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Comment by Exuma | Hacker News Reader

What else is new, censorship is OK as long as only one side is doing it.

You say this after the president of the United States has incited a seditious, violet mob to attack the Capitol because he's a sore loser.

There are many examples you can pick if you want to point out bias in media, day before yesterday was not one.

For reference, conservative subreddits remain active, Donald Trump is the one that's banned.

> You say this after the president of the United States has incited a seditious, violet mob to attack the Capitol because he's a sore loser.

By this logic pro-BLM democrats (including some high level pro-BLM politicians) incited numerous violent mobs over the course of 2020 to attack Seattle and Portland and usurp rule-of-law. But when it happened then the protests were "fiery but mostly peaceful" because "collateral damage is okay if it is done in the name of grappling with racism". Now that the other side has gathered to protest what they see as injustices, it's "a coup" and "terrorism" because of the bad actors who postponed congress for a few hours despite the fact that the vast majority of the people at the protest were peacefully protesting.

You say these things as if they are not facts.

BLM was protesting the injustice of systematic oppression that results in black people bejng murdered by police. 93% of the protests were entirely peaceful. In the other 7%, it is not clear if the violence was instigated by citizens or police.

On the right, you have people who storm the US fucking Capitol building while they are confirming the next POTUS. They were trying to disrupt the federal government. Some of them had zip tie handcuffs and were reportedly looking for VP Pence.

If you cannot see the clear daylight between those two things, and insist on reducing it to “violence on both sides”, then I simply don’t know what to say to you except to please re-examine your humanity as well as your critical thinking skills.

Aren't white people more likely to die by police? (seriously asking, I remember this data point but it's not in front of me).

Not quite. More white people die by far in total, but as a percentage of the demographic more non-white people die.

This is largely attributed to systemic racism, but also to poverty.

I see, thanks for explaining.

> This is largely attributed to systemic racism

Citation needed

Yes I've wanted to say this, that in legal terms systemic racism can't be proven, but I've already kicked the bee hive enough. PS not saying racism isn't real, only that it's not as clear of an issue as everyone acts like it is.

Ask yourself honestly. If BLM or an Islamic American group had done the same thing yesterday. How many deaths would there have been? I'm guessing we'd be counting in percentages not fingers...something like 75% dead, 25% captured/in prison.

For doing the SAME thing in the SAME location.

I know, it's hard to prove, here say, but you know it's true. Snipers would've been out in force. Cops were high fiving and letting these people in. National Guard was told to stand down. Police were taking selfies with confederates holding flags in the People's building.

This was a desecration of democracy and the rule of law in America. Everyone responsible needs at least 20 years in prison. No exceptions. Trying to disrupt our republic should have some consequences, no?

It is not a clear issue, because it involves very subtle but crucial changes in attitudes from authorities to people of different categories.

However, from my understanding, the research all seems to be pretty directionally consistent - minorities in the US receive worse treatment from the justice system. Here's a good overview of why the statistics might be under-reporting the size of the impact: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-statistics-dont-cap...

I didn't say it was 100% because of systemic racism, just largely attributed to systemic racism. If you need a citation for that, just look at BLM movement in 2020.

I mean citation needed from the people attributing this to systemic racism.

I’m willing to believe them, frankly, if there’s any data or responsible analysis to back it up.

There are thousands of sociology and history faculty around the country who study this for a living, publishing hundreds of peer reviewed books on the topic annually in top university presses. The research has been ongoing and clear for decades.

This is a bit like saying "citation needed" for "the mitochondria is the workhorse of the cell". You just sort of gesture broadly at literally an entire field that studies this stuff.

It takes almost no effort to look up some faculty member at your alma mater who studies crime, race, and policing, look up one of their books, and check it out.

One bit of feedback - your response comes off as a little aggressive. Even though I agree with you, I felt a little defensive when I read your comment. Maybe something like "this is pretty well studied, with lots of publications. Here's an overview that I think is particularly good and representative of the consensus. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-statistics-dont-cap..."

