Hacker News Reader

Comment by baix777 | Hacker News Reader

"Break into Congress and kill the swamp creatures". This is a quote from Parler, and this is known as incitement, which is often illegal. The first amendment does not apply to child porn for obvious reasons, but it also doesn't apply to threats of violence, which isn't so obvious to everyone.

To make this obvious, this is not a free speech issue.

View on HN

Americans always seem to conflate what is legal in usa with what is free speech.

All censorship of any speech is a free speech issue. My take is that it is sometimes justified to give consequences to speech that cause harm, but i don't think we should pretend its not a free speech issue.

I can cherry-pick several thousand twitter messages (probably more) that make this quote seem like a soft, fluffy teddy bear. But no one here accuses twitter of being a terrorist platform.

Your last line is absolutely correct: To make this obvious, this is not a free speech issue.

> I can cherry-pick several thousand twitter messages

I've heard this claim asserted before. I am unconvinced. Can you show me some examples?

https://terfisaslur.com/

an entire website with people saying things about terfs but not a single sentence explaining wtf a terf is, i'm too old for twitter feuds

You could Google it. I was just responding to the request for examples of hate groups running unchecked on Twitter.

Trans-exclusionary radical feminist. So basically feminists that believe the femininity is endangered by the mere existence of male-to-female transgender people.

So basically transphobes that also larp as feminists.

Please do not support transphobia.

For the record, I support mainstream trans rights.

I fail to see how evidence of hate and violence coming from trans extremists is transphobic.

trans women are women. period.

Some people disagree with that attempt to redefine words. This whole thread is about the right to have that disagreement in a civil fashion, or whether to shut down the thought process with phrases like “period”.

What does that have to do with anything? The link above is a collection of screenshots of incitement of violence happening on twitter.

a) Against whom or for what reason that incitement is happening if irrelevant.

b) Equating defending a persons right not to receive death threats to supporting their ideology is beyond dangerous.

> What does that have to do with anything?

It's a reminder, more to the point, is it a slur though?

If you are fine with denying someone's existence I am sure you can take whatever is coming to you from very people fighting against you.

> ...incitement of violence

I would disagree with the 'incitement of violence', but to be fair, I don't blame them either, I would have said the same as well.

> If you are fine with denying someone's existence I am sure you can take whatever is coming to you from very people fighting against you.

Calling for people to be killed is never OK. Defending people who call for others to be killed is not OK.

Who said this was 'OK'?

Maybe don't deny the existence of people and perhaps you won't get those responses?

> Who said this was 'OK'?

You're constantly implying that they deserve it with sentences like "Maybe don't deny the existence of people and perhaps you won't get those responses?".

I'm telling you that's being a huge dick because nobody deserves to be told that they should be killed, even if they are massive assholes themselves. And now you're trying to weasel-word your way out of it without admitting that those tweets are wrong, which sure doesn't make it seem like you disagree with them.

Well tweets don't really kill you though do they? They are not directed at anyone, at most it is vented frustration from the oppressed that is trans people.

> tweets don't really kill you

You can say that in response to any hateful tweet. Racism? "tweets don't kill you". Openly advocating for genocide? "tweets don't kill you". Claiming pineapple is a perfectly valid pizza topping? "tweets don't kill you".

This is highly debatable. In 100 years if an anthropologist was looking at the skeleton of a trans person they would beg to differ. If a doctor was looking at the DNA they would beg to differ.

How many of these posts are still up? The problem with "pictures of tweets" is that we can't check whether or not these were moderated. The controversy is not over whether garbage get posted, it's over what happens afterward.

Just because twitter has illegal content doesn't make what parler was doing any less illegal. Just because someone else breaks the law doesn't give you a free pass.

This is not a free speech issue on any social media.

Amazon had every right to stop illegal activity on their platform.

I believe the "law" should be applied equally. "Illegal activity" ignored on one platform or given a wink and nod and scanned under a microscope on the other platform is strange.

The selective application of policy while pretending to be fair and unbiased tends to make folks cynical.

You could make the same argument for inane twitter posts calling out to "kill all white men" or defund the police.

In the end, the lines we draw are often in the sand, and the legitimacy of these threats have to be weighed with the consequence of real world actions.

People storming the Capitol Hill building shouting these things posed a legitimate threat, but so do feminists shouting these things in rallies in real life, or the people burning police departments during the George Floyd protests. What we choose to condemn however, seems to be completely arbitrary to passers by.

The number of messages on Parler that had content like that was probably very limited. You’re cherry picking one message on a platform with double digit millions of users to paint a certain picture. But let’s not forget about all the violence in BLM riots over the last year, much of which was organized and popularized on social media platforms like Twitter or Facebook, who all get a pass.

And yes it is a free speech issue when several companies that have left leaning cultures and leaders take concurrent actions to block a right leaning platform that mostly carries fully legal speech.

> The number of messages on Parler that had content like that was probably very limited.

Why are you saying "probably"? A lot of it was backed up. You can go check for yourself, it was very markedly not limited.

Feel free to share your hard evidence, with comparisons to total number of users and total message volume. Until then, you're making an unproven claim.

r/ParlerWatch has been surfacing violent threats for months, long before the Capitol riot.

https://old.reddit.com/r/ParlerWatch/

>not forget about all the violence in BLM riots over the last year, much of which was organized and popularized on social media platforms like Twitter or Facebook, who all get a pass.

Elaborating on that:

There was a mass shooting in New Zealand that was live streamed on Facebook. Now, imagine for a moment, what the public response would be if that had been on parler.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com