> What constitutes ‘extremism’? It’s a term so vague as to be practically meaninglessness.
No, it isn't. Inevitably someone like yourself will come into threads like these and attempt to start a slippery slope argument by trying to imply that the subject at hand is meaningless and, therefore, all attempts to address it are arbitrary. It really is strange how, for certain subjects, people just forget how English works.
So let's begin with the word itself. "Extremism" is a noun. The root of the word is "extreme."
A dictionary will define "extremism" as "the holding of extreme political or religious views; fanaticism."
Synonyms:fanaticism, radicalism, zealotry, zeal, fundamentalism, dogmatism, bigotry, militancy, activism;
Now, let us address the article to provide further context:
Tech company and world leaders have signed an unprecedented Christchurch
Call agreement to eliminate terrorist and violent extremist content online.
Here we have a reference to Christchurch, a terrorist event. The common understanding of "extremism," as it relates to political speech, and specifically in relation to the events at Christchurch and the article posted, would understand the shooting of mosques by white supremacists to be an extremist act.
So we can see that in the context of the article, and the call to action mentioned, "extremism" is not vague, nor meaningless, but specifically related to the dissemination of violent and terroristic material and propaganda, as was similarly done in the aforementioned terrorist incident.
Although this is Hacker News, and I know it's futile here to suggest that standing in the way of bigots and extremists is anything but a slippery slope towards an Orwellian dystopian nightmare of fascism and thought-police and boots crushing our heads forever, there is nothing in this article, or the call to action it describes, which would suggest an intent to censor all arbitrary political speech, nor is the meaning of, "extremist" not well defined within.