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Why We Terminated Daily Stormer

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Re: Why We Terminated Daily Stormer

#771
post #573

We 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…

You make a good point, though I feel you undermine yourself somewhat by adding the "and anyone who disagrees is a Nazi" onto the end there.

Re: Why We Terminated Daily Stormer

#772
post #114
post #47

Unless the site was directly breaking the law, I see this move as troubling. It's almost always better not to drive these kind of people to the underground, and I think most HN readers figure why this is. The problem I see is that in the current political climate the general population won't understand that or is unwilling to.

> It's almost always better not to drive these kind of people to the underground Seems more like this would remove the echo chamber than drive them underground, I would agree with your point if it was about public shaming. But if FB goes offline I wouldn't consider anyone being "driven underground", more like forced above ground.

The Daily Stormer is pretty radical, but afaik still operates within the law. Taking their platform will put them out of sight and into areas where respecting the law isn't necessary. The enemy you don't know is the enemy you have to fear the most. Unfortunately I feel like most people today are more comfortable with hiding and banning bad ideas than to confront them.

Re: Why We Terminated Daily Stormer

#773
post #540

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gender, race, age, sexual orientation, etc. are “protected classes” that you can’t discriminate on. Being a Nazi is not a protected class. If you have a business, you can feel free to discriminate against Nazis. And you probably should.

If you operate on public infrastructure, like being granted public right of ways to lay fiber, I think you lose the right to discriminate. This feels good because Nazis are assholes but it sets a very dangerous precedent. This is why the ACLU has a long history of defending Nazis and their ilk. Because one day it will be you on the other side. We should all discriminate against Nazis by denouncing them, ignoring them…

You can talk about how things "should" be, about "precedents", etc, but the true guideline to measure these things is what the vast majority agrees to, because that's what public approval is all about. So all you can really do is try to convince the majority about what is 'right' and what is 'wrong'.

Re: Why We Terminated Daily Stormer

#775

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 a…

Anarchists and communists have long been banned from entering the US. And I've noticed a strong push back against most of the more mild socialists ideas. The US have not been "the land of the free" for a long time. And I will argue that communism is fundamentally a good ideology. While fascism has never leaned on the good side of human nature. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_Control_Act_of_1954 https://en.wik…

> Anarchists and communists have long been banned from entering the US. And I've noticed a strong push back against most of the more mild socialists ideas. The US have not been "the land of the free" for a long time.

American citizens are perfectly free to hold those beliefs. They are also free to determine what kind of people they want to allow in their country, just like every other country on Earth can. That they choose not to allow people who openly advocate destroying all existing social institutions (which is the end goal of communism as stated by Marx in The Communist Manifesto) to enter the country does not mean that the country is not free.

> And I will argue that communism is fundamentally a good ideology. While fascism has never leaned on the good side of human nature.

There are 100 million people who died in the 20th century who would disagree with you.

But, even if we ignore that, the US does not allow Nazis to enter the country either, for very similar reasons. As a matter of fact, if you apply for permanent residency today, you still have to sign a statement that says you're not a member of the National Socialist German Workers Party or adhere to any of its beliefs, even though that party is defunct and most of its members are dead.

Re: Why We Terminated Daily Stormer

#776
post #599

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

CloudFare served DailyStormer for years. Then DailyStormer says CloudFare are secretly nazis. Then CloudFare say "no we don't, goodbye". If DailyStormer hadn't been so stupid, and had never claimed CloudFare was anything other than neutral, then they would still be served? Stupid own goal DailyStormer. The censorship and 'line' seems to be not what you say or incite against others, but what you say about CloudFare.

  The censorship and 'line' seems to be not what you say or incite against others, but what you say about CloudFare
Well, sure.

But if you shit on my living room carpet I'll also show you the door. As I think is my right.

Re: Why We Terminated Daily Stormer

#777
post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Christian bakers were sued and then forced to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple because sexual orientation is a protected class. "Alt-right" or whatever Daily Stormer is, is not a protected class. "Political party" is a protected class, which puts Daily Stormer in a possibly fuzzy territory (I have never read Daily Stormer so I don't know if they count as a political publication).

Fine, let's make political affiliation a protected class as well. There's no reason to restrict it to registered parties. Nobody should be denied access goods and services because of who they voted for and how they wish to govern this country. Otherwise the majority could use denial of services to silence and coerce their political opponents.

> Fine, let's make political affiliation a protected class as well

No thanks.

The alt-right would undo all the protected classes. Tolerance is a peace treaty, not a suicide pact. Your rights do not supplant mine.

Re: Why We Terminated Daily Stormer

#778
post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, the distinction is that neo-Nazi's are bad -- hateful, intolerant, divisive, problematic or however you want to put it. I'm uncomfortable saying that it's okay to do these things to the bad guys, even when it's obvious, because in an alternate universe it might be obvious that gays marrying is hateful toward Christians and intolerant of their sacred rituals.