This is a good resource. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-statistics-dont-cap...

Nate silver is the laughing stock of that entire community, including many of who repeatedly beat his predictions over and over and over. Anything that clown puts out is a joke.

This is... not true? I listen to some of his podcasts, and he seems to be pretty grounded in his approach. Do you have a specific criticism of his process?

(Also, this article was not written by him. That kind of diminishes your point, unless you argue that all authors on 538 deserve your disdain by association?)

It's literally on his website, and yes it's true (about him, no idea about the other people on his site). There's a lot of drama and such in that entire space, and I've spent many months following it all and listening to many different viewpoints from different people in that space. Each election/primaries cycle it's the same story over and over, Nate silver is cringingly wrong, states the opposite of truth as fact. On the other hand, you have other groups of people/companies who are like an order of magnitude quantifiably/verifiably more accurate, and they all make jokes about his "predictions." Basically he made a baseball algorithm, sold out, and now uses his influence to do what he's paid to do, support an agenda, just like CNN/Fox and other super biased news sources.

Also, there are more white people than black people. So? Black people are something like 5x more likely to be arrested in a traffic stop. It's not the same at all.

Here's some data analysis that addresses your general concerns, by digging in to the data. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-statistics-dont-cap...

There may be more white people killed by police (in sheer volume) but that’s not the same as white people being more likely to die by police.

I think a black person is about 2x as likely to die in an encounter with the police. I'm not sure if that's normalized for the type of encounter.

> On the right, you have people who storm the US fucking Capitol building while they are confirming the next POTUS.

Could you directly address that time back in June when armed BLM protestors stormed Capitol Hill in Seattle and kicked out all the police for a month?[0] Why does that event get a pass in the context of this conversation?

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitol_Hill_Autonomous_Zone

It's not the most important government building in the entire nation. Don't be stupid, this is not at all comparable.

Why should we consider it a tragedy that people were occupying this building? I certainly don't see any reason to, just like I didn't see any reason to consider the occupation of the two police stations (and destruction of one) a tragedy.

The symbolism is what's important. This building, the largest and tallest and most ornate of all the government buildings in DC, is the beating heart of the US government. To take it over is to strike at the very heart of the government, and to have one branch taken over by instigation by the other branch, it is horrific. Because the consequences are a collapse of this society. With no functioning US Government, the United States cease to be united. It's an existential symbol, and that's why terrorists attempted to target it on 9/11 and why terrorists targeted it this week.

CHAZ was awful, a complete failure for everyone involved. Police escalated during protests, then when it got too hot, they pulled a LA Riots style retreat. Protesters became violent and undercut the moral fiber of their message, going from patriots to criminals very quickly.

My understanding was the police decided to withdraw from the area due to the intensity. It looks like the Seattle people rejected law enforcement, but weren't trying to overthrow the government.

Not all violence is equal. Overthrowing the US federal government because you didn't win is very different than CHAZ. Both can be disgusting while acknowledging that FEDERAL INSURRECTION AND ATTACKING DEMOCRACY IS WORSE THAN CHAZ.

I was in agreement with you until the final paragraph in which you basically attempt to rationalize why protestors breaking into the congress building are somehow much worse than the protestor behavior during CHAZ. A bunch of protestors kicking police out of your city block for a month is an affront to democracy every bit as much as protestors disrupting a congressional meeting for a few hours. In a democracy we obey laws and protest peacefully if we don't like something. Breaking down rule of law is never acceptable.

The reason they are different was in original intent, and what outside factors influenced the transition. They both turned into shitshows. The DC shitshow was 100% the fault of the people present and the strongman authoritarians who incited them. The CHAZ shitshow must be blamed on a number of actors, including the protesters, police who were present, etc.

There's a difference between attacking the Capitol and attacking a Pizza Hut. There's also a difference between a protestor throwing a firework at a courthouse and taking tactical gear and weapons with a couple hundred buddies into a legislature.

