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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

#721

Post by paulcole »

dang wrote: post #670
paulcole wrote: post #92

> Why are we giving companies and people the right to silence vast amounts of voices and opinions on random whims? This is not a new situation. But all of a sudden it’s a problem because it’s conservative white guys instead of women, LGBTQ people and people of color?

You started a hellish flamewar with this flamebait. Please review the site guidelines and follow them, and don't vandalize this place again. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18763923 and marked it off-topic.

Are you kidding me? Somebody says they’re “torn” on whether private companies should allow nazis and racists a megaphone and I’m the one starting a “hellish flame war”?

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

#722

Post by zepto »

beat wrote: post #710
remarkEon wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This “well it’s not really censorship if it’s not the government” point is useless, shallow, and ultimately meaningless. Your garbage analogy (no pun intended) fails on its face because in that case the government is explicitly telling you what is trash and what is recycling; what is compost and what requires special disposal . This idea begets that we have agreed to outsource what is and isn’t “allowed” to be said i…

A business deciding how its facilities are used isn't censorship. If I go to a movie theater, buy a ticket, and then start shouting at the audience about how Jews control Hollywood, they'll throw me out. If I mail a dick pic to the newspaper and demand they publish it, they will not. Are you saying these things are censorship? Certainly, they're about businesses limiting "free speech". To use a closer analogy, Tumblr…

Sure, fine, let’s look at it that way. But then we have to accept that these businesses are responsible for everything they allow. We can hold them responsible for any copyright violations and defamation they carry since according to you they ‘decided it was acceptable use’.

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

#723

Post by asabjorn »

StavrosK wrote: post #716
asabjorn wrote: post #714

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, did you downvote me once you saw it? With regards to your offense that is fine when it is used in this way. However, what is your evidence that anyone in that group was there as collateral damage? The target was alt-rights in a livestream with 3000 views in total, and the context of his words clearly doesn’t match your characterization. I think no one is fooled at this point by activists working hard to find so…

> Well, did you downvote me once you saw it? No. > what is your evidence that anyone in that group was there as collateral damage It doesn't matter if there was damage, it's the principle.

I agree that we should avoid any negative characterization or reduction of another individual to an unchosen group based upon immutable traits.

I know a party and an associated group in the US that need to clean up their act on this before they throw any stones in their glasshouse. Identity politics is divisive and a road to hell paved with good intentions.

If you say something to a sufficiently large group you’ll risk offending someone, so the principle you propose is too simplistic and unworkable. Who defines what is offensive and when context doesn’t matter? How many people is it ok to offend when you speak to a large group or post something online? If the audience is expanded by others, through leaks or other actions, is it still not ok?

With regards to your comments I apologize for assuming you downvoted. Somehow the downvote happens as a clockwork so there seemed to be a likely causality.

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

#724

Post by magduf »

bilbo0s wrote: post #500
joshuamorton wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're misunderstanding what GP is saying. A performer on a military base is constitutionally protected from punishment for kneeling during the national anthem, because that base is public and they're acting as a citizen. A member of the military may have other requirements, I'm not really sure. A professional (as opposed to high school or college, where this argument doesn't work) football player is playing on priva…

> who can set rules as they see fit... Right. Which is why I wrote: > If the owners have the guts, let them all fire the football players... But if the owners don't fire them, then whatever. Not our business. Watch them, or don't watch them. That's your choice. Nothing more.

The owners can either fire them or not, it's their choice. And it's the fans' choice whether to buy tickets to the games.

My choice is to not watch them, but that's only because I think American football is a stupid sport, and that watching sports is, in general, a mindless waste of time.

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

#725

Post by magduf »

manfredo wrote: post #455
magduf wrote: post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A hosting company isn't a utility. A utility is a monopoly in almost every case (or sometimes a duopoly). There's countless hosting companies out there, and you can make your own too. If you don't like your hosting provider, find another, or set up your own service. There's lots of payment processors out there too. However, Mastercard and VISA do have an oligopoly, and those deserve a lot more regulation than they cu…

We're increasingly getting to the point where some technologies have no effective competitor. Even sites like Cloud Flare that have decided to kick people off their service have pointed out the dangers of such a practice: https://blog.cloudflare.com/why-we-terminated-daily-stormer/ > Someone on our team asked after I announced we were going to terminate the Daily Stormer: "Is this the day the Internet dies?" He was h…

I have a small, personal website. If Cloudflare doesn't like me, it's not a problem, because I don't need their service anyway.

