I know a lot of people who I would consider gun enthusiasts that wouldn't hurt anyone unless they weren't given a choice.
Hopefully this wave of censorship will lead to better privacy-respecting tools.
Netscape -> IE monopoly -> explosion of choices
Email provided by your employer or ISP -> explosion of choices
IBM & Apple computers -> explosion of choices
Intel processor monopoly -> ARM computing explosion of choices
Kodak, majority of the film market -> explosion of camera choices
Tight music label monopolies + radio & store distribution -> explosion of cheap consumer choices for streaming vast amounts of music. No longer do you have to spend $20-$25 in adjusted 2018 dollars to buy an album with two songs you want to hear.
ABC, NBC, CBS, limited tightly controlled broadcast platforms with very regulated content -> endless array of media start-ups online, streaming choices, news sources
Playboy & similar, nearly your sole porn option for decades, highly restricted distribution -> seemingly infinite porn online from thousands of large sites
Information broadly, from limited, tightly controlled research options, difficult to access (if you can at all depending on your location) -> explosion of research options online, at a click, practically at zero cost
Limited publishing options, from almost nothing for the common person -> dozens of easy, inexpensive ways to publish text/audio/video and reach an audience. For $5 per month I can easily serve up video on my own site, host my own blog, post my own music, whatever.
Absolutely ridiculous, opinions like these make me cringe, is it that to hard to understand what you consider "hate speech" is other persons opinion?, you don't have to agree him, but others might. Youtube or any platform's user response will judge that content.
It should never be government or few people in power to decide what is acceptable.
I am so glad that I left the left few years back, they completely lost their marbles.
And anyway, who said there are a few people insisting that racial arguments are hate speech?
In other words, it might sound like a good idea, but there's absolutely no way to prevent a legal standard that does not stem from actual or credible harm from being abused by the powerful to suppress the powerless.
http://kingencyclopedia.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/encycloped...
a "True Threat" is a threat of ACTION not a speech.
I.e. if a person is in their garage, they have bomb making materials all around them, and make a threat to bomb a location at a specific time, date, they have now made a threat of ACTION thus it becomes an ACTIONABLE item for law enforcement
This is often used by people that advocate for censorship as a "limit on free speech" but it is not, it is a limit on actions, we have always had limits on actions
If anybody feels insulted by speech, they need to grow up, grow a thicker skin. Don't go running to governments or corporations to create laws to defend their feelings. You sneaked in "threaten" to broaden your scope for your speech argument, physical attacks are already illegal.
"because it is physically possible to hold some opinion it must be as correct as any other opinion"
Again, regarding what is "correct", just for demonstration, I might agree or not agree or don't give a flying fuck and not be interested in your discussion at all. That does not and should not take your or my right away of saying it. If your opinion stands the test of time, then evolution will eventually show you are correct, and same applies to anybody else.
"Few people in power", I was speaking relatively, compared to population of a country.
Regarding "racial arguments", you used "argument" not physical attack, in which case you don't have any right to stop them in delivering such argument.
I am so glad that I migrated to this country where freedom of speech is still defended vehemently.
Your stated position is a logical contradiction: good job.
If phrased this way, do you still disagree?
Most ideologies have, shall we say, "bad parts". And they may have a history that is somewhere between sordid and outright evil.
And of course "crack down on hate speech" is these days most often levied against criticism of islam. We have yet to see even basic discussion on things like the role of islam in slavery, historically and contemporary. Additionally the blatantly racist laws of Saudi Arabia that are defended as just islam's laws, racist where it pertains to faith, sex, and the blatant exploitation/slavery imposed on Asians there, all justified through islam. But of course censorship doesn't just stop there. It is now defending things like Erdogan's support of islamic state (including the massacres), and of course the Chinese state's many sordid actions in Nepal, Xinjang, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, and even just generally within China. The massive corruption.
And then of course there is the many ways in which sex, corruption, labor exploitation, criticism of power figures like Xinnie the Pooh and so on is getting censored.
We should just not do this. We should not let the idea that people might get the wrong idea, or personally care hinder criticism of ideologies, including of course in areas where there may be minorities criticized and especially not in cases where the majority or an oppressive government is getting criticized.