This equivalence between BLM and the mobbing of the Capitol is confusing to be because it's so obviously a false one.

> There's a difference between attacking the Capitol and attacking a Pizza Hut

What's the difference? In both cases the stated goal of the protests was not to "break stuff" so if that ends up happening, is that the protest's fault?

> There's also a difference between a protestor throwing a firework at a courthouse and taking tactical gear and weapons with a couple hundred buddies into a legislature.

What about armed protestors forcibly ejecting police from a section of the city and setting up a police-free zone?

> This equivalence between BLM and the mobbing of the Capitol is confusing to be because it's so obviously a false one.

It's not equivalent, just similar. In both cases peaceful protesting of perceived injustice is the stated goal, and in both cases bad actors go renegade and break down rule-of-law.

The Pizza Hut isn't in the process of processing Electoral College votes for the next president of the United States. Disrupting the delivery of pizzas is not in the same category as disrupting the selection of the president.

This wasn't just a riot. It wasn't just a protest. Wasn't just an attack on a building. It wasn't just some vandalism. It was an attack on the last step of the presidential election process.

The purpose of the protest was not to breach congress and stop the processing of the Electoral College votes. A small minority of protestors decided to do that. If we are going to do that and say the entire protest is bad if contained a few bad actors, then in order to not be hypocritical we need to condemn any BLM protest that had bad actors, including the one that resulted in CHAZ.

Or, you can recognize the right to assemble and protest while condemning non-peaceful protesting. I personally unequivocally condemn the violence that occurred in both BLM and Trump protests. I also support the right to gather and peacefully protest, for both BLM and Pro-Trump supporters.

I note the delicious irony of saying "a small minority of protestors", though I suspect that the irony will be lost on those who would benefit from thinking about it.

Still, I see a difference that matters between a small minority trying to take over a police station or destroy a Pizza Hut (bad enough, and worthy of condemnation) and a small minority trying to interfere with the presidential succession (much worse).

There is no difference. Both groups are rioters.

There is also plain hypocrisy in both camps, when one camp riots, the other camp pretends not to understand that there is festering anger from injustice.

But every time, whenever one camps riots, they feel justified and righteous, and the opposing camp, feels enlightened as to and justified in retaliation.

WOKE is bad. EXTREME privilege is bad.

Finding common ground and coming back to our senses might save us all.

Both camps are just a bunch of babies...

Were both houses of Congress and the VP certifying the vote of the next PoTUS at the Pizza Hut? No? Then there's a big difference.

Maybe if they'd do their meetings at Pizza Hut, at least they would start coming closer to common folk.

the irony is that your parent post comment just described you

Imagine if ISIS had a twitter account or reddit fanpage. How fast would conservatives pass legislation to take it down?

If the terrorists are white, they're treated differently.

ISIS had thousands of Twitter accounts and were selling Rohingya underage girls into sex slavery over Facebook.

That’s Yazidi not rohingya. Two separate groups at two distant places on earth.

ISIS uses twitter a lot. It's one of their main recruitment methods.

https://towardsdatascience.com/how-isis-uses-twitter-1006579...

Or were you talking more of an "official" twitter account for the organization itself (the same way Wendy's has a twitter account)?

When you use words such as seditious and mob, I want to remind you that words have power and that those words don’t unify but rather tend to divide and amplify hatred on both sides.

There were many instances where protests got out of hand this summer and courthouses and police stations were destroyed; entire city blocks were taken over and those responsible enacted and enforced their own laws. The actions weren’t referred to as sedition and most media outlets avoided words like mob, treason, etc.

Of course, don’t take my statement to mean I condone ANY case of violence, rioting, property damage, etc. (And in all cases those responsible and those inciting violence should be held accountable) but being consistent and avoiding charged language when depicting civil unrest would go a long way to heal the country rather than to divide it.

yes, because they didn't literally overrun the seat of power and threaten to topple the government. Seditious is spot on.

