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Comment by corobo | Hacker News Reader

While I definitely don't support the people they're booting off I do have to agree with the EFF here.

For example, "And music streaming services offered by Google, Deezer and Spotify have said they would remove music that incites violence, hatred or racism."

Now these services have put it out there as policy someone has to define what's violent, hateful or racist in music. Racism? Ok nobody's really going to bat an eye at that disappearing.

Violence and hatred though? As an off again on again heavy metal listener.. almost literally every track could be described as violent or hateful. That's the genre. The same could be said for other genres and their sub-genres. Rap comes to mind. Is Eminem next on the chopping board?

Music was the easy example, there's other examples available for the other services (registrar, DNS, hosting, CDN) as to why making this policy is a bad idea. Now anyone needs to do is convince someone at the corresponding target that a site is similar enough that it should be taken down.

South Park had a two-parter that addressed this exact problem [1][2]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartoon_Wars_Part_I [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartoon_Wars_Part_II

View on HN

> While I definitely don't support the people they're booting off...

A bit off topic but how many bytes are spent on prefaces like this on responses to this topic?

I assume that the vast majority of people on the planet don't support Nazis or anything related. I find it interesting that any discussion of them has to include that line lest the speaker/writer be labeled as one (which happens quite a bit anyway but that's a different topic).

Reminds me of RIGB (Silicon Valley)

Yup, I expected more of a backlash and I'm not good with words under mob pressure. I prefaced it to avoid the "oh so YOU'RE a racist too huh??" potential retort.

Well, when we're at a place where asking where someone is from is considered an example of white supremacy, then it seems we need to couch everything we say with strained deference to social justice. Those are the times we're in, and I blame the left for its obsessive dismantling of our language.

See here's a great example of why I prefaced my message. Sorry but I'm lacking in either English language skills or politics but I haven't got a clue what you're saying. I'm ill-equipped to respond to this sort of reply. I'm not even sure what side of the fence you're debating for here.

Now imagine if it was filled with accusations of being a racist, I'd probably just be curled up in a ball under my desk waiting for the fallout to end.

I think you may just need to read more carefully. It's abundantly clear what he's saying, and "what side of the fence" he's on.

No, it's not. Leave the OP alone, why on earth are people shaming them for needlessly clarifying they don't support white supremacy?

I couldn't even imagine how stressful it must be to enter into this kind of conversation when English isn't your first language. I feel for you.

What I meant was that the meaning of terms like "white supremacist" and "racist" has changed dramatically in recent years. To the point where it's very difficult to speak clearly about these types of things.

I realized that even here I wasn't very clear. What I was saying was that you shouldn't have to say that you don't support racists before every single statement. But because of how our language has shifted, you now have to, and it's unfortunate.

I don't think this is a language problem at all. It's because of a stupid binary us vs them mindset. Any time you offer a criticism, it's automatically perceived as support of the other tribe. Any admission that your own tribe might not be as pure as the new-fallen snow, or that the other tribe isn't always completely evil, is enough to brand someone as a pariah.

As long as we keep up this attitude, we're going to continue - and deepen our political divides.

Try having a conversation about civil war history. You reference any historical information that makes views on the war less cut and dry, you'll gain the label immediately.

I'm from South Carolina and after seeing all of the conflicting historical information on the internet since the Dylan Roof shooting, I decided to pick up a bunch of books on the subject from both sides. My main driving force was a strong belief that people are inherently good and I had a really hard time believing that all of my ancestors were the evil scum of the earth portrayed in assorted narratives.

As it turns out, there's some critical details left out and now that I understand the build up to the war better I can at least rest easier. It's virtually impossible to have a conversation about though.

What you mind to point to some more... controversial literature? Or some handbook you found rather objective on the matter?

Ehh...it's not so much controversial as it is just details that are normally left out. Once you're aware of them and take the time to verify the citations you immediately notice when other people leave them out.

Sure there were economic factors at play and those are interesting in their own right, but in the south the biggest thing that people fail to understand is the element of fear. I don't want to do a historic nose dive, but the 3 things you can read about to understand that better are The Haitian Massacre of 1804, John Brown, and The Cherokee Declaration of Causes.

Of those three, only John Brown is mentioned on the Wikipedia timeline. The other two provide context.

Thank you. Gotta add these to my to-read list!

You're welcome. The most important thing to remember is that this was a huge conflict with over 100 years of build up. There's a lot of complicated history that makes things ugly all around.

