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

Microsoft threatens to stop hosting Gab unless posts are removed

thehill.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

501–510 of 565 posts

Re: Microsoft threatens to stop hosting Gab unless posts are removed

#501

Post by komali2 »

NTDF9 wrote: post #296
cdubzzz wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is a bit of apples and oranges. There are vast differences between pretty much any two cultures. I spent three years living and working in a third world county where I “stuck out like a sore thumb”. Most people I met assumed I was rich, despite living and working on the equivalent of a local secondary school teacher’s salary. And this was still a hell of a lot more than most people in the country were ma…

Well, the question is specifically discrimination on the basis of race, so apples to apples there. Maybe other countries score lower in sexism. (btw America does too, we all know that :) ) However, it still doesn't take away the fact that the extent of racism in America is far too high for a first world country. As much as it pains me to say this, at a societal level, I don't see any difference between my third world…

Do the people downvoting this disagree that America has too much of a racism problem for a first world country, or what's going on here?

Re: Microsoft threatens to stop hosting Gab unless posts are removed

#502

Post by gamblor956 »

aftbit wrote: post #236
DanAndersen wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main difference we are seeing in this new world of large tech companies is that the role of the "judge" is diminished. Groups figure out the fine lines on which to make judgment, but only as a matter of internal company policy, behind closed doors, which none of us get to have a say in or even read the guidelines. When a judge sentences you to prison, you know pretty well exactly what sentence of which law was th…

In 2002, only about 5% of incarcerated felons in the US received a trial[1]. The other 95% pleaded guilty, likely in the face of overwhelming pressure, insufficient legal representation, and the threat of many more years in jail if they took their case to trial and loss. 1: https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/sc0204st.pdf

Almost all of the people who plead guilty are actually guilty. (I was a former public defender. Most of our clients admitted to committing the crime, they just wanted to minimize any fines or the time spent in jail/prison.)

The Hollywood trope of someone pleading guilty to protect someone else doesn't happen in real life--it's a disbarrable offense in most states for a prosecutor to suggest that they'd imprison a family member (such as a spouse) for X crime if the defendant doesn't plead guilty to Y crime. Moreover, plea bargains, by their nature, apply only to the defendant; other individuals are not parties to the bargain and aren't bound to (or protected by) it.

In some states, inadequate representation is a serious concern. These are mostly red states. People there have repeatedly, over the course of decades, chosen to underfund public defenders. Frequently, this is despite having friends or family who have been arrested and gone through the criminal process. If, after several decades and personal exposure to the inadequacies of the system, they choose to screw themselves over, why should I, in a state willing to fund its public defenders, spend more of my money when those people won't?

The threat of increased jail time is a popular online meme not borne out in real life. Armchair lawyers don't realize that you can plead at any time before the the verdict--literally, up to the second it's read out it. This means that you can wait to see how the case is going before deciding whether to plead. But again, most people are actually guilty, accept that their is a punishment to pay for their crime, and simply want to move on.

Re: Microsoft threatens to stop hosting Gab unless posts are removed

#503

Post by microcolonel »

tptacek wrote: post #494
microcolonel wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In practice, what I see as I regularly check up and screenshot it is a whole lot of bot content punctuated by an occasional neo-Nazi post. I don't even think the white supremacists are all that invested in it. For what it's worth, I think that's just the effect of the default feed. If you actually follow anyone it completely changes. If what you're saying about the bots is true, maybe I don't see them so much as a…

Why would any part of your identity or self-worth come from maintaining an account on a dying white supremacist message board? Reconsider.

I disagree with the idea that merely having an account on said website should imply that I am immoral. I know of a number of good, honest people who have Gab accounts, and I don't want to live under the control of the bigots who would judge me that shallowly (in much the same way allowing myself to be cowed by other bigots would be wrong).

Re: Microsoft threatens to stop hosting Gab unless posts are removed

#504

Post by t3soro »

tpush wrote: post #103
t3soro wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

You missed this parts of the article: > "Rosenberg does occasionally raise the issue of Jews. On March 28, 1941, he referred to the opening conference of his brainchild, the Institute for Research into the Jewish Question. I regard the conference as a success,” Rosenberg wrote. “It is, after all, for the first time in European history, that ten European nations [were] represented at an anti-Jewish conference with a c…

Removal, as in expulsion. I didn't miss a thing. The gas chamber mythology is entirety based on emotional propaganda. The facts point to the German camps as a network designed for prisoner labor and transportation and show no support for homicidal poison gas chambers. Search for the International Report of the Red Cross, who audited the camps, 1944.

Class-act whoever decided to flag my post for posting my opinion.

Re: Microsoft threatens to stop hosting Gab unless posts are removed

#505

Post by jewelthief91 »

jhayward wrote: post #475
jewelthief91 wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Experience seems to indicate the opposite I think. The danger of niche mobs and/or terrorism is very real and scary, but losing our freedoms in order to address these perceived dangers is always far worse. For all the fear the "alt-right" has generated, exactly how many people have been come to harm because of them? They probably number in the dozens, which is a terrible tragedy but ultimately is that worth losing ou…

The experience of 1930s Germany and Italy, 1980s Rwanda, Serbia and Srebenincia, and just recently Myanmar apparently don’t register on your scale of “problem”. Why is that? It is a very misguided position to say that can’t happen here. US society has been building toward a populist-led Fascist break, with dehumanizing rhetoric by right-wingers, whipping up fear and hatred, forming armed militias and concentrating su…

I think eroding free speech rights, especially in a time of increasing political extremism, will only make such tragedies more possible, not less. How long until extremists in power figure out a way to use the newly acceptable restrictions on speech in their favor? What happens if there is another 9/11 under Trump when freedom of speech has been sidelined? Can Trump then pressure companies to ban Muslims and political opponents off of the internet entirely "until we can figure out what the hell is going on"? Accurately predicting how loss of freedom will affect future tyranny is like accurately predicting the stock market, it just isn't going to happen.