We should be allowed to openly discuss things like China's destruction of Nepal. We should be able to ask a muslim why they follow a prophet that, according to muslim tradition, killed over 10000 people, including having women and children massacred. We should be bringing up Erdogan's dealings every chance we get. And so on and so forth. We should be able to bring up San Francisco's treatment of the people getting forced out of that area.
> China's destruction of Nepal
Do you mean Tibet?
If you act reasonably around others who are willing to be unreasonable, you lose.
While people will say "We'd get a safer society as a result" - that's not addressing the problem, which is: what did they trade or give up in order to reach that compromise with the gun owners? There has to be something for it to be fair to everyone.
I am fully aware that not all gun owners in America espouse positions as extreme as, "There should be no waiting periods, no background checks, and no restrictions based on mental health for buying any weapons up to and including truly military-grade hardware," but so far as I can tell, that is the position the NRA has taken in this. Going from there to anything that I would see as a "reasonable compromise" would definitely require the other side to give up quite a lot.
Personally, I own no guns, and am uninterested in them, so a 2nd amendment repeal, full ban, and confiscation would not have any direct negative effects on me (and I would not object to it). However, I would be perfectly comfortable with gun control that was far short of that.
To answer your question, though, in the end, what non-gun-owners "give up" in any compromise with gun owners is some safety. It's certainly an intangible, and there's no way to measure how much is being given up at any given time—it's possible, depending on the particular restrictions that are and aren't enacted, that they give up almost none...or a great deal. This is an inherent problem when the compromise in question is about restrictions on possession or use of a thing: people who do not need or want it, but see a reason that it should be restricted, are never going to have to give up something as easily quantifiable as those who do want it, no matter how objectively good the restrictions they want are.
But the pro-gun lobby in the US are bringing all of this on themselves. The level of gun violence in the US is appalling, and is clearly becomming unacceptable to many and possibly a majority of Americans. Every attempt to mitigate it is actively opposed by the gun lobby, often with patently ridiculous measures designed to be ineffective. So I have no sympathy for the gun lobby. If they want to own guns and preserve an armed culture I think its entirely reasonable for the rest of America to expect them to do so safely. If they can’t come up with an effective regulatory system they can live with and which protects the public from gun violence, then I think they won’t have a moral leg to stand on when the rest of the country takes their toys away from them. Guns with effective and safe regulation, or no guns at all and the responsibility for coming up with what that safe and effective regulation is sholod fall on gun owners. Here in the UK we went with pretty much no guns at all. I hope America keeps its traditions and culture, but not at any price when that price is paid in blood.
I wrote a much longer reply but decided that arguing this topic here is probably not appropriate. Suffice it to say that the notion that the "pro-gun lobby" is in any way opposed to safe ownership of guns or supports mass shootings or other criminal gun violence is absurd.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11604135
> And let's be clear, in this putative Civil War 2.0, we're threatening to kill gun-grabbers wholesale and retail, with guns being one of the least effective means when compared to tactics like killing Blue cities. People kill other people, guns are inanimate objects.
There are like 15 posts very similar to this, although some are flagged.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13056816
He offered elsewhere a clearly reasonable return to the "pre-1965 demographics of the US." And so very positively spoke of "moving past the concept of equality before the law."
And he isn't alone.
There are some real scary correlations between the gun-fetishists--and I say that having grown up around firearms; I am not scared of them any more than I am scared of any other recklessly used tool with a toxic culture surrounding them--and generally toxic and antisocial worldviews. But the causation is not the guns, to be clear; the machismo-driven culture that leads to the guns is the cause.
Because every "compromise" gets turned into something else to be attacked. That "Gun show loophole" was an explicit concession, that is something offered in compromise, is now being turned into something to be attacked and revoked.
There is no "compromise" - the goal is ban and confiscation. We've seen it time and time again. How many times must one put their hand on the iron before they realize it burns?
What makes you say this? Even in heavy gun control countries, some forms of shooting (e.g. pest control, hunting, target) and gun ownership are still generally legal.
Exactly what gets made legal and illegal is precisely what is being debated, but I'd be incredibly surprised if you ended up with total ban and confiscation. I think a compromise is exactly what everyone wants.
Haven't some heavy gun control regimes in the US ended up as de-facto total bans? IIRC, one city "allowed" legal gun ownership (or maybe just legal handgun ownership), but it required police approval, which was almost never granted.
