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Comment by giardini | Hacker News Reader

Of course. Free speech reigns. What could possibly be better - banning them from speaking, pushing them underground, jailing them, torturing them, or worse?

Giving people freedom of speech is our only hope of engaging them at some future time in dialogue and of possibly bringing them to some other conclusions. Consider it an application of the "Golden Rule".

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

And take some solace that, as a group or groups, "neo-Nazis" are not nearly as much a problem as were the original German Nazis, both for their own society and for the world.

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    Giving people freedom of speech is 
    our only hope of engaging them at 
    some future time in dialogue

The diehard ones generally end up in jail. You can pay them a visit there, to engage them.

In the meantime, pushing them underground means that elementary school students won't watch their videos when they auto-play after a make-up tutorial, or RDR2 gameplay video.

personally I avoid recommendation algorithms whenever possible because I don't like or trust them (e.g. use adblock to block youtube recommendations).

Having established that I think recommendation systems are highly suspect in the first place, there is a difference between de platforming someone and avoiding giving them a platform. Not to argue for or against censorship, just saying that your example doesn't require "pushing them underground" to solve (just fixing your recommendation algorithm ... or maybe, just maybe, not trying to manipulate people in the first place).

Quite possibly there are plenty of other examples that do require pushing them underground, I don't blame new zealand for blocking 4chan at all.

Where do you stop?

Hitler and his political organization did terrible things, and we certainly should try to stop those kinds of events from repeating.

But the same could be said of Stalin or Mao: should we ban all of the neo-communist videos on YouTube?

I'm not Youtube, so it's not my call, but if they had any sense of responsibility, they should certainly ban Nazis and terrorists.

Whatever they don't want on their platform beyond that is their business. If they don't like videos of baby sea lions, well, I'd have to find my baby sea lion videos elsewhere.

Who defines the terms "Nazis" and "terrorists", who defines who to ban? Is it the original "Nazi" definition, or some modern diluted definition where the number of Nazis has skyrocketed? Do we allow content from "freedom fighters" and "rebels"?

> Who defines the terms "Nazis" and "terrorists"

On their platform, YouTube does.

I apologize if I'm accidentally misunderstanding what your expectations are regarding decisions in society, but if you're asking for society to eliminate judgement calls, this is an incredibly unrealistic ask and you will almost certainly forever be frustrated.

Everyday humans make judgement calls, and they seem to be reasonable far more often than they are unreasonable. If YouTube's userbase feels YouTube has become unreasonable, they move on to another platform. Whether you realize it or not, in a society based on private property, where we allow individuals to have control over things they own, what may seem like arbitrary judgement calls are necessarily made thousands of times per day. Everything from the local bartender who must decide when someone has too much to drink to the person choosing which stocks to buy, to the interviewer deciding who the best candidate is for a job. Judgement calls are constantly made. In a society which worships private property and places an incredibly high value on individual choice, Asking "who decides X, Y, and Z?" will always end with "The person who owns the thing or is placed in the trusted role for that decision." You interact with this trust over and over and over again throughout your day.

Now if you want to question whether or not a society should worship private property to the level with which we do, this is an entirely different question. But in our current iteration, where we trust individuals to make decisions without seeking permission from every member of society, the owners of something or the people they hire decide what is or is not do with their personal assets.

It likely isn't possible to run a society where no one is ever making judgement calls. Again, if I misunderstood the implications of your question, I apologize.

YouTube actually agreed not to editorialize user uploaded content in exchange for protection from copyright laws.

So YouTube actually voluntarily surrendered the right many of you suppose it has in exchange for a privilege — if YouTube removed content that way, it becomes liable for any acts of commercial copyright infringement.

I'd be interested to hear more about this, do you have any articles handy which go into detail of the specific language of this agreement? I'm sure this may be a possibility, but I'm skeptical, I'd be more inclined to believe YouTube's lawyers would be more than smart enough to advise them not to break that kind of contract. I'd love to see the language though if you have it handy.

Giving up the power to pick and choose what sort of content would be allowed on their platform seems like something no sane organization would give away. That would be like hackernews signing an agreement where they wouldn't be allowed to moderate, highly unlikely.

> On their platform, YouTube does.

I agree that they'd be the ones to make that call on their platform in general, but I don't think they do or even want to. They rely on society to tell them what is and isn't acceptable.

I always have problems when somebody reaches for terms like Nazis and terrorists in an effort to censor/deplatform people, because I feel like it's a trap. On the one hand: who is against literal Nazis? On the other hand: I've been called a Nazi before, and I'm pretty sure I'm not a Nazi, so now I don't know if I'll be included in the proposed banning, or if it's just about literal Nazis. That's why I tend to ask for a definition.

