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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

#61

Post by StavrosK »

darkpuma wrote: post #19
StavrosK wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What did he say, exactly? This sounds like a possible use-mention distinction problem to me.

Good question. I've found a transcript published by patreon: https://patreonhq.com/hate-speech-on-patreon-a9026e52c2cf?gi... It's... pretty vitriolic. I'm not totally comfortable with even quoting the redacted version, but here goes nothing: > “I just can’t be bothered with people who chose to treat me like this. It’s really annoying. Like, I — . You’re acting like a bunch of n_____s, just so you know. You act like w…

Oh, yeah, that's bad. He's not even mentioning the words, he's just using them against white people instead of black, but the way he uses them is still meant as an insult. Oops.

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

#62

Post by tshaddox »

darkpuma wrote: post #44
pavel_lishin wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On the other hand, at what point do we accept that we have different viewpoints and live and let live? Keep in mind that some of those viewpoints are "we live, others get eradicated".

In this particular case Carl Benjamin claims to be anti-nazi. His language, while shockingly offensive, wasn't calling for anybody to be eradicated.

I don’t know anything about this particular case, but it is certainly possible to be a Nazi while claiming to be anti-Nazi.

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

#63

Post by 40acres »

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…

Centralization isn't the problem here, if you look back at history there are more platforms for people to speak their mind than ever before. Before you the internet you had to deal with the three major networks to get on TV and most exterme speech, on either end of the spectrum, was relegated to the fringes.

There has always been a realm of discourse that society agrees upon and that we use to set the boundaries of conversation, just a few decades ago anti-Semitism and racism were allowed and now it isn't, overall this is a good thing.

There are more platforms than ever available to you if you want to express your fringe ideas, each of the platforms has the right to ban you if it goes against what they stand for. Everyone who uses the platforms understands the risks, I don't understand where all this pearl clutching is coming from.

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

#64

Post by fucking_tragedy »

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?

How are Patreon's actions not an example of differing views and "live and let live"?

It's not like Patreon is lobbying to have them exiled from society.

They're simply not doing business with someone whose gimmick alienates a large swath of Patreon's paying, and potential, user base.

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

#65

Post by namlem »

dkjfhalskdjfh wrote: post #50

It's also worth considering that the Alt-Right has been deliberately working to get more popular moderate figures like Sargon kicked off of mainstream platforms, so they'll be forced to move (and bring their audiences) to Alt-Right platforms: https://twitter.com/crislopezg/status/969225740540678145

I hope they succeed, because they'll just end up isolating themselves to their own little echo chambers, sparing the rest of us from having to hear their drivel.

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

#66

Post by orthecreedence »

iguy wrote: post #53
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…

I don't know if it's centralisation so much as personification. Patreon wants to be a a friendly brand, part of people's self-image. And having chosen this, perhaps they can't afford to live and let live. It's very difficult to imagine Bell Telephone (in their 100% monopoly days I mean) feeling responsible for what people discuss on their wires, or feeling a need to deny (say) pornographers service so that its other…

Personification makes sense to me, at least in regards to Patreon. But then you get to Youtube...a stroll through the comment section of any video makes you realize you're in the digital version of Mos Eisley. There is no brand to protect, yet they wave their censorship wand quite often, including just this last week (https://www.businessinsider.com/r-youtube-under-pressure-for...). It seems a lot of these videos weren't violating any Youtube policies, they were deleted "just because."

Regarding Visa being neutral, I think there are cases where this is actually not true: https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2018/08/23/david-horowitz-vis.... Obviously, excuse the source, but I believe the core idea is still fact.

So, censorship is being exercised in areas even where you'd expect neutral carriers. I would call that worrying.

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

#67

Post by losvedir »

iguy wrote: post #53
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…

I don't know if it's centralisation so much as personification. Patreon wants to be a a friendly brand, part of people's self-image. And having chosen this, perhaps they can't afford to live and let live. It's very difficult to imagine Bell Telephone (in their 100% monopoly days I mean) feeling responsible for what people discuss on their wires, or feeling a need to deny (say) pornographers service so that its other…

> Or Visa likewise today -- it's understood that other people will use the same plastic to pay for things you morally disapprove of, just as they could use cash. But it's positioned as a neutral carrier, and nobody cares (I think).

Heh, well I hope so. But that recent NYTimes story[0] about how mass shootings used guns and ammo bought with a credit card makes me unsure about that. I'd have thought using cash vs credit was more or less interchangeable, and either the person should be allowed to buy the firearms or not. But given the focus on how it was bought, makes me think there's some movement towards expecting Visa and the like to not be simply neutral facilitators of transactions.

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/12/24/business/deal...

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

#68

Post by [deleted] »

darkpuma wrote: post #19
StavrosK wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What did he say, exactly? This sounds like a possible use-mention distinction problem to me.

Good question. I've found a transcript published by patreon: https://patreonhq.com/hate-speech-on-patreon-a9026e52c2cf?gi... It's... pretty vitriolic. I'm not totally comfortable with even quoting the redacted version, but here goes nothing: > “I just can’t be bothered with people who chose to treat me like this. It’s really annoying. Like, I — . You’re acting like a bunch of n_____s, just so you know. You act like w…

[deleted]

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

#69

Post by nkurz »

The article avoids the specifics of what Benjamin said, which makes it hard to judge whether Patreon is acting reasonably. The interview in question is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQ87Wf-0rZg.

Here are some excerpts from the automatically generated transcript (click the 3 dots, then "Open transcript"):

I just can't be bothered to deal with people who treat me like this it's really annoying like I you are acting like a bunch of niggers just so you know you you act like white niggers exactly how you describe black people acting is the impression I get dealing with y'all

don't expect me to them have a debate with one of your faggots then why would I bother bother you read like enough class I don't know maybe you're just acting like a nigga me have you considered that do you think white people act like this white people are meant to be polite and respectful to one another and you guys can't even act like white people

it's about gaining attention and seems like kikes are ruining everything

While one can reasonably to debate the whether Patreon should ban people based on ideology and off-site behavior, his comments do seem undeniably racist, anti-Semitic, and anti-homosexual.

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

#70

Post by KaoruAoiShiho »

raiflip wrote: post #4
darkpuma wrote: post #2

The real meat of the racist speech: > "This month, the site’s moderators received a complaint about Mr. Benjamin, who had risen to fame railing against diversity and feminism during the GamerGate movement in 2014. Mr. Benjamin used the N-word and anti-gay language during an interview posted to YouTube on Feb. 7, Patreon found." I could be wrong, but I'm under the impression Benjamin used that word to insult white sup…

I don't agree with his choice of words, and I think its kinda weird that he chose to express himself the way he did when there was a much easier way to go about making the same remark, but that said, it's simply amoral to try and cutoff someone's living and censor them just because the way they said something wasn't to your liking (to be clear I'm not talking about you in particular, but just people in general who th…

I don't really care about his choice of words, it's the hateful intent behind them that makes his views wrongthink for me. It's possible to use the n-word in a way that makes me think Patreon is overreacting but reading the context he's definitely beyond the pale in a way that goes far past verbiage.
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