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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

#301

Post by KozmoNau7 »

monksy wrote: post #163
PhasmaFelis wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's not "fascism" or "trump" that we should be afraid of. If you don't have anything to fear from Trump, that's nice for you, but given that he's openly calling for me and people dear to me to have our civil rights revoked, it's pretty shitty of you to tell me that I shouldn't be afraid of him.

In America, we have 3 branches of government with checks and balances additionally we have very difficult to modify rights given in the constitution. Things are not likely to change.

And yet attacks on gays, blacks and other minorities have risen sharply since Trump came to power, perpetrated by people emboldened by his (quasi-)fascist rhetoric and bluster.

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

#302

Post by pgodzin »

smallnamespace wrote: post #148
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…

> If people don't like what you have to say, or how you are saying it, they are free to walk away. Yes, but it's funny that we're now deliberating conflating 'people' with 'private corporations', a conflation that folks on the left vociferously condemned when it came to Citizens United. I think we should look at ourselves a bit more carefully in the mirror - are private corporations supposed to be held to a higher st…

The difference between YouTube or Patreon and Comcast is that one is a platform while the other provides infrastructure. Net neutrality applies specifically to ISPs because often there is no alternative.

Meanwhile, a different platform (of which many exist) is trivial to switch to. The reason that some platforms are more popular than others is precisely because they are tailored to appeal to the mainstream without extreme content pushing people off.

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

#303

Post by apostacy »

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 this article fails to mention, is that Patreon lied about why Benjamin was banned. He did NOT violate their TOS.

Patreon dishonestly tried to retroactively apply an amended TOS to justify banning him, after the fact.

This demonstrates that Patreon is a dishonest company that will ban you because they feel like it, and then also try to take the high ground and pretend that they are just following their own rules and or trying to keep people safe, when both of those are not true.

And the NYTimes calling Benjamin's awkward and poorly chosen words "hate speech" is frankly libelous. However, even if they were hate speech, Patreon specifically allows so-called "hate speech", as long as it is not on their site.

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

#304

Post by CyberDildonics »

dkersten wrote: post #272
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…

Theres a fine line between “being allowed to throw a loud ranting racist out of a pub” because the pub is your business and you should be allowed to choose who to do business with and you don’t like racists... and throwing out a person of a different race because it’s your business and you should be allowed to choose who to do business with and don’t like that race... That is, we want businesses to have the right to…

This is not a fine line. One is behavior and the other is physical attribute which can not be changed and does not affect anyone else.

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

#305

Post by ianleeclark »

vowelless wrote: post #294
ianleeclark wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don’t think he was naive in saying what he said and neither do I think he was being charitable to blacks or to whites for that matter. No, you're being too naive when you're so charitable to assume that a Brit, of his background and who does what he does for a living, isn't aware of the stigma of the n-word.

Ah! My bad. I didn’t think you would actually be attacking me personally. I guess that shows how naive I actually am :). Thanks for sharing your deeply considered opinion about me. I clearly don’t have the rich life experiences that you have, especially about this topic.

> My bad. I didn’t think you would actually be attacking me personally. I guess that shows how naive I actually am :).

Why are you so charitable to white supremacists, but are so sure I'm meaning to attack you when I say naive?

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

#306

Post by sharpneli »

mrkurt wrote: post #290
dkersten wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Theres a fine line between “being allowed to throw a loud ranting racist out of a pub” because the pub is your business and you should be allowed to choose who to do business with and you don’t like racists... and throwing out a person of a different race because it’s your business and you should be allowed to choose who to do business with and don’t like that race... That is, we want businesses to have the right to…

It's not really a fine line. There are specific, protected people-features you can't use to discriminate. Saying stupid shit isn't one of them. Race is. Those laws don't exist because we don't agree with their reasons. They exist to protect people who have been categorically repressed for hundreds of years.

This brings an interesting workaround to mind.

What if they register their ideology as a religion? Iirc it is a protected class in US so they cannot be banned due to it.

However people getting banned like this rarely are inventive enough to figure out ways to fight back.