It's fascinating to read about though.

What I've found is the easiest way to find where there are holes that need to be explored is just by asking "Why?" anytime you hear of an event. If you're given history and just told, "this happened, then this happened..." the quickest way to get an answer to something is to simply ask "Why did they do that?"

That simple question will point you in the right direction more often than not. When you start answering enough of those questions, everything that happened makes a lot more sense.

Totally agree on that. This is how I approach my country's and surrounding region history.

Although it's popular to bash "there's no single truth" people, the more and more I look into history, the more I think that's true. Everyone has a very complicated history which is a product of what did or even didn't happen. Which results in totally different point of views and everybody see truth differently. It's truly fascinating to see how different timelines merge and separate and the today's politics and policies they cause.

For a long time, it seemed it was only Tumblr types who were calling everyone nazi. Recently, even people I've known for 20 years, who I thought were normal, have been posting/tweeting to the effect of either you're loudly proclaiming your opposition to nazism, or you're on their side.

I saw a thread where trolls were rejoicing, saying: they kept calling everybody a Nazi so some of us actually became Nazis.

While well some people might put disclaimers on everything others are simply giving up. This started during the Trump campaign where everybody was called racist. The same with anti-semitism, especially against the current president who has a Jewish daughter. When people sling these around just as general insults and as a way to say you're wrong, then they lose their power.

That's an interesting paradox: I'd argue that anyone who became a Nazi because someone mistakenly called them a Nazi, wasn't mistakenly called a Nazi.

It works like that for a lot of people called "Nerd" as children.

The phenomenon is called a self fulfilling prophecy.

It is has support in psychology.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/intense-emotions-and-st...

It is why I've argued that the current toxic atmosphere is adding to the problem.

Interesting, I recently saw a quote from a prison psychologist that suggested the root cause of most violence was shame.

I thought that was profound, but I struggle to fit overuse of the word Nazi online into the same framework, indeed I find it much easier to fit the kind of opinions and behavior that people might refer to as 'Nazi'-like into this framework:

https://lakesideconnect.com/anger-and-violence/the-link-betw...

"Gilligan notes literally dozens of synonyms for shame: feelings of being slighted, insulted, disrespected, dishonored, disgraced, disdained, slandered, treated with contempt, ridiculed, teased, taunted, mocked, rejected, defeated, subjected to indignity; or, experiencing feelings of being weak, ugly, inadequate, incompetent, a failure, losing face; and being treated as if one were insignificant or worthless.

Based on his research and other expert opinions, Gilligan concludes that “the most potent stimulus of aggression and violence, and the one that is most reliable in eliciting this response is not the frustration per se, but rather, insult and humiliation (page 32).” In other words, the most effective, and often the only way, to provoke someone to become violent is to insult them."

Thanks for the link. I agree about the online use in most cases, unless the label sticks and people begin to believe it.

It's a very convenient (but extreme) strawman.

It's insane. I had posted some very interesting articles that I thought were very insightful as to examples in regards to deescalation of violence and possible non-violent means to resolve some of these issues.

That got me accused of being a sympathizer.

Yes, it's stupid. But that's the place we're at in the culture war. Pres. Trump is being crucified right now precisely for failing to provide such a statement.

We all have to be careful to pay our tributes, or we'll be ostracized. Can you think of any other reason for such widespread repetition of these useless words?

(And of course I must, too. I'm speaking here from a completely abstract standpoint which shouldn't be construed as support for neo-nazis or anything vaguely like them.)

Pres. Trump is being crucified right now precisely for failing to provide such a statement.

It's a bit more than that. Trump has had no problem condemning Antifa thugs and violent radical Islamists, so it is noteworthy when he equivocates on violent white supremacists, especially when some of them are claiming that he supports them.

He has multiple times condemned the kkk and neo nazi's as well as the groups you mentioned. What I don't understand from media coverage is why is what he said not treated like condemnation for those groups or that his words weren't strong enough or that it needs to be repeated at every news conference.

Part of the issue is people are used to simpler statements. One enemy at a time. One condemnation at a time.

Also they are used to how politicians typically do whatever necessary to appease their constituents till the horse is dead. Not saying this is bad, but that's the expectation and one he doesn't follow.

I also think he's not attuned to people's sensitivity toward race.

