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> For PewDiePie recently, the same story: He is an adult (who should know better) performing antisemitic jokes for children,

What? Pewdiepie was seeing what people would do at fiverr for five dollars. Most of the jokes were him being rejected. The joke is very clearly not at the expense of Jewish people any more than, say, Nazis doing stupid things in Indiana Jones movies is.

If 'Death to all jews' -- let's not talk around it, that's what was written on the sign -- wasn't the crux of the joke, why didn't he go with something equally likely to be rejected by people who understand English, but less 'Death to all jews'? Frankly, I think it's because he's a moron who doesn't understand that actions and words, however digital and remote, have consequences. Now middle school kids can chortle together on the playground, "haha, 'death to all jews', that sure was funny". After all, the life or death of a Jew, that's just a punchline.

> why didn't he go with something equally likely to be rejected by people who understand English, but less 'Death to all jews'?

He did. See the other people on fiverr he got to do other, stupid things. You did actually watch the video, right?

> likely to be rejected by people who understand English

They understand English perfectly - their email replies discussing the task were about the same level of English as spoken on HN.

> Now middle school kids can chortle together on the playground, "haha, 'death to all jews', that sure was funny".

If a kid thinks that they've misunderstood the joke (and I'd support rating the video something like '15+ mature' or whatever youtube's equivalent is).

I don't like the video, mainly because it seems like Pewdiepie is exploiting poor people, but saying it's making antisemitic jokes is simply Vox being Vox.

> He did. See the other people on fiverr he got to do other, stupid things. You did actually watch the video, right?

He did all those other things and he still did 'death to all jews'. I'm saying he didn't need to do that one at all. If he did other things in the video it supports my position.

> If a kid thinks that they've misunderstood the joke

Yes, kids are by and large stupid.

How is Pewdiepie exploiting poor people? The poor people agreed to it and they objectively benefited.

> If a kid thinks that they've misunderstood the joke (and I'd support rating the video something like '15+ mature' or whatever youtube's equivalent is).

The biggest real hit for PewDiePie was that Disney studios dropped him as affiliate. Disney does not feature '15+ mature', they children+parents friendly as a strategy.

They definitely shouldn't have him under the 'Disney' brand: his humor is for gamers not children. But Disney does Marvel Studios, Buena Vista, Star Wars and a bunch of other stuff.

Star Wars is PG-13 (just checked).

Not sure that really changes the point: Disney has a bunch of things aimed at different age ranges, just not using the Disney brand.

The latest X men film, 'Logan' is R 18, as was the previous one. And Buena Vista have a bunch of dramas aimed at adults.

I've read a few of the articles but couldn't find any compelling reason to be outraged. I certainly disagree with his suggestions about the police but I'm assuming all his racist facts he quoted from some major source.

It is true that assimilation is a problem and that years ago some did talk about a Reconquista. Just because some people talk or think about it doesn't mean it's a legitimate concern but it's not exactly racist to bring it up?

My friend ran a Latino media company and he used to talk about it a lot. And obviously California used to be Mexico so it's a rather common idea that's easily agreed with.

Destiny: So you don't want people to immigrate and change the "white European culture". Okay, what if you had some brown people who moved here and perfectly assimilated and embraced the culture, why does it matter if they're white or brown?

JonTron: It would be great if they assimilated... but then... eventually they'd enter the gene pool.

--

JonTron: Wealthy blacks also commit more crime than poor whites, that's a fact. Yeah, look it up.

[He provided no source for this, and I can't find anything to back it up.]

--

JonTron: These are just slurs: white supremacist, racist.

--

JonTron: We've gotten rid of discrimination in our Western countries. If you don't think we've gotten rid of discrimination, you're living in a fantasy land... Get outta here with that. People like me are supposed to listen to people like you chatter on about this oppression in America, it doesn't exist, dude, it doesn't exist. What do you want to do, police people's thoughts?

--

He also endorsed Rep. Steve King's recent tweet that "culture and demographics are our destiny. We can't restore our civilization with somebody else's babies", writing: "Wow, how scandalous, Steve King doesn't want his country invaded by people who have contempt for his culture and people! NAZI!!!"

I write this as someone who's been a fan for years and is very disappointed by this turn of events.