Personally, I do not agree with "ban and confiscation". At most, I think that items designed to circumvent existing law (eg bump stocks, which essentially exist to in effect circumvent fully automatic gun regulations) should be illegal. I'd also like to see the case for and against a few other things (eg large magazine clips) but overall AR-15s and other boogeymen are fine to me. Elsewise, my belief is that most of the focus should be on limited tightening access (gun violence restraining orders for instance), much of it within our existing system, and not much more. Basically, I think that the mass shooting phenomenon people are reacting to could be quite tempered with slight tweaks, not wholesale confiscation.
But: I am culturally more on the moderate left side. The NRA's rhetoric these days, and even more so of too many of its supporters, is full of often conspiracy tinged liberal caricature and conspiracy. I honestly don't feel like defending the NRA position these days, because not only is it too rigid, it is identity oriented. And on identity, many of them by default, in their posts, already think I'm a piece of shit who wants to take their guns anyways. Why bother speaking up against the lefties that actually do want to confiscate?
Guns have essentially become a part of right-wing identity politics. A position that might be fatal for their full cause. (Though judging from current youthful view (https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/10/12/are-mille...) more in terms of restrictions on access instead of restrictions on equipment.).
The goal is effective gun safety laws. If you had those, nobody would be talking about bans or confiscations and this issue would simply not exist. If the only two choices the American public faces is hundreds of dead children per year or blanket bans. Who can blame them for choosing the latter? So come on gun lobby. Provide an alternative. This is your problem to fix.
In the case of the Parkland shooter that sparked this latest round of protest, the murderer had something like 30+ police visits in a year including one in which he attempted to drink gasoline to commit suicide[0]. My ex-girlfriend, after attempting suicide with a kitchen knife, was committed for evaluation and subsequently barred from owning any firearms after a single incident.
Florida, and the United States as a whole already have laws on the books for this exact type of situation but the LEOs failed to act, and as a result 17 teenagers needlessly lost their lives. How about, before attempting to ban something, we enforce the good laws we have on the books? Banning the AR-15 would not have prevented this shooting. Enforcing our existing laws would have.
[0] - https://qz.com/1214418/the-fbi-broward-county-sheriffs-offic...
My understanding is that they don't think the sensible restrictions will stay sensible, but rather they'll be stepping stones to heavy restrictions or outright bans. That's not an unreasonable attitude given that ultimate goal of gun control advocates tend towards the latter.
Unrestricted access to purchase battlefield weapons like the AR-15, lack of centralized records of gun owner permits, prohibitions on digitizing gun ownership records for criminal investigations, and disallowing research into understanding outbreaks in gun violence are all morally indefensible policies. I don't trust an organization who conflates defense of those policies with fighting mass gun confiscation.
The AR-15 is only popular among enthusiasts because it is basically a Lego set of the firearm world. Historically every style of weapon that gun owners have has been used extensively on the battlefield. If the AR-15 is banned then another rifle/pistol building platform will be popularized and replace it. Attempting to ban a weapon on certain visual features or other features that do not affect its firing operation are meaningless.
I'm not so sure, since it really depends on how you define success. I'd wager strict gun control advocates would define it as something fairly extreme, like "an end to gun violence," which could only be achieved by extreme, not "sensible," restrictions.
> Wanting to solve the massive gun violence problem in America is not unreasonable.
True, but unfortunately we're also suffering from an extreme lack of trust. You're not going to see compromises unless that trust is rebuilt from both sides. Until then, the best you're going to get is opportunistic exploitation of temporary situational strength.
5 years to halve gun deaths in America, or all automatic and semi automatic weapons get banned. You can set whatever laws you like, it’s your problem, you fix it. If you think it’s a mental health issue, fine, you get whatever funding you need to address it.
That would still be 50% more gun deaths per capita than the European countries with the loosest gun controls and highest levels of gun ownership. It’s 2.5x Israel and is higher than Nicaragua.
If the gun lobby comes up with effective regulations that preserve their interests and that also work, this problem wouldn't exist. This is their problem to fix.
[1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c6/Gu...
The sad thing is that it will stop other, new creators from being discovered.
