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Comment by mancerayder | Hacker News Reader

I read regular stories on HN about employee activism on certain types of popular issues around gender and race, involving petitions and publicity. Spotify, Apple, Google. Yet nothing about the march towards totalitarianism and information control - always with good intentions and to our benefit - promulgated with stories such as this.

Not a peep from our young Silicon Valley activists. Do we still teach history at school? I'm talking about history of many countries. No fear whatsoever of information control and government censorship. I'm baffled and saddened.

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Join one of these companies and what you will find is that:

> Not a peep from our young Silicon Valley activists.

are the ones pushing FOR these changes.

> are the ones pushing FOR these changes.

Because the goal isn't to deconstruct those systems of power (as it probably _should_), but rather to put someone else in the center.

I once heard a Silicon Valley VC say on a podcast: "If you hear someone utter the term 'equity,' then run for the hills. Because it's really a power grab." (Not obviously talking about stock compensation, of course...)

Because the activists want tech companies to censor and control information.

Not all or even most. Tech platform censorship is just ranked lower on their list of issues/grievances. How do you think activists should be spending their time?

>Tech platform censorship is just ranked lower on their list of issues/grievances.

Yeah, I doubt that.

https://alphabetworkersunion.org/principles/mission-statemen...

>Social and economic justice are paramount to achieving just outcomes. We will prioritize the needs of the worst off. Neutrality never helps the victim.

That doesn't scream "end platform censorship" to me.

The ideology of young activists basically boils down to power. You either have it, or you don't. Foucault in a nutshell. Abstract principles that should apply equally to everyone are just a colonialist legacy, or something.

>Do we still teach history at school? I'm talking about history of many countries. No fear whatsoever of information control and government censorship. I'm baffled and saddened.

I agree. We don't spend enough time teaching about the history of free speech in other countries like Germany. And no, I don't only mean in 1930s and 1940s Germany. I also mean the Germany of today. They, along with much of Europe, have laws outlawing some misinformation such as Holocaust denial and their societies haven't collapsed into totalitarianism.

Some restrictions on speech are truly dangerous. Some aren't. It is important to have the historical context to help know which one we are discussing.

It is also slowly becoming illegal to criticise Islam.

Taking Islam out of the equation do you think it’s a good idea for any religion to actually be off the table in terms of discussion?

> It is also slowly becoming illegal to criticise Islam

Really? Literally "Illegal" as in laws against it, or figuratively as in no longer socially acceptable?

https://eclj.org/free-speech/echr/blasphemy-crime-the-echr-i...

It looks like there's a lot more nuanced in there than criticising Islam. Trying to convince people that all Muslims are pedophiles is a bit different than calling Mohammad a pedophile

That's not what the ECHR ruled on.

Go burn a Koran and see what happens.

Yes, literally. Hate speech laws.

You are equating criticizing a religion with spreading hate speech. Islam or any religion is not "off the table in terms of discussion". Many European countries, including Germany, simply don't want people crossing the lines into speech that can incite people to harm others.

> simply don't want people crossing the lines into speech that can incite people to harm others.

I think that's very very far from simple, since it necessarily requires the government slowly align, and converge, with those people, so they they are never offended and never cause harm.

> since it necessarily requires the government slowly align, and converge, with those people, so they they are never offended and never cause harm.

"Those people" are not the ones who dictate whether something is hate speech. Whether someone is offended is not a factor in hate speech laws. When I said "incite people to harm others" I am talking about physical harm or violence. It is perfectly legal to offend people in Germany.

> It is perfectly legal to offend people in Germany.

No, wrong, it isn't.

https://dejure.org/gesetze/StGB/183a.html https://dejure.org/gesetze/StGB/166.html

Sexual and religious offense. Both predicated on someone being (even just possibly) offended.

https://dejure.org/gesetze/StGB/185.html https://dejure.org/gesetze/StGB/188.html

General offense, usually only prosecuted if the offended wants it (but the prosecutor has discretion to proceed without). Harsher punishments if the offended is a politician.

https://dejure.org/gesetze/StGB/104.html Even just offending other states by burning flags is punishable.

So you couldn't be more wrong. (I personally think those laws are BS and should be done away with.)

I don't know what your point is here. You are citing particular laws in which a party is likely to be offended like public sex, defamation, and desecration of a flag. But the crime isn't that offense was caused. That offense is the byproduct of the actual crime.

Plus many of those are illegal in other countries too. You can't have public sex or defame people in the US either, but no one would say it is illegal to offend people.