I said no new taxes. No new taxes. No taxes. I won't raise taxes. Taxes will not be raised. Over and over and over and over.

Not being a pol hurts him here in that he does not get that aspect of governing.

You don't just do what you think is right, you have to continuously signal your intention, otherwise your intention is suspect.

Congratulations, you're not paying any attention. He notably refused to condemn them initially, then released a textual statement condemning them days later in response to criticism, immediately walked back his condemnation in a press conference, before condemning them again. If you read that as "He condemned them! Twice!", I don't know what to tell you.

He condemned them by name, but it took 48 hours to do so.

And he then pretty much rolled back 24 hours later by suggesting some kind of equivalence between the white supremcists and those who opposed them.

He could have been more eloquent, but the poison that kills me a little more slowly than the other poison is still poison.

And then went right back to false equivalence and whataboutism less than 24 hours later. The third statement reinforced the insincerity of the second.

On Mass Hysteria Bubbles http://blog.dilbert.com/post/164297628606/how-to-know-youre-...

Not only that, he then went on to complain[1] about the removal of "beautiful" Confederate statues, effectively siding with the Neo-Nazis, who were in Charlottesville specifically to protest the removal of a Confederade statue.

This is par for the course for Trump, who (only when under extreme political pressure from his own party) will belatedly condemn right-wing extremists with one corner of his mouth, but give them a verbal wink with the other.

[1] - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-40965029

Ah, yes, complaining about the removal of statues is siding with neo-nazis now.

Arguing against removal of Confederate statues is not siding with neo-nazis.

(Corollary: arguing for the removal doesn't make you a violent Antifa Communist.)

Condoleeza Rice, an African American woman with political clout and experience, has argued we should keep the statues. Others have made a strong case for removing statues of people who committed treason.

But whatever your view, this should be done legally and peacefully. No mobs tearing down statues, no pitchfork-wielding defense of statues. We live in a democracy. Exercise it.

Nit: it does quite literally mean you are on the same side as the neo-nazis, at least in that case.

False equivalence was bad, yes. Such is politics.

President Trump equates the alt-right racists and the Antifa violent Communists for political purposes. President Obama equated Israelis and Palestinian terrorists for political purposes[0].

People find it hard to condemn violence when their side is doing it; they point out wrongs in the other side to soften or excuse their side's violence.

[0]: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/227669/re-cairo-speech...

While reading a TelePrompter, some people in his administration got him to stay on the script, but when he went off the script in the next press conference it got even uglier.

We're in the midst of a political witch hunt. I saw a sticker on a stop sign in Seattle that had a nazi symbol in the "O" of "GOP".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKvsLLfRpLs

It seems to come especially from (apart from actual supporters, obvs) people who think that neonazis are interested in the same sharing of information and arguments in good faith that the majority are. That hasn't ever been so.

So while the "freedom to speak, whatever" side has a point, they're also being naive.

So we become like them to stop them?

We must destroy the village to save it.

Yes. The chance you has to deal with this has longt since past.

Besides - You think the other side is having a conversation in the first place?

No they are not. They're busy making in roads and winning audiences.

People thinking this is a discussion are under a mistaken impression.

It's a popularity contest. Has been for decades.

You are the other side.

And I have tried- a lot.

It's over.

You can't win a propaganda and disinformation war with polite conversation.

So true. I had to create a separate Reddit account to have these discussions about internet freedom and refusing service because people assume I'm a white supremacist / Nazi.

I'm not, I just think it opens up some interesting discussion as to what we can or can't discriminate against.

Reddit is particularly bad.

I'm glad there's a place like Hacker News where people who disagree can still speak to one another civilly.

On occasion I have the impression that all my recent comments have been downvoted by 1 in a short span of time.

Not that HN karma matters, but it's very well possible that that is already going on.

Yep. There are a lot of HNers who abuse the voting system and leave no traces (no arguments, no reasons). It's quite a childish behavior.

The only civic discussion forum I know of is the extropy chat email list.

For the topics it covers, the discussion at SlateStarCodex.com and its matching reddit are of extremely high quality, both in terms of the thought that goes into comments, as well as the civility of participants.

HN users have to accrue a certain amount of karma and age before they can downvote comments. Thankfully.

Here's my comment from the Cloudflare thread, sitting at -4.

> But what's the end game? Do service providers have to morally support those who they provide service to? Because that's how things are looking.

And what do you know. That's exactly what's happening.

