A Heretic's Guide to Deplatforming • Hacker News Board

Re: A Heretic's Guide to Deplatforming

#101

Post by dvtrn » Sat, Nov 03, 2018, 1:49 AM UTC

mlillie wrote: 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…

This reeks of both-sides-ism and enablement

It's funny you take this view, as fatigued as I imagine you probably feel about, as you're calling it "both-sides-ism"-I like to imagine there are probably other people out there just as fatigued with watching "both sides" act like neither has some kind of fringe-manifested baggage or serious, fundamental issues that need to be brought to the table and reconciled.

Hate to break this to you: there's some ugly problems with how we're talking about issues coming from all over the place. No one is coming to the table here with clean hands, as far as I'm concerned.

Some ugly words and tactics being hurled like hand grenades. They're probably not the same, they probably don't exist for the same reasons, nor have the same motivating factors behind them, but there has got to be some kind of decongestant for this idea that polarizing and hurtful speech only comes from one ideological hemisphere. I don't know what it is, but I hope we find one.

Re: A Heretic's Guide to Deplatforming

#102

Post by JoshTriplett » Sat, Nov 03, 2018, 1:53 AM UTC

marcus_holmes wrote: post #99

JoshTriplett wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The subset of both groups actually doing the horrible, offensive things. Treating entire groups as a unit rather than as individuals is part of the problem, at least for any group not specifically defined by their intolerance.

which is all very well, except we're talking about deplatforming entire online communities, not merely individuals.

Entire communities which are 1) led by people who are themselves causing such problems (see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18366322) and 2) utterly failing to deal with any such problems on their platforms.

Re: A Heretic's Guide to Deplatforming

#103

Post by woodruffw » Sat, Nov 03, 2018, 1:53 AM UTC

> Most successful deplatformings are Pyrrhic victories

We have reasonable (not perfect!) empirical evidence that this is not the case[1]. It appears that toxic and hateful movements can only resist disapprobation when they develop a sufficiently large, sufficiently public (in the visibility sense, not the publicly-owned sense) channel. Continually disrupting those channels works.

[1]: http://comp.social.gatech.edu/papers/cscw18-chand-hate.pdf

Re: A Heretic's Guide to Deplatforming

#104

Post by stcredzero » Sat, Nov 03, 2018, 1:54 AM UTC

pvg wrote: post #98

stcredzero wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Deplatforming is simply the a natural consequence of the operation of the marketplace of ideas That's just as silly as if someone had said, "Certain people losing their 1st Amendment rights is simply the natural consequence of the operation of the marketplace of ideas." It's nonsense, because once you let people start silencing others, there is no more free marketplace of ideas. That's pretty much like some Victorian…

Nobody has lost their first amendment rights and the person you're replying to hasn't made such an argument at all - your paraphrase is just putting words in their mouth. That's a cheap and poopy thing to do.

Nobody has lost their first amendment rights

That's just what Universities say when they create protest zones where no one can see the protest. That's what Universities say when they slap outrageous fees and fines on groups who invite speakers they don't like. Technically, they're correct, but in the spirit of the law, suppressing speech is what they are seeking to do.

the person you're replying to hasn't made such an argument at all

The person I'm replying to is advocating for the practical loss of free speech, while it's not technically a violation of the law. I'm merely pointing out that sneaky indirection.

Re: A Heretic's Guide to Deplatforming

#105

Post by stcredzero » Sat, Nov 03, 2018, 1:57 AM UTC

woodruffw wrote: post #103

> Most successful deplatformings are Pyrrhic victories We have reasonable (not perfect!) empirical evidence that this is not the case [1]. It appears that toxic and hateful movements can only resist disapprobation when they develop a sufficiently large, sufficiently public (in the visibility sense, not the publicly-owned sense) channel. Continually disrupting those channels works. [1]: http://comp.social.gatech.edu/p…

For awhile, the Soviets could "deplatform" people from their lives entirely by threatening them or sending them to the Gulags. They held things together for many decades through that continual disruption.

Yes, you can coerce people with your advantages, and it will work for awhile. You can even create enclaves where you can keep undesirables out. But no, that never wins in the end.

Re: A Heretic's Guide to Deplatforming

#106

Post by pvg » Sat, Nov 03, 2018, 1:58 AM UTC

stcredzero wrote: post #104

pvg wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody has lost their first amendment rights and the person you're replying to hasn't made such an argument at all - your paraphrase is just putting words in their mouth. That's a cheap and poopy thing to do.

Nobody has lost their first amendment rights That's just what Universities say when they create protest zones where no one can see the protest. That's what Universities say when they slap outrageous fees and fines on groups who invite speakers they don't like. Technically, they're correct, but in the spirit of the law, suppressing speech is what they are seeking to do. the person you're replying to hasn't made such a…

You are free to make whatever argument you want - what you can't do is deliberately misrepresent the other person's argument, which is what you are doing. HN even has a weird rule about that involving quotation marks. There's no 'technically' about this, you're doing it, it's bad and you shouldn't.

Re: A Heretic's Guide to Deplatforming

#107

Post by stcredzero » Sat, Nov 03, 2018, 2:00 AM UTC

mlillie wrote: post #81

wycs wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. It is all very obvious. For example, suppose a marginalized group uses the hashtag #killallwhitemen to express the disempowerment they feel from the historical weight of white privilege. This, I think we can all agree, is an expression of righteous outrage through hyperbole, not intolerance. In fact, "white men" in this context does not refer to any person or group of people, rather a self-reenforcing system of…

> can be explained entirely by discrimination I understand this is hyperbole, but this is the perfect case of how legitimate grievances are derailed by bad actors. Emphasis on the word "entirely". We don't and can't think in absolutes as a society. Everyone and everything is imperfect to some degree. Women sometimes falsely accuse men of sexual assault. Police officers sometimes kill unarmed black men for good reason…

this is the perfect case of how legitimate grievances are derailed by bad actors... The problem is that these sorts of arguments strip context entirely away

If you want to figure out the villains, look for the side that is trying to strip the context away and screeching while holding to absolutes. Beware: villains often use the language of the noblest causes, and sometimes people become villains in the pursuit of noble causes.

Re: A Heretic's Guide to Deplatforming

#108

Post by woodruffw » Sat, Nov 03, 2018, 2:00 AM UTC

tunesmith wrote: post #11

mlillie wrote: 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…

Define intolerance. That's the whole problem. So being "intolerant of intolerance" is meaningless except as something that signals a different meaning - different lines, different behavior, different standards - to every listener.

Any system of principles that, left unchecked, would threaten the set of establishing (or meta) principles that allow it to exist.

For example: (neo-)Nazism is an intolerant ideology because, left unchecked, it would seek to destroy the systems (broadly liberal democracies) that allow people to discuss it.

Re: A Heretic's Guide to Deplatforming

#109

Post by stcredzero » Sat, Nov 03, 2018, 2:05 AM UTC

wycs wrote: post #18

JoshTriplett wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Define intolerance That thing everyone except the intolerant seem to understand remarkably well, and the intolerant spend a lot of time quibbling over the definition of in a desperate attempt to derail their inclusion in it. Or, more seriously: treating other people as unwelcome or hated or less than human, for reasons other than being hateful and intolerant.

Yes. It is all very obvious. For example, suppose a marginalized group uses the hashtag #killallwhitemen to express the disempowerment they feel from the historical weight of white privilege. This, I think we can all agree, is an expression of righteous outrage through hyperbole, not intolerance. In fact, "white men" in this context does not refer to any person or group of people, rather a self-reenforcing system of…

Yes. It is all very obvious. For example, suppose a marginalized group uses the hashtag #killallwhitemen to express the disempowerment they feel from the historical weight of white privilege. This, I think we can all agree, is an expression of righteous outrage through hyperbole, not intolerance.

No. MLK's movement wouldn't have willingly allowed something like that. Nor would Gandhi's. Justice is a universal compass, applying to all people, not the convenient and emotionally satisfying direction of the moment. Hate has no place in a true movement of justice. Those who would tell you otherwise are bad actors using the movement for their own ends, usually power.

Re: A Heretic's Guide to Deplatforming

#110

Post by sanderjd » Sat, Nov 03, 2018, 2:06 AM UTC

stcredzero wrote: post #94

patrickmay wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Spare me the tired arguments that these private companies have a right to not serve customers at will. That seems like self-serving cherry-picking, when in other situations the same folks would be against granting freedom of association. Some people's hypocrisy doesn't undermine the core principle of freedom of association. The more abusive the big players become, the more incentive there is for people to use alter…

> Spare me the tired arguments that these private companies have a right to not serve customers at will. Some people's hypocrisy doesn't undermine the core principle of freedom of association. There is a lawsuit where a mining company owned an entire town, including the roads. A Jehova's witness won a lawsuit allowing them to distribute pamphlets there on the basis of free speech. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBoz…

If I start a company that allows users to upload content over the internet, is it your contention that I should not be within my rights to control what is stored and who is allowed to use my services?