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YouTube bans Stefan Molyneux, David Duke, Richard Spencer for hate speech

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Re: YouTube bans Stefan Molyneux, David Duke, Richard Spencer for hate speech

#441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why you never give into the mob, even when their point is a good one. That's how individual rights are lost to the collective.

No one has a right to post on Reddit or Youtube. If we want to be concerned about individual rights, we should at least be somewhat accurate about the definition of the word.

When a set small of companies control your ability to communicate freely on the internet and they act in consort it becomes an issue of free speech.

Re: YouTube bans Stefan Molyneux, David Duke, Richard Spencer for hate speech

#442
post #3

I haven't watched Stefan in a long time, is he now producing content in the same register as David Duke & Richard Spencer ? It did not seem to be the case a few years ago.

I used to listen to Stefan Molyneux about 10 years ago because he had some interesting views on free market economics. Now I look him up on Wikipedia and find out he's turned into a white nationalist. What the hell happened?

Someone mentioned him to me as a sort of anti-government philosopher. At some point he popped up again breaking down the treyvon martin incident and everything about it seemed pretty gross. Eventually he popped back up again (to me) and got popular with the rise of trump

Re: YouTube bans Stefan Molyneux, David Duke, Richard Spencer for hate speech

#443

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What free speech? The government isn't preventing these awful people from spewing their hate. Companies refusing to host their content is not a violation of the first amendment. And yes, free speech, so long as everyone in the room agrees that all of the humans in said room are human. Anything less than that, and they can get the hell out of the room, their ideas aren't worth discussing. If you don't agree with that,…

> What free speech? The government isn't preventing these awful people from spewing their hate. Companies refusing to host their content is not a violation of the first amendment. By your logic, the first amendment has no salutary rationale. We allow Neo nazis to march merely because the first amendment prohibits us from stopping them from marching, and for no other reason. There is no animating principle that we mig…

If we're going to have a marketplace of ideas, then some ideas will become popular and win, and some ideas will become unpopular and lose. This is how marketplaces are supposed to work.

If we want a forum for speech where every idea is always welcome, and platformed, and no one is allowed to lose no matter how unpopular they are, I don't know what you'd call that. I'd call it a form of hell, personally.

Philosophically, I believe the First Amendment is properly addressed at restraining the power of the government, rather than at propping up unpopular ideas.

Re: YouTube bans Stefan Molyneux, David Duke, Richard Spencer for hate speech

#444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What free speech? The government isn't preventing these awful people from spewing their hate. Companies refusing to host their content is not a violation of the first amendment. And yes, free speech, so long as everyone in the room agrees that all of the humans in said room are human. Anything less than that, and they can get the hell out of the room, their ideas aren't worth discussing. If you don't agree with that,…

Wouldn't it be crazy if mega corporations could be used as tools to circumvent the first amendment? If Visa could tell Stripe who they're allowed to do business with when people in power get a little worried about what's being said? And when did the first amendment stop protecting (some) dehumanizing speech? It definitely still protects dehumanizing progressive speech. How long before we have a list of types of speec…

You didn't read a single thing I said. This has nothing to do with the first amendment. The first amendment does not grant you the right to a platform. It simply doesn't.

If you want to grab a megaphone and spew white-supremacist garbage from your drive way then feel free, the government cannot, and should not, stop you. However, if your neighbors refuse to interact with you, that's your own fault. The megaphone seller also has the right not to sell you the megaphone if they don't want you to spew said garbage using their megaphone. Not once in that scenario does free speech apply.

Re: YouTube bans Stefan Molyneux, David Duke, Richard Spencer for hate speech

#445
post #254

When I, a white young boy, grew up in The South and saw the Klan, my father taught me to never do business with them, never enable their behavior, never let their organization rent rooms from venues I may own, and to decline all of their business even if they were paying extra to be your customer. For as long as he could remember, and his father before him, the Klan and other fringe organizations would always cry and…

> It is a win for the far-right to have y'all here on HN "disagree with them but still believe they should be here and not on the fringe".

Just FTR we are pretty far from accepting the far right here on HN:

tptacek shared some interesting research he'd done a couple of hours ago and it might be of interest to everyone here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23681929

Re: YouTube bans Stefan Molyneux, David Duke, Richard Spencer for hate speech

#447
post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sort of multiple-headlines-in-one-day undermines the argument for bans. In the Alex Jones case in particular it appeared he was being selected for a broader community image rather than actions on specific platforms. Private companies can't (mechanically, not legally) determine who has a moral right to speak. If we had a magic method for figuring that out it'd have been a feature of politics since at least the Ro…

> Private companies can't (mechanically, not legally) determine who has a moral right to speak. Of course not, no one is claiming they are the ultimate arbiters of morality. But they do have the right to decide who can use their platform (as long as they don’t discriminate against protected groups). The broader public can then judge them positively or negatively for these decisions.

The thing is are these companies platforms like a phone company or are they publishers? Social media companies have argued that they cant be held liable for things posted to their platforms in the past and have tried to position themselves at neutral platforms. When they start to become the arbitrators of what is and is not to be posted they are no longer neutral platforms like the phone company. I do not recall a time when a phone company would cut your service because they found it to be distasteful or controversial.

That said I don't really know what these users were actually banned for saying. It could have been pretty bad and although I might not agree with what they said I hope that people are free to express their thoughts and ideas even though I might find them personally offensive.

Re: YouTube bans Stefan Molyneux, David Duke, Richard Spencer for hate speech

#448
post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wasn't the Klan responsible for hate-mongering and terrorist activities in the past?

The actual terroristic activities are illegal, and Klan members have been prosecuted (and successfully sued) for them. "Hate-mongering" isn't illegal in the US.

If the Klan would’ve been classified as a terrorist organization they would be illegal they haven’t.

The Nation of Islam is also classified as a hate group by the SPLC however they aren’t banned under the same laws that protect the KKK.

NOI members just like the KKK have been prosecuted in the past for many things, however outside of very limited circumstances there isn’t such thing as guilt by association in the US justice system.

Re: YouTube bans Stefan Molyneux, David Duke, Richard Spencer for hate speech

#449

It's a purge. It won't stop with these three. The censorship will continue to get worse and be disproportionately applied to those on the right until all is left with the world. Conservatism has a place in society. I'm not endorsing any of these guys viewpoints nor am I associating them with conservatism in general, because it's a broad group of over 100 million people in the U.S. with a diverse range of opinions tha…

A purge of white supremacists sounds great to me.

Do you make a difference between people who self-identity as that and people labelled by external entites?

Re: YouTube bans Stefan Molyneux, David Duke, Richard Spencer for hate speech

#450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They did not ban racist subreddits like /r/blackpeopletwitter and /r/fragilewhiteredditor. If you don't know, to post on /r/blackpeopletwitter you have to send a photo of your skin color to the moderators. They are literally racially segregating users.

> racist subreddits like /r/blackpeopletwitter and /r/fragilewhiteredditor. lmao give me a break

For example, Reddit previously banned the "fat people hate" subreddit, where they sat around and made fun of fat people, while these subreddits, where all they do is sit around and make fun of people based on the color of their skin are allowed to prosper.

If anything, a subreddit dedicated to making fun of people based on the color of their skin is a lot more bannable than making fun of people based on their weight ..

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