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Patreon Bars Anti-Feminist for Racist Speech, Inciting Revolt

nytimes.com

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Re: Patreon Bars Anti-Feminist for Racist Speech, Inciting Revolt

#221

Post by narrator »

orthecreedence wrote: post #33

I'm torn about this. On the one hand, Patreon shouldn't have to do business with people they don't like. On the other hand, at what point do we accept that we have different viewpoints and live and let live? The biggest one for me in recent history was Cloudflare arbitrarily deciding to stop hosting the Daily Stormer. Sure, DS is vile, but at the point we start enforcing censorship on a whim instead of hardened polic…

What's weird about private enforcement of censorship is there's no transparency into how a bill becomes a law or an idea at a meeting becomes policy. How exactly did they come to their conclusion to censor these people? It was likely a secret trial, with secret evidence, secret witnesses and secret laws that being a confidential meeting between department heads. When we move more governance decisions to the private sector we embed more secrecy and arbitrariness into our governance.

Re: Patreon Bars Anti-Feminist for Racist Speech, Inciting Revolt

#222

Post by dx87 »

ubernostrum wrote: post #153
paulcole wrote: post #92

> Why are we giving companies and people the right to silence vast amounts of voices and opinions on random whims? This is not a new situation. But all of a sudden it’s a problem because it’s conservative white guys instead of women, LGBTQ people and people of color?

[flagged]

The fact that you take joy in people being punished because of the horrible behavior done by other people years ago is disgusting.

Re: Patreon Bars Anti-Feminist for Racist Speech, Inciting Revolt

#223

Post by jstarfish »

40acres wrote: post #63
orthecreedence wrote: post #33

I'm torn about this. On the one hand, Patreon shouldn't have to do business with people they don't like. On the other hand, at what point do we accept that we have different viewpoints and live and let live? The biggest one for me in recent history was Cloudflare arbitrarily deciding to stop hosting the Daily Stormer. Sure, DS is vile, but at the point we start enforcing censorship on a whim instead of hardened polic…

Centralization isn't the problem here, if you look back at history there are more platforms for people to speak their mind than ever before. Before you the internet you had to deal with the three major networks to get on TV and most exterme speech, on either end of the spectrum, was relegated to the fringes. There has always been a realm of discourse that society agrees upon and that we use to set the boundaries of c…

> Centralization isn't the problem here, if you look back at history there are more platforms for people to speak their mind than ever before.

But there aren't. It's an illusion of diversity.

They're all owned or being bought up by the same centralized handful of outfits-turned-conglomerates that have always controlled the means of distribution. Haven't you noticed the flurry of mergers (successful or not) in the last 10-15 years?

Re: Patreon Bars Anti-Feminist for Racist Speech, Inciting Revolt

#224

Post by darkpuma »

microcolonel wrote: post #195
danso wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah no. > Maybe you’re just acting like a n____r, mate? Have you considered that? Do you think white people act like this? White people are meant to be polite and respectful to one another, and you guys can’t even act like white people, it’s really amazing to me.

He's speaking from their perspective, clearly.

I think that's plausible but ambiguous.

Re: Patreon Bars Anti-Feminist for Racist Speech, Inciting Revolt

#225

Post by krick »

vowelless wrote: post #170
krick wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I won't be speaking for all Europeans, as all this craze you labeled as "American standards" certainly has it's influence, but I can confirm all these stories are pretty funny to read for a person, whom I'd label as a "sane European". But I don't think it is the issue here, anyway. I might not feel the righteous rage reading the quotations from these Benjamin guy, but I might on the other topic. So imagining that I d…

Or let private corporations do whatever they want. Let there be new ones that come in and fill the gaps. Make competition easier by busting monopolies.

I kinda support your point, but at the same time I'm not sure it's entirely realistic. Here we assume that everything will have competition given the free market. But this is hardly true, some markets are biased towards having a monopoly. Because of the economies of scale, because in practice some services have only so much demand and, the most importantly for our discussion, some services are the more valuable for the user, the more users there are using it. This is especially true for all social-network-like services, like Facebook and, yeah, Patreon.

Re: Patreon Bars Anti-Feminist for Racist Speech, Inciting Revolt

#226

Post by caconym_ »

orthecreedence wrote: post #33

I'm torn about this. On the one hand, Patreon shouldn't have to do business with people they don't like. On the other hand, at what point do we accept that we have different viewpoints and live and let live? The biggest one for me in recent history was Cloudflare arbitrarily deciding to stop hosting the Daily Stormer. Sure, DS is vile, but at the point we start enforcing censorship on a whim instead of hardened polic…

> Centralization is the real evil, here.