>If he wants to perform for children

have jontron or pewdiepie ever specified that they produce children's entertainment? i keep seeing this argument brought up but i don't see how it means a hell of a lot on an open* platform with effectively no ratings guidelines. plenty of 14 year-olds used to read big brother and watch baker videos and i can guarantee you they are interfacing with far more suggestive content on a regular basis, but none of these things would be considered to cater to children even if they were the largest demographic of consumers.

If you believe being mad and outraged is an effective means of ensuring your own chosen words find their way into impressionable, insecure minds, then sure, you should be mad, Mr. Katz.

This assumes the 'outrage community' is a thing that exists and is a bunch of angry people, frothing at the mouth, waiting to attack anyone who isn't toeing their line. Maybe they even have meetings. If they do I haven't been invited. That might be because they don't exist. I believe my responses have been well measured, and the idea of an 'outrage community' is something that has been propped up to point to as a defense against criticism, no matter how deserved.

"People don't like that I'm racist? No, that's the outrage community"

"I feel attacked on all sides. Could it be that the majority of people find my ideals abhorrent? No, that's the outrage community"

In short, it's a way to pretend you are part of a silent majority, attacked by a vocal minority in the absence of actual evidence.

I don't think it matters whether the silent majority agrees with the vocal minority or not, as far as this discussion goes (and of course it is a vocal minority that is going after these youtubers -- the media is a small subset of the population). Whether their ideas are popular or not, they are in competition with these youtubers for influence over impressionable, insecure minds. So please spare me the "impressionable mind" stuff. If you get mad at someone else for using your tactics, you have no leg to stand on.

There is always something or someone to be outraged at, and some people get off on it. That's the meaning of "outrage crowd". Moving from one target to another getting indignant. It's self serving, making them feel righteous.

If you're really rockin on your cynicism right now, how is that any better?

I'm no better. I'm a terrible and flawed human, and I admit it. I don't pretend to be a concerned citizen righting wrongs and protecting children.

You are also very comfortable making assumptions about my motivations.

> people like you

Please don't do this. Personal attacks aren't allowed here and aren't necessary to make your point.

Thank you. I have edited my comment replacing "people like you" with "some people".

With all respect, it is the parents responsibility, not youtube or jontron, to make sure their little angel is not drinking in racist rants.

That's a laudable attitude, but its feasibility is rapidly eroding in this always-connected world. Can't watch over the little angel's shoulder to see what's on their phone 24x7.

I think it is less about filtering what a kid sees and more about preparing children for the crazy shit the world can throw at kids without meaning too.

For any adult looking at PewDiePie's shenanigans it is clear that he isn't actually supporting organized racism, or if he is he is astoundingly bad at it (perhaps as bad at being funny. But to a an unprepared kid (or dumb adult) this stuff can seem shocking and the jokes might be missed on them. PewDiePie simply didn't care some kids might see and wasn't concerned about it.

Parents can prepare their kids and create open environments where the kids can ask questions. If done right the parent can create situations where they can simply explain that PewDiePie lacks good taste when the kid asks what its going on.

This is a bunch of idealist rubbish, but at least a few parents have done it.

For an extreme example, suppose stormfront camps outside your child's school passing out leaflets and having fun, racist singalongs. How can it be your responsibility when they're in an area that is effectively outside your control? Sure, once you find out about it you can pull them from school but this requires first that you find out about it, which you may not be able to do until they come home singing the 14 words to a Wagner melody. It is impossible to effectively police all the media your child might consume unless you plan to isolate them from the world at large.

Hell, jontron was innocuous for a while. A parent could have reviewed his entire oeuvre up to a point, however many days of video it would have required, and decided it was alright. Until a week ago, when suddenly it was not alright! And by the time a parent is aware of it and is shielding their children from it, they have already been exposed, at least for a bit. Jontron built an audience when he was safe and failed the responsibility he adopted when he decided to influence children by exposing them to his abhorrent views, and there was very little a parent could do about it.

Moreover, it's not just about _my_ kids being exposed to racist bullshit. I also want for _other_ kids to be shielded from it (this is beyond my power without going to the source of the bullshit and shutting it down directly). Otherwise, my kids may still be cursed to live in a world where they are threatened for their heritage.

Why are you worried that your children will be threatened for their heritage in a world where children can be exposed to a diversity of opinion, including those you don't approve of? Do you think you'll lose the war of ideas to "bullshit"?

