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Why We Terminated Daily Stormer

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Re: Why We Terminated Daily Stormer

#841
post #820

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think it was probably a tongue in cheek statement (since a lot of people would have accused them of being secret Nazis over this eventually) that Cloudflare took seriously, or at least saw as a good excuse to shut them down to appease some people while positioning themselves as strong supporters of free speech on the internet at the same time.

Doesn't matter if it was tongue in cheek, it was still said, and that's not the kind of thing CloudFlare really need associated with their name.

Of course it's going to be dragged through the mud anyway now, but at least it'll be for something they actually did.

Re: Why We Terminated Daily Stormer

#842

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Political affiliation is a protected class. I don't really know what the word "Nazi" means these days because people have used it to label everyone from far-right conservatives to Trump voters to people who self-identify as neo-Nazis. Unless a person registered with the NSDAP prior to 1945, technically they are not a Nazi.

> I don't really know what the word "Nazi" means these days because people have used it to label everyone from far-right conservatives to Trump voters to people who self-identify as neo-Nazis. This coyness about the dilution of meaning is utterly irrelevant here. We're not discussing figurative Nazis or the erosion of the term. We're discussing people literally waving modern variants of historical Nazi flags, histori…

I've seen plenty of people, these last few days, using those exact same acts of violence to label every Republican a Nazi. It's been hard to avoid on social media. I've seen an equal number insisting that the definition of Nazi is crystal clear and anyone who suggests otherwise is covering for Nazis.

Thing is, the latter never seem to aim their ire at those who are actually stretching the definition of Nazi to tarnish their political opponents. It's always aimed at those who observe this happening and criticise it.

Re: Why We Terminated Daily Stormer

#843
post #691

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They won't politely tolerate you. Deviants will be chastised, expelled/expatriated, jailed, or killed. Ignoring prudence (preservation of self and the society at-large) is perilous. Except I never really seen a 'neonazi' saying "punch a communist" I never seen mass media encourage such behavior either. Do you not realize that this is cyclic reinforcement of behavior? (Antifa says punch nazis, nazis punch back, anti…

why do you need to "take sides"? life is not binary. If you don't like antifa that's fine, but you don't then need to support nazis for that ...

If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality. - Desmond Tutu

We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. - Elie Wiesel

Re: Why We Terminated Daily Stormer

#844

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's so bizarre. He tries to have it both ways. He says "no one should have that power", but then says he did it literally earlier that day. He says CloudFlare isn't changing their "content-neutral" policy... but clearly they did change that policy. I have many reasons to oppose nazis, including incredibly personal ones. That said, I think crossing this content line for an infrastructure company is a big deal, and I…

> That said, I think crossing this content line for an infrastructure company is a big deal, and I hope it's not repeated. It's an incredibly terrible move. Such an arbitrary and biased move. What has happened in the past few years where everyone defended free speech to everyone deciding arbitrary and whimsical censorship is something to be lauded? It feels like someone just flipped a switch and people became pro-cen…

Tech companies have been banning and censoring since the start of the commercial Internet. This is not a precedent for anyone except Cloudflare itself.

Re: Why We Terminated Daily Stormer

#845
post #599

Earlier 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…

Feel free to feel outraged when someone you do have sympathy for gets taken down then.

Until that time comes, good riddance to Daily Stormer, you lot of motherfucking nazis.

Re: Why We Terminated Daily Stormer

#846

Just because someone does horrible shit in the name of the Nazi party does not mean the Nazi party itself is at fault.

Are you being serious? The Nazi party is based on doing horrible shit to minorities. That's the ideology, that's what the leadership believed and that's the reason why people joined them.

Are you being serious? Islam is based on doing horrible shit to infidels. That's the ideology, that's what the leadership believed and that's the reason why people were forced to join them.

You're a hypocrite.

Re: Why We Terminated Daily Stormer

#847
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…

"If a society is tolerant without limit, their ability to be tolerant will eventually be seized or destroyed by the intolerant. Popper came to the seemingly paradoxical conclusion that in order to maintain a tolerant society, the society must be intolerant of intolerance." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance IMO this is the ideal rebuttal to the 'be tolerant' argument.

This makes me think of the game theory site linked in an HN comment the other day. I suppose 100% tolerant people would be the naive "always cooperate" players, and 100% intolerant people would be the "always cheat" players.

Interesting to think about how we should behave in this context... If I recall correctly, the ideal behavior would be the copy-cat?

This seems to validate the 'intolerant of intolerance' objective.

Re: Why We Terminated Daily Stormer

#848
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…

"If a society is tolerant without limit, their ability to be tolerant will eventually be seized or destroyed by the intolerant. Popper came to the seemingly paradoxical conclusion that in order to maintain a tolerant society, the society must be intolerant of intolerance." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance IMO this is the ideal rebuttal to the 'be tolerant' argument.

It's a circular argument that leads nowhere. Just recurse one more time to see it: the people shutting down StormFront, Milo Whatshisname, James Damore, Brendan Eich etc are paragons of intolerance. They scream, they shout, they blockade, they demand firings and other forms of retribution, they DDoS and sometimes they get violent. Meanwhile many in the media and at places like Google stand by and do nothing to stop them.

So by your own argument, should we start tossing Google executives in prison, for tolerating intolerance?

Re: Why We Terminated Daily Stormer

#849

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

By this argument Gmail shouldn’t be allowed to run spam filters.

I actually used to work on Gmail anti-spam and wrote this reply to the same argument yesterday:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15011913

Re: Why We Terminated Daily Stormer

#850

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…

It seems people have no idea that Nazis are actually extremely violent people. I'm not talking about your average racist, but people that identify with the Nazi party. Violence is central to their philosophy. If you actually met any modern-day Nazis, you would know this. It took me about two days of hanging out with Nazis before they literally tried to blow me up. This isn't some free-speech issue where you debate po…

Amen! Wow I'd like to hug you for these words (libertarian-nerd theory world: right on the money!).

In the end it doesn't matter if it is a leftist or a rightist organization that calls for murder or other criminal or sedituous behaviour: if we can be sure that you use your means of communication to murder people and destroy society, then this has consequences. In Germany I know as well of leftist as rightist groups/activists who were prosecuted on these grounds, so this is by no means something that is just used against nazis.

However: almost all nazi-groups are concerned by this, as violence and hate are constitutive for their movement, while almost all of the leftist groups go uninvolved, since their fundamental interests are compatible with our basic humanitarian values etc.

So, to all you libertarian-nerds: stop whining (and seeming stupid thereby) that it would be sooooo hard to detect speech that is used to murder people, poison the civil society and destroy the democratic form of government. There is nothing valuable about hateful agitation, we can do fine without it. And please stop acting as if it didn't matter: the whole point of the Charlottesville-demonstration was to show that people can be motivated by hateful agitation and propaganda on the internet to go out and intimidate the rest of the world. That people can be motivated to let go of all inhibitions if they see day after day that it is okay to talk about killing jews, homosexuals and afroamericans, that other people kudo them when they deride minorities themselves.

Oh and by the way: go and check your priviledges. It is easy to act as if hateful speech wouldn't matter if you aren't affected by it (or are intelligent and eloquent enough to turn the tables). But: hateful speech harms the people that are affected by it and can make life a living hell for them. I mean: it is obviously the aim of it, isn't it? I deride and intimidate minorities, so that ... they feel derided and intimidated. It's just that simple.

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