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Comment by ameister14 | Hacker News Reader

I think we should examine the effectiveness of bans on speech r.e. limitation of the spread of an ideology.

For example, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center (not a group with an incentive to deflate numbers), at its peak the National Alliance had 1,200 members. All together, there are a few thousand active Neo-Nazis in the United States.

In contrast, let's take 2 countries where advocating Nazi ideology is illegal: Austria and Germany.

In Austria, the Freedom Party, founded by a former SS officer, has 50,000 members, 13 seats in the Upper House (similar to the Senate in the US) and 38 seats in the lower house as well as 4 in the European Parliament.

In Germany, the NPD received over 600,000 votes in the most recent election and now has a seat in the European Parliament.

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I don't think comparing the adoption rate of Nazi ideology in nations where it was historically successful to nations where it was historically unsuccessful is appropriate.

A more equivalent comparison is Nazi ideology in Germany/Austria to Klanist ideology in the United States. The list of US politicians with Klan affiliation is long.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ku_Klux_Klan_members_in_United...

None of those people are currently serving in any capacity in Congress and almost all of them are dead. I don't deny that the KKK was big in the US and had political power in 1926.

Also, The Southern Poverty Law Center estimates that there are 190 active KKK groups with between 5,000 and 8,000 Klan members in the U.S. That's a far cry from Austria and Germany.

In addition to this, comparing Austria and Germany, which both are multi-party systems, to a two-party system like the United States is problematic in this context. A significant chunk of the GOP and their voters likely support the same policies that the Freedom Party or the NPD support, but it's much harder to label or quantify that group.

Which is why I used active members and the Southern Poverty Law Center as well as voting numbers.

These numbers aren't comparable. You're equating membership of an actual Nazi group with being a member of a far-right party with historical ties to Nazis. A much more apt comparison to these parties would be to look at members of the GOP who support far-right policies, but that's hard to quantify.

FWIW, I don't have a particularly strong opinion on whether laws banning Nazi speech have a large impact on the number of people supporting that ideology. I don't think they increase the number of Nazis, and it makes sense to keep them around given the historical context of countries like Austria and Germany even if they don't have an impact on that number.

I do think you're quite far off the mark if you think less than 0.001% of the U.S. population identifies with Nazi ideology, while it's something like 1% for Austria and Germany.

I don't think the GOP/NDP comparison is apt, because Germany attempted to ban the NDP completely and the NDP works continuously with literal Nazis. If the KKK had a political party of its own, that would be comparable. There are only a few thousand members of the KKK left, though, so that is unlikely to occur.

I think that for the same percentage to identify with Nazi ideology it would require millions of people to be so comfortable with it that they would openly give Nazi affiliated parties their support.

I don't think millions of people support Neo-Nazis in the US.

The bigger issue I see is that by taking away these people's ability to discuss their beliefs they are going to be further radicalized. If they don't believe they can change things peacefully through protest they will become violent.

That's the main reason I don't agree with the banning of daily stormer and google banning Gab.ai from the play store. They are only further enforcing these people's beliefs that the powers that be are against them.

So should we instead replace NBC and make it the Daily Stormer network so they feel that the powers to be aren't against them?

No one is saying they can't discuss their beliefs, they just can't do it with the support of certain private companies. In the same way, if I owned a restaurant, I wouldn't allow them to host an informal "Daily Stormer Night" at my restaurant. I shouldn't be forced to having to have them use my restaurant as their unofficial homebase.

>No one is saying they can't discuss their beliefs...

A lot of people are saying that.

Here's where it gets interesting. If you leased an apartment, could your landlord evict you for for hosting dinners in support of the KKK? That's more similar to what happened with the hosting and service provider denials.

This depends on the terms of the lease. That seems completely non-controversial to me. There's a bunch of stuff in my lease that I couldn't do, which are perfectly legal in many other contexts (smoke inside, have a dog, have big parties, etc...). Likewise, a KKK friendly lease would also be legal and honestly I don't think you'd have a hard time finding people who would be willing to have you.

And I've yet to find someone who has said they can't discuss their beliefs. They just don't get "our" support to do it.

So it's non-controversial for your landlord to evict you because they don't like your dinner guests?

As I noted, it depends on the terms of the lease. I was stating that if you violate the terms of the lease that eviction was non-controversial. That said, I'm not an expert in rental properties.

It wouldn't surprise me if all of these services have some verbiage in their TOS or contract that allows them the right to stop service if the content being served is deemed to be inappropriate by them.

Absolutely! I'd justify it by the potential risk of discomfort those guests pose to my other tenants.

Housing law has special sets of protection distinct from even the law governing general public accommodations, so (without an argument that the specific service is be very much like housing), it's probably not the most reasonable analogy to use.

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