I'm worried because my children will have the same Jewish heritage I have, and while it is not likely reason will lose the day, it is possible. Even a slim chance is worth taking very seriously. It's like giant, apocalyptic asteroids. Odds are one won't hit the Earth in our time, and if it's on track to odds are we won't be able to stop it. We're still looking out for them.

We're not exactly spending hundreds of billions each year on asteroid mitigation programs. From what I can tell, the total spending at least in the US is at most in the hundreds of millions annually. If the odds of an impact were vastly higher, we probably would spend hundreds of billions each year. If we knew an impact was coming, we'd spend nearly every cent we had trying to stop it.

Given the sheer magnitude of outrage which predictably follows "racist bullshit" being publicly displayed, I can infer, if people are acting somewhat near rationally, that they rate the chance of "racist bullshit" winning the day somewhat higher than "slim". Do you agree with that? If so, why are you worried about reason losing the day? Is it the quality of your ideas that you find lacking, or the reasoning power of the people around you?

To be clear, you are laying out the premise that by reacting to racism at all, I am revealing I secretly believe it is more right than anti-racism. Does that sound about right?

Why are you so eager to police anti-racism, then? By the same logic, if racism is right you'll be fine.

Does that sound about right?

No, not quite. It's the way in which you react, which is to silence the opposition. If you believed your ideas would win reasonable minds on their merits, and you believed the minds in question were reasonable, and you yourself were a rational person, you wouldn't feel such a strong need to shut down the dissemination of other ideas. Have I gone wrong somewhere in my reasoning?

Why are you so eager to police anti-racism, then?

Sorry, where have I attempted to police anti-racism? Do you consider asking questions to be tantamount to policing thought? I've expressed no outrage over your ideas. I've never hinted at a desire to shut your ideas down at the source. I've simply asked you to defend them in a calm, reasonable conversation.

If asking you reasonable questions counts as policing your opinion, that is a very serious condemnation of your opinions.

I've already made it quite clear that I think not all the minds in question are reasonable, but you keep asking this question, like you really want to get something in it out there. Since it's not likely, then, that you are engaging in good faith, I have to go digging for the bad faith and it is not far beneath the surface.

In the end these discussions come down a fundamental moral question, outside all reasoning and apologia: "Is racism inherently bad?" I posit that it is and no matter how you or I react to racism, no matter how many minds are swayed to or against it, it is still wrong. From the position that racism is inherently bad, my arguing against racism is not evidence that my position is weak; my belief that left unchecked racism could fester in us and cause great harm is not evidence that anti-racism is irrational and racism is rational; I'm simply arguing against something that is fundamentally wrong. You may as well ask me why I argue the sky is blue when someone tells me it is green. "Well, if you have to argue the sky is blue, how sure are you that it really is blue? The green-sky people will come around". It's strange someone would ask me why I argue the sky is blue -- you'll have to forgive me for assuming they also think it's green but are too shy to admit it.

Engaging in good faith, then, does this answer your question or would you like to ask it again?

not evidence that anti-racism is irrational

I haven't argued that it is evidence of such. I've argued that your particular chosen method of combating racism is irrational under a few specific conditions: A) your position is reasonable and B) the bulk of the people around you are reasonable and just.

It seems like you don't believe B is the case ("I've already made it quite clear that I think not all the minds in question are reasonable.... [L]eft unchecked racism could fester in us and cause great harm...") and don't especially care if A is the case ("outside all reasoning...no matter how you or I react to racism...it is still wrong.").

Given you believe your heritage is at stake ("I'm worried because my children will have the same Jewish heritage I have"), your method is quite rational under those conditions. I wonder if your co-religionists tend to be of a similar mind.

You may as well ask me why I argue the sky is blue when someone tells me it is green.

Except you're not arguing against racism, you're arguing for outrage against racism. Those are two very different things.

It's strange someone would ask me why I argue the sky is blue

I'm not asking you why the sky is blue, I'm asking why you think outrage and censorship is the appropriate way to keep minds from thinking the sky is green. From what you've said, the answer is that A) you feel the stakes are quite high for you personally, B) you didn't reason yourself into the position that the sky is blue, but in fact believe it's outside the bounds of reason to even weigh in on the subject (I suspect you don't actually think this, but it is what you said), and C) believe a great deal of the people around you are mentally deficient in such a way that they're biased toward belief in a green sky.

You know what, dog, you caught the car. I'll never be mad about racists again, or else the racists win.

dog

That's racist.

