The primary question is what direction the authoritarian types will attack it from legally / politically. The main vehicle has to be the intentionally vague hate speech approach, which they've been readying and building up for decades. To regulate it into action, they'll have to argue the Internet (the primary medium that matters now) is under FCC broadcast control just as with traditional radio and broadcast TV. Then they'll task any Internet content publishing platforms with obeying and enforcing the new hate speech limitations. Those new rules will vary with the political winds and be aggressively abused by each administration and major political shift in DC. It'll become a form of shifting thought terror brought down upon the American people (what can/can't I express changing every 4 to 8 years); by the time the public realizes what has happened, it'll be far too late, their speech - their last line of defense - will be gone.
They then disingeniously say "this is the decision of a private company, free speech only applies to the government" even though they were the ones that forced the company's hand.
Complete censorship is not possible with this strategy, because there will always be other ways to get the speech out, but it may well be censored from as large a percentage of people as in a dictatorship.
Personally I agree with the ACLU position on this, but also believe that privately owned publishing platforms should be free to establish their own policies on what they will or will not carry. That's their right as private entities.
Excepting explicit regulation such as common carrier. I don't think anyone is saying it would be OK for the phone companies to cut off KKK members phone service.
I don't know how true that is, but if so... it stands to reason that free speech on the internet could be in danger. But who knows, maybe we'll get better DDoS protection technology in the future :)
Are you opposed to net neutrality, then? If not, why the different standard for ISPs vs other tech oligopolies?
I count ISPs clearly in the infrastructure category, same with cloudflare, domain providers and AWS.
I'd count the latter among the infrastructure companies.
If there are some restrictions we want as a society, like age or porn, those could be made exceptions.
Regarding private forums, I'd distinguish between forums that seek to serve 99% of people and those that serve less than 1%. The first are public; the latter are private.
Facebook is just the last platform in a stack of platforms people use to communicate. Why would Facebook be allowed to restrict content while those who provide the services Facebook is built on wouldn't?
Publishing platforms explicitly manage content. They provide tools to create, edit, transform and manage content. They provide facilities to control content distribution and subscription. That's clearly a different class of service. You can't reasonably argue that a service that actually facilitates the creation and routing of content can't influence what content is created or routed. They already do so explicitly in their choice and design of tooling.
Various social networks use 'relevance' metrics, keywords in the text, timeliness and all sorts of criteria to choose how to distribute or sort and highlight content and they change these algorithms over time. They are part of the value the service provides and clearly their responsibility.
Title IX and broadly written anti-discrimination regulations.
We don't have the absolute and uncompromisingly worded constitutional rights of the US, but we're also far less likely to suffer erosion or elimination of those rights in practice that we see in the US. E.g. If the UK government wanted to have National Security Letters they'd just pass a law allowing them to do so. But there's no way the judiciary would allow them to create and apply such letters otherwise, the way it happened in the US. So yes the security state here does go too far IMHO but it's much more explicit and open to public debate and challenge.
Even if the UK leaves the EU, it's not unlikely you'll maintain a relationship to some of that. Depending on how hard/soft brexit turns out to be.
Council of Europe members. Russia is a Council of Europe member, so the UK isn't leaving that. On the other hand, it also isn't as effective as you might think.
But I for one don't believe there is any serious efforts to limit freedom of speech in America, we're still far from that point :)
> as the document reveals this [IS NOT] the first time freedom of speech is debated.. and won't be the last either.
I presume that's what you intended to write?
I hope you realize this is the type of speech we should expect from a totalitarian regime.
Who determines whether something is destructive to society? Always and everywhere should be the time and place to analyse any ideas regardless of whether anyone thinks they're destructive or not.
This is a key question people want to avoid
Every group has their own idea as to what is destructive to society, Ask Anti-fa they will tell it is the White Supremacists, Ask the White Supremacists and they will tell you it is Anti-fa
Ask me and I will tell you it is both...
Ask Christians and they will give you a whole list of speech that is destructive,
Ask Atheists and they will give you a whole list of speech that is destructive,
Ask <insert group>, and they will give you a whole list of speech that is destructive,
So who is right? None of them.... not even me.
What is actually destructive to society is Censorship... Both by government and by society at large
Just like there's a time and place to question the war effort, right? Besides, some people want closed borders, not an open society - why should only ideas that favour openness be allowed?
Can you prevent violence by preventing speech? Yes, for sure, but where do you draw the line?
If nothing else, I hope trump's presidency teaches us all that the government should not be the one to decide what's ok to say.
those who willingly give up freedom for safety will end up with neither.
what was not communicated is that only these "alt-right" groups had permission to march and demonstrate and the police were told to not intervene when counter groups who assembled in similar manner without permission were allowed free reign to incite the issue.
