

> Rather than being used to target and remove individuals who promote instability, it has been used to target and remove individuals who promote stability.

Seriously? White supremacists are now "individuals who promote stability"?

> Much of the United States now believes property destruction is acceptable if it achieves honorable ends.

I mean, yeah, the US has always believed that. The country had basically two starting points, after all: stealing the natives' land, and then later on destroying property as part of a protest.

1 more reply

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

0 comments

TulliusCicero5y ago

1. Referring to them as just "different politics" covers up the hateful, violent ideologies we're talking about.

2. Wanting them to be banned from a particular platform isn't a general ban on communication. Private communities are under no obligation to tolerate the intolerant.

ccatty5y ago

TulliusCicero5y ago

> The domain-name removals, the mastercard and visa bans, and the app bans are the actions of private companies in name only.

No, they're completely the actions of private companies.

> Rather than being used to target and remove individuals who promote instability, it has been used to target and remove individuals who promote stability.

Seriously? White supremacists are now "individuals who promote stability"?

> Much of the United States now believes property destruction is acceptable if it achieves honorable ends.

I mean, yeah, the US has always believed that. The country had basically two starting points, after all: stealing the natives' land, and then later on destroying property as part of a protest.

1 more reply

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse