(A) An alt-right terrorist shoots up and kills 50, in a country where such things were unheard of.
(B) The nation bans the terrorist's message.
Half of HN: "Oh wait, now that sets a worrying precedent."
Yes, HN, never change.
ISPs in AU and NZ start censoring the internet without legal precedent
161–170 of 305 posts
Re: ISPs in AU and NZ start censoring the internet without legal precedent
#162Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hate speech, is protected speech in my mind, no matter how abhorrent. The founding fathers of the USA had a reason for the 1st amendment. You milage may vary in your location, but at the end of the day, censorship of speech is very very slipper slope. This type of speech needs to be countered by education and by people standing up and saying "we will not listen", not a bureaucrat. Allowing the government to censor wh…
that's a very American stance to take. I don't mean that as an insult; I mean that Americans value individual liberty above all else. That isn't the case in NZ; Most of the population trusts the government and value's collective good above individual liberty, the policies and responses to events like these are born out of our culture and focus on those values. It's apples & oranges with the US culture of valuing indi…
that's a very American stance to take. I don't mean that as an insult; I mean that Americans value individual liberty above all else.
It's a modern American stance that dates back to the 1969 case of Brandenburg v. Ohio. The reason that this particular standard for free speech, formulated by the US Supreme Court has permeated segments of the English-speaking world is an example of the cultural dominance of the United States, and internet culture.
Besides bin Laden, another even more striking case is the cleric, a US citizen, who was killed in a drone strike in Yemen because of his advocacy of violence. And no sane person who values their freedom, in the English-speaking west, would dare advocate on behalf of ISIS today.
No society in human history has permitted absolute free speech, and the United States doesn't either.
Re: ISPs in AU and NZ start censoring the internet without legal precedent
#163Earlier quoted context omitted.
actions have consequences; whether those actions take place online or not. If what he did was hate speech, then it makes sense to charge him with it. That he did it online, or didn't realise that saying vile things would have undesirable consequences shouldn't excuse the behaviour. (N.B I think he should be charged with something, but I don't think prison time is a fair response to his actions).
Hate speech, is protected speech in my mind, no matter how abhorrent. The founding fathers of the USA had a reason for the 1st amendment. You milage may vary in your location, but at the end of the day, censorship of speech is very very slipper slope. This type of speech needs to be countered by education and by people standing up and saying "we will not listen", not a bureaucrat. Allowing the government to censor wh…
Personally I think hate speech is a term which cold use more precision - I personally term it the rather uncatchy ' intimidation' with ethnic substitute for the appropriate other term as it encompasses the parts of it that cause harm.
To use an example of an obscure half-joking religion just say calling Pastafarians a bunch of stupid useless colander-heads is hateful speech but not hate speech. Saying that we should all go out tomorrow and lynch Pastafarians would be religious intimidation and captures where the wrong is - not the speech but the actual 'verbal assault'.
Re: ISPs in AU and NZ start censoring the internet without legal precedent
#164Earlier quoted context omitted.
What did they do? I'm only aware of the gun bans, which strikes me as reasonable. The TSA, for example, with the random luggage and body searches strikes me as an order of magnitude more Orwellian.
The bans will, for the most part, be useless, as most gun bans based on features usually are. To see why, look up e.g. "MARS action rifle", or "lever release AR-15". At the same time, countries that don't bother with stuff like that, but instead regulate who can own firearms much more stringently than US does - e.g. Czech Republic - are doing fine.
This ban while strict is actually more than the cosmetic 'assault rifle ban' given the strict magazine size limits for all but essentially 'varmint gun' calibers. One can debate the effectiveness of it but the features of some actual substance in this case.
Re: ISPs in AU and NZ start censoring the internet without legal precedent
#165The problem with censoring and banning the information outright (in the case of NZ) is that it gives power to the manifesto. So much of what Jacinda Ardern said after the shooting was about denying the person a platform: "We, in New Zealand, will give him nothing. Not even his name." "He sought many things from his act of terror, but one was notoriety, and that is why you will never hear me mention his name." And yet…
What's interesting is that it really hasn't lent any power or mysticism to either the words, actions, or being of the perpetrator. Nobody's talking about them, their ideals, their actions. All focus is on the victims.
It's been far more effective, and without any apparent downsides, than I expected.
