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Harvard withdraws 10 acceptances for ‘offensive’ memes in private group chat

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Harvard withdraws 10 acceptances for ‘offensive’ memes in private group chat

#211

Post by JoshTriplett »

throwanem wrote: post #182
JoshTriplett wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So what you want is authoritarian control of speech. Nope. Say anything you like. Learn to live with the consequences, which can and should include rejection by widespread parts of civilized society, and bask in the solitude. The crickets will surely enjoy your free speech. You shouldn't go to jail for it, but you can't demand that other people like it.

There's a bit of a difference between "I don't like this" and "I'm going to respond to this by attempting to destroy your social and professional life". It's disingenuous to pretend that your argument encompasses only the former, when identical contentions are so often deployed in support of the latter.

I think "rejection by widespread parts of civilized society" is a clear statement that I support both. Let me be explicit: racists and sexists should find it impossible to maintain a social and professional life, until they stop being racist and sexist. (And in the process, that also improves social and professional settings through their absence.) That's not a violent action, that's a highly effective non-violent action. And if it draws so much fire from the kinds of people it affects, perhaps that's because it works.

Re: Harvard withdraws 10 acceptances for ‘offensive’ memes in private group chat

#212

Post by dang »

cuck33 wrote: post #176

Yet another SJW propaganda war against free speech i can't even grasp. Please read abut socialist culture marxism by ex kgb agent: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5It1zarINv0 >Yet another SJW propaganda war against free speech i can't even No one talking about this, freemarket i don't care, BUT we the people have to fight and post "hate speach" edege memes, about niggers, muh 6 millions, lolcaust, feminist totalitari…

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14488846 and marked it off-topic.

Re: Harvard withdraws 10 acceptances for ‘offensive’ memes in private group chat

#213

Post by dang »

bjl wrote: post #181
cuck33 wrote: post #176

Yet another SJW propaganda war against free speech i can't even grasp. Please read abut socialist culture marxism by ex kgb agent: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5It1zarINv0 >Yet another SJW propaganda war against free speech i can't even No one talking about this, freemarket i don't care, BUT we the people have to fight and post "hate speach" edege memes, about niggers, muh 6 millions, lolcaust, feminist totalitari…

How telling that you created a throwaway to post this.

Please don't feed trolls.

Re: Harvard withdraws 10 acceptances for ‘offensive’ memes in private group chat

#215

Post by eropple »

stale2002 wrote: post #206
eropple wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are defending the "right of privacy and free speech" by shitting on other people's right to freely associate with the people they choose to. Almost like it isn't about "free speech" at all.

Your comments offends me. How would you like it if I then contacted your workplace and got you fired, or expelled from school.

I wouldn't! But if I did something shitty (let's be real here, you're not offended, you're upset at the notion that words have consequences), it would be entirely within your rights to react to what I did. And mine to defend myself, and my employer to decide whether the cost of being represented by someone with my views was commensurate with its return.

Re: Harvard withdraws 10 acceptances for ‘offensive’ memes in private group chat

#216

Post by a_puppy »

vinceguidry wrote: post #111

People worried about free speech rights should realize that Harvard is a private university. If I held a party at my house and didn't want to invite you because you called my dog a 'mutt', you'd get laughed out of court if you tried to sue me over it. People should be allowed to organize under whatever principles they want to organize under. Disallowing Harvard to use whatever criteria they want to use to admit stude…

"People worried about womens' rights in the early 20th century should have realized that Harvard was a private university. If I held a party at my house and didn't want to invite you because you were a woman, you'd get laughed out of court if you tried to sue me over it. People should be allowed to organize under whatever principles they want to organize under. Disallowing Harvard to use whatever criteria they want to use to admit students, unless of course they breach free speech rights, is ultimately decreasing the amount of intellectual diversity in the world. Women that don't like Harvard can apply to any other college. There's no shortage of them to choose from. But if you tell Harvard what they can and can't do, you run the risk of destroying the individuality of Harvard."

"People worried about reproductive rights should realize that Hobby Lobby is a private corporation."

"People worried about gay rights should realize that Chick-fil-A is a private corporation."

The choices of private organizations and individuals have huge effects, and it's reasonable to criticize them if we disagree with their actions. But on the other hand, I agree that it's important to give private organizations freedom. This is a difficult trade-off; we need to consider both sides of it, and whatever principle we decide on, we should apply consistently. So unless you'd also defend historical gender segregation at private universities, or defend Hobby Lobby and Chick-fil-A, you should find a different defense of Harvard's actions.