Already linked above but here you go: https://eclj.org/free-speech/echr/blasphemy-crime-the-echr-i...

FYI Austria and Germany haven't been a unified country in three quarters of a century.

My original comment was about laws against misinformation in Germany. That doesn't mean I endorse or need to defend all free speech laws in all of Europe.

Playing devils advocate here, how is holocaust denial dangerous?

At the most basic level, denying or downplaying a previous genocide increases the odds of a future genocide.

WTF is up with this thread, that a comment like this would generate down votes? And that people would think disinformation is not harmful?

I’m asking for data on harm, we may assume it’s harmful, but how harmful? Can it even be measured? These are interesting questions.

Who judges what's disinformation? In the case of holocaust denial, you have historians who can easily disprove the deniers. What the hell is Google's claim to credentials?

In terms of harm measurement, it's not as straightforward as you would like. Are we judging feelings or violence that results or...?

Next, end goal. You want to squash every individual who denies the Holocaust occurred or downplays it? Good luck, you'll have your hands full in countries like Pakistan and Saudi Arabia and Iran.

Do you have data to support that by any chance, I’ve heard old axioms, but nothing more than that.

I don't want to be a jerk, but if you want to play devil's advocate, you can do the research yourself. I am comfortable believing the old "those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it" adage without having a peer reviewed study on it.

I don’t take it as being a jerk, I’m just trying to question my assumptions in being intellectually rigorous. I’m failing to see how denying an event leads to repeating it, or the inverse, how accepting a historical event shields you from repeating it. Genocide existed before hitler, and I’m assuming hitler knew about some of it, so why didn’t it work there?

This is a valid line of questioning.

But the Turkish government and its supporters are allowed to deny and downplay the Armenian genocide to their hearts content. The European Court of Human Rights even decided (Perinçek v. Switzerland) that people have a free speech right to deny the Armenian genocide, yet it has also held that people don't have a free speech right to deny the Holocaust (Pastörs v. Germany).

Both genocides happened, both genocides were awful, but it seems like different rules apply to denying different genocides, and that those rules are based on political calculations rather than defensible principle.

Yes, the laws in Turkey, Switzerland, and Germany are not going to be identical. And as I said elsewhere in this thread:

"My original comment was about laws against misinformation in Germany. That doesn't mean I endorse or need to defend all free speech laws in all of Europe."

Germany passes laws to ban Holocaust denial. The European Court of Human Rights upholds them as compatible with human rights.

Switzerland passes laws to ban both Holocaust denial and Armenian Genocide denial. The European Court of Human Rights rules the second aspect of the law is a human rights violation.

My complaint isn't about either the laws of Germany or of Switzerland, it is about the rulings of the European Court of Human Rights, who have jurisdiction across almost all of Europe. The ECHR believes one has a free speech right to deny some genocides but not others.

The European Court of Human Rights doesn't rule on abstract ideas. It rules on particular cases. They didn't say denying the Armenian Genocide is okay while denying the Holocaust isn't. They ruled on two individual cases that seem to be contradictory when summarized in a single sentence. That doesn't mean they truly are contradictory once examined in depth.

You haven't explained how they aren't contradictory. You've just claimed that, if one examines them in depth, they will be found not to be contradictory. Have you examined them in depth yourself?

I'm not sure why the burden is on me, but here is the first Google result when plugging in both case names[1]:

>The Court began by noting the decisions in its previous cases concerning the denial of the Holocaust and other statements relating to Nazi crimes. Previous statements have been held to be inadmissible, either as being ill-founded under Article 10(2) when read with Article 17 (citing Williamson v. Germany ECtHR [2019] 64496/17), or otherwise as having incompatible subject matter jurisdiction under Article 17 (Perinçek v. Switzerland ECtHR [2015] 27510/08). The Court reiterated that Article 17 is reserved for extreme cases and on exceptional bases, and should only be used in Article 10 cases if it is “immediately clear” that the statements in issue seek to employ the right to freedom of expression “for ends clearly contrary to the values of the Convention” (para 37) – such as inciting hatred or violence or aiming to destroy the rights and freedoms listed in the Convention. Any case concerning Holocaust denial must be taken on a case-by-case basis and depends on all the circumstances of that particular case, when it comes to the Court’s decision to either apply Article 17 directly to the applicant’s Article 10 application and declare it incompatible with the subject matter jurisdiction of the Court, or instead to apply the general law principles under Article 10 and invoke Article 17 at a later stage as an interpretive aid when examining the necessity of any alleged interference by the domestic courts.

[1] - https://globalfreedomofexpression.columbia.edu/cases/pasto%C...

