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Comment by marcinzm | Hacker News Reader

>I believe it's becoming increasingly clear that merely allowing far-right dialogue online is essentially responsible for ease of radicalization, and that proactive censorship would be the best approach to forestall this.

Because of course, censorship only blocks the material you personally don't want others to view and never material you personally would want others to view. I can see a lot of politicians, especially those getting elected nowadays, wanting to block any discussion of minority rights, LGTBQ+ rights, trans rights, drug reform, abortion, women's health, women's rights, climate change, non-christian religion discussions, etc, etc, etc.

edit: Note that this isn't a straw man argument. All it takes is one to look at the censorship that happened in the US in the 50s and 60s (comic code, movie/television code, mccarthyism, etc. ) to see what is possible.

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You don't need to go back in history to see this. In many countries where such speech laws exist today, they're used by majority groups in order to stop minority groups from speaking out publicly about injustices. This is common in Asian countries right now.

Regardless, censorship on the internet is inherently ineffective. If this speech is banned from Facebook, it will move to other forums. If it's made illegal, it will move to the "dark web".

The only real solution to combat this sort of thinking is to debate it directly, refuting arguments rather than shutting them down entirely.

This is why my own position is not settled.

Publications, preachers, performances, etc. change people’s behaviour and beliefs — if they didn’t, nobody would advertise or campaign. That change can be ‘good’ or ‘bad’ depending on your point of view.

I want the spread of harmful memes to be slowed (and, if possible, prevented), but I also ask myself “What if I’m wrong about what is harmful?” — for example, I don’t believe in the Christian god, and have seen harm done in his name, but what if he actually does exist and banning Christian memes condemns people to hell?

Or sexuality? I know people whose sexuality has been outlawed this decade in much of western Europe, as a result of campaigns by people totally convinced that their preferences are innately harmful, which side is right?

I think solving this is also an important part of safe A.I., so it would still be a very important problem for me even if I didn’t know people directly affected.

Yes, but on the other hand, the prevalence of far-right dialogue contributed to the rise of far-right politicians. When they are in power, they use their power to block the voices for minority rights, women's rights, LGBT rights, etc. Do you think they will stop, thinking "Oh but far-right voices are still allowed, it won't be fair if I silence women's activists"?

All things considered, I'm not convinced that censoring extreme far-right contents is a long-term net negative for freedom of speech. (Well, it could be, but it's not a given.)

>"Oh but far-right voices are still allowed, it won't be fair if I silence women's activists"?

No, but they'd need to pass laws and fight court battles to enable censorship versus merely taking over existing systems of censorship. The latter is much easier to do and much harder to notice or right against. Especially when merely fighting against it is grounds for censorship.

>Yes, but on the other hand, the prevalence of far-right dialogue contributed to the rise of far-right politicians.

Depends on the scale you look at. In a sense, the far right is merely the average person's view as of 50-ish years ago. Censoring to the view of the average person merely ensures that in 50 years you'll be seen as having helped far right ideas. Or in a different way, I don't believe that my current views are the pinnacle of progressiveness (or morality or whatever) and I am loathe to prevent future progressives from being able to push their views forward.

> No, but they'd need to pass laws and fight court battles to enable censorship versus merely taking over existing systems of censorship.

I don't think that's a significant hurdle to any politician with popular support.

Look at Trump, for example, not because I hate him (well I do, but that's not the point here), but because he is a good example of what a politician can do. He rammed into the freaking Supreme Court a candidate that was accused as rapist. And there was nothing the opposition could do.

And the crazy thing is, Trump doesn't even enjoy unanimous support. Far from it.

There's not much you can do once a politician is at power, has a semblance of popular support, and is willing to forego established political norms. Laws? They will change laws, they will take their matter to courts, and they will win.

So I'm still not convinced it's a net positive to have an uncompromising legal roadblock against censorship, when the cost is to increase the chance that someone will rise to power and kick that roadblock away like a tin can.

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