I don’t think that service providers have to suppport them. Just not find them morally entirely repugnant. There's quite a lot of ground between those two points.

Someone in that thread, unironically, said that Google etc. had to allow Nazi's to use their services. And then immediately said "Whatever happened to "Don't be evil"?".

Apparently the concept that providing your services to Nazi's could be thought of as evil totally escaped their thoughts.

It seems like quite a lot of people have deeply internalized the opinion that "Free Speech" is an unalloyed good, and are confused by anyone who sees this as a matter of shades of gray.

I'd argue, the people looking at things in black and white are the ones' being ridiculous here. Is child porn free speech? Is a direct threat free speech? Is copyright infringment? etc. No matter how hardcore a free speech advocate you find, there's going to be a line for them. But apparently anyone who draws their line one step to the side of that is evil and/or stupid because that is the point where the slippery slope starts, conveniently just to the side of their own line, which is on firm and solid ground.

Not necessarily evil, but attempting to abridge their rights.

And would you draw that line so far toward censorship that you would ban a platform merely for not practicing censorship? (Gab)

Unless the platform that hosts it, has made the same uncompromising decision, then of course. It would be like hosting an app that freely declares it will host viruses on your platform that scans for viruses. They're telling you upfront that they have no intention of following your platform rules.

Not accidentally letting a few slip through, not being overwhelmed by scale and doing a crappy job, but as a point of principle not following the rules you are trying to enforce.

What about links to archive.org? Surely they're not an extremist organization.

the difficulty with shades of gray wrt to free speech is that what is intolerable is a matter of opinion and I don't trust ANYONE to make that decision for me.

free speech must be absolute, so yes, in this case it is black and white, sorry you don't see it that way.

um, why is this being downvoted? does anyone seriously want to live in a censored world? seriously? man, we're more doomed than I thought :(

Certainly, a lot of people want to live in a censored world, as long as they agree with the censors.

because... they can't handle being offended? are people really that delicate?

Hacker News is no better than Reddit, it's just less noticeable because there's less transparency here.

Edit: Can't even post now. Saying this place is "no better than Reddit" may actually be a little insulting to Reddit.

> "I'm not, I just..."

There it is again. Wow, this is a really interesting social phenomenon we're seeing.

It’s not really that interesting, it’s a normal human conversational technique.

one man's "normal human conversational technique" is another man's "interesting social phenomenon".

You would have more enjoyment and learn more from talking to the wall than participating on any realistic reddit discussion.

>I assume that the vast majority of people on the planet don't support Nazis or anything related.

Apparently the vast majority of people on the planet aren't enough to stop fascists from threatening, beating, and murdering people.

The vast majority of people on the planet aren't enough to stop a person (regardless of their ideological beliefs) from threatening, beating, and murdering people in a free society.

In order to actually stop people from doing those things, society would have to give up a lot of freedom to prevention through force ("stopping"). In a free society, the focus is usually on prevention through dissuasion (influence) or through reactive means (punishment, rehabilitation).

What are your thoughts on how society could physically prevent these actions while maintaining freedom for all its citizens ?

Does the music in the song directly threaten to beat and murder people?

If not, I believe taking it down would do more harm than good.

Apparently the post that identified some of the bands is here: https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2017/08/14/white-supremacis... Googling a few, they do seem to be strictly "national socialist" / white nationalism oriented bands.

The trouble is, this easily can lead to a very slippery slope on one hand, and charges of "double standards" on the other.

There is a lot of music that directly depicts violence (hip hop and metal in particular are loaded with violent imagery). In most cases, the people making it are not directly involved in said violence. Sometimes, the violent imagery is actually there for anti-violent reasons, even.

That being said, there is also some music is made by people with actual criminal histories and/or nasty opinions. This includes well known figures in genres such as black metal (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varg_Vikernes) and hip-hop (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobby_Shmurda). Even on simple "racism", you'd definitely be excluding certain music from a well known country musician (the infamous, IMHO mostly cringe-worthy, "underground" albums from David Allan Coe.)

The few bits of music I've heard that trade heavily in white nationalism is very poor quality -- which of course seems quite the likely outcome to me. Such music is atypically metal or punk, genres which are considerably influenced by the blues. Most of the best musicians keep an open mind to all sounds; rock and roll (which historically was a fusion of "hillbilly music" and R&B) doubly so.

