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A Heretic's Guide to Deplatforming

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Re: A Heretic's Guide to Deplatforming

#31
post #2

This reeks of both-sides-ism and enablement. "Where does it stop?" is the same slippery slope garbage peddled by #HimToo and #BlueLivesMatter acolytes. But even engaging with the question at face value, the answer is very simple, and the author of this piece didn't try very hard if he couldn't find someone who is able to answer it. In fact, the best answer was given by Karl Popper in 1945. > In order to maintain a to…

N. Taleb, "The most intolerant wins": https://medium.com/incerto/the-most-intolerant-wins-the-dict...

Looks oddly relevant.

Re: A Heretic's Guide to Deplatforming

#32
It's probably unrealistic to expect us to stop seeing threads about this (Gab's #1 objective at this point will be to make more noise and surely something "newsworthy" will happen with them sometime soonish). But it's worth noting that we've had several recent discussions about Gab stemming from the events that occurred after the mass shooting.

Here, Jeftovic is arguing from faulty premises. Correcting those premises might not change the conclusions he draws, but they're worth fixing anyways.

While it's true that the worst speech on Gab.ai doesn't come from the operators of the site themselves, it's not true that the site operators have clean hands. Gab's (verified) Twitter account has repeatedly been screenshot posting anti-Semitic comments, and retweeting white supremacist posts from others (for instance: they pointedly RT'd a white supremacist mocking Ken White, of Popehat fame, for being the adoptive father of Asian children). Gab itself openly embraces white nationalism.

Gab is white supremacist Twitter (you might have called it "white nationalist Twitter" before whatever weird Brazilian politics thing conspired to begin its transformation into Fascist Orkut, which is where it's heading now).

That doesn't mean you have to agree it should be taken off the Internet by GoDaddy; you can form coherent arguments in either direction. But the idea that it's being taken offline solely because of the actions of its users is false. It has the users it has because those are the users its operators begged to get.

Re: A Heretic's Guide to Deplatforming

#33

Freedom of speech is a right provided by the constitution. Me, You or privately held platform(s) providing the venue for that speech is not. Just like I will not be allowing GAB like speech from my properties, I will also look poorly upon anyone else hosting that garbage.

>Freedom of speech is a right provided by the constitution

No, it is not. It explicitly is not. Freedom of speech is one right among many other unstated rights held in common by the people. The first amendment merely prohibits Congress from passing a law that restricts it. The wording is clear that this freedom is something that exists inherently beyond the scope of the Constitution, and is certainly not "provided" by the document. We naturally have rights such as freedom of speech. It is from institutions like the government that restrictions are placed on them.

Also, the 9th amendment was included precisely to clarify and codify the fact that the Constitution, in enumerating the rights, is not itself granting those rights or even stating that these are the only rights people have.

Re: A Heretic's Guide to Deplatforming

#34
post #3

> We run the risk that the act of deplatforming can become as extreme as the hate speech it seeks to banish. Let us cross that bridge when we get to it.

Indeed. The slippery slope is a fallacy , after all; you can in fact take a positive step without worrying about taking negative steps that are so absurdly different as to be almost caricatures.

Just because the slippery slope fallacy exists doesn't mean that every warning about unintended consequences is necessarily wrong. That would be a fallacy in the opposite direction.

Re: A Heretic's Guide to Deplatforming

#35
post #2

This reeks of both-sides-ism and enablement. "Where does it stop?" is the same slippery slope garbage peddled by #HimToo and #BlueLivesMatter acolytes. But even engaging with the question at face value, the answer is very simple, and the author of this piece didn't try very hard if he couldn't find someone who is able to answer it. In fact, the best answer was given by Karl Popper in 1945. > In order to maintain a to…

How is a platform that let's you say anything uncensored intolerant? If your definition of "tolerance" is forced censorship, then I don't think you would do so well in Karl Popper's proposed society.

In actuality, Gab bans users for the same reason Twitter does. For instance, when Paul Nehlen tried to organize harassment of another white nationalist figure, Gab banned him. Part of Gab's sales pitch is that it's a refuge for people whose thoughts are somehow too dangerous for Twitter. But contrary to what Gab wants you to believe, Twitter doesn't ban white nationalists. Richard Spencer has a Twitter account. So does Faith Goldy. For that matter, so does Gab, which has posted openly anti-Semitic comments in the past, and still has a verified checkmark!