If that exposed opinion is "race x should be attacked" then kids of race x can end up attacked as result. If you convince children that it is right to attack members of race x, then other kids of race x will end up attacked. That is how it always was.

After all, nazi did won war of ideas and so did hutu and so did khmer rouge.

If you convince children that it is right to attack members of race x, then other kids of race x will end up attacked.

OK, but we're not discussing a scenario in which stormfront members have total control over what the children are exposed to. We're discussing a scenario where they have at most a few minutes of the child's attention. For the other fifteen and three quarters waking hours of the child's day, their attention belongs to their teachers or their parents. If you believe the 'racist bullshit' coming from stormfront has any chance of winning the war of ideas against those odds, that tells me something about what you think of either the quality of the other ideas or the ability of teachers and parents to impart them into the minds of children, and, let me tell you, it's not flattering.

After all, nazi did won war of ideas

Now we're no longer talking about children. We're talking about "racist bullshit" winning the war of ideas in the minds of full grown adults. If you're concerned that "racist bullshit" is going to win the war of ideas in the minds of full grown adults, that tells me very clearly what you think about the quality of your preferred ideas or what you think about the quality of the minds of those full grown adults. And again, it's not flattering.

Given that racist adults exist it is quite clear that the scenario is possible, and I think it is reasonable to assume that is a process that begins in childhood, when their minds are malleable, until finally they are old enough they cannot be swayed but can fully rationalize it, and maybe even hide between the lines in almost palatable questions like, "Is it really bullshit if it wins the war of ideas?", which assumes some kind of fair marketplace of ideas where the right thing always wins, ergo if we kill a million people here and there for the group they belong to they must have deserved it.

and I think it is reasonable to assume that is a process that begins in childhood, when their minds are malleable

Is there some defect in human minds which makes them extremely susceptible in childhood to "racist bullshit" in particular, above other ideas?

which assumes some kind of fair marketplace of ideas where the right thing always wins

Well, it certainly would always win in the minds of reasonable and just people, would it not? If you believe "the right thing" won't win in reality, is that not saying something about what you think of the people in question?

1.) Teachers spend most of schoolday not discussing racism. They discuss (and should discuss) math, physics, languages, writing, planets, birds and what not. The things the school is for. When the school has to spend more then a little time on societal issues like this, then something went wrong. Stormfront if they stand just out of school as op proposed, can have quite a lot of time with children. (They play freely outside after school are they not? They are expected to unless their parents went completely helicopter.)

Also, stormfront ideas are appealing. They make people feel sense of community, common enemy (!), purpose and feeling of strength. I think that they are immoral and wrong, but that does not mean I am going to deny emotional appeal it has especially on young.

Speaking of nazi specifically, "hardship we are going through is partly our fault plus bad luck" is less appealing then "Jews caused us to loose the war" no matter how true. "We are superior and are entitled to take land of others" has a lot emotional appeal no matter how unethical.

2.) Sure Nazi win also adults, but they were super popular among university students and youth (and young veterans from WWI having trouble to adjust back). After all, it is easier to change young peoples minds then older minds.

Popular ideas come and go while their own quality stays the same. Nazi specifically had to loose the real war to actually loose.

Teachers spend most of schoolday not discussing racism.

OK, but we're still not talking about a remotely even amount of time. Not to mention that teachers are authority figures, have an extremely captive audience, can punish incorrect opinions, and have near total control over the material children are exposed to during the school day.

They make people feel sense of community, common enemy (!), purpose and feeling of strength. I think that they are immoral and wrong, but that does not mean I am going to deny emotional appeal it has especially on young.

So then you believe there is a defect in humans which results in them having a natural susceptibility to these ideas in particular, and as children humans need to be carefully insulated from these ideas or it will be very difficult for them to reason their way to other ideas as adults. Is that a universal human defect, or one that is found particularly in some class of human?

Google right now is having a bit of a public relations issue with advertisers, regarding advertisements being placed in front of controversial content in Youtube. Several companies already have suspended ads.

I'm sure most mainline corporate advertisers don't want to be associated with seemingly "sponsoring" neo-Nazi content / hate speech or other extremist content (eg radical Islaimc / IS videos), which if the articles I see are right (example: http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2017/03/20/trouble-b...) they sometimes do.

Managing that is Google / Youtube's responsibility. It'll be interesting what they do. The "outrage crowd" probably matters less to Google than the hit to the pocketbook, I think.