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

#307

Post by cabalamat »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #147
darkpuma wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm aware of what he said. He also said: ‘I was being anti-Nazi,’ I can't get into his brain and determine if he actually opposes genocide or secretly supports it, but from what I've seen thus far it seems he carelessly uses offensive racially charged language but takes exception with those who advocate for genocide. Just so we're clear, I don't like this guy. I dislike a lot of people who fall well short of being na…

I'm aware of what he said. He also said: ‘I was being anti-Nazi,’ If someone constantly spouts Nazi talking points while insisting they're not a Nazi, you need to consider the possibility that they're lying to you. And it's awfully dangerous to claim that you can't compare someone to the Nazis until and unless they publicly call for large-scale genocide. Modern racists know they can't get away with openly flying the…

> Modern racists know they can't get away with openly flying the swastika right now. The Nazis themselves started off talking about patriotism, jobs, defense. By the time a fascist group has secured enough power to start calling for open genocide, it's too late.

I have 2 separate points to this.

Firstly, it is inaccurate. In Mein Kampf, Hitler explicitly said he wants to destroy Russia. This was years before he had any power.

Secondly, if you make that rule, you are also banning anyone who talks about "patriotism, jobs, defense" who isn't a Nazi. Such a rule would be a boon for would be censors, who would get to ban everything they don't like and at the same time libel their victims as being Nazis. Their victims, of course, don't get a hearing in the court of public opinion, because they have been effectively silenced. Is that the future you want?

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

#308

Post by dkersten »

mrkurt wrote: post #290
dkersten wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Theres a fine line between “being allowed to throw a loud ranting racist out of a pub” because the pub is your business and you should be allowed to choose who to do business with and you don’t like racists... and throwing out a person of a different race because it’s your business and you should be allowed to choose who to do business with and don’t like that race... That is, we want businesses to have the right to…

It's not really a fine line. There are specific, protected people-features you can't use to discriminate. Saying stupid shit isn't one of them. Race is. Those laws don't exist because we don't agree with their reasons. They exist to protect people who have been categorically repressed for hundreds of years.

What about refusing someone because they voted for the other guy in the last election?

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

#309

Post by yesco »

ubernostrum wrote: post #160
throwawaysea wrote: post #77

I don't understand why commenters in these threads keep noting that free speech only protects people from government censorship. This is a common, distracting, and empty statement. Proponents of free speech are pro free speech as a general concept and principle, beyond what protections are afforded under American law today. The idea of free speech predates the existence of the United States. Free speech is hugely val…

I have a soapbox. I like to stand up on it and yell out my views. Sometimes I let my friends use it that way, too. Some guy comes along and would like to use my soapbox to yell out his views. But I don't like him and I don't agree with his views. Would you like the government to come force me at gunpoint to let him use my soapbox? What you're arguing, basically, is that once my soapbox gets popular enough that lots o…

> Would you like the government to come force me at gunpoint to let him use my soapbox?

That's easy, are you the only one with that soapbox? Do you own all the soapboxes? Are you a Corporation who is taking advantage of it's market dominance and near monopoly on modern free association to control public discourse?

So yes if your soapbox networks are now an integral part of public debate then the government should either regulate you or nationalize your assets for the public good. It's no different from why ISPs should be kept neutral, why power companys should be kept neutral and why public highways should be kept neutral.

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

#310

Post by pavel_lishin »

ng12 wrote: post #56
pavel_lishin wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's stay on topic here; being banned from Patreon doesn't limit his speech at all.

But what happens when Patreon, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, Reddit, Twitch and PayPal all work together to create collective censorship? Is your speech being limited if you're functionally blocked from the meaningfully accessible parts of the internet? Yes, these are all private companies. In fact someone already tried to create an alternative Patreon (called Hatreon, iirc) that was shut down by Visa. Allowing censors…

We're talking about Patreon here. These guys are effectively selling their opinions; their supporters want to give them money so that they keep producing their opinions.

What happens if I try to exercise my speech by selling little racist caricature dolls? Walmart, Target, KMart and 7-11 would refuse to stock them. Is my free speech being limited if I'm functionally blocked from the meaningfully accessible parts of our capitalist system?

No, and it would be ludicrous to suggest that grocery stores owe me shelf space.

(Facebook, Reddit and Twitch are a different animal altogether; Comcast, Time Warner, etc. are yet another leve lremoved.)

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