Comment by dragontamer | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dragontamer | Hacker News Reader

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> No, you let evil speech stand. And you call it out as evil, and make clear reasoned arguments why it is evil. That is the solution.

That doesn't work.

If you really think you can "convince" people to tolerate others, feel free to go to Stormfront and convince the white-nationalists to stop being racist.

Go and try it. Its not like these hateful locations are unknown, its a free and open internet. Go an talk with them for a week. You might learn how easy it is to rationalize bigotry and racism.

At some point, you gotta just shut it down, like what the world did to 8chan. And these situations aren't hypothetical at all. You literally can go test your theory at Stormfront.

> Only when that evil speech turns into action does the society step in.

We're too late for that. Christchurch shooter, and then El Paso shooter. We've got a strain of intolerant speech that are inspiring lone-wolves to go into literal suicide missions to shoot people they don't like right now.

Gun control debate is locked. Its been like 2 weeks and everyone's already forgotten about the El Paso shooter. Nothing will come about with that.

But at least we shut down 8chan, one of the hangout spots for this hateful branch of people. We should probably shutdown other hangout spots too, like Stormfront.

No, quite the opposite. Shutting it down often makes things worse. Deplatforming (both in the social sense and in the technological sense) gained traction around 2013 and 2014. Do you think that bigotry and racism as reduced since then? The daily stormer was kicked off cloudflare in 2017. Do you see a reduction in hate and bigotry?

No, if anything we have seen an increase. You can't change people's minds by ostracizing them. Shutting down speech, especially the speech you think is immoral, makes the problem worse.

And to your point, yes people have changed the minds of white nationalists by engaging with them. It's hard but it can happen. By comparison, how many white nationalists do you think had their minds changed by having their speech censored? Usually this only reinforces the belief in a {Jewish | Globalist | immigrant | etc. } conspiracy against whites. If people think big tech is run by George Soros and is censoring conservatives and is working to the detriment of whites, then getting kicked off th internet is pretty much directly reinforcing their conspiracy.

We can look at Germany as the best example of how to do this correctly. In Germany, it is literally illegal to portray Nazi imagery. They did their best to fully "kill" the Nazi movement after their loss in WW2.

Shutting things down works. The (modern) US just doesn't want to go that way. In fact, shutting things down and erasing history is perhaps one of the most effective methodologies from a historical point of view. But historically, the US had an office of censorship for a reason during WW2, so that public opinion could be unified against Nazi-ism.

People often ask why WW2 was so effective at unifying the country. Well... yeah. Office of Censorship and clamping down on speech, and systemic advertisements + propaganda funded by US Government and pushed by Walt Disney.

It just needs to be done from the top down. You can't expect the free market to do it on its own.

> By comparison, how many white nationalists do you think had their minds changed by having their speech censored? Usually this only reinforces the belief in a {Jewish | Globalist | immigrant | etc. } conspiracy against whites.

The idea is not to change their minds. The idea is to prevent them from talking, and changing the minds of others.

And we can also use Germany as an example demonstrating the ineffectiveness of suppression: the Nazi party members were repeatedly imprisoned, yet this only reinforced their movement. The primary Nazi party newsletter was raided by police over 30 times. The attempt to shut Nazis down did not work and was likely counterproductive.

The Allies may have reinforced aversion to Nazism after it was defeated. But political suppression did not successfully stop Nazism in Germany.

> The idea is not to change their minds. The idea is to prevent them from talking, and changing the minds of others.

They'll still be talking to others, you fundamentally cannot stop that. The only difference is that we are depriving ourselves of the chance to challenge them on their bigoted and hateful beliefs.

And lastly, you're making the dangerous assumption that the people deciding which views are getting suppressed agree with you. There's a good chance many of the views you hold dear are ones that a significant portion of the population want to get rid of.

Hampering is sufficient. Forcing them to rebuild newspapers and reform their membership over and over again means they are spending less time recruiting members.