> When you use words such as seditious and mob

The seditious mob injured 50 officers and killed one of them.

You should quit defending them. Stop with the "both-sidesisms". We can clearly point out which group is evil here.

I don't disagree the problem is the left has so many examples that this hypocrisy is just excruciating to me. You literally have people creating lists to blackball anyone who supports trump, praised and lauded by some political people high up on the food chain. I rarely ever see the left actively support an ACTUAL view of "unity," and believe me, I truly look for it by looking at all opposing views on my social media, on people I disagree with, etc.

> You literally have people creating lists to blackball anyone who supports trump

Like the way Clarence Thomas's wife made lists of people not loyal to Trump to be fired?

"Axios first reported that a "well-connected network of conservative activists" is drawing up lists of officials they perceive to be anti-Trump, who are then flagged to be fired and replaced with Trump loyalists."

https://www.axios.com/trump-memos-deep-state-white-house-ce5...

https://www.businessinsider.com/ginni-thomas-wife-supreme-co...

Seems to me a certain leader followed this same playbook circa 1939.

> The actions weren’t referred to as sedition and most media outlets avoided words like mob, treason, etc.

"Barr Told Prosecutors to Consider Sedition Charges for Protest Violence"

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/16/us/politics/william-barr-...

This is about the protests over the summer, not the recent insurrection. Yes, I'm calling it that. I think functionally it matters a bit more if the USAG is using words like "sedition" compared to media outlets or internet posters.

> words have power

Words start out with power - until they're overused to the point of banality and lose it.

> There were many instances where protests got out of hand this summer and courthouses and police stations were destroyed;

The white supremacist terrorists's goal yesterday was to prevent a formal certification process that's central to the transition of executive power. Many people were armed and prepared for violence: multiple IEDs were found, multiple people had body armor, multiple people had loaded firearms & extra ammunition, people brought a guillitine, people were shouting chants about killing senators & reps, multiple people had zip-ties or handcuffs. That is sedition.

Unlike BLM protestors, the terrorist's intent was a coup: they wanted to undermine a democracy's most important legal process. BLM wants to use legal means to revolutionize the country's public safety, primarily via re-allocating city and state police budgets to programs that have effective track records of increasing public safety and not ending in the murder of Black people.

“I just don’t even know why there aren’t uprisings all over the country, and maybe there will be when people realize that this is a policy that they defend"

- Nancy Pelosi

"If you see anybody from that Cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd and you push back on them, and you tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere." - Maxine Waters

Notice how this is advocating the use of free speech? Notice the lack of violent words like "attack" "battle" "combat" "fight" etc? Do you notice just how different this is than the rhetoric employed by Trump, Guiliani, etc. recently?

“I just don’t even know why there aren’t uprisings all over the country, and maybe there will be when people realize that this is a policy that they defend,” Pelosi said during a press conference. “It’s a horrible thing, and I don’t see any prospect for legislation here.” - Nancy Pelosi

Definition of uprising : an act or instance of rising up especially : a usually localized act of popular violence in defiance usually of an established government

If the left-leaning subreddits were also promoting hate, misinformation and violence then they would be banned too. It's not favouritism, the "one side" that's being targeted is the side that's breaking the platform's rules.

> If the left-leaning subreddits were also promoting hate, misinformation and violence then they would be banned too.

There's plenty of hate and misinformation in those subreddits. None of them have been banned yet.

This is simply untrue. (Arguably) the largest leftist subreddit, /r/ChapoTrapHouse, was banned with /r/thedonald in June.

Which subreddit got banned for promoting the nonsense Steele dossier, and other ridiculous Trump conspiracies like the pee tape?

Those are at worst unsubstantiated, and contain truth like how Russia interfered in the election and Trump's campaign accepted their help. Totally different than something like "the election was rigged", which was tested and failed in court, but still gets shouted from the rooftops, leading to dangerous outcomes like what we saw in DC.

