Comment by commun3 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by commun3 | Hacker News Reader

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That is, unfortunately, unworkable. You cannot successful quarantine toxic people from non-toxic people in the same community. People who aren't toxic rarely want to spend their time around toxic people, and those that don't mind it are usually those who aren't the targets of the toxic people. A community with many members who are openly white supremacists might not be uncomfortable for other white people -- even if they themselves are not white supremacists -- but it's almost certainly unusable for those that are the target of the white supremacists ire. Look at any "open communication platform" that doesn't make any effort to ban "toxic" behaviour and you'll find that the toxic behaviour leaks into every aspect of the platform.

If a website permits members to be openly anti-semitic or racist or sexist then they will be anti-semitic, racist and sexist everywhere, whether that's a quarantined sub-community about anti-semitism, or a community about video games, make-up or curating art for galleries. No amount of education is going to encourage jewish people to spend their time talking to openly anti-semitic people about video games. If you permit toxic behaviour then you exclude anybody who feels threatened by that behaviour.

See my sibling comment. Should we (society) have quarantined and de-platformed homosexuals when they were (historically) considered "toxic"?

You can talk in hand-wavey sound bites about civil liberties that's not the world we've chosen to create, and it's hard to understand how you can earnestly compare racism and homosexuality. Are violent racists oppressed when they're not permitted to deny the rights of minorities, in the same way minorities are oppressed when they're not permitted to exercise their rights? Perhaps when you're philosophising in comments on the internet about civil liberties they're the same but in the real world they are not.

You cannot effectively allow people to individually "filter out" toxic behaviour within a community because toxic behaviour permeates all aspects of participation in a community. The views we hold are fundamental to all aspects of our lives: our lives are built upon our views. A violent anti-semite's beliefs are present in their views on politics, religion, video games, food, housing, travel, science, technology... you cannot effectively "filter out" the fundamentals of someone's view points without neutering their speech -- which is no different from de-platforming them.

A community is a group of people and a group of people is a collection of beliefs, a community is not a bunch of people who use the same website but are intentionally siloed because their beliefs are incompatible. People who favour the PlayStation 4 over the Xbox One can be part of a community with people who favour the Xbox One over the Playstation 4, but can people who wish death upon all jews be a part of a community with jewish people?

But that's exactly what you're doing. You're oppressing them by denying them the ability to speak because you believe (perhaps rightly) that their opinion and way of living is wrong. Would you actually not deny housing to a nazi? Openly fascist people ARE denied jobs, how can you imagine otherwise? "Closet" facists are allowed to have jobs, in the same way closet homosexuals were allowed to have jobs back when homosexuality was considered toxic.

There‘s still a huge difference between „certain people are not allowed to live“ vs. „I want to be allowed to love whomever I chose“. That former group should still not be excluded from certain basic „rights“, at least until they act on their beliefs (but that‘s up to the courts to decide). But again, you are comparing apples to oranges and questioning the moral principles the (at least Western) society is built on.

Anti-semites don't see things that way. They see Jewish people as attacking THEM, denying THEM the right to their way of existence. They might use the same language you use.

You bring up an important point, implementing equal rights does not reduce the rights of those who previously were oppressors, no matter how delusional their thinking is.

> You can talk in hand-wavey (sic.) sound bites about civil liberties

I'm not waving any hands. I'm firmly advocating self-filtering over authoritarian censorship as a means of regulating community content platforms. I am also explaining that I believe my stance is in tune with our guiding political principles in the US because it is the option that does not systemically promote oppression.

> that's not the world we've chosen to create,

What? It is exactly the world we intended to create in the US (you might have missed my caveat, and I noticed your spelling of favor). I'm referencing political philosophy from the federalist papers and from the prior art they're somewhat inspired by. Many of the people who founded the US were religiously oppressed and sought to create exactly a world that would prevent such oppression from manifesting again. It's where the whole separation of church and state comes from.

> and it's hard to understand how you can earnestly compare racism and homosexuality.

I'm not sure I follow. I'm not comparing homosexuality and racism. Where did I do that? But since you mention it, it actually sounds like you might not be aware of the extent to which homosexuals have historically been persecuted, experienced oppression, and had their liberties and even lives taken from them.

> Are violent racists oppressed when they're not permitted to deny the rights of minorities

Violent racists are jailed when they commit acts of violence. They could claim the mere existence of some class is oppressive and not allowing them to eradicate it infringes upon their rights. It's unlikely that strategy would get them anywhere because the right to genocide is not a universally understood and acknowledged human right (in the US, anyway).

Nobody is ever allowed to deny rights that we the people have agreed to defend--it's illegal because it's oppressive--that's the point. We are all supposed to enjoy the liberties we've agreed are core to our constitution, not just those of us who are "right". Saying, "Blacks aren't people" or, "Kill the Jews" does not deprive members of the respective class (or anyone) of their person-hood, or their liberty so we tolerate it even though it's stupid.

> Perhaps when you're philosophising (sic.) in comments on the internet about civil liberties they're the same but in the real world they are not.

I guess the internet isn't real life? If so, why do you care so much about de-platforming and censoring toxic minority views on internet community platforms? Anyway, I do not believe the ends justify the means. I do not support oppression or removal of civil liberties so that we can gosh darn it eradicate those pesky racists. To do so would required us to declare them sub-human (by constitutional definition) and strip them of their liberties and remove them from our communities. "Let's round up all the racists and get rid of them..." That sounds a little -ist or -azi for my tastes.

As to your last paragraph, anyone who thinks xbone is better than PS4 probably isn't human so they never had a chance anyway (;

> “I don't agree with what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”

There are diametrically opposed subreddits, 4chan boards or even twitter feeds. People can definitely coexist. The coexistence is not always easy or 100% free of disturbance but most of the time they work well enough to let each group focus on their own things.

You're confusing platform and community. It's extremely rare that those aren't distinct, HN is one of the only examples that comes to mind.

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