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Comment by joshuamorton | Hacker News Reader

>If Facebook decided to ban all Chinese, Islamic, or African-American content, then the conversation would be completely different. People wouldn't say, "so be it -- go set up your own servers".

This is because we have laws about discrimination based on race. White supremacy is not a race. You're free to discriminate against someone due to the views they hold.

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I think you misunderstood the intent of an argument that was not very well made. I think his point is that if the group banned coincided more with the majority values the discussion would be different. For example, if Facebook banned feminist content or YouTube banned climate change supporters. Neither of these is a race and yet I think the discussion would, indeed, be very different.

This is a false equivalency though.

Like yes I'd be much more annoyed if you cut off my foot than if you served a vegetarian dinner.

That's about as apt a comparison as I can make between "white supremacy" and "science".

Lest you think I'm being one sided, I absolutely support the ability of Facebook and YouTube to ban pornographic content, while I think the groups that do provide pornography are morally fine, something I don't think is true for white supremacists.

So unless you're making an absolutist free speech argument, please elaborate on why you think feminism and white supremacy deserve to be treated the same way. I can name a few reasons they shouldn't be: Haji Daoud Nabi and Clementa C. Pinckney to start.

I guess I am making what you call an "absolutist" free speech argument. I think controlling dissemination of ideas is bad no matter how much you disagree with them and no matter how much merit these ideas have. I would rather white supremacy was out in the open, debating their point of view with the rest of us than them hiding in private forums and dark web feeling persecuted and stewing in their own little circle jerks. And the same goes for any idea, good or bad, scientifically proven or not. Flat earth, white supremacy, climate change pro and contra, feminism, men's rights and everything else. I think censorship is a tool of a very limited value, there are a few rare cases where it serves the public good and a lot of cases where it is misused and it doesn't matter whether the intent of the misuse is good or bad.

But you are not allowed to suppress the speech of people based on the views they hold. The first amendment does indeed protect even racists.

Or at least corporations and the government are not allowed to.

Just the government. A corporation is not at all beholden to the first amendment.

Not speaking legally, but speaking ethically, it is of course both possible and good to suppress the speech of e.g. white nationalists.

So chinese people who are proud of their heritage and promote it can be discriminated against because being proud of your race is just a view one can hold?

There's a difference between celebration of heritage and white supremacy. Please don't conflate celebration of Oktoberfest with calling for an ethnostate. They're different goals.

Good point there most certainly is. And Facebook recognizes that: >Going forward, while people will still be able to demonstrate pride in their ethnic heritage, we will not tolerate praise or support for white nationalism and separatism.

However, Facebook even now is ok with white people advocating for seperation. They claim there is a connection of white seperatism to white supremacy that made them ban it, while not banning other groups like the Basque from wanting independence.

>We didn’t originally apply the same rationale to expressions of white nationalism and separatism because we were thinking about broader concepts of nationalism and separatism — things like American pride and Basque separatism, which are an important part of people’s identity.

>But over the past three months our conversations with members of civil society and academics who are experts in race relations around the world have confirmed that white nationalism and separatism cannot be meaningfully separated from white supremacy and organized hate groups.

Basque is a political state in Spain defined by geographical boundaries, not an ethnic identity. Basques can be white, black, or brown.

Facebook is okay with voters wanting self-governance. This is not even remotely the same thing as white nationalism. If you can't see that, you're clearly a troll and there's no point in further discussing this with you.

Basque is not an ethnic identity? Wikipedia would seem to contradict that:

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

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

Ez, ez gara. Maybe, 100 years ago, but the Basque Nationalism shifted away from the alleged far right, traditionalistic and outdated politics (Sabino Arana) to the cultural, civic, values related nationalism about 70 years ago. Call us chauvinistic, but not racist, because even Black people speak better Euskara here than most non-Basque Spaniards.

And, OFC, they are considered as Basque as anyone else.

I'm referring to the modern Basque independence movement, not the historical Basque ethnicity or ethno-nationalization movement of the early 1900s that has been subsumed by the geopolitical independence campaign of the 21st century.

Not even in the 21th Century. The late 20's had Socialistic shifts on what could be defined as Basque. Arana's mindset went downhill fast as the Romanticism theories were replaced with shared culture traits to define a country.

Custom traditions and the language had far more weight than how did you look. Specially here, where, in Iberia itself, had multiple-way Religion conversos since several millenia.

Maybe the Americans are used to Race = Ethnics = culture. Here it doesn't work like that. It's the surrounding culture what defines you in the end.

If your parents came from Africa you are African-descendant, but if were born and lived in the Basque Country you are Basque and not African, period.

You may want to do more research into the whole Basque thing. It definitely is a culture with a language and identity and whatnot. And I'm pretty sure most Basques wouldn't accept non-white person as truly Basque in a cultural sense.

Do you believe there is a difference between being proud and supporting white supremacy?

Do some of the people supporting white supremacy know the difference?

They do.

Here is Richard Spencer mocking white nationalism:

http://doesnoonehavevision.blogspot.com/2018/10/wanna-be-sit...

C'mon, that's an absurd misreading of those comments.

> He says he rejects nationalism, independence, and sovereignty for Other Races. He thinks the Aryan Race, being a conquering and wandering global people, must destroy and dominate all the world.

"I'm not a white nationalist because I want the entire world to be white-only" is a nonsense quibble on the terminology.

Have you ever asked a black person if being proud of being black was black supremacy?

Sure, witness the many "Latino Pride" or "Black Pride" types of groups or festivals. Most of these don't promote a notion of supremacy. I'm not sure why anyone is really proud of something they had no choice in, but that's probably a separate issue.

> You're free to discriminate against someone due to the views they hold.

I'm pretty sure discriminating against people for their views on religion is illegal. Ditto for their political views.

It's the definition of bigotry.

Political leaning is not a protected class.

It is in at least seven states including California.

Discrimination is only illegal in certain contexts, mostly related to employment and essential services, as well as when interacting with the government (see First Amendment). For example, if I allow Girl Scouts to sell cookies on my business premises, it doesn't mean that I am also obligated to allow Jehovah's Witnesses to set up a stand as well.

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