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Alex Stamos: Asking tech companies to police hate speech is “a dangerous path”

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Re: Alex Stamos: Asking tech companies to police hate speech is “a dangerous path”

#71
post #2

The choice is: police hate speech or promote hate speech. Observation: promoting is cheaper (even profitable). But they can promote it with plausible deniability. Which is a more "dangerous" path? And to whom? Society? Shareholders?

Speech isn't "dangerous". You know what you do about people that say stupid things: you call them out on it. The answer to hate speech is more speech.

Like many tools, speech can be dangerous because speech can be useful.

Re: Alex Stamos: Asking tech companies to police hate speech is “a dangerous path”

#72
Putting aside that it's a slippery and malleable label to apply to undesirable speech, there is an elitism hiding in these ban-hate-speech arguments.

The core assumption is that while _I_ am able to see these vile ideas for the lies they are, the unsophisticated masses must not be allowed to hear them, lest they fall prey.

This is problematic in ways that used to be obvious to people in free societies, but for some reason seems lost now.

Re: Alex Stamos: Asking tech companies to police hate speech is “a dangerous path”

#73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does indeed imply just that. You're abstracting the impulse to eliminate other groups away from that fact that it comes from a perspective of supremacy: the idea that your type of human is more deserving of existing than a foreign human.

Yes, but thinking you deserve to exist more than someone else has nothing to do with whether you think they're human. My girlfriend's dog is very sweet and loyal. I think it deserves to exist more than a (human) child molester does. This doesn't mean I think dogs are human.

You're defining dehumanization biologically, when in usage the term is overloaded with another definition that refers to depriving others of dignity, individuality, and other positive human qualities.

To say that another doesn't deserve to be recognized with those positive human qualities is at the root of saying that they don't deserve to exist.

Re: Alex Stamos: Asking tech companies to police hate speech is “a dangerous path”

#74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hate speech is made in full faith by a group that has dominance and power to influence others to harm groups who live under that dominance and power. How many gradations do you think there are between the two?

I don't agree with that definition at all. It is an atrocious and immoral definition of 'hate speech' (and dare I say probably racist in practice).

What can be done to correct this definition? What should be adjusted?

Re: Alex Stamos: Asking tech companies to police hate speech is “a dangerous path”

#75

"Tech companies" is just way too broad a designation to use here. No one is seriously asking Apple to police hate speech in iMessage or Facetime, for instance, or Verizon to police hate speech in SMS. No one expects AT&T to police hate speech in a phone call. What people are concerned about are the newsfeeds and timelines, specifically. Companies like Facebook and Twitter and YouTube love to pretend that their newsfe…

> No one is seriously asking Apple to police hate speech in iMessage or Facetime, for instance Many people are demanding that Facebook do exactly this.

It’s even worse: many people are demanding Facebook monitor Messenger chats for abuses in Mayanmar while at the same time not wanting Facebook to monitor Messenger chats. This is just a perfect example of constant catch-22s I see in people’s expectations of tech companies. You can’t expect Facebook to both not monitor chat messages AND prevent chat messages that do harm. You can have one or the other.

Re: Alex Stamos: Asking tech companies to police hate speech is “a dangerous path”

#76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but thinking you deserve to exist more than someone else has nothing to do with whether you think they're human. My girlfriend's dog is very sweet and loyal. I think it deserves to exist more than a (human) child molester does. This doesn't mean I think dogs are human.

You're defining dehumanization biologically, when in usage the term is overloaded with another definition that refers to depriving others of dignity, individuality, and other positive human qualities. To say that another doesn't deserve to be recognized with those positive human qualities is at the root of saying that they don't deserve to exist.

If you're defining it like that then it's just as vague and subjective as "hate speech" is, so we haven't made any progress with this definition.

Re: Alex Stamos: Asking tech companies to police hate speech is “a dangerous path”

#77
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to this interpretation, arguments supporting capital punishment is hate speech and should be banned.

I'm ok with that.

Then you have such an extremely non-mainstream definition of hate speech that it was borderline intellectually dishonest of you not to come out with that example from the beginning.

Even in Europe, which has much stricter bans on hate speech and xenophobia than the US does, and where capital punishment is banned, claiming capital punishment should be unbanned is legal.

Re: Alex Stamos: Asking tech companies to police hate speech is “a dangerous path”

#78
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For some definition of "works" since the analysis doesn't consider unintended effects or potential adverse long-term consequences. This all seems joyful while the technique is being applied to those with whom we disagree, less so once the technique has been turned on you yourself. Defending free speech means defending those we disagree with, and maybe even hate.

Deplatforming is about deciding which ideas are granted resources (pushed above the cultural baseline), not who is punished for speaking (pushed below the cultural baseline). People without platforms are still free to speak. If dang banned me from HN I could still go stand on the corner and read my posts aloud and no one would arrest me. Free speech does not mean I'm entitled to someone else's platform.

You're changing the argument, though (in fact, you're completely inverting it). The discussion _here_ is whether or not tech companies should be forced to police hate speech. You're trying to conflate that into whether or not they should be allowed to.

Re: Alex Stamos: Asking tech companies to police hate speech is “a dangerous path”

#79
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is "hate speech" changes both over time and with who identifies it; even if everyone is against it, they won't all agree on what specifically is included in the definition.

People keep saying that hate speech isn't defined clearly. It is, but these people have just never had to interface with it and have never cared to learn the boundaries. Why haven't they had to interface with it? Because they have privileged positions in society, so hate speech has never been directed at them. Their lives have never been made harder to live by someone else in an influential position saying they don't…

I'm glad to see someone here gets it.

Re: Alex Stamos: Asking tech companies to police hate speech is “a dangerous path”

#80

This is already going down the path of "what is hate speech". Here is what I think is a pretty simple definition: Speech that explicitly or direct line implicitly dehumanizes anyone. Then the arguments become pretty simple: does a statement dehumanize someone? Does it indicate that they are any less human than another? That's a much easier discussion to have.

I feel that this comment dehumanized me. Therefore, you must remove it. See the issue?

How is your life any harder to live because the parent comment was made? How has any positive human quality you innately have been refuted by the comment?

There is a clear definition of hate speech. It's not as amorphous as you need it to be in order to protect your ego.

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