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

Fighting Neo-Nazis and the Future of Free Expression

eff.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 204 posts

Re: Fighting Neo-Nazis and the Future of Free Expression

#71

Post by liberte82 »

e9 wrote: post #68
liberte82 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nazis don't have ideas. They will jump from truth to lies as it suits them to win an argument. They do not live in the world of civil debate. Think of them as trolls from before trolls were a thing. They are not an ideology, they are a hate movement. Silencing them does not make their hate grow, they are already fundamentally about hate. They are a passion, not an ideology. Tell me what is the tax policy of a fascist…

so do you recommend banning all hate movements? As article points out "Those on the left face calls to characterize the Black Lives Matter movement as a hate group." Where do you draw the line?

Note that I am calling for banning hate speech, not the groups themselves.

I would say that there needs to be evidence. We need to live in a reality-based world, not one that makes decisions based on feelings. If there is evidence of BLM making specific claims that calls for persecution or violence then the people making that speech should be charged under applicable hate speech laws. For example I did think that that "fry cops fry" chant or whatever it was from a couple years ago was an incitement to violence.

But overall: I don't think BLM is a hate movement just because some right-wingers want to say it is. But go off evidence and go case by case like we do in a just society.

Also to add: I see this "where do you draw the line" argument everywhere and it is fallacious. We draw lines all the time in our society. That is literally what law is. We outlaw murder, we outlaw theft, and many other things. And there are ambiguous cases that courts need to decide around all these things. Is assisted suicide murder? Is abortion murder? Is pirating theft? These are big questions that we face all the time as a society and debate and come up with answers for. Hate speech would be no different. We decide as a society what is hateful and it becomes law and then we set precedent through the court system. There are plenty of examples of successful hate speech laws implemented in other western countries to get us off to a great start.

Re: Fighting Neo-Nazis and the Future of Free Expression

#72

Post by lovich »

beebmam wrote: post #61
lovich wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that whatever group is considered evil can change day to day. Right now 99% of people, myself included, can agree that supremacists or neo nazis are bad people and output evil ideas. However, it wasn't too long ago that the majority of people were against gays getting married, or even different races getting married. When we set up precedent or infrastructure to harm a group outside of the rule of law…

Fairly certain that anyone that advocates and supports death camps for Jews is evil. There's no justification IN ANY ERA for this.

That's not the point. Yes they are evil, I'd go as far as to argue that anyone who calls for the death of a group of people based on something they were born into are evil. The point is that when the precedent or ability is created to do these sort of extrajudicial actions to evil people, the ability still remains for it to be used on non evil people. If you let powerful people silence others based on how much you disagree with them, you will quickly find out that there are groups you think are ok that others also think should be silenced

Re: Fighting Neo-Nazis and the Future of Free Expression

#74

Post by xupybd »

dandersh wrote: post #62
mc32 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you kidding? Have you not read up on what they did during the Great Leap Forward? Innocent people, their own people, were pulled out of their dwellings charges made up on the spot and killed in the squares. What Stalin did in Ukraine was pretty much pure hate for them. Yes, I object because your cause will be coopted to further a specific ideology at the expense of all others.

I did. I also read up on the use of racial slavery and genocide of native Americans as the basis of Americas rise to power. Unlike you though I am able to understand that one of them(Nazism) has racial superiority and oppression as a core feature of their ideology while the others do not. Again, there is no "Godwins Law" for Marxism/American Capitalism. I wonder why that is???

I think you are putting far too much into this "Godwins Law" thing. Just because Hitler is viewed as one of the worst people in history, doesn't mean he was the worst. Attila the Hun or Nero would have a good chance at the title if they were more recent.

But at the core of this argument is who has the right to decide what beliefs are allowed and what ones are not? For example I'm against ISIS, but think I have no right to suppress their speech. But I'll happily try to convince someone that the ISIS ideology is evil.

Re: Fighting Neo-Nazis and the Future of Free Expression

#75

Post by e9 »

liberte82 wrote: post #71
e9 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

so do you recommend banning all hate movements? As article points out "Those on the left face calls to characterize the Black Lives Matter movement as a hate group." Where do you draw the line?

Note that I am calling for banning hate speech, not the groups themselves. I would say that there needs to be evidence. We need to live in a reality-based world, not one that makes decisions based on feelings. If there is evidence of BLM making specific claims that calls for persecution or violence then the people making that speech should be charged under applicable hate speech laws. For example I did think that tha…

Those would be some tough laws to write. It seems like a lot of things that are hate related are very much feelings based and sometimes its just misunderstanding or ignorance. Separating feelings from hate would be tough and may have unintended consequences. Do you know of anyone who thought deeply about this topic?

