391–400 of 413 posts
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RTFP?
I asked because I looked for that information and didn't find it by searching. As you had apparently looked into it more, I had hoped that you knew where that was stated. Sorry for asking for clarification.
For a long time, I underestimated the power of the mods. Then, I saw how a few of them could turn the sentiment of a technical forum about a seemingly technical question upside down, simply by banning the right users and removing the right posts. Censorship works, regardless of whether it is used for good or for bad.
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That just begs the question. Young people today are not less racist because each generation magically improves. If they're less racist, then there had to be a mechanism for it.
This is totally an unsupported hypothesis. I have no data. The mechanism I'm proposing is that the current generation has not been exposed to many of the toxic things that reinforced racist beliefs. Slavery, segregated schools, etc. Kids in school are taught why those things were bad and why racism is bad. While not all of society has abandoned racism, there's been enough of a push that the public institutions educat…
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The best way to get rid of bad ideas is to not give a megaphone to the people who want to spread them. The fundamental fallacy you're making is that you're conflating the act of judgement with the act of sentencing. What a fine world it would be if your justice system were forbidden to sentence people under the expectation that the purpose of a trial were simply to convince the accused to never do it again. It is irr…
You’re conflating “bad ideas” with “bad sctions.”
Rational debate is how you decide which ideas are worth keeping. It is not how you kill the ones that aren't. (You've found that it works sometimes, but you should bet actual counter-actions work far more often.)
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This is totally an unsupported hypothesis. I have no data. The mechanism I'm proposing is that the current generation has not been exposed to many of the toxic things that reinforced racist beliefs. Slavery, segregated schools, etc. Kids in school are taught why those things were bad and why racism is bad. While not all of society has abandoned racism, there's been enough of a push that the public institutions educat…
But... slavery and segregated schools aren't weather . They didn't just happen. You seem like you're working really hard to avoid the idea that maybe some human convinced some other humans at some point to go from bad behavior to better behavior.
That's all just observational though. Around here it's not so much racism against black folks but rather against aboriginal folk (and to some extent, middle eastern folks). I hear almost none of that crap from my generation or the younger generations, and still hear horrible amounts of it from older generations. Yes, some people in those generations changed, but it sure seems like the "racism rate" is significantly lower than the mean in the younger generations and significantly higher than the mean in the older generations.
Edit: it's also quite possible that it hasn't gone away in the younger generations either, it's just not considered something that is acceptable to say in polite company.
Edit 2: and thank you very much for making me think more about this!
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So you're on the side of the baker in the gay wedding cake case? The difference here is that that was one small shop among many so the customers aren't completely screwed. Social media is dominated by a small number of huge companies so that if they ban you, then you lose access to far more than just one private business. You can't just cross the street and use the other almost-as-good Reddit or almost-as-good Twitte…
> So you're on the side of the baker in the gay wedding cake case? In general, no. The analogy is deeply flawed. You ban people on forums because of their actions, and you delete posts because of their content. That's just social interaction. In contrast to this, the baker made it 100% clear that he singled these customers out because they were gay and not because of their actual behaviour at the baker shop. They beh…
On social networks, the other users can block the people they don't like or not enter the offensive group. But being personally offended isn't really why people want banning. If that were the case, they'd be quite happy with optional personal filters. It would be even better because they could tune their own filter to suit their personal tastes. But nobody is calling for that because what they really want is to prevent 3rd parties from being influenced by ideas that they don't agree with. In a bar, you can't just mute somebody who's shouting so that's where the analogy fails.
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> So you're on the side of the baker in the gay wedding cake case? In general, no. The analogy is deeply flawed. You ban people on forums because of their actions, and you delete posts because of their content. That's just social interaction. In contrast to this, the baker made it 100% clear that he singled these customers out because they were gay and not because of their actual behaviour at the baker shop. They beh…
That Colorado baker didn't want to effectively participate in their wedding ceremony which he was opposed to and couldn't stand behind with his conscience. He was happy to sell them other things. So it wasn't because they were gay, but because they wanted to use his service to do something he didn't like. I'm sure if they got their straight friend to go back and order on their behalf he would still have refused if he…
You've missed the crucial point, namely that not every discrimination against minorities is on a par and not every minority needs to be or should be protected. I've seen this flawed rhetoric used recently by by the "alt right" Nazi movement, who love to turn arguments around because they are essentially cruel and trolling. These are not good arguments, though, and you shouldn't fall for them.
