This is not rhetorical. In my experience, a lot of people agree with "It's okay to censor Nazis" but virtually no one agrees with "It's okay to censor people that ____ disapproves of", regardless of what fills the blank.
I guess I'd say I'm against censorship not because there's no speech bad enough to censor, but because there's no one trustworthy enough to do the censoring.
Given the strict definition of "waving swastikas and advocating for violence against Jews" works in the scenario at hand, I'm not yet terrifically concerned about over-reach.
The only reason people wear swastikas in America is because of the strong free-speech protection that this thread is discussing the erosion of. If we banned swastikas (like Germany) then people would stop wearing them (like Germany), but we'd still have the same hate speech you're discussing censoring.
> advocating for violence against Jews
That's a pretty broad standard. If a politician supports evicting Israelis from disputed settlements in the West Bank, is that "advocating violence against Jews?" The answer "Yes according to some people, No according to others." So again, I ask: who are you trusting to decide? President Trump? Congress? You personally? To be clear, the offer currently on the table is "some middle-managers at Cloudfare, as directed by the fickle hand of social media."
Someone chanting "death to Jews" and waving Nazi flags leaves little unambiguous. I'm usually a slippery slope fanatic when it comes to free speech, and I still am as it relates to First Amendment concerns, but private companies choosing not to do business with people who self identify as Nazis, wave Nazi flags and chant "death to Jews" while saying that employees of said companies are also Nazis is pretty clearly their right. Courts aren't computers and the law isn't code; judges can understand "they are Nazis."
Meanwhile, the point this article is making is that (in practice, if not in law) the current answer to the question of who decides what to censor is "middle managers at network infrastructure companies, based on what their social media departments suspect might hurt their brand." If you think that's an acceptable answer, great, but I don't think you can go on thinking of yourself as a "slippery slope fanatic when it comes to free speech" in that case.
There isn't. But we don't need an answer, not yet. The justice system is a lazy evaluator. This case has an easy answer--they are Nazis. If someone sued, the ruling would be quick. If the next case is more complex, reality will illuminate the nuances.
Common law systems are complex. They're also de-centralised and empirical. You don't always need a standard ex ante. We have a cultural standard regarding genocide, its advocacy, and Nazis. Existing norms and laws suffice.
(Philosophically, your question is interesting. It's practically irrelevant, though, until a matching case threatens to arise.)
How many or how detailed must threats against others' wellbeing become before you consider them unacceptable?
We weren't talking about promoting genocide, but about threatening and committing violence. If you can't debate with integrity, I'm not interested.
You chose to answer a question that had been addressed to someone else, which you're welcome to do, but it doesn't give you ownership of the conversation as you seem to imagine.
I said "Threats of violence are already illegal.", to which you responded, "Strange, I haven't heard of anyone being arrested for promoting genocide yet".
> Impugning my integrity because the topic of conversation makes you uncomfortable seems like a you problem.
Ha! If I had any doubt about your integrity, I certainly don't now. Feel free to keep trolling, but you'll just be shouting into the void; I'm blocking this thread.
We're not operating in a grey area, one group is waving nazi flags, chanting blood and soil, and killing people; the other isn't. Pretty open and shut.
---- spot the grey area http://a.abcnews.com/images/International/nazi-flag-charlott...
Simply because they have a different point of view.
Or any politician that openly disagree with certain politicians that have been in office for quite some time. It's a known tactic that has been in effect for a long time now. If you find yourself losing a debate, compare your opponent to Hitler.
I love how to the "free speech advocates" genocide is something that you just "disapprove" of. Im pretty sure, baring literally nazis, you can get just about every person on board with "It's ok to censor people that want genocide".
Maybe you're one of the exceptions. But if so, I'd so some introspection about why "we should indiscriminately kill people" deserves the same consideration as "we shouldn't indiscriminately kill people"; because that's the debate.
Well gosh, that sounds simple! Who could possibly argue with that! And of course, quite a large number of Americans believe that legalizing abortion was genocide. So we're all on board with shutting down plannedparenthood.com then, right?
And to think, I thought censorship was a complex issue.
It is important to understand why people feel compelled to identify with Nazism. If we don't understand why something happened, there is nothing we can take away to prevent it in the future. What we have with Daily Stormer is a quite literal database of interactions of people who self identify as Nazis... I'd say deleting it is not the most productive thing we could do with such information.
If you'd like some reading material:
The Rise and Faull of the Third Reich by William L Shirer - the single best historical overview
Anti-Semite and Jew - by Jean-Paul Sartre - an examination of the fundamental dynamic of nazi ideology
The Nazi Conscience by Claudia Koonz - examines the nazi worldview in detail
Kill All Normies by Angela Nagel - examining the intersection of chan culture and far-right ideology
* What we have with Daily Stormer is a quite literal database of interactions of people who self identify as Nazis... I'd say deleting it is not the most productive thing we could do with such information.*
True, but it's not some petri dish that you can keep isolated in a lab, is it? You have to balance the benefit of what you might learn against the costs that their organizing activity imposes on other people.
EDIT: One other important point--who's to say that censoring Nazis is even an effective way to limit the spread of the ideology? It could well galvanize Nazis or push those on the fence over to the wrong side. What are our motives? Are we more interested in limiting the spread of intolerance, or do we want to make sure there are plenty of Nazis to punch?
You mean close to 50% of registered voters. Which are less than 40% of the population who are eligible voters. And that number is probably off too, thanks to voter suppression, disenfranchisement, and gerrymandering of voting districts.
Furthermore, it was the electoral college who decided who the president should be, in many cases going against the popular vote within their state. When you understand how the electoral votes are decided upon, the number of voters who voted for our current president grows even smaller.
In short, it's a relative minority who actually voted for Trump, and all the voters together are in the minority of all eligible citizens who can vote. Why those others didn't vote is up for debate, but I've already mentioned three potential reasons (not counting apathy).
So that other portion of the population that didn't vote - we have no idea how they stand ideologically on political and social issues. But we can certainly say there's a percentage of them who would have voted for Trump, and the ideology that supports him.
Greater than 50% of the population? Not likely. But it isn't a small percentage, either (in fact, it is probably somewhere close to his polling numbers - around 30%).
I hope you realize that's exactly what you're doing.
>No one is loosely throwing around the term Nazi, these groups self identify as American nazis, carry fucking nazi flags, are on video chanting "jews will not replace us".
Yes, there were a handful of those. And there were a whole bunch of other people who're simply tired of being the only ethnic group that's not allowed to advocate for its own interests.
No one is loosely throwing around the term Nazi, these groups self identify as American nazis, carry fucking nazi flags, are on video chanting "jews will not replace us". Also these groups aren't new; they've been around for years technology has just amplified their voice. You don't need The Daily Stormer and its ilk to come to an informed decision on "are Nazis bad" just open a history book.
There's a valuable discussion to be had about whether it makes sense for the internet to not be a public run utility (and thus subject to full 1st amendment protections). But so long as we're leaning on the free market to sort things out, you're on the wrong side of history if Nazis are the cause you want to defend.