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

Patreon Bars Anti-Feminist for Racist Speech, Inciting Revolt

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

311–320 of 789 posts

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

#311

Post by darkpuma »

pjc50 wrote: post #266
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…

> Also, for the record, I'm a feminist, left-leaning socialist. So good luck writing me off as another conservative windbag who doesn't understand the first amendment that's crowing about censorship. Well, that's all well and good; but I do notice that on Hacker News there is a very strong tendency to only report and discuss this kind of thing when it affects "conservative windbags" or people with terrible long-discr…

As I recall Hacker News also had a very lengthy discussion when Patreon banned pornography, which I wouldn't say was effecting "conservative windbags". In fact I recall it was argued this move disproportionately affected the LGBT community, which evidently often crowdfunds their pornography. A similarly lengthy discussion was had for a similar story concerning Tumblr.

In response to accusations of bias, dang has stated something along the lines that people tend to view HN as having a bias contrary to their own, no matter what their own happens to be. From what I've seen that rings true.

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

#312

Post by ggreer »

zamalek wrote: post #120
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…

> 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…

> 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.

That's technically correct, but it doesn't get at the core of the concept. If you read the original arguments in favor of freedom of speech, you'll see they don't focus on the rights of the speaker as much as the rights of the listener. John Milton, Thomas Paine, and John Stuart Mill all made the point (in various ways) that every time you stop someone from saying or publishing an idea, you are also preventing others who want to hear or read that idea from doing so. In addition, censorship requires delegating a censor. Effectively, that means you are letting someone else decide what you're allowed to read and hear. I don't know about everyone else, but there is no government body or private company that I trust with that power. Disclaimers, warnings, and age verification steps are fine, but memory-holing ideas? No thank you.

In the case of Patreon, there is a man who people want to give money to. He wants to accept that money. There is no criminal activity on either side of the transaction. Yet Patreon is preventing these people from doing what they want because Patreon dislikes one paragraph of the man's boorish utterances. This is in direct contradiction to their stated policy (where the person has to endanger the safety of others) and there's a suspicious amount of partisan bias in the application of these policies.

Patreon isn't the first company to behave this way, just the most recent. These actions increase political polarization, erode public trust in institutions and companies, and confirm the persecution complexes of many on the ends of the political spectrum. I'm sure the people in charge of these platforms feel like they're doing the right thing, but I think they are mistaken.

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

#313

Post by fzeroracer »

ptero wrote: post #204
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…

Trying to prevent people from arguing for an evil (E) never stops E long term. It should be fought with reason and counter-arguments, not with silencing the speaker. Suppressing the speaker can indicate, especially to those wavering, that there are no reasonable counter-arguments and there must be something true in the message that controlling powers are trying to suppress. There are different modes: I do not have to…

You cannot argue against people that believe an entire race or an entire people should be systematically eradicated. There is no rational argument to be had against them because they specifically argue on an entirely different level.

They want you to treat them at equal in the world of debate because that's how their views are legitimized and given power. I find it honestly disturbing that people are more willing to defend the 'ironic' people calling for the death of their enemies than the minorities trying to get them to stop.

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

#315

Post by rjf72 »

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…

I think the most dangerous thing to do is to rewrite history to appeal to a point of view that it does not substantiate.

The Nazi party was officially formed in 1920 and it was still an extremely fringe group. It was a renaming of the German Workers' Party, a group which had 55 members in 1919 when Hitler joined. That same year they announced that only males of "pure Aryan descent" could become members, and Hitler would give some 31 speeches constantly overtly targeting Jews. By 1921, when the party still just had some 3000 members, the "brownshirts" were officially founded and began to be used to physically attack, disrupt, and otherwise intimidate other parties. By 1923 Hitler literally began an attempted coup which resulted in the death of several police officers along with 16 Nazi members. That failed coup would result in his trial and imprisonment during which time he wrote Mein Kampf.

This is why the appeals to fears of x is the next Hitler are generally unreasonable. Hitler wasn't some devious trickster who suddenly just gradually started 'dog whistling' or hinting at things. He was extremely extreme from his earliest days. He made no secret of it. He literally wrote, and published, a book about it before he started his next rise to power! And the book, again emphasizing written while he was literally in prison, had extremely subtle passages in it such as, "... the nationalization of our masses will succeed only when, aside from all the positive struggle for the soul of our people, their international poisoners are exterminated.. If at the beginning of the war and during the war twelve or fifteen thousand of these Hebrew corrupters of the nation had been subjected to poison gas, such as had to be endured in the field by hundreds of thousands of our very best German workers of all classes and professions, then the sacrifice of millions at the front would not have been in vain."