Wait, are you seriously claiming Trump won because of Russia? Or do you agree that the ridiculous Russia narrative pushed by Dems was total BS?

Here is a nice article on the whole situation:

https://taibbi.substack.com/p/russiagate-is-wmd-times-a-mill...

>Totally different than something like "the election was rigged", which was tested and failed in court, but still gets shouted from the rooftops, leading to dangerous outcomes like what we saw in DC.

Yes, that was untrue, ridiculous, and in the end became dangerous. I'm pointing out the usual hypocrisy on both the left and the right when it comes to their own pet causes.

> are you seriously claiming Trump won because of Russia?

That Russia helped Trump is generally agreed upon. Was it the only factor in his win? Of course not.

But your whataboutism here doesn't hold water. Sure, there are subreddits that commonly exaggerated the truth about the Russia thing. Should they should get banned, since r/donaldtrump got banned for supporting violence? The two issues are so very different. I do not see hypocrisy in this case.

>That Russia helped Trump is generally agreed upon.

It is only agreed upon when you don't talk to people outside of your own echo chamber. In 2016, people were just shocked that so many people could vote for a loathsome person like Trump. Dems were unhappy and looked for someone to blame, except themselves for running such a weak candidate. 2020 was just as fair an election, and Trump got even more votes than 2016.

>Sure, there are subreddits that commonly exaggerated the truth about the Russia thing. Should they should get banned, since r/donaldtrump got banned for supporting violence?

What is the standard? Misinformation is OK? Anyway, I don't think an argument here will change anyone's views. People will eventually realize that the Dems have been conning their supporters for quite a while now.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_20...

You're telling me this whole entire article is fake?

> What is the standard? https://www.redditinc.com/policies/content-policy

This article was written clearly before the Mueller report was disseminated to the public, and quotes William Barr's letter of the report which we now Mueller took great exception to. I don't think it's a great resource at this point in time.

Here is my money quote from the report:

> If we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the president clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state. Based on the facts and the applicable legal standards, however, we are unable to reach that judgment.

Of course there was obstruction from Trump - he has the personality of a mob boss. That doesn't shock me. I'm talking about owning up to the fact that he legitimately won a fair election in 2016.

They literally tried to put double standards in the rules[0]. But realized that was a little bit too blatant and backtracked after. "the rule on hate (...) does not protect all groups or all forms of identity. For example, the rule does not protect groups of people who are in the majority "

[0] https://archive.vn/OZ03o

No one is being censored. You’re perfectly welcome to go on 4chan or breitbart or parler or even other subreddits or just build a new platform. No one is entitled to use other people’s resources and effort to have their views amplified without moderation by those people offering that service.

Edit: every time I post a comment like this here I get downvoted. I’m not complaining, downvote away. But I have to wonder if the folks downvoting realize how much this site is moderated and how much they’re actively participating in it.

This argument isn't valid when literally 80 million people support a different idea. At some point when a platform gets large enough it's egregious to shut down so many views especially when any rational human can see the reasons are incredibly biased.

Yes it is valid. Literally 7 billion people are not entitled to unmoderated amplification using Reddit’s resources, regardless of their bias.

I take it you don't remember what life was like before the Internet was a thing.

A major city would have approximately four local TV stations with any kind of news organization and two newspapers. Maybe you'd have CNN if you had cable, which a lot of people didn't have. I could guarantee you right here that none of them would platform extreme viewpoints, and the country was much better off for it. I guess if you lived in NYC you'd have a few more options, but they were still pretty limited. And none of these were interactive in any way we'd recognize: maybe, at the most, you'd get a letter to the editor published if you got lucky.

The idea where anyone could say anything and be given a massive platform on an international social network that most of the population uses is a very, very new development.