Nobody fought and won war---to the conclusion of unconditional surrender---against an army and ideology of the LGBT community. Nazism didn't go through some kind of Martin Luther style academic and cultural reformation in the last 80 years. Neo-Nazis are the same as the original Nazis. They have the same ideology & the same ambitions. They're literally incompatible with Western liberalism & enlightenment. Neo-Nazis a…

On point, they are akin to ISIS, perhaps people confuse them for 'just another ideology' just because they are too afraid to act on it right now, but given the opportunity they will, and recruiting people IS their opportunity.

Re: Why We Terminated Daily Stormer

#779
post #611

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. Noam Chomsky

Non-sequitur. It's from Noam Chomsky so it's not surprising, he has a predilection for fallacies.

Just because two "bad" people liked something in a certain way does not mean that "good" people must therefore like it the converse way. Both Goebbels and Stalin may also have liked butter and jam on their toast, but that doesn't mean I should eat toast with just butter.

If that seems a little facetious, consider it this way: many leading figures deemed "good" by history were also in favour of regulated free speech. That doesn't make regulated free speech good, of course — though one might suppose that it means that these "good" people were probably not as liberal as many people seem to think.

In fact, during times of war, and of apprehension/anticipation of war, I'd say that there were many things that went on, which would make many liberal people take umbrage today. I would say all free speech was heavily regulated by most nations up until the perhaps the '90s or even the '00s.

I do not think it is unwise to regulate free speech. It is not wise for a civilisation, with laws, to allow people to flaunt their breaking of, or desire to break, said laws, without some legal consequence.

Are we to have rapist support rallies next? Join the Rapist Party for the legalisation of rape? No. The rape of anybody is a crime, just like murder. It is not legally permitted to be perpetrated by anyone in most countries.

The same should apply to racism — and you might say that it should not be illegal to make racist remarks, but actually, it should not be tolerated in terms of free speech either, because it is objectively wrong to believe a race is superior to another race.

It's not a question about the meaning of life or the existence of supernatural deities, so the answer is not something that lies beyond the bounds of our language to discuss. It's a question of whether one race of people is superior to another race of people, and this question is answerable scientifically: there is no superior race.

Given that there is no superior race, just like there is no superior gender i.e. women are not inferior to men, it should not be permissible for people to advocate views contrary to this — not because it is a "dominant discourse" or whatever Foucault might have said, but because it is a scientific fact.

Science is not a discursive means to enforce order, it's just the application of logic to evidence. There are no meaningful genetic differences between different races, and there are no bounds set to what a person can achieve other than those set by political regimes and by the person's financial situation/access to education.

Nothing should be able to call into question a scientifically-proven fact other than other scientifically-proven facts i.e. new evidence. It should not be legal to spread sophistry or incite dissent and disorder based on sophistry.

So, racism should not be permissible simply because it carries no truth. If racism had a basis in science, or indeed any truth to it whatsoever, it would not require fanatical cults and violence to spread its message. It would just be taught, as it is already taught that homo sapiens outmatched the neanderthal (though this is actually speculative and remains to be conclusively proven, but that's another debate).

There is no universal rule for handling free speech and it's not something that should be considered in terms of setting precedents. Every case of permissible free speech is distinct and the question must be asked each time: is the message that being advocated logically plausible/scientifically justified?

Remember, "rape is bad" is not something you can scientifically prove because it's not a comparison between two people from different places, it's a moral statement, albeit one that most agree with.

Thus, if you permit racist discourse against science, you will set a far more dangerous precedent for the rapists, human traffickers, murderers and paedophiles around the world who also feel that for too long their voices have gone unheard.

I wonder if Chomsky would readily be the one to grant them the freedom to speak openly about their preferences for murdering and raping people, from his armchair.

Re: Why We Terminated Daily Stormer

#780
post #233

I have read many of the threads here, and I think it boils down to this: do businesses (NOT THE GOVERNMENT) have the right to choose what content and customers they serve? Further, does it matter if they are a hosting provider? A network provider? A telephone provider? Can those providers cancel you if the company doesn't like what you say or are? This is tough: I honestly don't know if freedom of speech needs to be…

The whole "Freedom of Speech" angle isn't really helpful here. I would phrase the question differently. From purely game-theoretical perspective, do you want companies that control large portions of our communication infrastructure make moral judgement calls regarding content passing through their servers and routers? Do you trust them to make the right moral judgements (however you define those) most of the time?

> do you want companies that control large portions of our communication infrastructure make moral judgement calls regarding content passing through their servers and routers?

If I open a bookstore, I'm not under any obligation to sell books promoting white nationalism. I choose my selection. So too can Cloudflare choose its business partners.

There are alternative CDNs. Cloudflare isn't equivalent to broadband monopolies like Comcast. You can easily switch to another CDN.

Plus, companies in general make moral judgements all the time. Deciding to start a medical services company vs. an educational services one can be a moral judgement.

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