This is the crux of it. I have a very low opinion of all these people, "anti-feminists" and whatever else, but this sort of drama does illustrate that we have a problem with just a few entities being in a position to stifle the speech of a large number of people. It doesn't seem great, regardless of whether some of its present manifestations appear to be good.

On the flip side, these marginal voices never really had an effective mouthpiece in the past, so maybe the net effect is not significant. But I worry that we will miss opportunities for unique individual expression that the internet, in theory, could provide.

Re: Patreon Bars Anti-Feminist for Racist Speech, Inciting Revolt

#227

Post by PeterMikhailov »

CM30 wrote: post #215
zamalek wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On the other hand, at what point do we accept that we have different viewpoints and live and let live? The government, soapboxes, homes and places of business that are happy to have them. Freedom of Speech is not the right to be heard. If people don't like what you have to say, or how you are saying it, they are free to walk away. If you don't like what someone is doing in your place of business, you can also throw…

The question is; where does it end? Sure, I guess you could say Patreon has the right to ban people from its service. But people have found its not easy or practical to compete with them. They've found everyone from their domain registrar to their website host to their payment processor refusing to do business with them. And at some point, that means it becomes virtually impossible to express yourself if your views a…

I'm ok with the line being "dont host the Daily Stormer"

Re: Patreon Bars Anti-Feminist for Racist Speech, Inciting Revolt

#228

Post by wildmusings »

joshuamorton wrote: post #194
wildmusings wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem comes when network effects, entry barriers, and oligopolies make private exclusion take the character of a ban from the public square. Starting a rival credit card company, payment processor, and social network is not a viable option for people looking to participate in public discourse. Plenty of times throughout history, oligopolists and monopolists have been forced to follow common-carriage rules, whet…

But now you're changing the argument: that not only must you have free speech, but that others must assist you in getting compensated for your speech and to help you potentially subsist off of it. That's never been part of any conversation about free speech. (Even the broader non 1st amendment version). And it doesn't make sense. You can always take cash or check. The post office doesn't discriminate.

Thank you for mentioning the post office. The post office is a great example of a service that could just as well be private and should, in that case, still not be allowed to discriminate.

Re: Patreon Bars Anti-Feminist for Racist Speech, Inciting Revolt

#229

Post by joshuamorton »

nicoburns wrote: post #203
joshuamorton wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But now you're changing the argument: that not only must you have free speech, but that others must assist you in getting compensated for your speech and to help you potentially subsist off of it. That's never been part of any conversation about free speech. (Even the broader non 1st amendment version). And it doesn't make sense. You can always take cash or check. The post office doesn't discriminate.

Surely there's a good argument for non-discriminatory digital payments too, given how much of an advantage easier payments confers.

But who ever said anything about an advantage? The argument about free speech is that censorship is bad, so there should be some minimal level of speech that anyone can produce without worry. This comes down to "the government can't regulate me". Some people broaden this to a moral imperative of "we shouldn't needlessly censor", which is a fine moral imperative.

However, moral imperatives are not things we should legislate as they aren't universal, and "the government cannot regulate me" is a far cry from what some are calling for now, which is " the government must regulate you".

Re: Patreon Bars Anti-Feminist for Racist Speech, Inciting Revolt

#230

Post by manfredo »

astura wrote: post #180
nkurz wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have an unpopular opinion. Do you think this is actually an unpopular opinion, or just one not well represented by the two dominant national political parties in America? You mention elsewhere that you are from small-town Wisconsin. I grew up there also (Ladysmith) and now live in a small town in Vermont. I feel like this attitude is still quite common in rural America. The downside of this framework is that it's h…

> How does one draw a line between "restaurants must serve customers regardless of race" and "businesses can choose not to offer services to racists"? I believe the key difference is skin color is innate and being an asshole is not, you don't get to choose to be black, you do choose to be an asshole though. I think that the shift in popularity for gay rights mirrors the shift in acceptance that homosexual feelings ar…

Political views are, in practice, immutable. Once they reach young adulthood, people's political views are less likely to change than their religious affiliation. While it's tempting to see political views as something that is chosen, it's not really the case. For example, if I told you to believe that gay marriage should not be a right for the next year, would you be able to do so? I can't. I could not do so for any amount of time; the fact that I believe in it is not something I can consciously change. In that sense, political views can be seen as innate rather than chosen.
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