In the most extreme cases: killing works too. Bin Laden / Anwar Al-Awlaki. Both were more "inspirational" figures than actual day-to-day management, but their ability to spread and inspire others was still better than the typical ISIS / Al Qaeda member.

Destroying the mouthpiece works. Full on killing / murder is only condoned in war-like situations, but there are "softer powers" like knocking websites offline. Sure, they are tenacious and spring up again (and will continue to do so unless we actually kill them), but every hour those websites are down is another hour where they fail to recruit members into their philosophy.

Considering that we refuse to utilize the ultimate solution (assassination / killing) vs these people, the best we can hope for is to just inconvenience them over-and-over again. Its just like banning troll accounts at a highly-moderated forum. The trolls inevitably pickup a new VPN and get to post again for a few hours. The idea isn't to stop the troll from talking, its to hamper the troll from talking.

> They'll still be talking to others, you fundamentally cannot stop that. The only difference is that we are depriving ourselves of the chance to challenge them on their bigoted and hateful beliefs.

Nah, we can totally do that. You and I can talk about white-nationalism right now. Do you believe that white people are "being replaced" by immigrants? And if so, do you think its a long-term negative for this country?

Bam. Now we can talk about the subject. And I trust you (and most random strangers) to have decent opinions on the subject. The issue is that a large group of white-nationalists are working to recruit young people into their hateful philosophy, and to grow their base. And this growth includes violent action (with them cheering the actions of El Paso shooter + New Zealand's shooter).

I'm not against intelligent discussion of these subjects. I'm against the recruitment and growth of power of hate-groups.

Hampering the troll from talking had been thoroughly demonstrated to be ineffective, or even counterproductive. Again, what evidence do you have that deplatforming works? Deplatforming gathered momentum starting around 2013 and 2014. Since then, white nationalists and other bigoted groups have only become an even bigger problem.

Not only can I not see how this supports your assumption that suppression works, it actually demonstrates a positive relationship between suppression and these sorts of movements.

Especially when these groups allege a conspiracy to suppress them, the the last thing we should be doing is the exact thing that hate groups allege. When we start banning white nationalists sites, it makes lots of people think "oh shit, there really is a {Jewish | Globalist | Muslim} conspiracy out to get us."

> Not only can I not see how this supports your assumption that suppression works, it actually demonstrates a positive relationship between suppression and these sorts of movements.

You've got cause-and-effect backwards. More and more people are deplatforming as they realize that white-nationalism is a bigger problem than they once thought.

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Deplatforming works. Lets not look at white-nationalism, but lets look at "Elsa-gate" instead. Children were watching creepy "Elsa" videos (from Disney's "Frozen"). How do you stop this? You ban them from the site.

Bam. Children don't watch them anymore, cause those videos are banned.

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How do you solve the problem of white-nationalists recruiting on this webpage? Well, you ban hate-speech.

The problem is that White-Nationalists can simply... go to Facebook... or Youtube... as recruitment grounds. The big websites aren't cooperating yet. This needs to be a systemic top-down effort, unified across the major websites.

> You've got cause-and-effect backwards. More and more people are deplatforming as they realize that white-nationalism is a bigger problem than they once thought.

And yet, despite (or perhaps because of) increased deplatforming, these groups are stronger than ever and are committing more attacks.

If what you say is true, we should have been seeing a decrease in white nationalism since 2014 when deplatforming started to accelerate. We've seen the opposite.

> Deplatforming works. Lets not look at white-nationalism, but lets look at "Elsa-gate" instead. Children were watching creepy "Elsa" videos (from Disney's "Frozen"). How do you stop this? You ban them from the site

Elsagate wasn't a political movement, it was a group of trolls gaming the YouTube algorithm for views and lulz.

> The problem is that White-Nationalists can simply... go to Facebook... or Youtube... as recruitment grounds. The big websites aren't cooperating yet. This needs to be a systemic top-down effort, unified across the major websites.