Re: Microsoft threatens to stop hosting Gab unless posts are removed

#506

Post by jewelthief91 »

jazzyjackson wrote: post #439
jewelthief91 wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Experience seems to indicate the opposite I think. The danger of niche mobs and/or terrorism is very real and scary, but losing our freedoms in order to address these perceived dangers is always far worse. For all the fear the "alt-right" has generated, exactly how many people have been come to harm because of them? They probably number in the dozens, which is a terrible tragedy but ultimately is that worth losing ou…

I would argue that the alt-right panic (as in, if I thought white genocide was a thing I'd be panicking too) + nihilist troll tactics elected Trump, which has caused much harm. I think a world where those people were no-platformed more often might be a better world, but of course I can't know. And getting no-platformed isn't losing rights, you can always make your own platform, it gets easier and cheaper every day.

You can't really "make your own platform" though. Ultimately the ISPs could shut down access to any website they don't think their customers should have access to. The only recourse would be for the censored to somehow construct their own physical internet infrastructure, which was so difficult and costly the first time that it was highly subsidized by the government.

And do you honestly think you should have the right to determine what elections should be considered "harmful" enough to shut down others speech? There is a wide range of opinion short of the alt-right but in the same direction that could be shut down too, for instance apparently a majority of white people think there is racism against now (https://www.npr.org/2017/10/24/559604836/majority-of-white-a...). Do you think this opinion is so wrong that it should be silenced from the public forum? Do you think it would even be possible to do so?

Re: Microsoft threatens to stop hosting Gab unless posts are removed

#507

Post by mirimir »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #493
mirimir wrote: post #490

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do agree that there's one objective physical reality that's accessible to us. There is quantum level stuff, where indeterminacy is an issue. But at the macroscopic level, that's pretty much averaged out. Except maybe entanglement. But anyway, as you say, complex statements typically involve multiple facts, assumptions, inferences, conclusions and speculation. And yes, we have language for that. The problem, though,…

> So it's easy to have multiple stories claiming to be true. And it takes considerable work to decompose them, and determine which best fits the facts. That's very true. My point is that we need to do that work - and encourage people to do that work, and teach them how to do it - instead of just saying that "lie is a matter of perspective" and giving up.

True. But damn, I didn't get serious training in critical reading until grad school. And really, not until I did some litigation consulting ;)

Re: Microsoft threatens to stop hosting Gab unless posts are removed

#508

Post by specialist »

pohl wrote: post #473
specialist wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lie is half-way around the world before the truth has its pants on. — Mark Twain Younger me was a free speech ultimatist. Alas, human nature. Propaganda works, so well that people aren’t even aware of changing their minds. Overton windows. Blowback, where refuting further cements the falsehood. Belief as attire. Etc, etc.

Also, the Bullshit Asymmetry Principle, or Brandolini’s Law: The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it.

Thank you! Added to my ever growing list.

This also resonates with me

"It is impossible for someone to lie unless he thinks he knows the truth. Producing bullshit requires no such conviction. A person who lies is thereby responding to the truth, and he is to that extent respectful of it. When an honest man speaks, he says only what he believes to be true; and for the liar, it is correspondingly indispensable that he considers his statements to be false. For the bullshitter, however, all these bets are off: he is neither on the side of the true nor on the side of the false. His eye is not on the facts at all, as the eyes of the honest man and of the liar are, except insofar as they may be pertinent to his interest in getting away with what he says. He does not care whether the things he says describe reality correctly. He just picks them out, or makes them up, to suit his purpose."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit#Harry_Frankfurt's_con...

Add "profit motive" and it perfectly explains con artists like Alex Jones, Rush Limbaugh, Ben Carson, too many to list.

Like P. T. Barnum before them, the primary intent is to fleece their audience. Suck them in with the outrage, then empty their wallets.

Rinse, lather, repeat.

Re: Microsoft threatens to stop hosting Gab unless posts are removed

#509

Post by pvg »

microcolonel wrote: post #503
tptacek wrote: post #494

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would any part of your identity or self-worth come from maintaining an account on a dying white supremacist message board? Reconsider.

I disagree with the idea that merely having an account on said website should imply that I am immoral. I know of a number of good, honest people who have Gab accounts, and I don't want to live under the control of the bigots who would judge me that shallowly (in much the same way allowing myself to be cowed by other bigots would be wrong).

So you've got 'fine people on both sides' and 'they're the real bigots'. If you think these are somehow substantive or convincing rejoinders, you should probably re-think that. Mostly they just make you sound like a Nazi online.

Re: Microsoft threatens to stop hosting Gab unless posts are removed

#510

Post by NTDF9 »

komali2 wrote: post #501
NTDF9 wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, the question is specifically discrimination on the basis of race, so apples to apples there. Maybe other countries score lower in sexism. (btw America does too, we all know that :) ) However, it still doesn't take away the fact that the extent of racism in America is far too high for a first world country. As much as it pains me to say this, at a societal level, I don't see any difference between my third world…

Do the people downvoting this disagree that America has too much of a racism problem for a first world country, or what's going on here?

> Do the people downvoting this disagree that America has too much of a racism problem for a first world country, or what's going on here?

Unfortunately, that has been my experience. A lot of seemingly well-intentioned Americans refuse to accept their follies. They are completely unaware/unwilling to admit that the rest of the world is watching what's happening in America.

This is possibly due to the ingrained, "American exceptionalism" belief but I am willing to be proven wrong.

As a comparison, see this Brazilian admitting flaws in Brazil: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17735229

But Americans admitting racism? Nope.

Post reply on HN