Sure, there's always a grey area between OK and not OK, but I think for things like violence, abuse etc that area is quite small. For things like "Nazi" it is when you're taking it literally, but it's very much not when you're looking at modern circumstances, where some people declare everyone a Nazi that is to the right of them. That might work if they were very far right and saying "there's no acceptable position to my right", but they are usually pretty far left, and I don't agree that there's no position to their right that is acceptable.

    Who defines the terms "Nazis" and "terrorists"

By your logic, Youtube would have to host child pornography, because "how do you define child pornography?"

These terms are whatever the moderator says they are. If their definition does not match up with mine, I complain. If it does match, I don't.

Hyperbolic non sense.

Child porn is illegal and has a clear legal definition. We don’t argue as a society over what is or isn’t child pornography. We don’t look at puppy videos and complain to others that it’s child pornography.

We do have people simply express discomfort with how our government behaves, legitimate concerns with immigration, civil rights, or other aspects of society, blanket labeled as nazi’s or extremists and banned from online forums.

It’s dangerous, and it’s being used as an excuse to shutdown speech and information now, specifically more and more to one side of the debate.

So he asked a legitimate question.

Define nazi, because much like labeling people as communists simply because they want better access to healthcare, these terms are being used fast and loose these days to describe anyone someone else may politically disagree with, even when it bears no resemblance to the person being labeled.

There's no point continuing this.

> By your logic, Youtube would have to host child pornography, because "how do you define child pornography?"

I agree with spaginal that child pornography isn't a very grey area. If you're asking people to decide who is and isn't a Nazi, I believe you'll get much more different ideas than if you're asking about child pornography. Is Sam Harris a Nazi? Is Joe Rogan? They were named as far right-adjacent and far right influences in a report - would they be banned from Youtube under your idea?

The issue is one of scale.

Engaging with anyone who is troubled/hurt (esp men) is not a simple thing. Engaging with them, when they are in a troubled environment (full of ever increasing negative triggers), surrounded by or in daily contact with other misguided folk is even more complicated.

Just think about it. Say there are N troubled people in your family. And for one reason or another, none of them have access to the right mental healthcare. But instead, they have unlimited access to ever growing signals from the media/social media/internet etc that reinforce their fears, anger, distrust etc. What are your options?

Until you are able to get them all access to high quality mental health care, the only other option is to reduce the negative signals they receive.

There are many reasons whey high quality mental health care infrastructure and access doesn't exist. That's the main issue here. Not free speech.

... as long as people recognise that freedom of speech does not mean freedom from the consequences of that speech.

Freedom of speech is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or a community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or legal sanction.

Free speech absolutists love talking about unfettered free speech as being a universal good, without ever providing evidence. Has there ever been a society without any limits on speech anywhere in human history? How do we prevent people with limited cognitive and critical thinking skills, including those who are young and immature, from being influenced by malicious actors?

It's telling that even in the "land of the free" members of certain groups are proscribed from expressing their vilest and most murderous ideas without heavy-handed state intervention (to the point that some have been killed by drones for doing so), while other groups openly flaunt similar ideas, and hide behind "free speech" when anyone dares to criticize them.

It’s not up to you to decide the validity of speech or opinions, and who gets exposed to what. In a free society this isn’t your call to make.

The benchmark of critical thinking faculties is commonly a political test when it comes to speech, and is a convenient excuse people, and governments use.

Look at Twitter. A bunch of people on all political sides of an issue labeling eachother as evil, dangerous, idiots, etc. No one listening to eachother. Everyone judging eachother, no one is immune from it.

Now give the power to shut down speech to one of those sides and use your litmus test as the basis for qualifying appropriate speech. What do you think is the end result?

Banning speech or ideas is lazy thinking, easy to do and repeatable once accepted as a solution, and most importantly dangerous. Far more dangerous than the idea it’s trying to silence.

Far more dangerous than the idea it’s trying to silence.

I don't know about that. In the real world, there are homicidal maniacs, deranged ideologues trying to incite violence, paid propaganda outfits, state actors who masquerade as legitimate voices. If allowing them free rein is the price for "freedom", I'd rather have a little less freedom, because that sort of freedom is unsustainable and will, inevitably, destroy itself.

Throwway32>"...there are homicidal maniacs, deranged ideologues trying to incite violence, paid propaganda outfits, state actors who masquerade as legitimate voices..."

Of course that is correct. Regarding the first two categories (maniacs and ideologues):

but not letting them post doesn't make them go away - they are still there waiting, possibly with axes, behind the next tree!8-))

Firstly, let them post so you are reminded that they are there and what they say. Secondly, let them post so they can _speak_ and be heard - something every human seeks. The Internet allows shut-ins, invalids, some prisoners and possibly even mad men a voice. Thirdly, let them speak so they can be recorded. Then afterward we have a trail we can follow. Maybe someday we can use that information to detect serious problems before they cause societal damage.

Regarding the last two categories (paid propaganda and state actors): you will not be able to block them b/c they are part of the system and they manipulate the system. You and others will simply have to detect them.

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