Both of those websites ban white nationalism. Facebook even bans praise and any forms of "representation" of white nationalism explicitly: https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2019/03/standing-against-hate/

We keep cutting off the heads of the Hydra of white nationalism and it keeps getting stronger. Bans and suppression is useless at best, counterproductive at worst.

> Elsagate wasn't a political movement, it was a group of trolls gaming the YouTube algorithm for views and lulz.

Nonetheless, deplatforming them worked quite well.

> Both of those websites ban white nationalism.

Not well enough. Moderation on Youtube, Twitter, Facebook, and other sites is extremely subpar and plenty of people can get their recruitment efforts in.

Especially with the "black-hole" of algorithmic "recommendations", these systems automatically pull white-nationalists (and child-pornographers, etc. etc.) together.

We have given these groups the tools they need to automatically find each other (through recommendation listings) and coordinate with each other. Of course their connections and organization are going to get stronger.

> Not well enough. Moderation on Youtube, Twitter, Facebook, and other sites is extremely subpar and plenty of people can get their recruitment efforts in.

Find me three examples of actual white nationalists or child pornographers on YouTube. Every time someone makes this claim, I challenge them to substantiate it. Most of the time, people don't respond and the rest of the time people provide links to generic conservative channels that are anti-immigration, do not believe in the mutability of gender, etc. but are nowhere even remotely in the realm of believing in the supremacy of the white race or supporting the expulsion of non-whites from the country.

I don't have a link, but you can trust me when I can say that I've had discussion with white-nationalists on Youtube.

They gather around conspiracy-related videos. The "discussion" is mostly in the comments / private messages, not actually in the videos themselves.

Its been a long time since I've actually hunted down white supremacist groups on Youtube, maybe things have changed. Follow enough conspiracy theorists, and you eventually get to comment-sections which are almost entirely composed of white-supremacists talking about nonsense.

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With regards to child-porn, its less actual porn and more compromising positions (links to child gymnastics, children playing in pools with wet shirts, etc. etc.). Not actual porn, but its clearly sexual in nature (even if not originally intended). I'm sure you're well aware of the problem however, its been discussed to death. I'd rather not revisit that subject personally.

In any case, the COMMENTs are the goldmine for child-pornographers. Its clear that they are sharing child-porn off Youtube. They just use Youtube as a methodology to find each other and communicate.

Youtube comments are practically unmoderated. Youtube practically has no moderation on comments what-so-ever.

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That's the thing about Youtube's recommendation engine: its really good at preventing people from seeing some groups. But if your Youtube history matches a profile (ex: child porn or white-supremacy), you actually find those groups rather quickly.

It takes some effort to actually pull yourself into those groups however, and you taint your Youtube account history while doing so. So its not really something I like to do on a whim.

Details here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O13G5A5w5P0

I know Youtube changed some stuff this year (fewer comments on gymnastic videos, high-school wrestling competitions, etc. etc), but its all automatic. Without actual moderation, the problem will only arise once again.

> I don't have a link, but you can trust me when I can say that I've had discussion with white-nationalists on Youtube.

As usual, when challenged to back up the claim that YouTube hosts white nationalism and child pornographers the commenter fails to do so.

At best you managed to show that some videos of kids had creepy comments, which YouTube promptly banned after it was brought to light. I recall this phenomenon, and YouTube's response was swift and decisive. So much so that many creators actually complained that YouTube was being too aggressive.

I NEVER claimed that Youtube "hosts" white nationalism.

I said their moderation is subpar. Specifically, that white-nationalism COMMENTS are a problem.

> How do you solve the problem of white-nationalists recruiting on this webpage? Well, you ban hate-speech.

> The problem is that White-Nationalists can simply... go to Facebook... or Youtube... as recruitment grounds. The big websites aren't cooperating yet. This needs to be a systemic top-down effort, unified across the major websites.

Sure sounds like you're saying YouTube and Facebook host white nationalist content to me. Saying that YouTube and Facebook are lax in kicking off white nationalists is still saying that they let white nationalists on their site.

