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Comment by riversflow | Hacker News Reader

>in 15 years, the U.S. becomes Germany, pre-WW2

>the price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

The irony of censoring people being, “the price of freedom”.

Serious question, why do you think that disenfranchising groups of their ability to communicate online is going to prevent social strife and violence instead of intensifying it? Banning theDonald didn’t help, the Daily Stormer being banished from the web didn’t change anything, kicking so many reactionaries off of Twitter that they went off to make Gab didn’t help, and destroying Parler and kicking Trump off social media isn’t going to help.

How is silencing a group that feels oppressed going to help anything?

This, “conservatives are turning into literal nazis” narrative is extremely toxic to public discourse and needs to completely stop.

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People need to stop hiding behind the first amendment and "but censorship" as a way of allowing democracy-threatening activity. Speech has ALWAYS had limitations. You cannot yell "fire" in a movie theatre. You cannot publish falsehoods that harm a person's reputation. You cannot reveal classified information. You cannot imitate a police officer. Why is "you cannot incite violent terrorism" suddenly controversial? Particularly when these are private corporations making the decisions, who are not duty-bound to enable free spech in the first place?

>democracy-threatening activity.

Yes, like handing the keys to public discourse over to a private corporation and then defending their right to censor it as they please.

>You cannot yell "fire" in a movie theatre.

Actually, you can. This is protected by Brandenberg as I understand it.

>You cannot publish falsehoods that harm a person's reputation.

Sure, thats defamation. I agree that should be illegal.

>You cannot reveal classified information.

You can also sign an NDA!

>Why is "you cannot incite violent terrorism" suddenly controversial?

Because without the freedom to "incite violent terrorism" we are essentially captive to the whims of the government.

To quote Thomas Jefferson. "What country before ever existed a century and half without a rebellion? And what country can preserve it’s liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is it’s natural manure."[1]

The whole letter I take this quote from is worth a read.

[1]https://www.monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/tre...

edit: formatting

>>You cannot yell "fire" in a movie theatre.

>Actually, you can. This is protected by Brandenberg as I understand it.

Brandenberg says that the government can't restrict inflammatory speech unless it's "directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action". The case specifies three requirements for punishing speech: 'intent', 'immenent lawless action', and 'likely to incite'. Shouting 'fire' is discussed in the opinion as potentially prosecutable:

https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/395/444/

> The line between what is permissible and not subject to control and what may be made impermissible and subject to regulation is the line between ideas and overt acts.

> The example usually given by those who would punish speech is the case of one who falsely shouts fire in a crowded theatre.

> This is, however, a classic case where speech is brigaded with action. See Speiser v. Randall, 357 U. S. 513, 357 U. S. 536-537 (DOUGLAS, J., concurring). They are indeed inseparable, and a prosecution can be launched for the overt acts actually caused. Apart from rare instances of that kind, speech is, I think, immune from prosecution. Certainly there is no constitutional line between advocacy of abstract ideas, as in Yates, and advocacy of political action, as in Scales. The quality of advocacy turns on the depth of the conviction, and government has no power to invade that sanctuary of belief and conscience.

P.S. the theater company can ban you for being a nuisance even if it's not illegal.

Riversflow, the reference to the replenishment of the "tree of liberty" is unhelpful. It's cliche and generates far more heat than light.

The real reason it can be dangerous to ban speech connected with "terrorism" is the quoted term is so poorly defined as to potentially be almost anything abrasive and unpopular. I haven't seen any cohesive explanation of how the occupation of the Capitol January 6 was terroristic in nature, and yet the event broadly is being criticized as such, exemplifying why high-stakes laws against ill-defined things could have a chilling effect far broader than just those things we all agree should not occur. Is the line when protesters are unlawfully in a location? Like the middle of a street? When they advocate for things that are not currently lawful, e.g., changes in law? When they are agitated, animated and frighten their neighbors?

> You cannot yell “fire” in a movie theatre.

That’s the standard illustration of the Schenk (which suppressed what is widely now recognized as core political speech) “clear and present danger” test, which probably comes to a different result under the Brandenberg “incites imminent lawless action” test which replaced it

They're not 'hiding behind it'. They believe that suppressing speech makes extremism worse in the long run.

Speech has limitations, but banning an entire social media network at the decision of tech oligarchs instead of the actual legal limits on speech is a precedent many see as escalation of the conflict. I do. This is a giant mistake that will breed resentment and do nothing but confirm to Trumpists that there is, in fact, a conspiracy against them.

Why must we provide them a platform to spew their hate of anyone who is not a white conservative?

If they want such a platform, they can go build their own parallel economy and technology infrastructure.

Good luck to them.

They're going to do exactly that and you're not going to like it.

> spew their hate of anyone who is not a white conservative?

This is extremely biased and ignorant. For one, there are plenty of non-white non-conservatives on the platform. Your statement here reveals much about your biases.

You are basically removing platform of communication is ok for people that hold opinions other than the mainstream politically-correct ones. This is exactly the sort of things authoritarian government such as China do.

The irony that the conservative movement wants less regulation and government yet cries foul when the vendors they use aren't regulated

>Why is "you cannot incite violent terrorism" suddenly controversial?

When it takes pages to describe why something is inciting violence, and the result is huge numbers of people arguing it both was and wasn't inciting violence - including very, very intelligent people on both sides - then maybe it's not as cut and dry as you make it out to be. Or is everyone who disagrees with you either disingenuous or stupid?

But the thing is, have you actually read the stuff on Parker this is about? These people are actively inciting violence. Their leaders are encouraging violent assaults on democratic institutions. They really aren’t that different from what happened in Germany in the late 20s and 30s. Whether they also come to resemble Germany in the late 30s is irrelevant.

a lot of people on HN are at peace with any violent disruptions that may ocurr. you cannot assume we all want the same thing.

>These people are actively inciting violence.

Err, so what?, the supreme court has a pretty strict definition per Brandenburg. And I agree with the court's opinion there,

> "These later decisions have fashioned the principle that the constitutional guarantees of free speech and free press do not permit a State to forbid or proscribe advocacy of the use of force or of law violation except where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action."

I could be wrong, but I don't think anyone advocating for it, especially from behind a keyboard, actually expected storming the capital to happen, and it seems like it only happened as a result of law enforcement essentially giving it it's blessing. As pointed out by your sibling comment, calling a group of people who mostly milled around the capital "insurrectionists" is just fallacious, and tells you how loaded this whole thing is. I'm extremely concerned that this spectacle is going to be used to curtail our liberties the same way 9/11 was used to pass the Patriot act.

I feel like I'm in crazy town when I see so much being done to stop "inciting violence". Isn't it ultimately the responsibility of the public to not act on such incitements? When a group becomes sufficiently disenfranchised the most radical members transition from trying to make peaceful change to calling for revolution. If the disenfranchisement continues unabated more and more members of the group will be convinced of the need for action. This is fundamentally why the U.S. exists, and I think it is the right of the oppressed group to self-advocate and self-determine.

So in that sense I don't think that anyone can honestly say that calls for violence are never appropriate. Any revolution, even a velvet one, is going to have some fringe of people calling for violence or it will never come about. Should western media have shut down the Arab spring for the same reason? What about #freepalestine? There were plenty of calls for violence against Trump, and nobody seemed too concerned. Should Kathy Griffin have been blackballed?

If we define this group of people as predominantly non-college educated, non-hispanic white males, then we are talking about a group whose deaths of despair (suicide and drug overdose) rate has tripled in the last twenty years, a trend that has likely intensified significantly during the lockdown [1]. Now I could be wrong, but I don't think they are killing themselves because they aren't allowed to be racist, rather I think it's because non-college educated rural americans[2] are being and have been marginalized.[3]

Perhaps we should try and lift this group up instead of grinding them down and using them as a scape goat for problems primarily related to wealth inequality.

[1]https://www.sciencenews.org/article/deaths-of-despair-depres... [2]https://www.americancommunities.org/chapter/american-communi... [3]https://www.the74million.org/article/solving-the-rural-educa...

e: formatting

> When a group becomes sufficiently disenfranchised the most radical members transition from trying to make peaceful change to calling for revolution.

I'd agree that there is a sizeable proportion of the population that feels left behind. However, a large portion of the people present on Jan 6 were not the disenfranchised. There were a worrying number of CEOs, Active Military, Doctors, and Lawyers present.

> Perhaps we should try and lift this group up instead of grinding them down and using them as a scape goat for problems primarily related to wealth inequality.

This is overwhelmingly what people like Bernie Sanders and AOC are trying to do. The rhetoric of both is based around trying to help working people by introducing social safety nets with the express purpose of giving people like them some room to breath financially. Have you seen how those policies have been received? Instead they elected an authoritarian millionaire who stoked division and xenophobia while cutting taxes for everyone but them.

