Hacker News Reader

Hacker News

Comment by crankylinuxuser | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

crankylinuxuser

www.stormfront.org ->

Checking your browser before accessing stormfront.org.

This process is automatic. Your browser will redirect to your requested content shortly.

Please allow up to 5 seconds… DDoS protection by Cloudflare Ray ID: 3e87d9d41f9b5504

-------------------------------

I would posit that, although speed is protected in many ways in the USA, there are cases where there are definite actions behind the speakers. And I would therefore argue, that when X person gives hatred against a group, and later takes violent actions against said group, their speech isn't just speech. It's a definite call to action of assault and murder.

I also recognize there are false flag operations that could demonize more legitimate groups. But then again, I don't believe that anti-war protestors, or the women protestors are going to advocate for killing Jews, blacks, and LGBT anytime soon.

View on HN

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCUM_Manifesto

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Modest_Proposal

Poe's law can become a cudgel when paired with takedown rules that companies don't want to (or can't) enforce with the level of thought as a real court decision. I don't like cloudflare saying that they're totally absolved of responsibility, but I do have a lot of sympathy towards their CEO's complaint about being the gatekeeper. If I was in their shoes, I wouldn't want to have to try and formulate a policy rule that keeps Solanas but bans whatever satire or allegory the alt-right publishes.

That's why I was very careful with my words. Of course, we will see parodies and the like.

However, Charlottesville, and their speakers should absolve any idea that this is a joke. These white supremacists actively call for violence against other, and then proceed to enact it.

The distinction here, is the "call to arms"->"illegal action directly related to call to arms". And I do believe that Cloudflare and others have a distinct responsibility in this.

Tl;Dr: say the shit you want, but once you bring violence into it, all bets are off.

The state always and invariably brings violence with it.

The state is violence.

As America becomes increasingly polarized and driven towards echo chambers, political violence continues to emerge across the political spectrum. For instance the recent attempt of an individual randomly murder congressmen after verifying they were republicans [1], or perhaps the mass murder of police officers in Dallas by an individual at a BLM associated rally [2]. Both had strong links to various political organizations. Using anecdotal evidence you can condemn most of anything.

In my opinion Cloudflare should not be in the business of making judgement calls one way or the other. The law exists for a reason and, as in this case, when a group is seen as acting outside the law, Cloudflare can be directed to terminate access. They need not preemptively act as judge, jury, and executioner themselves. Another issue is that when you start refusing to accept some group or another, it leads to an implicit endorsement of all the other groups. You can certainly find all sorts of completely abhorrent sites that utilize Cloudflare. A social campaign showing this sites while emphasizing that Cloudflare can, and does, refuse service to sites for what might be perceived as 'lesser crimes' would leave them in a difficult to handle situation. And this will happen. By contrast, not all that long ago they could have simply and eloquently responded, "We do not judge content."

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Congressional_baseball_sh...

[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_shooting_of_Dallas_police...

While SCUM has some merit, A Modest Proposal was satire at the rationalism of economics.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com