Private censorship is not the best way to fight hate or defend democracy (2018)

I think a modern formulation of freedom of speech, like Article 19 of the UN Declaration of Human Rights, is clearer about what freedom of speech is: "Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers." Note that this formulation doesn't have to descend into some sort of free speech maximalist apocalypse; spam is unprotected because it's not something anyone wants to receive, incitements to imminent violence are violations of other human rights and laws, etc. so moderation is still possible. There is a difference between interfering with parties who are mutually voluntarily communicating and helping parties not receive communications they voluntarily have decided that they don't want to receive.

(I was about to say that free speech maximalists are a myth but I do recall seeing at least one person on HN advocate such a view.)

And I agree there's a tension between the rights of different individuals/entities but the same tension exists for other civil and human rights. The compromise used for other civil rights seems reasonable here: everyone should be treated evenhandedly and impartially and, the larger the corporation/organization, the greater the responsibility to do so.

I know that the Weimar Republic had anti-semitic censorship laws. I made almost the same argument that you are making just 2 months ago:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27865484

"My understanding is that pre-Nazi Germany had hate speech laws, and it didn't seem to work there?"

I abandoned my views on this question for a few reasons:

- The Weimar Republic laws either weren't effective at preventing distribution or they weren't actually enforced. The continued circulation of Der Sturmer is evidence of this. The judiciary was known to be heavily biased in favor of the far-right, where less than 10% of far-right political killers were convicted and the majority of far-left political killers were convicted.

- Online censorship is far less likely to create martyrs than the visual/emotional imagery of imprisoning people.

- Online censorship is far more effective at preventing distribution.

- Failing to censor online leads to automatic mass-distribution due to the consolidation of eyeballs in a small number of venues. Failing to censor offline does not. There is less scale to be had offline.

- Online censorship that we're talking about is private and voluntary. It is not in the same category as government censorship as far as downside risk is concerned.

> Given that what you advocate for is virtually identical

It is not "virtually identical". As I've said, the context is extremely different. You can't draw an analogy as much as you keep trying.

> Note that this formulation doesn't have to descend into some sort of free speech maximalist apocalypse; spam is unprotected because it's not something anyone wants to receive, incitements to imminent violence are violations of other human rights and laws, etc. so moderation is still possible. There is a difference between interfering with parties who are mutually voluntarily communicating and helping parties not receive communications they voluntarily have decided that they don't want to receive.

Sure I accept this (note though, that the UDHR definition is incompatible with the US constitutional definition, but let's work with this one because I prefer it anyway).

You mention mutually voluntary communication. So the vital question is then: is you posting a video on youtube a voluntary communication with me? I don't see how it is. I can see this argument for email, but I don't see how you can claim that this is the case for Youtube without an apparent contradiction in that even if you and I want to communicate via youtube, Fred over there thinks that the video you posted is spam/inappropriate and should be blocked. That is, if you need mutual consent from all parties, there will always be people who don't want to watch a video, but it is shown to. Therefore I don't think your framing works either way. Either You and I aren't the mutual parties to the communication, in which case Youtube can withdraw its consent, or everyone is party to the communication, in which case Youtube has a responsibility to block the content on behalf of those other people.

> everyone should be treated evenhandedly and impartially

Are you claiming that people aren't? Who is being treated differently? As far as I can tell, the discrimination, insofar as it exists, is based on an idea that isn't specifically called out elsewhere in the UDHR (such as religion or race, in Article 18 or 2).

>I know that the Weimar Republic had censorship laws. I made almost the same argument that you are making just 2 months ago:

What? The anti-semetic expressions crime thing is a fact, not an argument (I am against censorship laws!). I was honestly completely knocked cold fthat you came to the conclusion I was making your argument. The takeaway isn't that hate speech laws work, it's that they don't. I'm pro hate speech and anti-censorship. I don't like it, but I'm pro allowing it. I'm making your counter argument. In fact you seem to be listing many of the reasons why hate speech laws don't prevent Naziism.

>I abandoned my views on this question for a few reasons:

I'm surprised you chose not to learn from your responses and realize the folly of restricting "hate speech." It doesn't seem you abandoned anything, it seems you double downed.

>It is not "virtually identical". As I've said, the context is extremely different. You can't draw an analogy as much as you keep trying.

You can bury your head in the sand if you like, but no matter how hard as you keep trying to think they aren't virtually identical, they still will be. What you advocate is extremely similar and you are oblivious and disconnected to the reality of the similarity between our current censorship laws and those of the Weimar Republic. I'm not drawing an analogy, I'm saying you are literally advocating for the policy of the Weimar Republic under which Hitler was elected, with only the slightest of differences (their laws were ever so slightly more restricted due to some spottily enforced hate speech laws). The Weimar's Republic policy was literally free speech, sans some poorly enforced hate speech laws, plus private and/or voluntary censorship, which is your option (2). In fact your precise option (2) was free speech + private/voluntary regulation, but you admitted that Weimar's hate speech laws were essentially useless.

The internet is just another media of communication. That's it. You said yourself hitler reached over half of voters with his speech. That's probably a greater voter penetration than even what reddit reaches. You make some arguments why hate speech laws weren't very effective at the speeches but then you think they will be even more effective at something with even lower voter distribution than these speeches that you say went to more than half of voters.

>Having said that, it's true that for some people no amount of reasoning or persuasion will work

Some people are their own soothsayer. Have fun in your censored future insulated from reality and the opinion of others, left to the discretion of whatever "private" entity believes is allowed truths.