They've been convinced that the reason they're struggling is the fault of illegal immigrants, the Chinese, feminism, and leftists. Propaganda that has carried over from the Cold War leads them to reject any policy that might actually help them as "communism". As a block they vote overwhelmingly for policies that only serve to enrich their bosses and the people producing the propaganda. They'll rant for hours about how awful Obamacare was going to be, but then happily tell you about how much they love the "ACA" that they're currently making use of.

We've reached a point where they're behaving more like a spouse who won't leave their abusive husband. The best thing is remove the source of that abuse for long enough that they might come to some degree of sense.

Here's the thing. If you've paid attention for more than fifteen minutes to feminists complaining about mistreatment, you'd know that one of the oldest tricks in the deflection playbook is to play the "agreeableness" card, asking people to calm down and be reasonable. At its best, it's a delaying tactic, playing for time while you continue to enjoy the fruits of inequality. I don't like it when it happens to women. I'm sure as hell not going to tolerate it being turned toward me.

When they say "literal nazis", they mean literal nazis, not figurative nazis.

I don't think the entire GOP it turning into Nazis. I can't recall the last time I heard someone say they believed it. However, I don't think every German, or even most Germans, in WWII were Nazis either. That didn't stop the Nazis from being in charge. It barely slowed them down.

In order to get his 49% of the votes, #45 had to scrape the bottom of the barrel, courting every non-liberal element of society. The GOP leadership has publicly recognized these groups and groups like them as members of Team GOP. They seated them at a table as if they deserve to be peers with the folks you claim to represent.

Let me ask you a serious question. Was it worth it to win that way? Really? What entitles anyone who says 'yes' or 'maybe' to be painted with a separate brush from the people who delivered the victory at "any cost"?

If getting you, or all of us really, looking in the mirror is going to be predicated on treating you with the respect you plan to earn once they've treated you as if you've earned it, then buddy, you're going to be disrespected for an awful long time. Read the warnings, take some umbrage. I certainly am.

So what do we do instead? Just continue down this path until 75% of Americans "feel oppressed" and that "BLM and Antifa and Democrats are Marxists and enemies of the people"? Yeah? 'cause that's not working out.

Or are you kind of thinking it is working out and it's your desired outcome?

The Right is excellent at projecting and playing "the victim" so I wouldn't be surprised.

>This, “conservatives are turning into literal nazis” narrative is extremely toxic to public discourse and needs to completely stop.

I would never refer to a conservative who recognizes the legitimate results of our free and fair elections as a Nazi! Now the question is, why in the flying MOTHERFUCK do I need that qualifier?

I am a conservative who doesn't think it was stolen. But I have to point out the double standard. For ~3 years democrats claimed trump only won 2016 because Putin helped him. And they claimed for months that Stacy Ambrams was the actual winner of the 2018 Georgia gubernatorial race. Now Republicans are the devil for not accepting this election?

> Now Republicans are the devil for not accepting this election?

Now? You do realize that the current president is the ringleader of birtherism, right?

>You do realize that the current president is the ringleader of birtherism, right?

Hillary Clinton, in her 2008 presidential campaign brought the fringe conspiracy theory of 'birtherism' into the mainstream as a rhetorical weapon to discredit her rival, Barack Obama, at least in the eyes of enough potential voters to do some harm. Donald Trump did bring the matter up in his campaign, but quickly repudiated it and never mentioned it again. It does not look like a sustainable assertion that Trump is, or ever was the 'ringleader' of 'birtherism.'

>For ~3 years democrats claimed trump only won 2016 because Putin helped him.

Of which there was concrete proof of election meddling by Russia. Obviously we can't litigate what-ifs, but I'm not sure how the two can be separated.

>Stacey Abrams was the actual winner of the 2018 Georgia gubernatorial race.

The guy she was running against was the secretary of state at the time and passed several laws that were very clearly meant to suppress voter turnout before an election that he was standing in.

>Now Republicans are the devil for not accepting this election?

Yes, and for inciting violence and beating a police officer to death with a flag of the steps of the Capitol while saying the pledge of allegiance. Either work to make sure it never happens again or be inextricably linked to it.

Case and point.

Dems bitch and moan about every election they lose. But they don't try to assassinate or ransom elected officials.