So, quoting a court's justification of its decision, proves the court made the right decision?

Of course the ECHR is going to claim "this case is unique and isn't inconsistent with our rulings in other cases". Just because they claim that doesn't make it true.

I never said it was the right decision. I said it is possible for the two decisions to coexist and that is the description for how they coexist.

I don't know what I else I could write here that would satisfy you.

So, my claim is, that the ECHR's case law on genocide denial is inconsistent, and that inconsistency is politically motivated.

I don't think I've proven the claim. But I think an objective person would have to say that there is a reasonable possibility it is true.

Do you agree there is a reasonable possibility the claim is true?

>Do you agree there is a reasonable possibility the claim is true?

Sure, it is reasonable it is politically motivated. It is also reasonable it isn't. Giving the lack of definitive answer, I chose to give the benefit of the doubt to the ECHR. Either way, I don't understand what point you are trying to make.

Well, my point is this – if you try to justify laws against genocide denial, it is easier to justify them if those laws are consistent, and based on principle rather than politics. If there is a real possibility that we have unprincipled inconsistencies in them, that is a problem for their justification.

Why is the justification impacted by the consistency of certain implementations? Speed limits aren't consistent. You can't go above 60 mph anywhere in Hawaii, but some places in Texas you can go 85 mph. That doesn't mean speed limits aren't justifiable.

Laws are always going to vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Sometimes that difference is based on principle. Sometimes it is based on politics. But even if it is tweaked due to politics, it doesn't invalidate the principle behind the entire law.

When laws treat members of different racial/ethnic/national groups differently, that's a form of discrimination. If there was a genocide against group A, and another against group B, and we say that it is illegal to deny the genocide against group A, but legal to deny the genocide against group B, that is treating group A and B differently. It is going to upset many members of group B, and damage social cohesion. Especially so if the different legal treatment is based on politics rather than principle.

I don't think your case of speed limits is really comparable. Nobody's personal identity is based on a speed limit, those laws – however rational or irrational they may be – are not relevant to personal identity. But genocide denial laws are relevant to personal identity – to racial/ethnic/national/etc identity – since different genocides have different victim groups, and there are people alive today who belong to those victim groups and identify with them, and the victims of a genocide (and their descendants) have a special interest in whether it is legal to deny that genocide.

>If there was a genocide against group A, and another against group B, and we say that it is illegal to deny the genocide against group A, but legal to deny the genocide against group B, that is treating group A and B differently.

That was not the ruling of the court. You are projecting that as the result of the court's decisions, but the court expressly said this was not what their ruling meant. Then you are assuming a motive based off that projection.

You are effectively pointing to one court case in which a woman was found innocent of murder and one in which a man was found guilty of murder and concluding that the system is obviously gender biased against men. My argument is not even necessarily that you are wrong, my argument is that you can't draw this conclusion from these two cases.

Well, I am not the only person who draws the conclusion that the ECHR judgement sets up a morally dubious hierarchy of genocides, in which the memory of the Holocaust is viewed as more worthy of protection than the memory of the Armenian genocide, and in which the threat of antisemitism is taken more seriously than that of anti-Armenianism. Here is a law professor making the exact same criticisms (Professor Uladzislau Belavusau at the University of Amsterdam): https://www.echrblog.com/2015/11/guest-commentary-on-grand-c... and also https://verfassungsblog.de/armenian-genocide-v-holocaust-in-...

Similar criticisms have been voiced by Ariana Macaya (law professor at the University of Costa Rica): http://www.qil-qdi.org/focus-sur-perincek-c-suisse-la-questi... (she writes in French, but if you can't read French, Google Translate does a pretty good job of it)

It is odd to accuse me of "projecting" in my criticism of a court decision, when law professors express essentially the same criticism. Are they projecting too?

I can point to legal experts who have a different conclusion.[1] Your linked experts are not inherently more right than mine.

Would you acknowledge that there is something more incendiary about a member of the German Parliament denying the Holocaust in an official Parliamentary speech compared to a foreign national denying the Armenian genocide in Switzerland where the Armenian population is estimated to be 3k-6k? That is the primary conclusion of the ECHR. There is no justification for extrapolating that out to the idea that every instance of denying the Holocaust is worse than any instance of denying the Armenian Genocide which appears to be your conclusion.

[1] - https://njcm.nl/wp-content/uploads/ntm/40-4_Special_Papadopo...

> Laws are always going to vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. GP was talking about rulings from the same jurisdiction. The crazy amount of mental gymnastics you’re doing to justify denial of a genocide because it’s not your pet genocide wild.

