Goebbels was in favor of free speech for views he liked. So
was Stalin. If you’re really in favor of free speech, then
you’re in favor of freedom of speech for precisely the views
you despise. Otherwise, you’re not in favor of free speech.
Why We Terminated Daily Stormer
611–620 of 1001 posts
Re: Why We Terminated Daily Stormer
#612Earlier quoted context omitted.
What is this "public space" statement based on? Only because I can go there? Like in a shop or restaurant? So if I set up a server as a private person, it's a "public space" too? Looks like some heavy reality bending for a questionable cause to me.
No, your server, shops and restaurants are private spaces. The Internet, the park and the street are public spaces. The questionable cause you speak of is the right to express views in public spaces. DDoS is the internet equivalent of a mob censoring public speech. Proxies like cloudflare are the equivalent of the police protecting the right to speak, no matter the view. Remember that these principles, which date to…
You do realize that "the internet" is a giant web of mostly private servers right? And therefor not a public space. It's not a park or a street.
But even if it was. You must get a permit just like in real life. Which a private entity doesn't have to grant you. Because you know... personal freedom.
Re: Why We Terminated Daily Stormer
#613I'm obviously being a bit facetious when I say this, but are there really few things worse than nazis? I'm not expert on the subject of neo-nazis or the nazi movement, so maybe this seems more complex because of my position of ignorance. But none of the statistics seem to imply that nazis are more than simply intellectually repulsive and socially disgusting. That's not to say that nazi affiliated groups never commit…
I'm not expert on the subject of neo-nazis or the nazi movement, so maybe this seems more complex because of my position of ignorance. But none of the statistics seem to imply that nazis are more than simply intellectually repulsive and socially disgusting. Eh. The statistics about nazism is clear: they have killed a few million people over the last 100 years. That is more than about everyone else except maybe the va…
Communists killed multiple millions more. Yet Fidel Castro had world leaders at his funeral. The anti-Jewish progroms of the Soviet Union happened yet protesters who carry hammer and sickle flags aren’t treated with the same vile contempt as those who carry Nazi flags.
Che Guevara’s face is plastered across all manner of pop culture and products yet that face represents communism and for some reason, it’s culturally acceptable?
Re: Why We Terminated Daily Stormer
#614Absolutely correct. He is also effectively saying that since he can and will remove sites he personally doesn't like, that he personally approves of every other site using Cloudflare. The excuse he uses for terminating TDS is an absolute crock; if TDS genuinely did falsely and sincerely claim that Cloudflare supports them, then Prince could and should have simply asked them to remove that claim. It's an outrage that…
> It's an outrage that businesses that want to enjoy all the benefits of selling to the public can discriminate against members of that public for any spurious or bigoted reason they like. I have a problem with this, because in effect it is saying that if you want to be in business, you have to check your principles at the entrance. I do run a business, and I do reserve the right to withhold service from people whose…
> I have a problem with this, because in effect it is saying that if you want to be in business, you have to check your principles at the entrance.
Well, welcome to the club! Other noteable groups objecting to their principles being regulated by a government office include Masterpiece Cakeshop of Lakewood, CO, and Memories Pizza of Walker, IN. (For the moment, disregard the likes of Hobby Lobby and Little Sisters of the Poor, as their matters of principle-regulation are less directly relevant.)
I figure there are three-ish main options.
1. People are consistently required to suppress their principles, and do business with groups like the Daily Stormer.
2. People are consistently allowed to exercise their principles, and refuse service to gay weddings.
3. A disaster area of conflicting regulations both for and against the right of various groups to be served by various businesses, conforming to no consistent set of principles but rather to whatever is politically popular and expedient today, and hypocritical to the core.
My money's on 3.
(There's a theoretical possibility they'll actually nail down specific principles and not make it a total mess, but I don't think it's plausible.)
Re: Why We Terminated Daily Stormer
#615We take down Al Qaeda terrorist websites all the time because they can be used to radicalize people. Nazis are no different. They are calling for the systematic violent overthrow of the US government and for the extermination of many millions of so called undesirables. This is a terrorist threat. I take this threat very seriously as do many people in the Jewish, Hispanic, and African American community. There are lit…
The last sentence is the main reason why the world is so fucked up today. "Unless you agree with my radical leftist agenda you are a nazi/racist/"-mentality and the complete unreasonability of the left is the reason why normal people are fed up with all this crap and are voting for Trump, Brexit etc.
No matter how evil some group is (may they be pedophiles, satan worshippers, nazis, whatever...) silencing them and assaulting them is a crime and is against freedom of expession. The problem with making these exceptions like "Let's have freedom of speech but not for these and these people...yadayadayada" is we can never be sure where to draw the line.
(Neo-)Nazis are sure dumb as hell but as long as they have peaceful protest and they don't harm anybody physically (unlike their counter-protesters) it doesn't matter. And don't even start with the car-thing. An individual psycho does not compare to organized widely accepted violence.
If we were to ban nazis and far-right organizations because they are racist and apparently a "threat" then what about anarchists? They also are extremely violent and want to overthrow the government. (and in the US officially categorized as terrorist threat) What about BLM which is openly racist and violent (July 2016 anti-white/police sniper attack, riots, assaults, highway blockings etc.) If we start going down this slippery slope will have shitloads of organizations and ideas to ban.