And it's only fringe people on the right that tried that. All mainstream right leaning people disavowed it.

Downvoted Really!? What the fuck for??

Parler's app was the number one download on the app store & play store after Trump was kicked off Twitter.

Then apple and google decided that Parler was not going to be a platform Trump could use, so they kicked the app off.

Then amazon decided that Parler had no place on their computing resources.

Those 2 tweets were interpreted as they were, to suit the political leanings of those tech companies and their political allies. And a legitimate competitor was destroyed into the bargain. This is not reasonable and it is antithetical to the freedoms on which your great nation was founded.

If you, dear HN reader, can't see the threat to your freedom in this then you are blind.

The US democracy may be under stress, so to speak, but it does seem to be working. The democrats will have their man in the white house. Trump will leave.

Oh, and to call that invasion of the capitol an attempted coup is a real stretch. What were they ever going to do other than get arrested??

|| If you, dear HN reader, can't see the threat to your freedom in this then you are blind.

Forcing a private corporation to provide a platform for someone else is also a form of tyrrany.

|| Oh, and to call that invasion of the capitol an attempted coup is a real stretch. What were they ever going to do other than get arrested??

They were going to kill our representatives in government. That was their intent, and it's a bit odd that you're making excuses for them.

> Forcing a private corporation to provide a platform for someone else is also a form of tyrrany.

I appreciate that. I am not sure where I stand on this anymore. I agree that they are private corporations with rights. But they are also unprecedented in history in terms of scale, wealth and power. And they just silenced a president and shutdown a competitor. Those are some implications that need to be considered carefully.

> And they just silenced a president

The President is perfectly capable of getting a message out without the use of twitter. There's even a room in his house specifically for giving press briefings. To pretend that this is "silencing" him is ridiculous.

> But they are also unprecedented in history in terms of scale, wealth and power. And they just silenced a president and shutdown a competitor. Those are some implications that need to be considered carefully.

Then break them up, they absolutely deserve to be, I just don't think this particular situation is an example of why they should be broken up.

I would like to point out that Parler claimed to be using AWS as a regular hosting provider, so this isn't an area where the market is anywhere near as consolidated, there are thousands of other hosting providers out there who probably don't want to deal with them either.

> The President is perfectly capable of getting a message out without the use of twitter. There's even a room in his house specifically for giving press briefings. To pretend that this is "silencing" him is ridiculous.

Debating, especially on the internet, requires a little generosity when interpreting your opponent's words. Be liberal in what you accept and strict in what you emit. I know that the President wasn't literally silenced. Jeff Bezos didn't send goons to the whitehouse to gag and bag him.

We both know that firing off a tweet to millions instantly is a lot easier than calling a press conference.

> They were going to kill our representatives in government. That was their intent, and it's a bit odd that you're making excuses for them.

Maybe so. But that's still not a coup. It's a heinous, despicable act, but not a coup.

It was an attempted coup. Words have meanings.

Here's a thing every activist knows, from the most benign to the most toxic (by anyone's estimation):

If you wait for the government to provide you every good thing in life, it'll never come.

Governments like to look around at what people are already doing in several locales or regions and either stop them or give it to everybody. The courts get involved and decide whether that's allowed. If the Federal government doesn't like what the courts say, they can use more strongly worded laws so the courts have to agree. We make the last bit difficult so that we don't do it frivolously. It cuts down on overreach, but it also means bad actors tend to get to play a bit longer at the expense of everybody else.

If individuals or corporations are the last word in reasonable political discourse, we will have failed. Not so spectacularly as if we never do anything until Congress says so, but failed nonetheless.

To be clear, I'm not saying this should be the end of this. But someone has to get the wheels of government rolling, and this is fairly typical, if not ideal.

>Oh, and to call that invasion of the capitol an attempted coup is a real stretch. What were they ever going to do other than get arrested??

This reminds me of far-leftists refusing to admit that Islamist terrorism should be counted as terrorism, because, after all, what was killing a few people in an LGBT nightclub going to accomplish for ISIS?

My problem is with the description of that action as a "coup". I'm not defending those people. I'm not informed well enough to do that. But a coup? I don't think so.

Coups generally rely on military support, or some sort of established basis for taking and holding political power. This was not a coup. Or it was the shittest one ever.

If you consider that their aim was to overturn an election by force, then yes, it was a coup attempt. I think they were counting on the military and law enforcement rank-and-file (which overwhelmingly support Trump) to join them.

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