The right answer to these fake arguments is to say "no."
No, ISIS sympathizers, Nazis, Stalinists, or pedophiles do not have a right to be protected as minorities exactly on a par with gay couples, catholics, or divorced mothers with three children. If a minority incites to crimes or violence or does not follow basic principles of civil discourse, then they are not going to be protected and there is no need to be tolerant towards the intolerant.
What the baker did was wrong because gay couples are not a violent hate group. It was wrong, as an action, independently of the baker's personal opinions. Gay couples are de facto not a violent hate group or criminals, and at the same time there are many reasons why they should be protected as a minority. When taking a look at examples like the baker case, you need to also bear in mind that someone can be a racist, antisemite, misogynist, and so on, without knowing that he/she is one. In fact, that's the most common case. You should also take into account that every working democracy has a duty to protect minorities in order to prevent a "dictatorship of the majority." The protection of minorities is a building block of democracy, not a DLC add-on.
> If that were the case, they'd be quite happy with optional personal filters.
You're talking about the private motives of forum participants, but these have no substantial bearing on what these companies and private site owners do. While I'm personally fine with ignore functions and you can already do that on Reddit, it is widely accepted that this is not a general solution, because the filters only work for yourself. That means that the whole world will see the replies by toxic users to your own posts. That means that all forums will look, for the outside observer, as if the worst scum of the earth and all obvious trolls had "won" every argument. Of course, people find this idea unpleasant. I understand that very well, even though I'm personally fine with kill files like on Usenet. The problem is that nobody wants to join such a forum, once a certain threshold is reached, only trolls and extremists will find it appealing. Kill files don't help against this effect, which in the end will destroy your forum.
The primary motive of companies and private forum owners for bans and post removals are thus proper and perfectly normal. Civil discourse has rules and these are enforced everywhere. There is no substantial difference between online and real life discourse in that regard and there shouldn't be one. Forum owners have all right of the world to ban hate groups and toxic users and you still haven't explained why they shouldn't have this right. It's their forums.
> But nobody is calling for that because what they really want is to prevent 3rd parties from being influenced by ideas that they don't agree with.
Everybody wants to do that, including all extremist groups on earth. It would be irrational - or at least, pragmatically incoherent - not to have this desire. But again, I don't think that's the reason why companies ban forums and remove posts. Their main goal is to keep sites usable and pleasant enough for their user base to go there. There are plenty of examples of forums that completely failed, because they didn't moderate heavily, and one of the reasons why HN is so good is the heavy moderation.
Apart from keeping the forums usable for the general target audience, there is another, more mundane reason for bans and post removals, of course. Some of the banned subreddit were questionable under US law and downright illegal under other jurisdictions, and Reddit could have gotten into serious legal trouble in other countries if they didn't ban these. The same holds for companies like Google and Facebook.
For example, displaying Nazi symbols and Nazi propaganda or supporting Nazi or terrorist groups is illegal in Germany, and German authorities can ask for the immediate removal of posts and forums dedicated to such activities. If companies like Reddit, Google, or Facebook wouldn't comply, they could be forced to close down access to their websites in Germany, and they don't want to do that, because Nazis are not their target audience. You may think about these laws whatever you want - they were passed after WW2 under strong influence from the US -, but the reality is that they exist and companies have legal advisers that check for compliance.
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I would like to see evidence that “deplatforming” actually reduces hate globally instead of simply moving it elsewhere, because I haven’t seen any, and until then this is simply an unfounded belief (i.e., “bullshit”)
You’re making a strawman argument. There’s no question that it’s made Reddit a better place - marginalizing hate communities is something most people would agree is a good thing. There’s a reason there’s no ISIS subreddit, as an example. Giving equal billing to hate communities is normalizing them.
Arguments about whether deplatforming has merit should be automatically deplatformed via machine-learning in order to teach everyone a valuable lesson in civics. At least, if I were to create a Hacker News or a Reddit or a Facebook or a Twitter, that would be one of the first things I would build.