Re: A Heretic's Guide to Deplatforming

#36
post #2

This reeks of both-sides-ism and enablement. "Where does it stop?" is the same slippery slope garbage peddled by #HimToo and #BlueLivesMatter acolytes. But even engaging with the question at face value, the answer is very simple, and the author of this piece didn't try very hard if he couldn't find someone who is able to answer it. In fact, the best answer was given by Karl Popper in 1945. > In order to maintain a to…

How is a platform that let's you say anything uncensored intolerant? If your definition of "tolerance" is forced censorship, then I don't think you would do so well in Karl Popper's proposed society.

     How is a platform that let's you say anything uncensored intolerant? 
That's another way to say "a platform that tolerates the intolerant" which could hardly be a better example of what Popper is talking about.

That said, the OP is also not right to suggest that intolerance is simple to identify. Like the other comments here say, it's subjective.

Then again, most things in life are subjective. Society has to be pragmatic sometimes and ignore that. Otherwise everything, eg: the legal system, falls apart.

Re: A Heretic's Guide to Deplatforming

#37
post #33

Freedom of speech is a right provided by the constitution. Me, You or privately held platform(s) providing the venue for that speech is not. Just like I will not be allowing GAB like speech from my properties, I will also look poorly upon anyone else hosting that garbage.

>Freedom of speech is a right provided by the constitution No, it is not. It explicitly is not. Freedom of speech is one right among many other unstated rights held in common by the people. The first amendment merely prohibits Congress from passing a law that restricts it. The wording is clear that this freedom is something that exists inherently beyond the scope of the Constitution, and is certainly not "provided" b…

The 9th Amendment does not mean that Twitter must allow your speech. In fact, at the time the 9th Amendment was drafted, it didn't even require the states to grant you a right to free expression; that right wasn't incorporated onto the states until Reconstruction.

So, no, not so much.

Re: A Heretic's Guide to Deplatforming

#38
post #32

It's probably unrealistic to expect us to stop seeing threads about this (Gab's #1 objective at this point will be to make more noise and surely something "newsworthy" will happen with them sometime soonish). But it's worth noting that we've had several recent discussions about Gab stemming from the events that occurred after the mass shooting. Here, Jeftovic is arguing from faulty premises. Correcting those premises…

Jeftovic here.

I actually wasn't aware of many things you cite above, having cursorily examined, then abandoned Gab I never followed their twitter feed, etc.

Without having seen any of that myself, I wrote the article extending a certain benefit of the doubt, trying to look at it from a neutral (ostensibly) vendor vantagepoint.

Re: A Heretic's Guide to Deplatforming

#39
post #33

Freedom of speech is a right provided by the constitution. Me, You or privately held platform(s) providing the venue for that speech is not. Just like I will not be allowing GAB like speech from my properties, I will also look poorly upon anyone else hosting that garbage.

>Freedom of speech is a right provided by the constitution No, it is not. It explicitly is not. Freedom of speech is one right among many other unstated rights held in common by the people. The first amendment merely prohibits Congress from passing a law that restricts it. The wording is clear that this freedom is something that exists inherently beyond the scope of the Constitution, and is certainly not "provided" b…

> Not it is not. It explicitly is not.

Yes, it is. The idea of the authors (and those ratifying the amendment) that a moral right to freedom of speech exists independently may be (all or part of) the reason the Constitution expressly provides and protects the legal right to freedom of speech, by the legal right is provided by the Constitution.

Re: A Heretic's Guide to Deplatforming

#40
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is a platform that let's you say anything uncensored intolerant? If your definition of "tolerance" is forced censorship, then I don't think you would do so well in Karl Popper's proposed society.

In actuality, Gab bans users for the same reason Twitter does. For instance, when Paul Nehlen tried to organize harassment of another white nationalist figure, Gab banned him. Part of Gab's sales pitch is that it's a refuge for people whose thoughts are somehow too dangerous for Twitter. But contrary to what Gab wants you to believe, Twitter doesn't ban white nationalists. Richard Spencer has a Twitter account. So do…

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