It's only after I challenged you to back up this claim that you pivoted to talking about comments.

> Sure sounds like you're saying YouTube and Facebook host white nationalist content to me.

That's not my intent. You can take at my word, or leave it. Your choice. There's plenty of other issues we can talk about without getting wrapped up about this particular point.

Youtube _comments_ are poorly moderated. Do you agree or disagree?

Maybe. Show me comments where people are recruiting for white nationalist organizations, if it really is as bad as you claim.

As I stated before, its been a while since I've seen white-nationalists. But I have seen it for sure.

But about 5 minutes of search gave me this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e811xgRlZYE

Iranian propaganda against "Zionists" (keyword: anti-semite language) who made 9/11 an inside job.

RT Today still has a prominient mouthpiece on Youtube, not white-nationalist, but conspiracy driven nuts in any case: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyA-sCE18hY

Play around on that side of Youtube long enough, and the white-nationalists eventually show up. Last time I went down hunting for white-nationalists, they were somewhere around that area.

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EDIT: Here's a doozy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVE12id-X4Y

Plenty of pro-Great Replacement ideas here.

Yeah, I'm finding more and more stuff the more I look. As I stated before: the more you fill you search history with this stuff, the easier it gets to find.

"Normal" people aren't able to enter the black hole, because after seeing one video, they click on something else. Conspiracy-nuts continue to click into the hole, filling up their history and getting drawn in more and more. Its just how Youtube's algorithms work. The more you click on these things, the more Youtube serves you this kind of content.

That's enough conspiracy / white national hunting for me though. I think I've proven my point now and don't feel like dirtying my history anymore.

> It's funny how these basic nationalist thoughts are now "far right-wing" In the past these were beliefs that most of the population understood. You dont let your own nation be ethnically and culturally replaced by outsiders.

> I love how Jewtube welds the Wikipedia article to the Great Replacement and tries to dismiss it as a "nationalist right wing conspiracy theory".

> Europe taxes it’s citizens to import Africa Whilst Africa kicks out europeans

Found em. Took about 10 minutes but I'm pretty sure I found what you were looking for. Do you believe me now?

So now I've shown you what's out there. Now I ask you again: what should we do about this? Should we just... let these people continue to collaborate on their mission of hate on Youtube? Or should we like, do something about it before they decide to shoot someone else (El Paso / Christchurch)

> So now I've shown you what's out there. Now I ask you again: what should we do about this? Should we just... let these people continue to collaborate on their mission of hate on Youtube? Or should we like, do something about it before they decide to shoot someone else (El Paso / Christchurch)

Ban them and they will likely become even more extreme, and more violent. Again, you keep assuming that more censorship will make these people less extreme... which is pretty foolish when being subject to censorship is a big reason why they ended up in white nationalist circles in the first place. Do you think that if that commenter talking about "Jewtube" will become less extreme if her or she gets banned? Heck no, they're going to think "oh shit, the conspiracy to silence us is real!"

Ultimately, that is YouTube's decision. Personally I'd ban the comments despite knowing that it will make the situation even worse, because I would want to make as much money as possible and these comments make it harder to sell ads.

So the answer is yes, I'd ban them for my own greed. Not because I think banning them reduces white nationalism - quite the opposite I think it strengthens it - but because it's financially optimal.

Alas, this very discussion we're having only shows how suboptimal your strategy is.

After... what is this, 60 posts in this sub-thread? Neither you nor I are anywhere close to budging on the issue. Discussion is useful for discovering the point-of-views of other people, but it doesn't actually change opinions.

Proof of the pudding: I couldn't convince YOU of anything. And you have similarly failed to convince me of anything.

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And after this full discussion, I think I can firmly conclude that you and I are both rational people. You just don't necessarily see things from my perspective. That's fine.

But it really just goes to show how hard it is to do things "your" way, to convince people one-at-a-time to hold a different point of view. After all, if you've failed to convince me to change my opinion, I don't believe you'd be able to convince the "Great Replacement" nuts to change their opinion.

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