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YouTube bans Stefan Molyneux, David Duke, Richard Spencer for hate speech

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Re: YouTube bans Stefan Molyneux, David Duke, Richard Spencer for hate speech

#531

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to this post [0] only allowing black people to post was a time limited action. As an Aprils fool joke only black people were allowed to post, which resulted in positive feedback from the community, according to the mods. Now everyone can post again, where as black people can get verified and a special flair (a small visual indication next to their username). Some threads [1] are reserved for verified people…

Your [1] has three standards for three groups of people. 1. black people who can verify and get a flair 2. non-white and non-black people who can verify but don't get a flair 3. white people can ask the moderators for entrance, but it only says they will will "receive further instructions." It's not clear what these further instructions are supposed to be. This is racist and if a right wing subreddit did it, they wou…

I find it odd people aren't bringing up the obvious motivation for this. Simply calling it racism seems obtuse.

Anywhere race is a topic and anyone can join, but there is no verification of identity, trolls can claim anything. How do you think it feels to be a Black member of a forum and see a White person who is taken in by a White troll pretending to be Black? Conversely, how do you think it feels to be Black and be arguing with someone White who is sure you are a White troll pretending to be Black?

It's not a trivial problem, and it's inherent anywhere your online identity isn't linked to your real one.

Re: YouTube bans Stefan Molyneux, David Duke, Richard Spencer for hate speech

#532

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[flagged]

It's just racism dude. Not even white, just tired of the mental gymnastics people go through to justify their actions against white people based sole on their skin color and what they've committed against their people. You're doing the same thing. In the end it's just the tribal, racialist bullshit I'm freaking tired of. It never ends, because we keep justifying evildoing whenever it benefits our side at the given ti…

No, racism is a system of oppression. You have adopted a narrower and more convenient definition that is not shared by the majority of the people that study this subject and its history.

Equating people saying "whites can't dance" with the homicidal criminals engaging in the kind of brutality and dehumanization I described above is intellectual dishonesty, at best.

>It never ends, because we keep justifying evildoing whenever it benefits our side at the given time.

When did Africans benefit from racism (A European Renaissance invention)?

This is an invocation of "both-sides-ism" that human history doesn't agree with you on, as far as I know.

Re: YouTube bans Stefan Molyneux, David Duke, Richard Spencer for hate speech

#533

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I can't tell if you're being sarcastic. The main point seems to be that in absence of rule of law and due process, armed revolution will come, so let's subvert the rule of law to prevent that? What am I missing?

> What am I missing? No laws or "due process" are being broken when Gab—a social network created to host as much hate speech as possible—is denied access to Visa's financial network. I'm not suggesting we "subvert the rule of law", I'm suggesting we use the existing laws (and pass new ones when needed, like Biden wants to do) to disarm racist Whites before they attempt to kill vulnerable minorities. Literally yesterd…

[deleted]

Re: YouTube bans Stefan Molyneux, David Duke, Richard Spencer for hate speech

#534

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is a win for the far-right to have y'all here on HN "disagree with them but still believe they should be here and not on the fringe". Just FTR we are pretty far from accepting the far right here on HN: tptacek shared some interesting research he'd done a couple of hours ago and it might be of interest to everyone here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23681929

People reliably will come out to defend white nationalists in every topic it comes up here. And people denouncing white nationalists will be voted down.

Somehow we have the opposite experience. One day, I'll see people claim HN is a safespace for socialists/communist lefties and another day it's a white nationalist haven.

Which is it? :P

Re: YouTube bans Stefan Molyneux, David Duke, Richard Spencer for hate speech

#535

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> That's not what I said. Do not put words into my digital mouth. So white supremacists should be purged, but those who are complicit with them should not?

We are talking about two different things. I claimed that purging white supremacists from platforms is a good thing. I also claimed that silence is complicity. These are orthogonal. I am not a decision maker for one of these platforms, and don't feel the need to draw a specific line in the sand. Your attempt at a "gotcha" is fruitless, I'm afraid. Let me turn it around, do you think that white supremacists deserve a…

It wasn't supposed to be a "gotcha" at all. Any reasonable person would have agreed that silence isn't an expression of complicity with white supremacy, or of sexual consent, or a love of progressive metal.

However, since you insist upon evading the obvious logical conclusion that your own freely-offered premises suggest, there is no turning anything around. This thread is over.

Re: YouTube bans Stefan Molyneux, David Duke, Richard Spencer for hate speech

#536

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except it's apparently fine to hate the haters. Dehumanization is alive and well, even among progressives.