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That Colorado baker didn't want to effectively participate in their wedding ceremony which he was opposed to and couldn't stand behind with his conscience. He was happy to sell them other things. So it wasn't because they were gay, but because they wanted to use his service to do something he didn't like. I'm sure if they got their straight friend to go back and order on their behalf he would still have refused if he…
> That Colorado baker didn't want to effectively participate in their wedding ceremony which he was opposed to You've missed the crucial point, namely that not every discrimination against minorities is on a par and not every minority needs to be or should be protected. I've seen this flawed rhetoric used recently by by the "alt right" Nazi movement, who love to turn arguments around because they are essentially crue…
> ISIS sympathizers, Nazis, Stalinists, or pedophiles
from
> gay couples, catholics, or divorced mothers with three children
?
Without a general rule, it looks like you're just repeating whatever random confluence of social pressures led to your belief.
You mentioned inciting crime and civil discourse, but not every member of those groups will be doing that. Somebody saying "I like Stalin" isn't inciting any crime or violating any rules of civil discourse, yet you'll want them banned just for their belief. So there's something else you're judging them by that you're not saying. Personally, I think you're judging them according to their group stereotypes. It's particularly evident in your classification of pedophiles. Surely you know that pedophilia is a condition people just have through no fault of their own. Why punish people for their sexuality? I think you're confusing pedophiles with child molesters because you apply the stereotype to all of them.
> there is no need to be tolerant towards the intolerant.
Can you explain how that's not obviously contradictory? You must have two different meanings for the word tolerant. What are they?
Your argument about toxicity ruining forums is disproven by the lasting popularity of Reddit which uses subreddits to allow variety and keep offensive things isolated from general passers by. They are effectively an implementation of the personal filters I was talking about. It's also disproven by the internet as a whole which has both 4chan and Hacker News coexisting without turning the whole world off the internet because it's all toxic.
I'm not talking about breaking the law. That's a separate issue. I would be fine with companies just obeying the law. If I didn't like the law, I'd challenge the law, not the companies for complying with it. Really, they need to provide different filters for different countries, which they do. In some countries, promotion of homosexuality is illegal. You may think about these laws whatever you want, but the reality is that they exist.
> and all obvious trolls had "won" every argument.
Here you've admitted that your real intention is what I suspected. To control the thoughts of other people. You want everyone to conform to your personal political beliefs. You're afraid of free speech because people might be led away from the one correct set of beliefs that you personally have somehow been gifted with (despite growing up in a world with free speech). Don't you see the arrogance of that?
Anyway, my main point is that I think big social media companies have so much power over so many people that they should be required to give greater freedoms to their users than small forums are. Kind of like how anti-trust laws restrict the behavior of big companies but allow small ones more freedom.
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> That Colorado baker didn't want to effectively participate in their wedding ceremony which he was opposed to You've missed the crucial point, namely that not every discrimination against minorities is on a par and not every minority needs to be or should be protected. I've seen this flawed rhetoric used recently by by the "alt right" Nazi movement, who love to turn arguments around because they are essentially crue…
What is the general rule you use to distinguish > ISIS sympathizers, Nazis, Stalinists, or pedophiles from > gay couples, catholics, or divorced mothers with three children ? Without a general rule, it looks like you're just repeating whatever random confluence of social pressures led to your belief. You mentioned inciting crime and civil discourse, but not every member of those groups will be doing that. Somebody sa…
I'm not even talking about morals here, this is a fact that holds in every society. There are social norms, including norms that govern discussions. Break the norms and you'll be sanctioned for it.
>> there is no need to be tolerant towards the intolerant.
> Can you explain how that's not obviously contradictory? You must have two different meanings for the word tolerant. What are they?
No, it's one meaning and there is no contradiction. The phrase was coined by Sir Karl Popper.
Tolerance is not an absolute moral principle, it is a normative concept that is only reserved for those people who are tolerant themselves. In that sense, it's quite similar to respect, which also is not deserved unconditionally but needs to be earned first.
If someone wants to beat you up, you do not have to be tolerant towards this person. If someone calls for the destruction of your society (as e.g. Steve Bannon has done) or calls for violence or crimes, then you do not have to be tolerant towards this person. In fact, you should not be tolerant towards such a person. You should be tolerant towards Muslims, because they are 1.8 billion people and vast majority of them is peaceful, but you should not be tolerant towards Muslim terrorists. You should be tolerant towards Christians, but you should not be tolerant towards Christians who are intolerant towards atheists or who call for killing doctors who help with abortions. And so on and so forth. You should get it by now. It's not really complicated and there is certainly no contradiction involved.