So I think removing these obscure white nationalist bands does more harm and good. Such makes them "more underground" and probably more appealing to those "rebelling" for whatever reason. In contrast, keeping the music around lets most people see just how awful and cringe-worthy these type of bands typically are.

> I assume that the vast majority of people on the planet don't support Nazis or anything related.

Sadly that is a bold assumption that the facts do not necessarily support.

Exactly, so do we expect that Google / Spotify will remove Chief Keef's "Bang Bang"? Lyrics for example: https://genius.com/Chief-keef-bang-bang-lyrics -- If we don't remove that for "music that incites violence" then its a scary double standard we are building and we are now at the whim of the "PC Thought Police" I couldn't agree with you more about the Cartoon Wars episode; either it is all fair game or none of it is. I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.

I was pretty embarrassed by it all to be honest. Nothing makes me cringe more than everyone responding ultra PC. It is bad enough with the commoners, but it is a disgrace when companies get involved with PC statements for no other real reason than to favor the brand.

I may be the same as you only I was a 90s rap kid, the entire directory of music I have collected since the 00s could be considered violent and hateful.

Google and other companies have long been removing content from, for example, Islamic terrorists. Why is it only a problem now when they are removing content from white people?

It isn't alright under any circumstance. Given that my music is 99% black artists and I am white, the race card is ill placed here. I firmly believe that all adults should make their own choices. It is bad enough with government telling you what you can and cannot do, without self proclaimed goody two shoe companies declaring a PC line and imposing additional limits.

It's quite simple. Eminem is white and male, that means he's a hateful misogynist and homophobe. Azealia Banks is black and female, that means she's empowered by rapping about cunts, bitches and catching a nigga's warm goo in your do-rag.

Thanks to progressivism we can finally judge people by the content of their character.

(/s, Let's face it, everyone can see this is politically motivated and the demand for empathy and charity only ever goes one way. Apparently it's ok to set cars on fire and smash people's heads in for political reasons, just as long as you loudly explain that you're _against_ fascism and nazis while doing so.)

I think it's safe to say everyone knows Azealia Banks is a tool.

>Racism? Ok nobody's really going to bat an eye at that disappearing. Violence and hatred though?

You've got this all backwards. We should be most concerned about censorship of political beliefs, however wrongheaded they are.

How can you call racism a political belief?

Sometimes it seems as if there are as many definitions of 'racism' as there are people discussing it.

'Race nationalism' is certainly political. I suspect most people would associate that with 'racism' in at least some way.

How many tiki-torch demonstrations is worth one Auschwitz, in terms of events actually happening? You know, let's just put things in QALYs or utils or something and use good old-fashioned consequentialism.

Wow, I almost missed that part of the article. There's so much music that could fall under that rule...

Music is up to interpretation. One of my favorite songs is Sublime's April 29th, 1992. You could easily say it incites violence, glorifies looting and rioting, and should be removed. But my interpretation of the song makes me think it's more about understanding the mindset of the people who were looting and rioting, and not condoning the violence.

How could anyone impartially decide what should and shouldn't be published?

I'm not sure this kind of policy even has whatever the intended effect is, seems how it appears to be a reaction to Charlottesville events.

Take "music that incites racism" (what do you put into Pandora to get that genre?) for example. If you have users listening to it (because before Charlottesville you thought it was okay!) and you remove it telling them their music is basically banned aren't those users just going to listen to it someplace else and feel more empowered by its message?

The more persecuted these groups feel online, the more justified they will feel in their real-world actions.

Absolutely. Neo Nazis have been a fringe group for decades and never caused much trouble. Now I actually feel some affinity to them because I see them as an underdog being beaten down. That's how you get supporters - get oppressed. In fact that's how the original Nazi movement started in the first place - a vent to Germans' frustrations at being oppressed by the winners of WWI.

What’s also interesting is the media’s concerns with “how could these group of white males form these groups, what would motivate them to do it?” Totally miss the point that the same social-economic stressors and cultural resentment are what lead to the growth of gangs And radicalism terrorist groups.

I would love to see everyone stand up and deplore gang violence with the same aggressiveness considering people are dying in cities daily.

I believe "music that incites violence, hatred or racism." Is defined as: any music that makes a lot of people upset on any given day, esp. when it is trending on Facebook or Twitter.

I can't wait 'till other entities hold this incident over said companies' heads when trying to black hole whatever random content that some group, nation, or entity doesn't like (cough cough China).