Algorithm-driven social media where anyone can post whatever is actively harmful to our country. Right now, if you view any YouTube videos about WW2, you'll start getting videos "explaining" that the Holocaust was a hoax in your recommendations. If you're thinking about getting into hunting, and you look up gun reviews on YouTube, your recommendations are going to fill up with "Stop the Steal" and QAnon and other boogaloo propaganda. This is the kind of behavior that, if allowed to continue, will absolutely and utterly burn down society.

/r/DonaldTrump wasn't visited by 80 million people. The first amendment doesn't protect speech inciting violence.

Are you suggesting the US nationalize Reddit?

How many of those 74 million (Biden got 81) are on r/DonaldTrump?

So Parler should be mandated to host democrat/left views, too, right? After all, it'd be egregious to shut down the views of so many people.

Wait, no, Parler openly and happily deletes "non right wing posts, users and forums". My bad.

> But I have to wonder if the folks downvoting realize how much this site is moderated

This site currently doesn't ban people just because the post is disagreeable. I've managed to respectfully discuss inflammatory topics here before, even though I'm usually the one with the unpopular opinion. On reddit people just get downvoted to oblivion or banned on sight if they post anything that offends the sensibilities of the group.

> "We have also taken action to ban the community r/donaldtrump given repeated policy violations in recent days regarding the violence at the U.S. Capitol.”

From the post itself. The subreddit was banned for breaking ToS. I'd expect the same on this site if I were to repeatedly call for violence.

>You’re perfectly welcome to go on /pol/

Fixed it for ya ;)

> go on 4chan or breitbart or parler or even other subreddits or just build a new platform

Only because the cancel mob hasn't also figured a way to shut down those sites and prohibit you from building a platform of your own.

Yet.

Do... do you realize that a subreddit isn’t a website? That it’s hosted and operated by Reddit?

My house, my rules.

Ownership of the house changes every couple of decades, might want to consider what rules you want to be customary once someone else has the deed.

If you don't like the rules, leave. You don't have to use reddit.

> Ownership of the house changes every couple of decades

If you can't control your house, what's the point of owning it? This undermines the whole concept of private ownership.

Sorry, I'm not talking about Reddit specially. The cultural pendulum travels back and forth so one day, sooner than you think, the people you disagree with will make the editorial decisions for the major social media platforms. If you want to make it the rule that it's fine for platforms like that to remove their political opponents, by all means I just suspect you or your children will regret it.

You didn't address my point. What about undermining the concept of ownership? You're saying that if I produce a website I should not be allowed to control what is posted there? Who is going to enforce that? I suspect you or your children would regret that sort of thing as well.

Perhaps the issue isn't that black and white.

I think you are missing the point because you are thinking too short term. Reddit likely won't exist/won't be as popular in a decade or two, the current owners would still own it but it won't be part of the cultural zeitgeist in the same way. Think AM Radio, Cable TV, Friendster or MySpace. Instead it will be replaced with something else, that something else might not even be called social media, and that thing will be controlled by people with a different political ideology than who currently control Reddit.

I don't know how old you are but do you recall the mid to late 90s/early 2000's in the US? Back then we had to fight so shows like South Park could be shown on cable television (a private platform) due to the fact that the general consensus among the population was that content like that offended their personal and religious values and should be prohibited. Those exact people won't be in power again, but people similar to them almost certainly will. Moves like this hand them a weapon to use against you.

Taking your South Park example, how would that work in your fictionalized world in the 90's? How does it get shown on TV and when?

There's no way your idea makes any sense. It's impossible to implement -- unless of course we have no private ownership and the government runs and pays for everything but I feel like that would be even worse.

Cable TV didn't want to run "offensive" shows because their advertisers wouldn't pay to advertise with them if they did. So who's going to pay under your plan? Who's going to pay to host all this on the Internet?

This is a a darkly funny comment in the broader context where the house has just been overrun by a mob.

How are they being censored? They are perfectly fine to host their community elsewhere, and no one from the state has kicked in their door and hauled them off to a black site.

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