> Somebody saying "I like Stalin" isn't inciting any crime or violating any rules of civil discourse, yet you'll want them banned just for their belief.
No, maybe I wasn't clear enough. I mentioned these groups as examples of groups that (usually) call for violence, the destruction of our society, or crimes. I do not want to ban such persons in general. Posters should be banned if they violate the basic laws of civil discourse (be kind, don't troll, don't be a racist, don't call for violence, etc.) or intentionally instigate violence or promote crimes.
What I also said, however, is that the decision of what to ban or not to ban should be left to the forum owners. If I have a forum and don't want Nazis to use it as a platform, I have the right to ban them, just as I have a right to ban motorcycle enthusiasts from my rose gardening forum. Users of private forums aren't entitled to anything.
> Here you've admitted that your real intention is what I suspected. To control the thoughts of other people.
Not at all. As I've stated very clearly, everybody has a certain desire to muffle voices of people who they think are obviously wrong and it would be incoherent not to have this desire. You have that desire, too. However, I've stated clearly that this is not the motivation of companies and private forum owners, and it certainly is not my motivation. As I've said before, I'm fine with kill files. I was trying to lay out the actual reasons to you why companies and forum owners ban forums and remove posts, not laying out some ominous personal motives. See below about my personal attitude.
Your reasons of why forum owners, especially companies, ban forums or remove posts are imaginary and based on your own prejudices. You have presented 0 evidence for this interpretation, which is fairly implausible and obviously coloured by your biases. As I've said, companies like Reddit are primarily concerned with the legal situation and with the practicalities of keeping their forums attractive. They are companies who want to attract the largest number of mainstream users, not some fringe wackos and extremists.
> You want everyone to conform to your personal political beliefs.
False. One of my colleagues is a Social Darwinist and Nazi, and I have no problem discussing with him, because he adheres to the basic rules of civil discourse. He does not insult other people, at least not directly, does not call for violence, and is at least clever enough to not overtly call for genocide, etc. Ironically, another colleague of mine is an ardent and 100% convinced communist and has personally defended Stalin in conversations. Again, no problem on my side. They are both extreme idiots who persistently get every conceivable fact wrong, and they both have unpleasant personalities (which I've always considered a coincidence). They are annoying, but that's about it.
I don't care about other people's political beliefs, as long as they do not endorse violence or threaten it, keep it reasonably polite - I don't care the occasional insult either - and as long as they do not actively work on destroying other people's lives. If they threaten violence or actively work on destroying democracy, or are just intentionally trolling or insulting people, then they should be banned. Their political beliefs are completely irrelevant to this decision. I'd just as readily ban a trolling rose gardener who calls for trampling other people's roses as I'd ban a Stalinist preparing death lists of political opponents.
As I've tried to explain to you (but you refuse to listen), the reasons why someone ought to be banned are not political, the primary goal of such measures is to keep civil discourse possible. If the number of toxic users is too high, this is no longer possible, and these tend to bunch up in questionable forums. This has been proven again and again on every conceivable forum I've been on since the mid 90s. It's not possible run a public pseudonymous forum in a sustainable way without heavy moderation. Apparently, too many trolls and extremists have too much time at hand, possibly because many of them are unemployed.
> Anyway, my main point is that I think big social media companies have so much power over so many people that they should be required to give greater freedoms to their users than small forums are.
You're focusing on the responsibility of companies towards their users and I agree with that, the hurdles for banning should be higher for these than for small forum owners, because they have a greater responsibility. However, companies also have a responsibility to their own staff and to society as a whole. The sad fact is that once pseudonymity is in place, many people forget the rules of basic civil discourse and decency, and at the same time social control mechanisms from face-to-face communication are no longer in place. These need to be replaced by moderation and, if necessary, by banning, or else the quality of the conversations deteriorates drastically and quickly.
I know people who measure the quality of online arguments and it turns out to be far worse than anything you encounter in face-to-face communication. The evidence is damning and quite shocking. Most people do not even argue online, they mostly just voice their opinions and insult others. Take that into account, too. Companies have a responsibility to improve the quality of discourse. (This also means fighting clickbait, viral ad campaigns, fake news etc.)