If music streaming services should not be free to police their content, what about text hosting services (i.e. forums)? What about record labels, should they be forced to sign acts they find offensive (protected classes aside)?

Not arguing one way or the other but "music streaming services" is not too different from many other services which people expect to police content.

Perhaps considering whether the company holds a monopoly or near-monopoly on that media gateway is relevant.

They absolutely should be free to police their content. They should be free to police the content, not external pressure.

Bear too in mind they are removing content. Before this blew up in the media, did they have a problem hosting the stuff they're now removing?

The external pressure comes from public outcry. Fewer people paid attention to neo-Nazis a week ago, hence fewer questions about the stuff they hosted.

I'm not convinced there's an argument that the right of a political cause to have its music distributed by a particular company trumps the right of a company not to distribute it or the right of the public to pressure the company into not distributing it.

If one is to impose upon on the freedom of actions of media distributors or the potentially-boycotting public (I'm not sure the latter is even possible), there had better be something pretty amazingly special about the cause that means their right to be heard trumps others' rights not to be the amplifier. I'm not sure any remotely compelling argument exists for neo-Naziism being a cause deserving of such special privileges or music distribution services being the sort of thing one should have an inalienable right to.

I'd say that streaming services should be legally free to police their content, but that they shouldn't police their content.

Just as I think that songs should be legally free to espouse racism, but that they shouldn't espouse racism.

It's not just hatred that we have to worry about. It's any view that's considered abhorrent today.

Not so long ago, less than 50 years ago, there was little to no distinction between LGBTQ people and paedophiles. They were one and the same (look up the term nonce, British slang used against both LGBTQ people and sex offenders for one example, or the case of Alan Turing for another).

Some very brave people fought against the perceived wisdom of the majority, even when through association alone they would be considered to be paedophile supporters themselves. These rights for LGBTQ people are still being fought around the world today. People died over this fight. People are still dying over this fight.

I understand the desire to limit hurtful speech, but in doing so we hand over the power to set limits to an arbiter. An arbiter who may feel that today's moral majority view outweighs that of others.

What you feel today about people of colour, about LGBTQ people, others may feel about animal rights, human genetic engineering and AI rights in the future amongst others. If you limit the boundaries of free expression it is no longer free. You are taking those rights away from those seeking to fight injustice in the future.

It's not hard to hate Nazis. It's harder to see the consequences of our actions through the red mist. The British Government has the official position that censoring the Internet is something that must be done. Even the EU is starting to think this could be a good thing. If you think this stops with Naziism, then you're wrong. If you think this won't come to America, you're wrong.

I agree with that.

By the same token they would need to remove all the content that promotes communism in multiple countries.

In my country it's illegal as is the case with nazism.

I don't hold much hope Google, Spotify etc. would actually walk that road.

In what country is communism illegal?

Most of Eastern Europe. Suffering under totalitarian regimes tends to do that.

Baltic states, for example. Maybe Ukraine now as well.

It is apparently most illegal in Indonesia, where there are strongly-enforced laws.

In the United States, it seems the Communist Party might be technically banned (although it exists): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_Control_Act_of_1954

Poland seems to ban "promotion of .. communist .. ideology", and Romania seems to ban "totalitarian .. actions of a communist .. nature". Countries that seem to ban communist symbols include Ukraine, Lithuania, and Latvia. Countries that previously passed similar laws include Moldova, Czechoslovakia (1991), Poland, and Hungary.

Apparently, some countries like Albania, Czechia, Germany, Italy, and Slovakia ban "totalitarian ideology".

There are probably more bans worldwide.

Poland, I'd guess most other Warsaw-pact countries as well.

Cool, so they have a neo-nazi stance. This is the anti extreme-right stance. Will we see stance anti extreme-left as well? Antifa etc?

We need a real balance, otherwise, we are pushing the world towards the war.

The French anthem would be removed with those rules.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Marseillaise#Lyrics

Wow. That production story would be the best Shouth Park plot ever. It's complete, with even nobody caring about the censorship and talking about how they criticize Family Guy.

All these things remind me the old days when the Soviet government had a list of "not recommended" music bands. E.g. Black Sabbath - violence, religious obscurantism; Kiss - neofascism, punk, violence; Scorpions - violence, etc. Here is a full list translated to English http://i.imgur.com/Aj9wYpN.gif

I'd hate to live in a world where Pink Floyd's "In The Flesh" wasn't allowed on Google Play Music.

