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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

#571
post #564
post #254

When I, a white young boy, grew up in The South and saw the Klan, my father taught me to never do business with them, never enable their behavior, never let their organization rent rooms from venues I may own, and to decline all of their business even if they were paying extra to be your customer. For as long as he could remember, and his father before him, the Klan and other fringe organizations would always cry and…

So long as YouTube issues bans to users that are as egregiously racist as klan members I see no problem. I don't know any of these people, but if they are undeniably white supremacists, then it's a hard sell to dispute this individual action. But another argument lies in the policy of bans for certain types of speech, and that's the argument that's more pertinent. If we accept that YouTube can ban users for hate spee…

If YouTube shows itself as an unfair judge, then let's criticize them for that when it happens. Otherwise, having a judge is much better than having no judge at all.

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

#572

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah; I've listened to a number of his shows. He's a popular political commentator who is anti-communist/leftwing -- that's why they banned him.

You should check out some of the Stefan Molyneux quotes the SPLC has gathered: https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/indi... An example: > "Screaming 'racism' at people because blacks are collectively less intelligent...is insane." These all have associated YouTube video links - which are now taken down it seems.

If we can't check the videos, how do we confirm the quotes were really said and in what context?

Racists: 1 Censorship: 0

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

#573

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

My understanding was that someone would prevent me from owning private property or acquiring capital? I've read both The Communist Manifesto, and Capital, and they both left me with the impression there was going to be a violent revolution with people like me as the target. I'd be happy to be wrong however. Edit: I'm sorry someone is down-voting you. While I'm not sure I get it yet I want to hear your side.

> My understanding was that someone would prevent me from owning private property or acquiring capital?

You got this the other way around. Private property needs force to be upheld.

The sacralization of private property is so deeply ingrained that people actually prefer the KKK to even thinking about limiting it. It's so dogmatic that it's depressing.

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

#574

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's like everything about ads and tracking: your business model is not my problem. Some businesses are just unviable. Compete or die.

It's funny I see this comment all the time on HN, but in a very similar scenario recently, where DHH launched Hey app and was stonewalled by Apple, I didn't see a single comment saying "hey just go build your own app store". Telling someone to "just go build your own" is lazy and weightless.

"Just build your own web host" is feasible, but "just build your own app store" is not because it requires replacing half of your users' mobile phones.

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

#575

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Molyneux, precisely, does not advocate specifically for a white ethnostate where Spencer does. However, Molyneux doesn't oppose one on principle, which for most is too close for comfort so he gets branded as one. I understand for many that is evidence of guilt but logically speaking that's not the same thing.

I listened to some of Molyneux podcasts awhile back. He seemed very gray area, borderline white nationalist, almost consciously ambiguous with just enough plausible deniability. It was a little too close for comfort and I took him off my list. That said, I don’t think it’s fair to lump him in with folks like Spencer and Duke. I don’t agree with Moleyneux’s viewpoints but think he articulates them well enough that he…

I'm not sure if things like this are exactly grey...

https://twitter.com/StefanMolyneux/status/108248906874151321... https://twitter.com/StefanMolyneux/status/118100374698304307...

I just took the tweets from the other comments here.

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

#576

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is a copout answer. "White" usually refers to people of European heritage who have lighter skin in America.

What do generic "Europeans" have in common with each other? As a Russian, I feel like my culture overlaps relatively little with French, German, or English. Moreover, which parts of "Europe" are actually included in this taxonomy? Are Romani considered white? What about Southern Italians? Black people in France? It all boils down to "people of European heritage with white skin (whose ancestors wrote books and stuff t…

Not sure about whites and blacks in the US, but as far as genetics are concerned, (black) Africans have far more genetic diversity than (white) Europeans.

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

#577

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

dang has commented on this a lot lately and he says it is because we see the other side much easier than our own side. I agree with him to a large degree: I personally see mostly problematic content from the left[0] but I guess that is partly my bias. [0]: for example this comment earlier today that I thought[1] was absolutely crazy "I don't want to participate in spaces where religious white nationalists feel safe"…

> "I don't want to participate in spaces where religious white nationalists feel safe"

VS

> "I don't want to participate in spaces where atheistic colored globalists feel safe"

The weight there is different though, in the groups you analyse the violence has historically flown in one direction more than in the other. I am inclined to think that there have been historically much less concerns of safety for "religious white nationalists" than for "theistic colored globalists"

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

#578
post #564

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So long as YouTube issues bans to users that are as egregiously racist as klan members I see no problem. I don't know any of these people, but if they are undeniably white supremacists, then it's a hard sell to dispute this individual action. But another argument lies in the policy of bans for certain types of speech, and that's the argument that's more pertinent. If we accept that YouTube can ban users for hate spee…

If YouTube shows itself as an unfair judge, then let's criticize them for that when it happens. Otherwise, having a judge is much better than having no judge at all.

That's the current situation, and maybe it's worked well so far (I don't create content on YouTube).

What appears necessary or at the very least helpful, is to have a very clear terms of service that outlines exactly what is unacceptable so these situations can be avoided in the first place.

One question is, why did it take until now for these bans to come into effect?

Gray areas are always going to emerge. For example, the popular YouTuber Jenna Marbles came under criticism recently for old videos (years ago) that could be construed as hate speech, or at the very least, mildly racist. Does this justify a ban?

A few comments say Stefan Molyneux (again, don't know this guy) is not specifically racist but has white-centric views.

These issues are going to be decided by the discretion of humans, many of them with a geographically-concentric worldview (i.e., Silicon Valley).

EDIT: Stefan, not Peter Molyneux.

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

#579
post #254

When I, a white young boy, grew up in The South and saw the Klan, my father taught me to never do business with them, never enable their behavior, never let their organization rent rooms from venues I may own, and to decline all of their business even if they were paying extra to be your customer. For as long as he could remember, and his father before him, the Klan and other fringe organizations would always cry and…

> 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"...

The "far-right" is becoming a broad term in media usage and will end up in the same place as "racist" where it is a category that catches the views of a good 40% of people. It isn't obvious that wins for the far right is a bad thing.

Nobody is going to lose sleep over the Klan being pushed off Youtube, but Molyneux is not a member of the Klan.

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

#580

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't think I've even seen an explicitly racist post here, despite having dead comments turned on, maybe excepting obvious trolling or spam. Implicitly racist posts are usually downvoted. I have seen downvoted replies that nonsensically infer racism in a post. I suspect that's how I would describe what you're thinking of.

> I don't think I've even seen an explicitly racist post here, despite having dead comments turned on, maybe excepting obvious trolling or spam.

This is self-contradictory. You state that you have never seen explicitly racists posts here, but then you state the exceptions of "obvious trolling or spam". How does a racist post being "obvious trolling" make it not-racist? How does a racist post being spam make it not-racist? Racism abounds in trolling and spam. Spam and trolling are similarly havens for racism.

> Implicitly racist posts are usually downvoted.

That's not my experience.

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