That isn't how the ECHR works. They do not dictate the laws for all of Europe. They evaluate whether the individual governments are violating someone's human rights. Those countries can obviously still have their own laws on free speech that will vary.

>The crazy amount of mental gymnastics you’re doing to justify denial of a genocide because it’s not your pet genocide wild.

Where did I justify the denial of genocide? This is a wild accusation, especially from someone who wanted evidence that denying genocide was bad.

What’s sad to me is that someone who really should be a hero to everyone in Silicon Valley, the journalist who decided to publish Edward Snowden’s stuff, at insane risk to himself, has been warning about censorship forever. (Glen greenwald)

Yet now he’s apparently a right wing trump apologist to most people on the left.

That doesn’t change the truth of what a person who’s put a lot on the table is saying.

Censorship always becomes about power. Once you create the tools, the powerful will take them over. You may think that’s a good thing when your side is in power, but that will NEVER be forever.

Snowden (and countless others) are hero's. This new breed of authoritarian leftists do not represent Silicon Valley and tech at large, but rather silence those of us who do still believe in free speech.

I'm petrified about speaking out because I don't want to be labeled as a far-right trump apologist. No, believing gigantic megacorporations shouldn't censor information is not "right-wing".

Please, please do speak out! Otherwise, the only people speaking are the authoritarian leftists and their worst possible opponents, the Trump apologists. People speaking in favor of speech they do not agree with are the most compelling free-speech advocates of all.

Is totalitarianism when you don't let your servers be open relays for antivaxxer propaganda during a pandemic?

Soooo… The Who said the virus isn’t airborne initially. They said masks don’t work initially.

What’s your plan of action there? Google censors what the status quo asks them to and then flips and censors the other side the second they change their mind? Does that sound like a good world to you?

How exactly does long term discussion happen in that cases? Since basically by about April 2020 you’ve banned all pro mask discussion and anti mask discussion…

Well we could create a new government organization that determines what the current best known truth is ("Department of Truth" say) and Google censors just remove anything that goes against the Department of Truth

Damn, what a great idea! Why hasn’t anyone thought of this yet?

Can you clarify if you are being sarcastic or not?

Does Google need a government agency to determine what emails are or aren't spam? Why would it need that in this case instead, and do you really think that would be an improvement? This is a bad strawman.

If they're bad at identifying misinformation, then I'll fault them for that. Has Google had a tendency to censor things on the basis of information that later turned out to be true? Your examples are the judgments of groups that aren't Google and judgments that I don't think the groups responsible for pushed for others to ever get censored for.

In the early days of the coronavirus, you couldn't use Google to find information at all because everyone other than the WHO was getting censored. I was using Bing for a while because their censorship was much slower.

But that is precisely the lesson history taught us. Misinformation, fundamentally, cannot be identified. It's easy to say "oh, everyone who believed that was an idiot" when talking about Galileo being thrown in prison for heliocentrism. If he was alive today, we'd be calling him a "far-right conspiracy theorist" or something equally as nasty.

I can't understate how much I disagree with that being an unambiguous lesson of history. There's been plenty of places where misinformation was identified and pushed out in favor of better information. But mainly, this is about an individual company deciding whether or not to participate in helping spread (mis)information, not about the government choosing to jail someone. It's terrible that Galileo was jailed and that should not have happened, but I don't think free speech should mean that any specific newspaper was legally obligated to run any articles he wrote.

> Has Google had a tendency to censor things on the basis of information that later turned out to be true

Yes. Youtube censored the lab leak hypothesis.

We don’t think lies about the vaccine or who won the election are noble causes worth making sacrifices for.

This ain't it, chief.

We shouldn't be trusting (and giving power to) central governing bodies to dictate what counts as a "lie," and scrubbing away inconvenient information.

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" - Voltaire

Full agreement. "Slippery Slope" may be a fallacy, but establishing a precedent is a real thing and there's no way this stops here.

I think whoever popularized “slippery slope” being a fallacy was an evil mastermind.

It’s empowered countless midwits the ability to blithely dismiss valid sloppy slopes with “nuh uh! It’s a fallacy!”

Once you put the structures in place you don’t get to choose what gets censored. You’re arming a terrible weapon that will already be used against you on the pretext that it will only be used for these two things - and it won’t be only used for those things.

Terrible short sightedness.

Glowing example of "tossing the baby out with the bath water."

Just because you didn’t hear anything doesn’t mean they aren’t saying it. That’s just weak sauce argument and insults on your part.

Lose the agenda.

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