If DS has so much traffic that it needs service from someone like Cloudflare to not collapse under the load, well then maybe some of those people should start their own hosting service that can handle that much load. Otherwise, it seems the DS crowd isn't willing to put their money where their mouth is, so I have no sympathy.

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

#726

Post by thesz »

zamalek wrote: post #120
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? The government, soapboxes, homes and places of business that are happy to have them. Freedom of Speech is not the right to be heard. If people don't like what you have to say, or how you are saying it, they are free to walk away. If you don't like what someone is doing in your place of business, you can also throw…

"is not the right to be heard"

What is it then?

PS I have to add that the "loudness" of some point of view in the social media is the willingness of people to hear or see that point of view.

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

#727

Post by munchbunny »

iguy wrote: post #679
munchbunny wrote: post #505

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I were in the CEO's shoes, I would dump DS over it too. We generally expect provider/customer relationships to be in good faith, and the generally expect free speech to happen in good faith, aka "I'm not relying on dirty tricks to persuade people." DS dropped their end, so I would feel no obligation to hold up my end. I would oppose banning what they are saying in general, but I think it's entirely reasonable to n…

Yea it's not wrong to dump them. But it does I think create a bit of a precedent that you should care at all. I'd worry, as CEO, that pretty soon you'll find yourself having to hire a team of people to manage content complaints... The alternative would have been to position your company more like infrastructure. Unlike Patreon, it's not a service which needs millions to think well of it, so it's not very exposed to t…

I think you're applying the wrong framework to analyze this situation.

This isn't about content moderation to manage complaints. This is about protecting your company image specifically as a company that doesn't take sides.

DS tried to claim that the company was taking a side. CEO broke the relationship because of that.

If the CEO got complaints, and DS had said nothing about Cloudflare, and the company chose to drop the customer, then you'd have a point, but that's not what happened.

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

#728

Post by Dylan16807 »

vanattab wrote: post #717
Dylan16807 wrote: post #636

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm talking about what people say , not what they do with their children. But can you be more specific? What consequences can you name, especially in the US? I'm not aware of there being almost anything in the US, except that they might not be allowed into some schools, which barely even counts as a punishment. And yet the idea proliferates wildly.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-41504796

"Michigan parents are legally allowed to skip or delay their children's vaccinations due to personal beliefs.

But Bredow fell foul of the law because she reneged on agreements with her former spouse dating back to November 2016 to have the boy immunised."

Sounds like an edge case that's more about custody than legal rules over vaccination.

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

#729

Post by dang »

paulcole wrote: post #721
dang wrote: post #670

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You started a hellish flamewar with this flamebait. Please review the site guidelines and follow them, and don't vandalize this place again. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18763923 and marked it off-topic.

Are you kidding me? Somebody says they’re “torn” on whether private companies should allow nazis and racists a megaphone and I’m the one starting a “hellish flame war”?

Yes. That comment was obviously substantive, and it was obviously possible to disagree with it substantively. You needn't look far for examples of how to do that, since the top-voted reply is one.

Since instead you tossed off a Molotov one-liner which empirically resulted in a flamewar, I don't see any question that you started it. This is not a hard moderation call.

When a topic is as provocative and inflammatory as this one, you need to take extra care to post civilly and substantively. This is in the site guidelines. Would you please re-read them and take the spirit of this site more to heart from now on? We'd be grateful.

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

#730

Post by repolfx »

TheDong wrote: post #582
repolfx wrote: post #509

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not even sure why you're arguing about this. The OP's point was that negative generalisations can be true. You haven't disputed this point, only reacted badly to a particular example whilst admitting it's indeed true. There is no meaningful semantic difference between the statements "Jamaicans are on average more homicidal than Japanese" and "Jamaicans have a higher homicide rate than the Japanese". Your outrage…

I am perfectly fine with you saying "the homicide rate amongst Americans is much higher than amongst the Swiss". I would not be fine with the similar, but different phrase "American people are more homicidal than the swiss", assuming no further context. One of those is clearly meant to discuss a fact. The other is meant to play up nationalistic tensions. I know negative generalizations can be supported by fact. I'm f…

The distinction you're looking for doesn't exist. The two sentences would be considered equivalent by anyone who isn't wildly over-attuned to political correctness issues.
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