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Comment by personjerry | Hacker News Reader

Please excuse my naïveté, and I do not share the opinions of the neo-nazis, but isn't it part of free speech to able to use these symbols and to be prejudiced?

Edit: My follow-up question: Why then is it Twitter's responsibility to censor such speech?

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There's a difference between free speech and harassment. It's perfectly legal to use the echo in a Tweet. What's not legal (or at least isn't allowed on most social media platforms) is using the echo to call people to harass and threat a specific person.

For example, it's legal to say/tweet "Bob Smith is a little bitch"

It's not legal to send Bob Smith 50 messages telling him he's a little bitch and threatening to murder his family

    > What's not... allowed... is using the echo to call people to harass and threat a specific person.

Wouldn't the layman interpret all 'echo's as a call to action? Do you hold one user accountable for drawing attention to a user who is now receiving messages from third parties?

> Do you hold one user accountable for drawing attention to a user who is now receiving messages from third parties

Inciting violence against a person makes you responsible for the violence that follows; let's not pretend this is something different - it's not.

Internet messages are violence now?

s/violence/harassment/

Intimidation, threat of harm, and incitement are generally illegal whether they're on the Internet, in a letter, or delivered in person.

You might want to re-read your dictionary. Violence has included non-physical force for very many years, very much longer than the Internet has been in existence.

http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/youthviolence/definiti...

> Interpersonal violence is defined as "the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against another person or against a group or community that results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment, or deprivation."

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/16

> The term “crime of violence” means—

> (a) an offense that has as an element the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against the person or property of another, or

Threats of violence are by definition violence.

Threats that might seem credible are a far cry from saying bad things about someone, to them or to someone else.

You don't seem to understand that threats of violence are what we're talking about. Do you really not understand that saying you're going to rape someone is a threat of violence?

The article says:

> Other Jewish writers have faced more serious attacks: death threats, anti-Semitic cartoons, images of concentration camp ovens and executed Jews, threatening emails, even home phone calls.

> Michael received [...] Trolls threatened him: "'When the time comes, the Jews are going to be in trouble, lined up,'" Michael recalls. "That kind of tone. Random shit by people thinking it's funny Jews were being targeted."

you've certainly mentioned some strong examples. However, it's not the same as real violence.

think of these two statements, jokes whatever you want to call it.

"what do you call a hundred thousand lawyers at the bottom of the ocean? A good start" A joke we've all heard.

Now, same joke 'What do you call a hundred thousand Jews at the bottom of the ocean? A good start.

Now which one is hate speech? Both? None? Should history be the only basis for whether jokes are permitted or not? What about who delivers it and why?

I'm not asking you to really answer me here, but it's worth thinking about. And I think platforms banning language simply will get it wrong. Human mods will get it wrong, computer mods will get it wrong.

Again, I'm going to go to the platforms where speech is allowed because of the nuance of humor, of conversation. And especially where personal experience is valid even when it appears biased or hateful.

Neither of those are the dictionary though, the definition on Merriam Webster says it's

>behavior involving physical force intended to hurt, damage, or kill someone or something.

Oxford and dictionary.com have similar definitions

Both of your definitions seem to me like cherry picked overly broad legal definitions especially since they are both from legal sites and not dictionaries and one is on a page titled "Youth Violence"

Threatening a person, and marking them as the target for a mob harms someone. Harming people is violence

Well yeah, the government can't arrest you for it. But that doesn't mean anyone has to listen to you or let you be a part of their community.

True, but I think (and this is an assumption) that most people would prefer their communications platforms - Twitter, FB messegner, Apple iMessage, etc, support free speech.

What good is a communication platform if you can't communicate certain expressions on it?

I agree with your overall point tho - we should let the free market determine this what communication companies ultimately do.

It's Twitter's responsibility out of their commitment to the welfare of community. Abuse and harassment should not be tolerated in any community to guarantee healthy atmosphere and smooth exchange of information and constructive communication for all participants.

Let's make this point loud and clear, there's a huge difference between criticizing Israel, Netanyahu, or even Zionism but attacking Jews solely for being Jews, this shouldn't be tolerated at all.

I get your point that the Free Speech absolutists may find these social networks unwelcoming when they start censoring or moderating this kind of content on their platforms but on the other hand Anti-Abuse absolutists would welcome this immensely and ask even for more.

So, in the end it's Twitter's call to make and pick which audience they should prioritize and set of policy goals they should pursue.

I also I can't hide to comment on the irony that this opinion is coming from an HN veteran here when you know well how HN is run - Not that I disagree with the moderation policy, on the contrary :) - and how it doesn't represent the pinnacle of Free Speech as a platform on the internet.

So what's the difference between hate speech and clever razzing on people? Not really anything actually. Criticizing somebody for being the stereotype isn't a bad thing in a culture necessarily either. People familiar with one another can criticize each other using the exact same words, but then a stranger pops in and it's time to light torches and throw him over a cliff.

This is all bad news. A general platform for everyone should really be as open as possible. Also a really important point, there's no more corrupt law making entity than the EU. These are a small group of people not consulting the associated countries one bit. So a pet project suddenly gets Twitter turned into a sissy nightmare.

> People familiar with one another can criticize each other using the exact same words, but then a stranger pops in and it's time to light torches and throw him over a cliff

I somehow doubt the guy who sent the auschwitz pictures was doing so in playful jest, hoping to make the recipient laugh. You can say mean things to a stranger with a smile or with anger, and that hints at very different intentions. Basic social cues.

It's funny you should mention a photo example. Because I've actually seen many times where a terrible photo was used as humor, and it was funny. Dark humor doesn't mean hate speech. All the examples there, I can think of moments where it can work in a context of humor, depending on the delivery, the sender. The culture of the people doing the sharing. All things.

One of the things I love abt HN is the difference of opinions. You can have a post that tells you all the great things abt A, then in the comments you hear why A is bad, but also there is C.

It is sad that internet trolls exist, but at the same time the internet is amazing bc trolls exist, or that they can exist. The ability for everyone to communicate freely brings out the best in humanity, but also the worst.

The same power that allows GitHub and Wikipedia to exist, and that ends oppressive government regimes in the world is the same power that allows neo-nazis to have the world hear their hate speech.

>HN has diversity of opinions

Keep telling yourself that, HN is an echo chamber. Diversity of opinion is shunned. Anything that does not fit the SJW narrative will be down voted to death like this very comment.

Arguably, SJ-related topics get their share of downvotes too.

But yeah, I agree with you on the fact that HN is mostly an echo chamber. I'm just less sure that we're hearing the same echo. :)

It doesn't matter if you think it's your responsibility or not. A fundamental rule of the Internet is that spam and abuse make everything suck.

Therefore all large Internet sites (and some small ones) have to moderate or police it one way or another. Even if they started out fairly libertarian, eventually they'll get dragged in, or else they'll lose users.

(4chan is the closest thing to an exception, and even they have rules. Most websites don't want to be 4chan.)

That is so interesting. I wonder if there is a way you could model that over time / give a rating. You could have a large list or controversial words (prob better would be doing NLP phrases) and look at all content of a site has over time, and get a count of how much "controversial content" it contains.

To get the list of what is controversial you could look at the content guidelines from top sites around the world and compile a list.

Sure! It also happens to be free speech to write articles which highlight such examples of public prejudice for a larger audience.

It's surely free speech to write articles suggesting free speech be curtailed. It's also free speech to disagree with censorship. What's your point?

(GP didn't seem to be expressing an issue with the article having been written, but with the article's suggestion that Twitter (and other media) need to do more to censor hate speech. In that context this comment is non sequitur.)

Free speech and Twitter are unrelated concepts. Twitter has no responsibility to enforce free speech and can do whatever the hell it wants, although it can be subject to user backlash.

Nobody is disputing that Twitter can do whatever it wants, in fact that's exactly the point that (GG)GP is making - why should Twitter have a responsibility to anyone to do anything about hate speech on its site?

The author of the linked article argues that Twitter has a responsibility to censor hate speech, which GP disputed, because Twitter can do whatever the hell it wants. You're arguing that Twitter does not have a responsibility to not censor hate speech, which nobody disputed, because Twitter can do whatever the hell it wants.

You're arguing with the wind again.

edit: typos, phrasing

if twitter clamps down on this, it creates an unwelcoming place for the neonazis. if it does not, it creates an unwelcoming place for their targets. twitter has to pick one; doing nothing is not a neutral action.

I can't imagine the neonazi crowd is large or profitable compared to everyone else.

I'm not sure it's twitter's responsibility. That's up to twitter, though I would appreciate it if they would clearly mark their position on these sorts of things.

If you'd read the article, you would have seen that they have - https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/may/31/facebook-...

Twitter presumably sees value in people having conversations, and doesn't see value in thousands of racists sending millions of death threats.

It's hard to sell ads against "I'm going to rape you and your children kike bitch".

Would it be free speech to write "go kill person x"? I think it isn't? So if the brackets are code for something illegal, why would it be legal to use them? (I'm not saying they should be illegal, as I am not 100% sure what they mean, but perhaps it should be investigated).

Twitter is not obligated to provide users with free speech.

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