RIP Tyler the Creator :(

Facilitating the organisation of neo nazis is likewise dangerous, to the point that people die regularly. That is the other, just as real danger, that you are trading the dangers of censoring eminem with.

There is also the fact that all these companies already have arbitrary censorship in place, so this isn't an argument about the principles: that one is long lost. This is an argument about the existing excemption racism has.

Yeah, I'm sure that if they can't use Spotify, Neo-Nazis will have no place to organize. /s

If some people had their say, Islam would be banned as a whole based on an anti-hatred policy.

It's Tipper Gore vs. Frank Zappa all over again.

It's the 1970's all over again...

https://www.aclu.org/other/aclu-history-taking-stand-free-sp...

We seem to keep forgetting what "Freedom of Speech" means.

[Update: Added Chomsky quote]

"If we don't believe in free expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all." - Noam Chomsky

But that was the state stopping Nazis from marching, this is a private company refusing to do business with someone. Free speech is a right guaranteed by the state, so you won't go to prison for stating your beliefs. But no one should be obliged to help you air those beliefs against their will.

I think the article sums up the problem quite well:

"Because internet intermediaries, especially those with few competitors, control so much online speech, the consequences of their decisions have far-reaching impacts on speech around the world."

Can I refused to make a wedding cake for a gay marriage? You can always go somewhere else.

Can we please stop comparing treatment of gays and treatment of nazi's like they're some kind of equivalent? Gay people from most accounts were born that way, and just want to remain being alive and gay. Nazi's should be given no safe harbor, as they want to opress and/or kill gay people along with everyone else who don't want nazi's to have power.

"If we don't believe in free expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all."

- Noam Chomsky

I do not believe in free expression to promote/commit violence.

I don't think you understand 'freedom of speech', when you start saying 'I believe in freedom of speech for only X kind of speech, because the other kind abhorrent'.

I didn't say anything about freedom of speech.

I do not believe nazi's or any other group have any right to promote hate and violence against others.

> I didn't say anything about freedom of speech.

> right to promote

You just did. Promotion is speech.

I am sorry you think the ability to promote hate is something worth defending.

Choice vs born-with-it isn't a valid reason. If science discovered a way to change your sexuality, would you be OK discriminating against gays after-all? Religion is also protected and nobody is born with a particular religion. Country of birth is something that people are born with but we heavily discriminate against that - a Syrian can't just get the plane to America and go set up home there. You Americans will almost unanimously agree to stop him for no other reason than an accident of birth.

Nice strawman. We should be able to discriminate against those who seek to discriminate in the ultimate (ie deny nazi's/violent religious extremists/radical communists/etc a platform to promote discrimination/violence).

Did you apply this logic to the bakery who refused to bake the cake for a gay wedding last year?

The issue of freedom of speech when it relates to businesses is a pretty good hypocrisy litmus test. Last year the Left was outraged when a business refused service based on moral grounds, while the Right sided with the business, and we have the opposite in this case.

IANAL - but that's a different deal. You are (afaik) not allowed to discriminate against gender, sexual orientation etc. as a business or private person. Whereas Freedom of speech is just about what the gov' can and can't do to you.

Edit: so it's not quite comparable in this way.

Not really. The Federal Civil Rights Act only prevents discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. Sexual Orientation was never included in the legislation, though some states do have legislation with respect to sexual orientation and political affiliation. California being one of the states which does not allow discrimination on sexual orientation or political affiliation. As detestable as they are one could easily argue that the Neo-Nazis are a political group and should be afforded equal protection.

As a side note, the Bakery case is being looked at by the Supreme Court, in terms of whether or not you can force an artist to make something they don't want to.

> California being one of the states which does not allow discrimination on...political affiliation.

Cite please, I genuinely curious.

Sexual orientation is a protected class. Being a Nazi is not.

This difference isn't hard to understand.

Sexual Orientation, like Political Affiliation, is only protected in certain states. The Federal Anti-Discrimination Law does not protect against discrimination by sexual orientation, you might want to read up before claiming to understand something

Yes. People who defer to the legal definition of protected classes and insist that members of them must be protected and everyone else be damned are the showing clear hypocrisy.