Re: Why We Terminated Daily Stormer
#616Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not expert on the subject of neo-nazis or the nazi movement, so maybe this seems more complex because of my position of ignorance. But none of the statistics seem to imply that nazis are more than simply intellectually repulsive and socially disgusting. Eh. The statistics about nazism is clear: they have killed a few million people over the last 100 years. That is more than about everyone else except maybe the va…
Communists killed multiple millions more. Yet Fidel Castro had world leaders at his funeral. The anti-Jewish progroms of the Soviet Union happened yet protesters who carry hammer and sickle flags aren’t treated with the same vile contempt as those who carry Nazi flags. Che Guevara’s face is plastered across all manner of pop culture and products yet that face represents communism and for some reason, it’s culturally…
Communism as an ideology doesn't have racism as a cornerstone. It's just that it's very easy for people who want to do that to sieze power. Karl Marx never wrote in his manifesto that whole ethnic groups should be eliminated because white Germans are superior.
Racism and genocide is at the heart of Nazi ideology. It is steeped in the ideas of racial superiority. This is why their symbols are culturally unacceptable: they literally mean "I am better than the Jews therefore they should die".
Re: Why We Terminated Daily Stormer
#617Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's not why they took them down. You can argue for censoring threatening dangerous terrorist speech all you want but it is incorrect to suggest that is the stance cloudflare took. They censored because stormfront falsely claimed cloudflare sympathized with their cause and pissed of the CEO. Not because the speech itself presented a clear and present danger. Foreign hosts are not really the right solution to freedo…
> Cloudflare is essentially performing the function of the police permitting the KKK to march, which the US constitution permits The better analogy is that Cloudflare is performing the function of private security instead of a police force. The United State government doesn't require any private entities to provide armed security for political groups they dislike (in fact, the US government couldn't make such a manda…
I agree. As our society moves more to Internet-based communication we must consider how to preserve and apply the principles of free speech when so much of it is governed by private entities. Is free speech not a desirable trait? Is it merely something that racists exploit, and thus the move to autocratic private management is a blessing, a relief from the constitutional shackles that would compel, say, a law enforcement officer to beat back a mob intent on torching a KKK newspaper? Is that a better world?
Remember that these same principles apply to progressive views as well... which have not historically been as popular, and greatly benefited from free speech protections. I would say we would not be where we are now as a society without them.
Re: Why We Terminated Daily Stormer
#618Earlier quoted context omitted.
^^^ The parent comment hits the ball out of the park. The commentary on past posts on HN and elsewhere floors me. It seems one or two things are prevalent: 1. Folks will gladly loan the hangman the rope that he will use to hang you, your family, and your neighbors — all because of "purity of belief" in free speech. Sorry, hate to break it to you, but these illiberal forces are a clear and present danger to this comfo…
I don't have any sympathy for the Daily Stormer. I just don't see where this is stopping. What else needs to be taken down? /pol/? Who about Breitbart? Or maybe some 2nd WW Nazi propaganda? Or something from the US civil war? You guys seem to be ok with this very slippery slope being assessed by random private companies accountable to who knows. And then you have the nerve to call us who believes that limits of free…
If Breitbart or /pol/ are hosting discussions in the open between known Nazis or people who are advocating to take terrorist actions and they do not moderate and delete these things then yea they actually should be shut down. We would not tolerate this from Al Qaeda or with child porn so I really don't understand the problem. Nazism has caused orders of magnitude more suffering in the history of man than either of the previous things I mentioned.
Re: Why We Terminated Daily Stormer
#619Earlier quoted context omitted.
Get out of here with the crying wolf. Sorry, hate to break it to you, but these illiberal forces are a clear and present danger to this comfortable society you call home. No, it's the last gasps of a dying breed of racists, empowered by the Internet and that look a lot more popular than they are due to media focus. Nazis are lame, but you leave them alone and there's nothing to fuel the fire. You send out counterprot…
"No, it's the last gasps of a dying breed of racists, empowered by the Internet and that look a lot more popular than they are due to media focus." Really? Because yesterday the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES defended white nationalists and neo-nazis on national TV. This discussion also shouldn't have much to do with free speech. If private companies do not want to allow pro-nazi websites to use their servers, they s…
There are more dangerous things in life than nazis, like bad drivers, and well-meaning but ignorant people with power. You are more likely to have been killed by Islamic terrorism than nazism in the US over the last couple decades (going back to OKC at least).
Trump is unscrupulous, he'd defend anyone who would be his friend (and there aren't many of those these days, so he's left with the dregs). He's not a slick political maneuverer who is going to overturn the federal government. He'll be gone in a few years. The displays like this last weekend are hundreds or a couple thousand people. They aren't parades of uniformed militia (like Hitler's rise saw).
These people want attention. They're getting it especially when we exaggerate the threat they pose, which only fuels their grandiosity and recruitment.
Re: Why We Terminated Daily Stormer
#620Absolutely correct. He is also effectively saying that since he can and will remove sites he personally doesn't like, that he personally approves of every other site using Cloudflare. The excuse he uses for terminating TDS is an absolute crock; if TDS genuinely did falsely and sincerely claim that Cloudflare supports them, then Prince could and should have simply asked them to remove that claim. It's an outrage that…
> It's an outrage that businesses that want to enjoy all the benefits of selling to the public can discriminate against members of that public for any spurious or bigoted reason they like. I have a problem with this, because in effect it is saying that if you want to be in business, you have to check your principles at the entrance. I do run a business, and I do reserve the right to withhold service from people whose…
As long as they are not baking cakes they can turn down any customer that they want.