I am all for letting these "alt-right/left" groups march to their hearts content provided their faces are visible. it gives them an outlet and lets the rest of us know who they are. so while their message may be repugnant they have the right to march.
the ACLU recent preening/posturing/etc is shameful compared to their past actions. far too many groups are piling on declaring how they are against violence which is non declaration. Of course violence cannot be supported.
the real danger is if we force these groups underground that some of their members may act out with much more terrible violence.
You do know what happens once neo-Nazis get photos of your face? People are getting harrassed online, then offline, rounded up, beaten and occasionally murdered. Masking is self-protection.
And yes there IS a difference between lefties and Nazis masking up: Lefties, generally, don't kill. Worst you get as a Nazi is a beating. Nazis do kill (50 or 68 alone due to terrorist attacks since 9/11, per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-wing_terrorism#cite_ref-...).
Source: know a couple "outed" activists, got my face distributed by a local Nazi party leader on Youtube.
Source?
Neo-Nazis rounding up and beating Americans is such an outrageous story that, if it were true, every media outlet in America would be reporting it.
LOL as if the mainstream press would care about right-wing violence. As long as it can be swept under the rug or it's only minorities who suffer, they don't care - simply because the majority of customers are white men, and they are not interested if PoC or minorities get hit. Charlottesville only got attention because the terror victim was white, what happened the day before at night or with the PoC nearly beaten to death in a garage was shadowed by the murder.
There are many sources proving my point, when it comes to the facts. For example:
- The number of violent attacks on U.S. soil inspired by far-right ideology has spiked since the beginning of this century, rising from a yearly avarage of 70 attacks in the 1990s to a yearly avarage of more than 300 since 2001. These incidents have grown even more common since President Donald Trump’s election. (per http://www.newsweek.com/2016/02/12/right-wing-extremists-mil...)
- They and untold thousands like them are the extremists who hide among us, the right-wing militants who, since 2002, have killed more people in the United States than jihadis have. In that time, according to New America, a Washington think tank, Islamists launched nine attacks that murdered 45, while the right-wing extremists struck 18 times, leaving 48 dead. (per http://www.newsweek.com/2016/02/12/right-wing-extremists-mil...)
That photo shows a mob of white supremacists with sticks, beating a black man who is on the ground.
Are you seriously parroting Donald Trump right now? The lefties at Charlottesville were peaceful (and in those cases where it did turn violent, the Nazis began with assaulting). Most weren't even Antifa, they were ordinary Charlottesville citizens protesting against Nazis from all over the USA taking their city over!
Some of them came armed with pepper spray, urine bombs, baseball bats, shields, helmets, etc.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2017/08/12/pr...
Some of them attacked reporters.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jufZItpL3o0
A NY Times reporter said:
> The hard left seemed as hate-filled as alt-right. I saw club-wielding "antifa" beating white nationalists being led out of the park
https://twitter.com/SherylNYT/status/896575560650035200
It's deeply unfortunate that peaceful people were caught in the middle of that, but both sides share responsibility for the violence.
> Rethinking this. Should have said violent, not hate-filled. They were standing up to hate.
They are not the same. First off: disclaimer: I'm not condoning any violence, but this is a fact:
There would be no antifa without far right extremists. There would be far right extremists regardless.
One is an admittedly on occasion violent antibody, but an antibody to a disease nonetheless. They might share blame, but extremely far from parity.
They weren't fighting "far right extremists" at the G20 summit.
Antifa is violent. Full stop. That's independent of the equally bad people who are sometimes on the other side.
Source: Witnessed everything from a bridge above the watercannons.
Honestly I find such an order repugnant. Anonymity is crucial to free speech, especially when protesting a group as powerful as G20. I'm sure no-one thinks they should be forced to report their political activity to their employer (at least judging from the outcry when the Trump administration requested all those IP addresses), but such an order is effectively exactly that.
This doesn't negate anything I said.
> Antifa is violent. Full stop.
On occasion, their ideals aren't.
> That's independent of the equally bad people who are sometimes on the other side.
Again, not equal, and again, wouldn't exist without Nazis.
Antifa is also "anticapitalist".
https://twitter.com/NYCAntifa/status/882475842802262016
They would exist without Nazis. In fact, Charlottesville may be the first time they've actually fought Nazis.
> The first German movement to call itself Antifaschistische Aktion was proclaimed by the German Communist Party (KPD) in their newspaper Rote Fahne in 1932 and held its first rally in Berlin on 10 July 1932, then capital of the Weimar Republic. During the early 1930s amidst rising tensions between Nazis and the communists, Berlin in particular has been the site of regular and often very violent clashes between the two groups.
There's no direct connection between those people in 1932 and these people in 2017, except using the same name.
> There's no direct connection between those people in 1932 and these people in 2017, except using the same name.
And you're basing this on what?
