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Comment by orthecreedence | Hacker News Reader

Personification makes sense to me, at least in regards to Patreon. But then you get to Youtube...a stroll through the comment section of any video makes you realize you're in the digital version of Mos Eisley. There is no brand to protect, yet they wave their censorship wand quite often, including just this last week (https://www.businessinsider.com/r-youtube-under-pressure-for...). It seems a lot of these videos weren't violating any Youtube policies, they were deleted "just because."

Regarding Visa being neutral, I think there are cases where this is actually not true: https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2018/08/23/david-horowitz-vis.... Obviously, excuse the source, but I believe the core idea is still fact.

So, censorship is being exercised in areas even where you'd expect neutral carriers. I would call that worrying.

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Not really worrying. Just different individuals and organizations taking different positions on different subjects. Most importantly, all of it happening on private property.

I have an unpopular opinion. I believe people should be able to fly nazi and confederate flags on their private property. (Even if their private property overlooks yours.) I believe football players should be able to kneel during the national anthem.

And I believe private companies should be able to exercise their freedom of Association rights based on their beliefs or their bottom line.

All of these are just people having opinions. If you don't like their opinions, don't associate with them. That's the freedom that you have. I don't think any of this is a problem. Certainly none of it is censorship. The man flying a nazi or confederate flag in his yard alongside his JEB Stuart statue is not censoring MLK by refusing to put up an MLK statue as well.

The people who want an MLK statue should go put the MLK statue someplace else. The people tossed from Patreon should go raise money elsewhere. They're all perfectly free to do so.

> All of these are just people having opinions. If you don't like their opinions, don't associate with them. That's the freedom that you have.

At the risk of starting a tangent, this doesn't work when it comes to business. Businesses (or any relationship of dependency) should not be allowed to have "an opinion" because before long it becomes collusion and shunning.

How well did "no, no, you have the freedom to go somewhere else" work for blacks just wanting to buy a hamburger in America pre-1968? We had to pass laws telling businesses to get the fuck over themselves and indeed, it's still challenged to this day when gays try to buy wedding cakes.

If you don't like mandatory arbitration clauses in every single contract you sign, you literally can't do business anywhere. Everything from your job to your car purchase has them. If you don't like being subjected to credit checks, you literally cannot procure the utilities required by law to make your dwelling inhabitable-- all utilities run credit or make it prohibitively expensive to go without.

It's an imbalance of power. You can't just "go somewhere else" when you depend on the service being offered or provided, that you are denied for arbitrary reasons.

It's like the difference between Sam's Club and a typical grocer. The grocer offers services to the public, Sam's Club does not. It is members only. And it can have any requirements it pleases for membership. It doesn't have any racial exclusivity policies, but that would be well within their rights if they did. (For instance, country clubs have often had racial exclusivity clauses, even after the civil rights act.) Sam's Club is not a company for the public.

When you need consideration for membership, there really is just no way you can claim that to be non-private. That includes Patreon, it's private. It's their rules. Full stop. It's like adwords, if you want to use it, you have to start giving Google more consideration. Normally to use the public parts of Google, you don't need to give any consideration at all. (Of course, Google takes the tracking information from you anyway with their public facing services, but they don't ask you to actively give them any consideration.)

If every grocery store became a sam’s club would you concede that perhaps the regulatory regime would need modification?

> Certainly none of it is censorship.

I politely disagree. You're right in that it's not government censorship, but it is certainly cultural/corporate censorship, and my thesis is that this is a growing movement.

Yes, nothing is legally wrong here, or even morally wrong. Nobody is doing anything wrong. I do agree with you there. But zooming out and looking at the picture as a whole, I believe there is a growing tendency to silence ideas we don't like. I don't believe this movement will stop once it reaches some arbitrary boundary defined by law or private property. Yes, I am citing the slippery slope argument because I think it's actually applicable here.

The libertarian idea of "well, it's private property so it's not an issue" is an extremely simplistic way of looking at a much larger cultural phenomena that I think is a growing problem.

There may be a day when the deciding of what is acceptable or not does not stop at your private property line, so citing the first amendment and plugging your ears afterwards doesn't really work as a counterargument to what I'm saying.

I have an unpopular opinion.

Do you think this is actually an unpopular opinion, or just one not well represented by the two dominant national political parties in America? You mention elsewhere that you are from small-town Wisconsin. I grew up there also (Ladysmith) and now live in a small town in Vermont. I feel like this attitude is still quite common in rural America.

The downside of this framework is that it's hard to justify things like the Civil Rights movement (which I presume you agree was a mostly a positive?). How does one draw a line between "restaurants must serve customers regardless of race" and "businesses can choose not to offer services to racists"? Or does one give up on the first as well, and hope that the force of capitalism is strong enough to fill the gap?

>* Or does one give up on the first as well, and hope that the force of capitalism is strong enough to fill the gap? ...*

Bingo!

You're free not to allow blacks into your night club. And a lot of night clubs and country clubs do just that. A large number of my friends and I won't be patronizing your establishment either, but you're free to do as you like with your business.

> How does one draw a line between "restaurants must serve customers regardless of race" and "businesses can choose not to offer services to racists"?