Regarding main story, I used to work in broadcasting and it was clear from the oscilloscopes when some porn was on air or on a tape. This was not an exact science, but experienced engineers knew what the 'scope was telling them. This was a long time ago and I am sure Google would have machine learned porn a long time ago. No evidence for that but I doubt it is a recent innovation.
Therefore this enabling of the feature that enforces the Terms of Service is probably due to changes up ahead in the legal landscape and not because Google suddenly decided they wanted clean servers.
Maybe one day the big corps will realize they can't cave to every single blip on the political radar and try to please everyone at once, especially when to this day they ignore calls to remove actual violent and disturbing content, some of which is blatant recruitment material for extremist groups.
You might not care about these things, but censorship will eventually hit something you do care about. The impulse to improve society by controlling people's thoughts is never satisfied.
Can you now see why some of us have been consistently opposed to censorship generally, even when people were talking only about censoring the most disreputable people? We need to commit to equal treatment of all legal speech. The only alternative is suffocation.
No matter what someone is saying, banning them is a form of social signalling. It says, "we disagree with what these people are saying". There are many many things that the majority doesn't like the minority saying, and the world will be worse off if they manage to ban it all.
If I were gay, I would care less if people judged me based on their religion. I would care if a bunch of yokels started targeting me with violence.
But then, most hateful speech could predict a later killing. Someone who thinks gays should go to hell might decide to help them along, as it were. The difference between the two things you have quoted, then, is one of degree: saying the second demonstrates more hate than the first, but it is the same brand of hate.
Dan does a great job of moderation here, and if you break the rules repeatedly, you'll get kicked out. I guess that's "censorship" if you squint, but it's also YC protecting their private property and their rights to control who does what here. I don't see how that's a problem?
If that forum is censored with too broad a stroke, that actually harms society. I think everyone can agree that too broad censorship is bad, and if it hits large swathes of society, is really bad.
The difference between youtube and hacker-news is scale and near-monopoly. There is also an important difference of human and machine censorship. Not a difference of appeal, but a difference of unintended consequences. A human censor will notice when certain rules have unintended and too broad of an effect. There is a baseline of human oversight built in because there is a human somewhere. Automated systems do not have this property, if they have rules that seemed reasonable but aren't in practice, or aren't anymore, the system won't notice.
Like the other responder said. Youtube isn't just "someone's site". It is a full half of the bloody internet. The other half being split between Google and FB. I exaggerate for dramatic effect of course. But, most of the video content consumed online is currently on Youtube. And most of the internet is solely accessible through Google. Not to mention that a full 1/8th or 1/10th of the World has Facebook accounts. Funnily, I just Googled it, and according to the first hit Facebook has 2.2 Billion accounts.
At some point we have to admit/define/state that these entities and the products/platforms they provide are utilities for lack of a better word. Once they get to that point, they should rightly lose all ability to take sides. They must be hit with a giant stick if they so much as think of using their platforms to do anything other than make a profit. Imagine if telephone companies started dropping calls or disconnecting users that were saying "naughty" things.
But isn't the issue here precisely to ban illegal activities (sex trafficking adverts, hate speech)?
Harm isn't this subjective, there are objective criteria for classifying harm. Hate speech has no upside and causes much harm. That's not true of the others in your list.
You're begging the question here, assuming that what is called hate speech is necessarily harmful. I am quite certain that in the US political climate much of Palestinian political speech would easily be considered anti-semitic hate speech. Whether you consider this speech the valid outcry of the oppressed, or hateful bigotry of terrorist sympathizers, depends on your political perspective.
There is no definition of hate speech that is simultaneously objective and useful. If you can use it against your enemies today it can be used against you tomorrow.
The same free speech rules that apply to you also apply to google.
Google obtained this position by being trusted to not engage in censorship. So while yes, they can change their stance (burning off goodwill until they become irrelevant), it's a facile analysis.
Toxic is a matter of opinion. Pointing out the hypocrisy is relevant, insofar as it's relevant in every other forum between one actor accusing another of being a bad actor. How you take something to be derailing, when it's relevant, is beyond me.
A facile analysis, most definitely.
I'd often make a similar point to argue against this centralized communication technology being adopted in the first place. But now that it has become society's main form of communication, pushing this point on its own does little but condone censorship.