Re: ISPs in AU and NZ start censoring the internet without legal precedent
#166The problem with censoring and banning the information outright (in the case of NZ) is that it gives power to the manifesto. So much of what Jacinda Ardern said after the shooting was about denying the person a platform: "We, in New Zealand, will give him nothing. Not even his name." "He sought many things from his act of terror, but one was notoriety, and that is why you will never hear me mention his name." And yet…
NZ's reaction seems pretty reasonable to me. They just had 50+ people brutally murdered. Their political and business leaders seem to be focused on preventing it from happening again. If you want to criticize their response I think you need to show how your proposal would prevent further radicalism. The people involved in the white power movement are dangerous if enough of them get together. That's essentially what h…
This white supremacist, terrorist massacre in NZ was livestreamed, I'm not aware of that ever happening before. What to do with this footage is in some sense uncharted territory.
The video is a graphic video of a massacre and simultaneously propaganda produced by the perpetrator of that massacre. It is a peculiar idea that we as a society cannot legitimately decide that this footage is objectionable in the same way child porn is objectionable, and make it illegal to share it. It is not simply a deeply disturbing act being shown, it also shares with child pornography the property that the footage that could not have been produced without devastating harm to the people involved.
The manifesto I feel less strongly about; I read it myself but would never watch the video.
Re: ISPs in AU and NZ start censoring the internet without legal precedent
#167My apologies. Might I ask a question, please? How do we otherwise stop the internet being hacked to support these vile creatures?
I'm concerned that "censorship of bad views" leads to radicalisation. e.g. if you have concerns that are morally unacceptable to express, the only place you can express those concerns are in morally unacceptable areas. I think the hope of censoring bad views is to increase that friction before people get there; make it harder for 'ordinary' people to stumble across vile sites, and reduce access to vile sites to those…
I think blocking 4chan and 8chan means their users will resent the establishment even more. Considering this is the demographic whose resentment was influential enough to play a role in the election of Trump in the US, I think society needs to think twice before stamping the boot into their face.
I know some people who will feel that blocking these sites was an affront to their identity. And like it or not, the number of people who feel this way is not small, and their influence even less small. You can't just stamp them out, and you're radicalising them further.
Re: ISPs in AU and NZ start censoring the internet without legal precedent
#168Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think one of the core reasons they don't want people to read it is that in the aftermath they're doing everything he wanted and more.
Some of the things his manifesto says he wanted, like stricter gun control, are indeed happening. Others, like a cycle of revenge attacks, are not, at least not yet. Of course it would be unwise to believe that he told the truth about his aims in his manifesto. Even if we could figure out what he really wanted, figuring that out and then doing the opposite would not be a rational way to respond to an incident like th…
He wanted a the political left and right to fight over gun control. He didn't get that, at least not in NZ.
Re: ISPs in AU and NZ start censoring the internet without legal precedent
#169Earlier quoted context omitted.
actions have consequences; whether those actions take place online or not. If what he did was hate speech, then it makes sense to charge him with it. That he did it online, or didn't realise that saying vile things would have undesirable consequences shouldn't excuse the behaviour. (N.B I think he should be charged with something, but I don't think prison time is a fair response to his actions).
Hate speech, is protected speech in my mind, no matter how abhorrent. The founding fathers of the USA had a reason for the 1st amendment. You milage may vary in your location, but at the end of the day, censorship of speech is very very slipper slope. This type of speech needs to be countered by education and by people standing up and saying "we will not listen", not a bureaucrat. Allowing the government to censor wh…
The founding fathers of the USA had a reason for the 1st amendment.
The US Supreme Court only set the modern boundaries for freedom of speech in Brandenburg v Ohio in 1969.
Re: ISPs in AU and NZ start censoring the internet without legal precedent
#170Earlier quoted context omitted.
Which aspects of the New Zealand government's response do you object to? Off the top of my head, the government has: used the existing regulatory system to temporarily halt sales of the sort weapons used in the terrorist attack; introduced legislation into parliament to permanently halt sales of the sort of weapons used in the attack, which will proceed through the regular legislative process; announced plans to inve…
Perhaps nitpicky, but I believe the potential ban and existing re-categorization of certain types of weapons would only ban 2/5 of the firearms he used.
All of the firearms he used were banned.