The primary thing I fear is that in our lust to oust the villain from behind his mask, that we ourselves become that which we seek to find.

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

#316

Post by zamalek »

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…

> who to do business with and don’t like that race...

Although not the historical reason, a far simpler one is: you can change your mind and ideas but can't change your race.

In addition, it is that behavior and not that belief that gets the racist removed from the premises. You can choose to be quiet about your ideas where they are not welcome, but you can't choose to not be your race where it is not welcome.

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

#317

Post by apostacy »

beat wrote: post #289
zaroth wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything about your response I agree with except the tongue-in-cheek “these individuals are free to create their own businesses and websites which facilitate whatever kind of discourse they please, nobody can take that away from them...” The reality is no, there is enough privatized centralization in payment and networks that certain companies can choose not to do business with someone, based on otherwise legal spe…

Business itself is inherently amoral (not evil, just lacking any sense of morality one way or another). Businesses don't refuse particular customers out of a sense of social justice - they do it because continuing to service their customers harms their reputation, and thus their business. I know I don't want to do business with businesses that tell me fascism is just "speech", and I'll go to their competitors instead…

Someone like Jordan Paterson is absolutely not like Stormfront. Refusing to support a best selling author and professor because some vocal activists have launched a smear campaign against him is not some sort of proxy for morality.

Businesses are doing things because their owners want to punish certain opinions, regardless of how popular they are. Visa and Mastercard are using their monopoly power as payment processors to interfere in elections and punish people who say certain things. And people on Hacker News are fine with this, because muh you should just make your own banking infrastructure! Free Market.

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

#318

Post by justin66 »

dgudkov wrote: post #248

The missing question here -- why did Patreon do it? Is it because they are afraid of legal risk of not being able to defend themselves against a lawsuit? Or they are afraid of loss of revenue/capitalization if an online activist group launches a shame/smear campaign? Or it simply because it rubbed the wrong way someone in the company management? Why did they do it?

This doesn't seem like a big mystery. It would not take a smear campaign or some kind of major boycott to cost a company that became too closely associated in the public imagination with alt-right whackjobs.

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

#319

Post by tnolet »

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 is the opposite of a fine line. One is something you are born with/into. The other is a conscious choice.

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

#320

Post by manfredo »

darawk wrote: post #94
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…

It's an interesting problem. Speech has never truly been free, sometimes and in some places its been regulated by government, but in modern liberal democracies its been regulated by culture . Polite society regulates speech by rejecting people who engage in whatever that society views as harmful speech. Social media platforms and the internet generally, substantially weaken the power of culture to regulate speech in…

> Social media platforms and the internet generally, substantially weaken the power of culture to regulate speech in the way that it used to.

I fail to see how this is the case. It does absolutely grant the power to regulate speech. What Social media platforms have changes is that the people who are carrying out the informal regulation of speech have shifted to being a very narrow subset of the population, and one that is overwhelmingly made up of one category of culture. Tech, especially in the Bay Area, is effectively a political monoculture. Support for Republicans is often in the single digits[0].

The evidence really does indicate that sunlight is the best disinfectant. Despite the constant concern over Trump's comments on immigrants, for example, support for immigration in the US is at record levels.[1][2] Despite the concern over explicitly fascist rallies at Charlottesville and DC, these rallies actually cased a significant drop in support for far-right.[3] And lastly, while the Republican has become a party of Trump and has adopted much of his rhetoric the result has been largely bad for the party. They lost over a dozen seats in the midterm election - surprising given that the midterms are when the Republicans tend to do well.

Yes, sunlight is the best disinfectant, and the data demonstrates it. Ironic, then, that some would want to shield these views that they despise from said disinfectant.

0. https://www.recode.net/2018/10/31/18039528/tech-employees-po...

1. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/23/us/immigration-polls-dona...

2. https://news.gallup.com/poll/235793/record-high-americans-sa...

3. https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2017/09/alt-weake...

Post reply on HN