Yep, hating the new Nazis is just fine. They're still people, no need to dehumanize them.

Hate is innately dehumanising.

Also, don't be so casual throwing around "Nazi". I've also seen liberals calling for conservatives to be put into camps.

Re: YouTube bans Stefan Molyneux, David Duke, Richard Spencer for hate speech

#537

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is a win for the far-right to have y'all here on HN "disagree with them but still believe they should be here and not on the fringe". Just FTR we are pretty far from accepting the far right here on HN: tptacek shared some interesting research he'd done a couple of hours ago and it might be of interest to everyone here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23681929

People reliably will come out to defend white nationalists in every topic it comes up here. And people denouncing white nationalists will be voted down.

>People reliably will come out to defend white nationalists in every topic it comes up here.

...and they will be voted down quickly.

> And people denouncing white nationalists will be voted down.

Examples please :-)

The closest thing I can come up with is when I kind of reliably get downvoted every time I say I'd support a ban on nazis but that seems to be die hard free speech people, not nazis.

Re: YouTube bans Stefan Molyneux, David Duke, Richard Spencer for hate speech

#538

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He made a claim, but he didn’t actually share any of his research or data.

I'm fairly certain he can stand for it. Also, tptacek is fairly far to the left it seems (in an American context) so it actually surprised me quite a bit that he'd write that. Based on that last observation I think most of us can agree, can't we?

> Based on that last observation I think most of us can agree, can't we?

HN is in a weird place today, very similar to where the Slate Star Codex guy was a few years ago. That is, racist Whites seem to feel safe commenting here (with appropriate dog whistles and what not), but you wonder how long that can last…

In the end, the SSC guy banned more and more commenters but it wasn't sufficient to save him and he ended up deleting his blog [0] when the world turned its eyes to the kinds of discussions he allowed. I expect the same to happen with HN.

dang does a good job keeping people on-message politically (and I'm sure tptacek did as well), but being "racist-adjacent"—which HN absolutely is [1]—isn't a long-term viable position.

Someday soon I expect the racist-adjacent user-banning to kick into high gear on HN (like SSC did) but it will be too little, too late. Eventually, HN will inevitably shut down—and it might be sooner than any of us think.

[0] https://slatestarcodex.com/

[1] This is from an hour ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23683033

Re: YouTube bans Stefan Molyneux, David Duke, Richard Spencer for hate speech

#539

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are talking about two different things. I claimed that purging white supremacists from platforms is a good thing. I also claimed that silence is complicity. These are orthogonal. I am not a decision maker for one of these platforms, and don't feel the need to draw a specific line in the sand. Your attempt at a "gotcha" is fruitless, I'm afraid. Let me turn it around, do you think that white supremacists deserve a…

It wasn't supposed to be a "gotcha" at all. Any reasonable person would have agreed that silence isn't an expression of complicity with white supremacy, or of sexual consent, or a love of progressive metal. However, since you insist upon evading the obvious logical conclusion that your own freely-offered premises suggest, there is no turning anything around. This thread is over.

> Any reasonable person would have agreed that silence isn't an expression of complicity with white supremacy

I'll repeat. Silence -is- complicity.

Now, the thread is over.

Re: YouTube bans Stefan Molyneux, David Duke, Richard Spencer for hate speech

#540

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to listen to Stefan Molyneux about 10 years ago because he had some interesting views on free market economics. Now I look him up on Wikipedia and find out he's turned into a white nationalist. What the hell happened?

I also listened to him ten years ago. Every week or two I'd pick a new channel to watch to death while working, so I've probably consumed 40+ hours of content. I heard bits and pieces over the years since that gave me the same reaction - what the hell happened. Although in retrospect the seeds were probably there even back then. One thing that came out later was him emotionally explaining to the camera that the probl…

> if he had progressed towards cuddly-bear Molyneux instead of I-want-to-run-a-cult Molyneux

This is an interesting thing I don't hear talked about much. People often criticize social media because it recommends increasingly extreme content to consumers because doing so drives up engagement.

But what I hear less often is how the reward systems of social media radicalize producers.

If you make your living off YouTube and see that you nuanced, reasoned video essay got 50 views, while you're angry rant got 50,000... you'll start feeling the pressure to make more of the latter. And your natural desire to rationalize your own cognitive dissonance will lead you to believe the things you find yourself spewing.

This is why it's so important to get incentive structures right. Because incentives do what they do whether you want them to or not.

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