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Comment by irulebush | Hacker News Reader

I frequently come across tweets by neo-nazis promoting their hateful ideas. We can't let this go on in the name of free speech.

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Why not?

"Speech that demeans on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, religion, age, disability, or any other similar ground is hateful; but the proudest boast of our free speech jurisprudence is that we protect the freedom to express “the thought that we hate.”"

-Justice Samuel Alito, 2017

The debate on this topic has unfolded over hundreds, even thousands of years of Western political thought. The philosophy enshrined in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights is that in fact we should let this speech go on because the alternative of suppressing it is worse for all of us in the long run. There are people of great intelligence and distinction within American society who still feel that this is true.

(It bears mentioning that while Twitter is a private entity and not bound by the same rules as a federal entity, the mass movement of speech from public to private platforms is one of the biggest issues under consideration.)

We might have to. Fringe groups like neo-nazis thrive on suppression. Censoring them may serve to validate their narrative of fighting for a cause despite oppression. It also shows them people are taking them seriously.

This sounds reasonable, but doesn't match the facts: these groups have been on the rise precisely because they've been able to use these platforms for communication and recruitment. We shouldn't give them power just to avoid playing into their narrative; in fact, the reason they push this narrative so hard is to maintain that power.

Censorship, and especially from a private company, doesn’t sound like the solution. If they are breaking some law bring them to justice. It’s not Twitter’s job to decide who gets to say what, is it?

It validates that narrative, but that must be weighed against how access to platforms allows them to influence the dominant narrative, especially where kids etc are concerned.

The YouTube recommendation engine is a far bigger culprit. It doesn't take many clicks to go from fairly innocuous, but kid-popular stuff like H3H3 or PewDiePie to one anti-sjw or cultural war video and then the recommendation engine will hand hold them right down the right wing extremism tunnel (or continually show up until they do)

And that's the only hateful idea you've come across?

I've seen more #KillAllWhites posts than I've seen Neo Nazis

Remember the use of sarcasm on the internet doesn't usually fare well.

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