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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

#421

Post by notahacker »

scruple wrote: post #381
fzeroracer wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

How do you reconcile your world view with the story of someone like Daryl Davis, who verifiably contradicts what you think?

The argument works better the other way. Do you believe the reason David Duke has 85k YouTube subscribers is because it's difficult to find any rational argument that the KKK is not an unalloyed good?

DD spending a lot of time being personally nice to Klansmen might swing a few of them back the other way, but I suspect making their recruitment harder in the first place might be the more scalable and less risky approach.

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

#422

Post by remarkEon »

beat wrote: post #297
remarkEon wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the line cannot become "tinfoil hat types" because that is a completely undefinable measure. People who correctly predicted the 2008 financial crisis were considered "tinfoil hat types". Should they have been dropped off these platforms because they sounded crazy at the time?

Surely you see the difference between the "sounds crazy" of predicting a market collapse, and the "sounds crazy" of saying we should deport or execute all Muslims (as a for example).

Sure I can.

But that isn’t the point. Should we not even be allowed to discuss a hostile immigration policy because it “sounds crazy”? That in and of itself sounds crazy to me.

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

#423

Post by krapp »

creaghpatr wrote: post #360
zamalek wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

So if being black was a choice you would be okay with businesses discriminating against black people unless they chose to be a different race?

In this hypothetical universe, is it as easy to change one's race as it is to change one's clothes? If so, it seems no different than "no shirt, no shoes, no service."

But then a world in which race was a choice would be so different from our own that one would wonder whether racial discrimination would even exist, or what "black" would even mean.

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

#424

Post by darkpuma »

krapp wrote: post #411
creaghpatr wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if a law is passed to make political affiliation a protected class?

IANAL, but as I understand it, the typical qualifiers for being a protected class tend to be immutable (sex, race, age, disability, color, creed, national origin, religion, or genetic information, per Wikipedia[0].) Obviously you can change your sex and religion, though, and disability status in some cases, though. Maybe a case could be made for political affiliation under "creed," since there appears to be no specif…

People can and do change their religion. I am proof of that.

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

#425

Post by coffeemug »

bunderbunder wrote: post #417
coffeemug wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Freedom of Speech is not the right to be heard. People keep saying this and repeating it, but as far as I can tell this meme is destructive and wrong. Freedom of speech isn't just a legal assurance that congress shall make no law abridging it. It is also a set of cultural norms rooted deeply in a long lineage of hard won ideas. It is Evelyn Hall's principle "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the de…

It's interesting how this gets framed differently nowadays. 20 years ago, before social media, there was no assumption that everyone has a fundamental right to be able to broadcast their ideas using others' platforms. Since publication was more resource-intensive, the default for most media was to not publish things, and deciding that someone's ideas didn't merit publication wasn't seen as a violation of any great mo…

I just made an argument about that here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18765494, and here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18765509.

> The difference is that the internet has discontinuously more scalable network effects, so technology companies often find themselves in a winner-takes-all dynamic. If some publisher, newspaper, or literary magazine refused to publish Walt Whitman, he could always try and find another publisher. But if Twitter bans Titania McGrath, there is no other Twitter for her to join because the next best alternative has 1/10000th the number of users.

> This effect is new. These platforms are private entities, but effectively they operate as public commons. So culturally we must treat them similar to public commons where it isn't acceptable to kick out quirky characters because some of us don't like what they have to say.

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

#427

Post by ubernostrum »

yesco wrote: post #309
ubernostrum wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 eit…

So to prevent an angry mob from taking away someone's platform, you insist we need the ability for an angry mob to take away someone's platform.

I think you need to think this through a bit more.

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

#428

Post by peterwwillis »

coffeemug wrote: post #338
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…

> Freedom of Speech is not the right to be heard. People keep saying this and repeating it, but as far as I can tell this meme is destructive and wrong. Freedom of speech isn't just a legal assurance that congress shall make no law abridging it. It is also a set of cultural norms rooted deeply in a long lineage of hard won ideas. It is Evelyn Hall's principle "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the de…

These "norms" are generalized and not always applicable to real life. If I disapprove of you yelling "Fire!" in a crowded theater, should I also have to defend your right to yell "Fire!" in a crowded theater? We "erode freedom of speech" when it hurts people.

This is not about "weird people with quirky ideas". This is about people who use speech to abuse, cause harm, intimidate, harass, or inspire others to commit such abuses. This cannot be tolerated in a society that wants the right to "Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

One can always find a non-abusive way to present an idea. But when they cross the line into a form of abuse or violence, they should be stopped.

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

#429

Post by scruple »

notahacker wrote: post #421
scruple wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you reconcile your world view with the story of someone like Daryl Davis, who verifiably contradicts what you think?

The argument works better the other way. Do you believe the reason David Duke has 85k YouTube subscribers is because it's difficult to find any rational argument that the KKK is not an unalloyed good? DD spending a lot of time being personally nice to Klansmen might swing a few of them back the other way, but I suspect making their recruitment harder in the first place might be the more scalable and less risky approa…

Well, I personally believe that the reason David Duke has 85k YouTube subscribers is because any dumb shit in the world with an internet connection and a browser can press a button completely detached from any sort of consequence whatsoever.

I also think that Daryl Davis is one man on a mission. If others were perhaps similarly motivated maybe more progress could be made.

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

#430

Post by joe_the_user »

coffeemug wrote: post #409
toofy wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If these norms continue to getting eroded, god help us all — it may set humanity and the western civilization back by hundreds of years. Haven’t these norms already been well established? I mean, almost every business which deals in exposure to humans sensory inputs has always seemed to have standards. Concert venues, magazines, record companies, night clubs with stages, publishing outlets etc etc... all of these b…

I just made an argument about that here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18765494 . > The difference is that the internet has discontinuously more scalable network effects, so technology companies often find themselves in a winner-takes-all dynamic. If some publisher, newspaper, or literary magazine refused to publish Walt Whitman, he could always try and find another publisher. But if Twitter bans Titania McGra…

If some publisher, newspaper, or literary magazine refused to publish Walt Whitman, he could always try and find another publisher. But if Twitter bans Titania McGrath, there is no other Twitter for her to join because the next best alternative has 1/10000th the number of users.

This is pretty much exactly wrong (the situation is basically the exact opposite). When there were a very finite number of publishers in the English speaking world and self-publishing barely existed, an idea that could not be published would only diffuse by word of mouth. When Henry Miller could only be published in France, his works were only available to a very small number of individuals even if many could be interested.

Anyone banned from every single media site still can create a website, publish on Tor, etc. The inability to get a million followers is far from the inability to get your ideas heard. The argument confuses an inability to make money with an inability to be hear (and feel free to argue about the right make money with incindiary ideas, that obviously has a different implication).

By creating the ability to bypass publisher, the Internet produced a situation where far more ideas could be heard than previously. That situation still exists (for good and less-good). The average person still depends on filters but those filters are voluntary and a substantial portion of people know they can bypass them if they wish. And I'd say present days are also wider than earlier filters.

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