Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

You can't censor away extremism or any other problem

freddiedeboer.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

831–840 of 863 posts

Re: You can't censor away extremism or any other problem

#831

Post by tomjen3 »

Jeema101 wrote: post #598
Alupis wrote: post #542

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can anyone name a time in history where the people censoring things turned out to be the "Good Guys"?

Yes. 1945 post-war Germany saw mass-censoring as part of the Allied de-Nazification program: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denazification "the US Army continued its efforts to denazify Germany through control of German media. The Information Control Division of the US Army had by July 1946 taken control of 37 German newspapers, six radio stations, 314 theaters, 642 cinemas, 101 magazines, 237 book publishers, and 7,3…

That of course leave the question, was it that that solved the issue or was it the end of the war, or the exposing of the camps (one might not like the local jew, not trust them in general, but still not want to mass murder them) or something else?

Re: You can't censor away extremism or any other problem

#832

Post by tomjen3 »

ThrustVectoring wrote: post #303
dmingod666 wrote: post #17

My reading from the outside is, the left needs to realize (I'm sure it applies to the right equally as well) that scolding people into guilt is not a viable approach to affect action or to change perceptions when you're dealing with adults. Neither does boxing people into this, that and that category do any good. Like if all you want to do is dehumanize those guys so you can happily insult / hurt them without hurting…

It absolutely does work. A little bit, at first, when you have broad consensus backing you - but it does work. People will begrudgingly change their behavior for relatively minor things, and the change in the use rate of racial epithets in public reflects that. The problem is that A) this process is more useful for advancing within the ideological block than for advancing the ideology's goals, and B) there's a "Laffe…

I am not sure your example holds: I have no use for racist terms, thus I don't use them.

Re: You can't censor away extremism or any other problem

#833

Post by michaelbrave »

I thought it was more to hinder further recruitment because allowing it is much like giving it weight and making it seem normal. By minimizing it's exposure it both acts as a reminder that "that isn't normal or acceptable" and by banning it it cuts down on potential recruitment.

Re: You can't censor away extremism or any other problem

#834

Post by frongpik »

ralusek wrote: post #425
karaterobot wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not only would they disagree with you, but their strategy actually works. Leftists, "wokeness", and social justice wouldn't be the hot topics they've been if the strategy of leftists weren't effective. Is the goal of social justice movements just to be hot topics? Your statement makes it seem like success is measured by the amount of retweets or something. Clearly that can't be true, but if global fascism and ethni…

I think the current primary strategy is to destabilize Western liberalism. Every tenet of liberalism is actively under attack, and successfully so. Individualism? Long gone, the name of the game is collectivism and your identity groups are everything. Color blindness? It's officially considered to be an outdated, laughable mode of thinking. If your identity collective is paramount, how can you be blind to the paramet…

One more observation. The choice of words in "diversity equity inclusion" is telling. DEI is god in Latin. In good old times, the ruling class had the Church with its inquisition and heresy to control the crowd, when the neutral laws didn't work. Today you can shout "I'm a heretic and I don't believe in god" and nobody would budge, so the ruling class had to invent something else. Not long ago it was the abstract communism and terrorism, but even these two words don't instill fear in masses today. So the ruling class has come up with this DEI - the new awkward god for the masses, and racism being the new heresy. But given how convoluted and laughable this ideology is, I bet it won't stick for even ten years. I'm really curious what will be next.

Someone here has posted a link to the Herman-Chomsky propaganda model. A quote from it: "So I think when we talked about the "fifth filter" we should have brought in all this stuff -- the way artificial fears are created with a dual purpose... partly to get rid of people you don't like but partly to frighten the rest. Because if people are frightened, they will accept authority."

Re: You can't censor away extremism or any other problem

#835

Post by joshuamorton »

lliamander wrote: post #814
eeZah7Ux wrote: post #764

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Give me some good reasons for believing that a "slightly bad opinion" and "hate speech" can be easily confused and I'll be ready to rethink my position. Questioning our own positions is the opposite of bigotry, after all.

Your claim was that even the simple accusation of "hate speech" should be taken at face value and be cause for introspection, seemingly regardless of the circumstances. Now here you are asking for reasons before you reevaluate your own position when we claim you are in error. Do you not see the hypocrisy? You are welcome to expect arguments before you change your mind. You can be "innocent until proven guilty". That'…

No. I don't see the hypocrisy.

The opinion of an independent adjudicator like the platform you're on with hopefully unbiased hate speech rules should be considered evidence in a way that the bad faith arguments of the person you're arguing with is not.

That is, I should not necessarily take your accusation of hate speech at face value, because you've proven to be willing to try and use it to win an argument. But if dang said that I was doing something that broke the rules, I would be more introspective. This is, yes, technically an argument from authority, but so is basically everything in the world of social dynamics.

So the burden of proof for you and the burden of proof for hacker news as a platform may be different, but that has nothing to do with me vs. you.

So I'll repeat what the other user said: if dang@ came along and asked you to stop engaging in hateful rhetoric, would you take a moment to introspect on that, or would you first reaction be to argue and demand proof?

Mine would be to try and figure out what he was referring to, and then probably to do less of it. And indeed, when chastised by him, that's more or less what I've done.