It would be funny if in another 1000 years we'll all agree that the current US popular leftist morals turned out to be the right ones: It's wrong to discriminate against someone because of their race, religion, sex, or sexual preferences (as long as it's one of a few predefined types) but it's right to discriminate against someone because of their political views, alternative sexuality (outside the list of predefined types), ugliness, height, location of birth, or anything else you don't like. These classifications are so arbitrary and transient, why does anyone stand by them so vehemently? When they're old they might become the new racist uncle - hating the wrong people that the next couple of generations decide shouldn't be hated anymore.

> When they're old they might become the new racist uncle

Honestly, that's what's got me concerned. Political mores are changing so fast and so constantly, and people are being so black-and-white about them, that it seems like the only "acceptable" position to some people is getting pretty close to a full-throated condemnation of everything and everyone that happened before they were born.

If it wasn't so easy to fail the purity tests, maybe fewer people would become Nazis (either out of ostracization or to troll purity the testers).

When private companies obtain near-monopoly status, they become a significant danger to the public interest and the government rightly scrutinizes their every move. I still think WalMart should have been compelled to stop altering music CDs in the 90s. And I still think any "too big to fail" company should be broken up under antitrust proceedings.

This wouldn't be a problem without the Citizens United ruling. Corporations should not be considered people, especially when doing so comes to the harm of real people.

So now it becomes a regulatory issues, ie should they be regulated and treated like utilities in that access should be available to all regardless of race, wealth or political persuasion.

From the cover of a Zappa album at the time:

"WARNING/GUARANTEE: This album contains material which a truly free society would neither fear nor suppress. In some socially retarded areas, religious fanatics and ultra-conservative political organizations violate your First Ammendment Rights by attempting to censor rock & roll albums. We feel that this is un-Constitutional and un-American. As an alternative to these government-supported programs (designed to keep you docile and ignorant). Barking Pumpkin is pleased to provide stimulating digital audio entertainment for those of you who have outgrown the ordinary. The language and concepts contained herein are GUARANTEED NOT TO CAUSE ETERNAL TORMENT IN THE PLACE WHERE THE GUY WITH THE HORNS AND POINTED STICK CONDUCTS HIS BUSINESS. This guarantee is as real as the threats of ther video fundamentalists who use attacks on rock music in their attempt to transform America into a nation of check-mailing nincompoops (in the name of Jesus Christ). If there is a hell, its fires wait for them, not us."

It’s ironic how the political tables have turned.

Even 'racist' music can be tricky business. There are lot's of Swedish and Polish metal bands that would call themselves 'nationalist' but have a great 'nazi' following for example.

I enjoy some of these bands and would not want them censored. Just as I would not want Shakespeare plays to be censored either.

Keep downloading your music and your movies. You will never be able to trust your streaming services.

Yes! Richard Wagner was an anti-semite - no argument! He's been described as 'one of the most virulent anti-Semites in modern history as well as being Adolf Hitler’s most revered cultural role-model'. He also happened to be a musical genius. Do we bann performances of the Ring Cycle or Tristan & Isolde?

If I remember correctly in the 90s there was a picket against a performance of Tannhauser in London by artists.

Intent is difficult to judge as well. The lyrics for the Rolling Stones' Brown Sugar are pretty clearly racist (among other things). It's not clear, however, if it's meant to promote racism.

Similar for incenting violence and "Pumped up kicks".

Edit: They could also add misogyny to the list and wipe out large swaths of entire music genres :)

I wonder if they'll ban the Star-Spangled Banner?

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/bs-ed-anthem-letter...

Yes. There are lots of Polish and Swedish Nationalist Socialist bands (aka, Nazi). Fuck them.

> Even 'racist' music can be tricky business

This seems like, basically, all of the rap I grew up listening to in the 90s could be arbitrarily censored here.

"Big dicks in ya mouth is bad for your health" comes to mind, alongside NWA's "Fuck the Police", and even songs by the relatively higher-minded Public Enemy could be construed as racist, or incitations to violence -- if one were predisposed to a puritanical cleansing of our media. More obviously, rap from musicians like Immortal Technique, The Geto Boys, Cypress Hill are just begging to be censored under such criteria.

Of course, this is Google we're talking about, and they control much more than music and videos. It's not a big jump from determining the Wu-Tang Clan to be too controversial to ruminating over whether or not all those casual mentions of the word 'nigger' in Mark Twain's works is appropriate.

Sadly, we appear to be living in interesting times.

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