While I respect the decision to remain neutral, I have more respect for companies that say no to hate on their platforms. There is no requirement for them to provide a platform for it, and I think it's courageous for companies to have human morals, too many don't.
The phone companies may be regulated as public utilities but most of my friends don't use the phone company's voice services anymore. Instead they call on Facebook Messenger or Line or WhatsApp which are not regulated as public utilities.
I don't know where to draw the line. Kicking them off say youtube? Maybe. Kicking them off the entire internet? I'm not so sure. Allowing them to stay on the internet (if you agree banning them from the internet is going too far) requires some companies to carry their content.
Email and phone conversations are private communication. Breitbart is public communication. There is a difference.
Shopify is just one of many ecommerce platforms. There are simple roll-your-own ones as well. If they ban someone, there is no major impedements to getting their speech out still.
Right now all I see is shopify profiting from hate, not defending free speech. Brietbart can go set up opencart on a vps.
I think most people would agree that if you keep things private that even a private entity shouldn't expose that. But if you broadcast the information publicly, then you are now liable to be held to a different standard.
So if a group started holding advertising public WhatsApp calls where they'd discuss plans to exterminate minority groups then I think WhatsApp would be OK in canceling their account (assuming its consistent with their TOS).
I don't think messaging apps should be able to collude though. This should be at a case by case, company by company basis.
If ISIS had a Verizon phone number that they publicized, I don't think it'd be stepping over a line for Verizon to shut that down. But if it was just a normal phone line, not advertised to the public, then Verizon has no way of knowing what it's used for.
Likewise if ISIS had an email address kill_them_all@gmail.com and advertised that this was the ISIS email address, yep. It's time for Google to revoke that. But if it's just disc_golf_playa_69@gmail.com and no one knows it's ISIS, then no one knows it's ISIS.
Breitbart isn't hiding its hatred, and it isn't hiding its store. Shopify doesn't have to infringe on anyone's privacy to realize they're running a store that lets people profit from hatred and racism.
There's no way to ban someone from the Internet. But they can be banned from various corporate sites if the corporation wants nothing to do with them. Which is what has been happening.
Even common carriers are not strictly dumb pipes.
Free speech - the concept, not the amendment - would not work in the current connected world if every service provider had to "ok" your message before it got out.
One thing I think should be differentiated though is certain types of communication channels. I think internet access should be protected for freedom of speech. Selling merchandise online though is not fundamental to that speech though and should not be protected. Similarly I don't think a domain name is a fundamental requirement (in the case of the Daily Stormer).
This would make a great piece of cyberpunk dystopian fiction. Humanity in a far off future finds its codified moral compass not in religious texts, not in the spoken words of religious leaders, and certainly not in books written by philosophers. But rather, in corporate contracts copy-pasted together by Employee #5 at some hyper-growth startups during the Early Years.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13608777
So, I could argue that the fact that it is being discussed indicates that it may be a little ambiguous after all. It's worth noting that your final conclusion was that the symbol "screamed Nazi" when you saw it, and that you could understand it not being sufficient.
Organizations like Breitbart thrive on "reasonable" people's willingness to give them a tremendous benefit of the doubt. They're like a little kid who lies down on top of the covers and plays with toys when you tell them to "go to bed." And a lot of people who should really know better step up and say, "technically they did what you said, I see nothing wrong with that."
May I make a suggestion? Just entertain for a brief moment that you are the one deceiving yourself. And then go back on with your day.
I have considered what you say. But understand that I'm not calling them Nazis because of what's in their store. I'm just amazed that they don't even bother to hide it.
That said, we're talking about a site conceived by five Jewish guys (even if one not ethnically), which declares itself unapologetically pro-Isreal[1] and which is confirmed by the NYT[2].
Are you really sure those images are enough to declare them Nazis?
[1] http://www.breitbart.com/big-journalism/2015/11/17/breitbart...
[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/16/magazine/breitbart-alt-ri...
https://store.breitbart.com/collections/mens/products/e-plur...
Calling this a Nazi parteiadler is pretty absurd.
Don't confuse "I am in favor of small government" with actually being in favor of small government. The American right wing has been playing that stupid game for decades.
http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/illustration/american-eagl...
"Segregationists have again assumed their pedestals in the Justice Department, the White House and many other American temples. Paper alone won’t drive them out. Start throwing rocks." [1]
as hate speech?
If yes, should we ban WaPo?
If not, why not? Who decides? By what standards?
Private entities which are not de-facto monopolies (like Google) have the right to do as they please, but they should publish VERY clear rules, which will then apply to anyone, regardless of political affiliation.
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/made-by-history/wp/2017/...
Not all of us live in USA. Free speech is a universal right, independent of the platform.
Now US government respects this freedom and executes it on it's platform, that's the public space.
Now, on the other hand, many US companies don't give you the same freedom. They don't allow the free speech on their platforms.
We should be thinking whether it's good or bad and don't muddle the discussion with the American-specific PoV.
I personally don't like to see companies having any morals. There's nothing courageous about it. I would like to see companies have ethics instead and follow them to the best of their abilities. Ours is the privilege of judgment.
Yes, absolutely. Corporations are people and don't need to take moral or political stances, especially when there is still so much work to be done just getting Corporations to behave at all ethically.
That's what I keep hearing, and yet a company in Denver was forced by law to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple against his religious morals. Why does that not apply to internet companies?
So right now things dovetail nicely into morally defensible stances, but there is no guarantee things will coincide this way in the future which is why we defend free speech in more absolutist terms (with special carve outs).