Also, read this post by Daniel Sieradsky. It perfectly sums up why ANY comparison between Nazis and Antifa is totally invalid: https://twitter.com/NYCAntifa/status/898528286325723136
A quick look at the Global Terrorism Database for 2016 (the most recent year available) calls that into question:
https://www.start.umd.edu/gtd/search/Results.aspx?page=1&cas...
According to that, either Muslim or left-wing (anti-white or anti-police) extremists were responsible for all the fatalities in 2016, save one attack for which the motive is unknown.
First off, you're taking liberties in assigning those to left-wing extremism without a basis.
Here's some more data, over a longer period:
Quoting ADL's Murder and Extremism in the United States in 2016 report [1] (focus on domestic terrorism):
Killings between 2001-2010 by:
Left-Wing Extremists | Right-Wing Extremists | Domestic Islamic Extremists
2 | 24 | 0
Between 2011-2016:
8 | 10 | 1
[1] https://www.adl.org/sites/default/files/documents/MurderAndE...
That's assuming the ADL's numbers are right and none of the other people the GTD called "anti-police extremists" were left-wing, which appears to be incorrect. [1]
The "rise of the violent left", as The Atlantic called it, is a depressing trend.
Anyway, I have to go and won't be able to respond until tomorrow. Have a great day.
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_killings_of_NYPD_officers
8 police officers shot by radical BLM activists. I don't like that kind of action either, but given that PoC are routine walking target circles for police, I certainly get how the two activists were motivated - and there is a difference between taking revenge on murderers versus murdering people just because they're black/jewish/...
And: according to ADL (https://www.adl.org/education/resources/reports/murder-and-e...), however, Nazis did commit two triple-murders (bringing their tally for 2016 to 6), and it's the first year that Nazis were not the absolute dominator on the murder statistics since over 30 years (9/11 was not domestic terrorism). This one year is nothing to prove a trend turn.
> Anti-government extremists and white supremacists were responsible for only a minority of extremist related deaths in 2016, though they did commit two triple homicides.
Unfortunately they don't identify those incidents. The GTD doesn't list any triple homicides by the right. Let me know if you can find out what they're talking about here.
I'm sorry, you're saying that you're ok with beatings and violence as long as nobody dies?
These nazis/white supremacists/etc glorify the holocaust, meaning they want to, once again, kill all those they consider inferior: jews/blacks/muslims.
Those protesting against them are the people that think it's not a great idea to kill all the jews/blacks/muslims. Because being anti-Nazi doesn't make you a communist terrorist or whatever.
That really shouldn't be so hard to understand, considering the US once fought a war against those people whose flag is now making a comeback. And I really didn't get the feeling that all those GIs were anarchists and communists.
However, even flying f..ing Nazi swastika flags and thereby create a sphere of threat for minorities (because, what else than "I will kill you when you come here" does a Swastika flag say to a Jew?!) is legal in the US - so in order to create a safe space for minorities of all kinds, Nazis must be driven away. And yes, this includes violence in some occasions (e.g. at Charlottesville, where a gang of white supremacists nearly beat a PoC to death).
If anyone is not fine with Antifa protecting minorities, then by all means lobby your politicians that Nazi symbolism, hate speech and other ways of threatening minorities gets banned. Until this happens, either stand in yourself when you see minorities threatened or at least don't stand in the way of those willing to protect minorities when no one else wants to!
They were violent at the presidential inauguration, the G20 summit, and in attempts to prevent countless people from speaking at colleges. Please don't try to pretend they only fight Nazis.
It could be because both of those statements are lies. You might need to rethink which outlet you go to for news.
Although one of those outlets happens to be the POTUS, which is unfortunate.
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2017/aug/...
http://www.snopes.com/were-police-told-stand-down-charlottes...
>People protesting against Nazis aren't... >That means...
You theorise a lot about the opposing side on this one occasion, that is contrary to what we've seen for a year from american political clashes.
>But anyway... The definition of terrorism is politically motivated violence. Not calling this terrorism, when it's using literally the same method as ISIS has been using in the last years, is starting to make it really hard to believe that all these free speech advocates aren't just trying to hide their sympathies for the skinheads they're defending.
Drunk drivers "use the same method" to kill people. What's really depressing is the fact that lights a bulb in people's head that says terrorism. It means they don't have actual definitions of words in their heads. I'm not a nazi sympathiser at all, thank you. And believe any of those at Charlottesville truly concerned with white heritage and statues failed themselves by association (nevermind carrying torches..).
You saw this particularly during the 90s, when people were radicalized to attack and kill abortion doctors. It was rarely called terrorism, but the tactics were the same.
The folks who sent hoax anthrax packages to Planned Parenthood offices where mostly lone actors, picking up on their group's radicalizing messages.
One could also say Eric Rudolph and Timothy McVeigh were "lone wolves" in that they believed the radicalizing talk, but acted essentially alone.