Re: You can't censor away extremism or any other problem

#836

Post by elastolin »

bitdizzy wrote: post #827
elastolin wrote: post #776

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"everything means nothing yada yada yada" You know exactly what I mean, cut the bullshit. Point being, deplatforming may be okay for the group who exercises it, but not for the group that is being deplatformed. Who the fuck decides? The government? Some out of touch Big Tech CEOs? Fuck that. Just take a look at Venezuela's current "Law against Hatred" ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_against_Hatred)to get an idea…

It is entirely and issue of the means of communication being concentrated into the hands of a few powerful organizations, like its been since the radio was captured by capitalist regulation. > Who the fuck decides? Everyone decides norms in the small bubble around them. When people organize their influence grows too. Some people have too much power. Some people should never have power, like nazis. A lot of the argume…

> Some people should never have power, like nazis.

That's exactly what I'm arguing against. That's just your opinion and you treat it like some universal axiom. Same way you treat 'Holocaust deniers' as some kind of monstrous apparitions. You may not agree, that's all.

It's people like you that inspire me to counteract this trend with full force.

Re: You can't censor away extremism or any other problem

#837

Post by bitdizzy »

elastolin wrote: post #836
bitdizzy wrote: post #827

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is entirely and issue of the means of communication being concentrated into the hands of a few powerful organizations, like its been since the radio was captured by capitalist regulation. > Who the fuck decides? Everyone decides norms in the small bubble around them. When people organize their influence grows too. Some people have too much power. Some people should never have power, like nazis. A lot of the argume…

> Some people should never have power, like nazis. That's exactly what I'm arguing against. That's just your opinion and you treat it like some universal axiom. Same way you treat 'Holocaust deniers' as some kind of monstrous apparitions. You may not agree, that's all. It's people like you that inspire me to counteract this trend with full force.

It's not an axiom. It's a fundamental disagreement about how society should be and an understanding of what the world would be like if nazis have the power to change it to suit their vision.

> It's people like you that inspire me to counteract this trend with full force.

What does that look like? What actual effects on the world do you try to make or support others making because I am opposed to fascism?

Re: You can't censor away extremism or any other problem

#838

Post by Pyramus »

Alupis wrote: post #726
Pyramus wrote: post #722

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If one side truly is righteous, it will prevail through open discussion and logic. Unfortunately that is not always how it works out. In Germany in the 1930s the idea that Jews/non-Arians have conspired against Germany and should be retaliated against was discussed openly - and accepted. Obviously it was not righteous. In several US states in the 1980s the idea that homo sapiens was created by God and creationism s…

The righteous ideals prevailed in the end, in both examples you provided - no? Nobody pretends Nazism never happened - that would be Censorship. Instead, you can buy, find, read about Nazism - including Mein Kumpf and more. Creationism is not a dominating idea in the US either - nobody censored Creationism (even to this day you can find private schools that teach it!). Instead, Creationism was defeated by questioning…

So what you are saying is that it may take a lot of time, bloodshed or decline before the righteous ideas prevail.

Now, let me ask you this - are you okay to sacrifice your life for a righteous idea? So why should 10 million Jews, Polish, Czechs, Russians, gays, disabled etc.?

Unless you are willing to do so, there is no point to be proven here. History has shown again and again that the righteous ideas do not always prevail (you could even argue that it's a defining human quality).

Every single democratic society is built upon common beliefs of what should/should not be censored. Claiming "censorship never works" is running away from a difficult conversation and not face human reality.

Re: You can't censor away extremism or any other problem

#839

Post by elastolin »

bitdizzy wrote: post #837
elastolin wrote: post #836

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Some people should never have power, like nazis. That's exactly what I'm arguing against. That's just your opinion and you treat it like some universal axiom. Same way you treat 'Holocaust deniers' as some kind of monstrous apparitions. You may not agree, that's all. It's people like you that inspire me to counteract this trend with full force.

It's not an axiom. It's a fundamental disagreement about how society should be and an understanding of what the world would be like if nazis have the power to change it to suit their vision. > It's people like you that inspire me to counteract this trend with full force. What does that look like? What actual effects on the world do you try to make or support others making because I am opposed to fascism?

> fundamental disagreement about how society should be

We may not agree, but we can't say it's a "fundamental disagreement" if there's so much people rooting for it.

> What does that look like?

1) Disagreeing with people online 2) Opening niche internet forums that are lax on moderation (except for illegal content such as child pornography and direct threats) 3) Investing in hosting/domain registrars/payment processors that don't deplatform because of political stance (e.g., Epik, SkySilk)

I've been doing 1) and 2) for some time now, but I want to do 3) as well. I think it will become very profitable during this decade.

Re: You can't censor away extremism or any other problem

#840

Post by dbsmith83 »

vinay427 wrote: post #777
wtetzner wrote: post #744

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is that when you prevent speech, you can't even discuss changes to the laws. The censorship of speech gives a much different and somewhat hidden form of power.

> you can't even discuss changes to the laws. This is a type of speech, and there's no reason all speech should be regulated uniformly, just as speech and actions should presumably not be regulated uniformly. We could just prevent actions without bothering with speech at all, but (for instance) it seems similarly doable to ban certain forms of speech that cause unreasonable harm while leaving other forms alone. An ar…

> ... but (for instance) it seems similarly doable to ban certain forms of speech that cause unreasonable harm while leaving other forms alone.

Except that the article is dedicated to explaining why it's not doable and is a bad idea in general

Post reply on HN