Re: Fighting Neo-Nazis and the Future of Free Expression

#76

Post by xupybd »

lovich wrote: post #52
Pfhreak wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a lot to unpack in your comment. I do want to address a few things: > People told me that I was using a slippery slope argument when I said using the wartime powers act against "terrorism" was a quick sink to unjust presidential powers. Is it different to you that the actions here were taken by companies, not by the government? To the best of my knowledge, there was no mandate to take these sites down. > Be c…

On your consistency point I agree. On your point about whether its different if the government or companies take the action I pose another question. Is there a difference between the results of the two when companies take more and more power every day? If a company can remove you from interacting with a majority of the internet, is that any different from the FCC or some other agency removing you?

The difference is companies have the power given to them by consumers. The government has power by way of being the government.

Re: Fighting Neo-Nazis and the Future of Free Expression

#78

Post by liberte82 »

e9 wrote: post #75
liberte82 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that I am calling for banning hate speech, not the groups themselves. I would say that there needs to be evidence. We need to live in a reality-based world, not one that makes decisions based on feelings. If there is evidence of BLM making specific claims that calls for persecution or violence then the people making that speech should be charged under applicable hate speech laws. For example I did think that tha…

Those would be some tough laws to write. It seems like a lot of things that are hate related are very much feelings based and sometimes its just misunderstanding or ignorance. Separating feelings from hate would be tough and may have unintended consequences. Do you know of anyone who thought deeply about this topic?

Sure. Many countries have had these debates and come up with their own solutions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech

Here are a few examples:

In Canada, advocating genocide against any "identifiable group" is an indictable offence under the Criminal Code and carries a maximum sentence of five years imprisonment. There is no minimum sentence.

France prohibits by its penal code and by its press laws public and private communication which incites discrimination, hatred, or violence against a person or a group of persons on account of place of origin, ethnicity or lack thereof, nationality, race, specific religion, sex, sexual orientation, or handicap.

In Germany, Volksverhetzung ("incitement of popular hatred") is a punishable offense under Section 130 of Germany's criminal code and can lead to up to five years imprisonment. Section 130 makes it a crime to publicly incite hatred against parts of the population or to call for violent or arbitrary measures against them or to insult, maliciously slur or defame them in a manner violating their (constitutionally protected) human dignity. On June 30, 2017, Germany approved a bill criminalizing hate speech on social media sites.

In the United Kingdom, several statutes criminalize hate speech against several categories of persons. The statutes forbid communication which is hateful, threatening, or abusive, and which targets a person on account of disability, ethnic or national origin, nationality (including citizenship), race, religion, sexual orientation, or skin colour.

Re: Fighting Neo-Nazis and the Future of Free Expression

#79

Post by dredmorbius »

I've sided with the EFF on many, many, many causes.

I've sided against Google on numerous causes.

The EFF are wrong. Google is correct.

And yes, the reasons are complicated. But "slippery slope" is a facile fallacy.

Ultimately, society can, does, and must defend itself from attacks. Including attacks on the underprivileged (of whom the Fascists and Nazis at question here are not).

The history of media and new-media utilisation in demagoguery, totalitarianism, mob incitement and rule, and fascism is rich. It should give strong cause to pause to those who've sung (and believed) the narrative of the all-positive, peace-and-harmony bringing Internet. As I long had.

And am now pausing.

Epistemic systems gain significance when they can be abused for personal, political, nationalistic, or fascistic gain. That was the insight of a friend of mine some months back. Call it "the paradox of epistemic systems".

This includes Hacker News itself, which seems to have quite the fascist problem, and an unwillingness, at the moderator level itself, to face that, over concerns of "dignity".

Those concerns are very, very, desperately and sadly misplaced.

https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/5wg0hp/when_ep...

https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/6ufeu1/does_ha...

Re: Fighting Neo-Nazis and the Future of Free Expression

#80

Post by e9 »

liberte82 wrote: post #78
e9 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those would be some tough laws to write. It seems like a lot of things that are hate related are very much feelings based and sometimes its just misunderstanding or ignorance. Separating feelings from hate would be tough and may have unintended consequences. Do you know of anyone who thought deeply about this topic?

Sure. Many countries have had these debates and come up with their own solutions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech Here are a few examples: In Canada, advocating genocide against any "identifiable group" is an indictable offence under the Criminal Code and carries a maximum sentence of five years imprisonment. There is no minimum sentence. France prohibits by its penal code and by its press laws public and p…

Thanks
Post reply on HN