Re: Harvard withdraws 10 acceptances for ‘offensive’ memes in private group chat

#217

Post by kbenson »

ziggysak wrote: post #205
kbenson wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The article mentions the card game cards against humanity. Which is pretty popular and based on the same premise. Except that the premise of Cards Against Humanity is that you are all opting in to the situation where you expect that, and usually an a somewhat private setting. The equivalent to the CAH suggestion would be where some private group of people indicated that to become members, you had to go to a public…

I wouldn't consider that equivalent at all. This was an invite-only private chat between students. So in other words, it would be like they were playing CAH in a dorm room and somebody in the group decided to tell on them to administration.

It's actually somewhat unclear exactly what happened. From the article:

Some of the group’s members decided to form an offshoot group in which students could share obscene, “R-rated” memes, a student told the Crimson. The founders of the messaging group demanded that students post provocative memes in the main group chat to gain admittance to the smaller group.

But from wording later, the examples given seem to be from the private group? I'm also unclear if the private group some some offshoot of the main group within Facebook (that is, whether it's some Facebook sub-group feature, obviously they are members of the main group).

In any case, Harvard says they reserve the right to reject admission based on "honesty, maturity, or moral character" so if this information is brought to their attention, then it falls under what they consider valid acceptance criteria. It's no different than if they Google searched the applicant initially and found verifiable information that put the student in the same light.

Re: Harvard withdraws 10 acceptances for ‘offensive’ memes in private group chat

#218

Post by vinceguidry »

a_puppy wrote: post #216
vinceguidry wrote: post #111

People worried about free speech rights should realize that Harvard is a private university. If I held a party at my house and didn't want to invite you because you called my dog a 'mutt', you'd get laughed out of court if you tried to sue me over it. People should be allowed to organize under whatever principles they want to organize under. Disallowing Harvard to use whatever criteria they want to use to admit stude…

"People worried about womens' rights in the early 20th century should have realized that Harvard was a private university. If I held a party at my house and didn't want to invite you because you were a woman, you'd get laughed out of court if you tried to sue me over it. People should be allowed to organize under whatever principles they want to organize under. Disallowing Harvard to use whatever criteria they want t…

I specifically noted the civil rights exception in my comment.

Re: Harvard withdraws 10 acceptances for ‘offensive’ memes in private group chat

#219

Post by DanBC »

taneq wrote: post #157
vinceguidry wrote: post #111

People worried about free speech rights should realize that Harvard is a private university. If I held a party at my house and didn't want to invite you because you called my dog a 'mutt', you'd get laughed out of court if you tried to sue me over it. People should be allowed to organize under whatever principles they want to organize under. Disallowing Harvard to use whatever criteria they want to use to admit stude…

Yeah but the line gets greyer the closer your 'private company' gets to being a public institution, whether in law or just in public perception. The fact that you're saying "if someone found out about the private contents of the private group means it wasn't private enough" is kind of disturbing tbh.

There were two groups. One was meant to be used by all that year's intake. Another was private and meant to be used for these jokes.

The owners of the private group encouraged people to post offensive jokes to the main group to gain access to the private group.

> The founders of the messaging group demanded that students post provocative memes in the main group chat to gain admittance to the smaller group.

It's this that is, I think, the problem.

1) using the non-private group

2) Encouraging people to break the rules of the public group

3) Being so fucking easily led that you do so.

Re: Harvard withdraws 10 acceptances for ‘offensive’ memes in private group chat

#220

Post by maxwin »

a_puppy wrote: post #216
vinceguidry wrote: post #111

People worried about free speech rights should realize that Harvard is a private university. If I held a party at my house and didn't want to invite you because you called my dog a 'mutt', you'd get laughed out of court if you tried to sue me over it. People should be allowed to organize under whatever principles they want to organize under. Disallowing Harvard to use whatever criteria they want to use to admit stude…

"People worried about womens' rights in the early 20th century should have realized that Harvard was a private university. If I held a party at my house and didn't want to invite you because you were a woman, you'd get laughed out of court if you tried to sue me over it. People should be allowed to organize under whatever principles they want to organize under. Disallowing Harvard to use whatever criteria they want t…

On the other hand ,how do u stop hate speech?
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