I believe the key difference is skin color is innate and being an asshole is not, you don't get to choose to be black, you do choose to be an asshole though.

I think that the shift in popularity for gay rights mirrors the shift in acceptance that homosexual feelings are more innate than chosen.

What are your thoughts on religious discrimination? As a former christian, I am well aware that being a christian is not innate. Furthermore I consider christian doctrine to be inherently discriminatory against people like me. Should it be legal for me to bar christians from my restaurant?

Of the 11 federally protected classes, religion stands out as the only one that isn't innate. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_group

Incidentally California prohibits employment discrimination on the basis of political activities or affiliations, which is a step further than the federal requirement: https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/california-employmen...

To be clear, I wasn't really expressing much of a personal opinion, just thinking about the difference between the two and thinking about the profound shift in acceptance of gays in society in even the last decade.

Personally... I'm not religious, I was raised an atheist, I don't like religion, and I don't really think it should be protected, but I sorta kinda understand why it is, religion seems "special."

Veteran status is also protected under employment discrimination law, and military service isn't an innate attribute, however, its in the best interest for a country to protect those who have served it, especially those who were drafted.

Family status is protected under housing discrimination law, and having a ton of kids isn't innate, but some can say that the urge to have children is actually innate. (Though as a person who never felt an urge to reproduce, I have a hard time actually understanding this)

So yeah... we aren't 100% consistent.

> "Veteran status is also protected under employment discrimination law, and military service isn't an innate attribute"

I'd say being a veteran is, once you're a veteran you cannot change that about yourself. You could decide to not become a veteran, but you can't unveteran yourself.

Also, there used to be a draft. Plenty of veterans alive today did not have a choice. That is not the same as "innate", but it's closer to that than to being a choice.

Political views are, in practice, immutable. Once they reach young adulthood, people's political views are less likely to change than their religious affiliation. While it's tempting to see political views as something that is chosen, it's not really the case. For example, if I told you to believe that gay marriage should not be a right for the next year, would you be able to do so? I can't. I could not do so for any amount of time; the fact that I believe in it is not something I can consciously change. In that sense, political views can be seen as innate rather than chosen.

>I have an unpopular opinion. I believe people should be able to fly nazi and confederate flags on their private property. (Even if their private property overlooks yours.) I believe football players should be able to kneel during the national anthem.

No, you have two totally different opinions here.

Football players are not private individuals on their own private land. They're basically employees of a sort, so they're subject to the whims of those who employ them. I happen to agree with you, but I don't own a football team, so my opinion isn't important here. If I work at a company where I'd get fired for kneeling during the national anthem, I'm either going to not kneel, or start looking for a new job.

But most football players are obviously not working for such an organization. And they are taking these actions on private property.

Now, if a guy or gal is invited to perform on a military base during a national holiday commemoration, then sure, they should be compelled not to kneel. But if we're talking about things happening on private property as a part of a private gathering, those people can do whatever they please.

If the owners have the guts, let them all fire the football players. That's their right. Either way, the only input we should have on the matter is to watch the football game, or to walk away and not watch it.

You're misunderstanding what GP is saying.

A performer on a military base is constitutionally protected from punishment for kneeling during the national anthem, because that base is public and they're acting as a citizen. A member of the military may have other requirements, I'm not really sure.

A professional (as opposed to high school or college, where this argument doesn't work) football player is playing on private property in the employ of a private citizen. That citizen could (and does) have the right to fine their employee for kneeling during the anthem. This isn't true for HS or college players who, by and large, are not acting under a private citizen owner, but are normally playing under the purview of a publicly funded school.

To put it succinctly:

>And they are taking these actions on private property.

Yes, and that private property is someone else's (in this case regulated by the NFL) who can set rules as they see fit.

>who can set rules as they see fit...

Right.

Which is why I wrote:

>If the owners have the guts, let them all fire the football players...

But if the owners don't fire them, then whatever. Not our business. Watch them, or don't watch them. That's your choice. Nothing more.

The owners can either fire them or not, it's their choice. And it's the fans' choice whether to buy tickets to the games.

My choice is to not watch them, but that's only because I think American football is a stupid sport, and that watching sports is, in general, a mindless waste of time.

>"I believe people should be able to fly nazi and confederate flags on their private property."

The people doing this are advocating for violent ideologies, that have as their foundation extreme racism, including the oppression of minorities and violence against them, literally to the level of genocide.

They don't stop at just putting up flags. They organize, march and perpetrate violent attacks. They invade subcultures and infiltrate their ideologies into them. They plan for the creation of a fascist white ethnostate. None of this is exaggeration on my part.

How do you propose we stop this tide of hate-fueled ideology? The "marketplace of ideas" approach does not work, they simply use the exposure to further spread their viewpoints, feeding on the controversy.

How can we fight these ideologies, if not by exposing them and deplatforming them, and constantly keeping them on the back foot?

We are talking about the same Patreon that is host to a tremendous amount of porn and fetish artists, right? Many of whom are in the top 50 of creators? Personfication suddenly matters now?

Thanks, I didn't realise this. Maybe one more sign that sexual fetish has largely stopped being taboo.

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