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Re:GoDaddy has shut down Richard Spencer’s white supremacist... by jacksmith21006 on Monday May 07, 2018 @06:08PM (#17016879)
Private companies are not subject to freedom of speech. Something they do not like can go as long as not a protected class.
Re:GoDaddy has shut down Richard Spencer’s white supremacist... by slededit on Monday May 07, 2018 @06:38PM (#17017054)
Your conflating the principle of "freedom of speech" with the implementation in law. The social expectation of neutral service providers has been seriously eroded over the last 2 decades. We never had laws in this space because we never needed them (we do for telephones).
Re:GoDaddy has shut down Richard Spencer’s white supremacist... by mieseratte on Monday May 07, 2018 @06:44PM (#17017083)
I'm of similar mind on this. Free speech is a concept that transcends law, and while you absolutely don't have to agree with it I expect service providers to. The second they willingly remove content that is not illegal, I cannot trust they will treat my content fairly should it come under scrutiny. Should I find myself under the scorn of an internet lynchmob, I could very well find my content removed.
Re:GoDaddy has shut down Richard Spencer’s white supremacist... by scarface74 on Monday May 07, 2018 @09:55PM (#17018228)
So if someone said that they wanted to kill the President (not being political this is true no matter who is President) how fast do you think you would see government agents knocking on their door?

Why should a private citizen get any less protection?

Re:GoDaddy has shut down Richard Spencer’s white supremacist... by mieseratte on Tuesday May 08, 2018 @03:01PM (#17023717)
> how fast do you think you would see government agents knocking on their door?

Couldn't tell you, I don't exactly research SS response times.

> Why should a private citizen get any less protection?

Because our elected representatives determined the President needs additional protection.

Re:GoDaddy has shut down Richard Spencer’s white supremacist... by anigbrowl on Monday May 07, 2018 @07:01PM (#17017174)
How do you feel about the freedom to go on living? It seems like that is a prerequisite for exercising freedom of speech, no?
Re:GoDaddy has shut down Richard Spencer’s white supremacist... by mieseratte on Monday May 07, 2018 @08:24PM (#17017708)
What kind of question is this?
Re:GoDaddy has shut down Richard Spencer’s white supremacist... by anigbrowl on Monday May 07, 2018 @08:29PM (#17017741)
A request for a comparison. The removed content involves incitement to various violent acts, which is carried out would not only impact the victims' free speech, but other liberties too. I think this ought to have been pretty obvious given the context provided in the article.
Re:GoDaddy has shut down Richard Spencer’s white supremacist... by slededit on Monday May 07, 2018 @09:06PM (#17017970)
When someone has time to consider their actions the blame has to be put on the person carrying out the action - not the one who gave them the idea. This is for a multitude of reasons:

1) People are not automatons and they don't carry out orders exactly as given. At best you can say speech confirms their pre-existing convictions.

2) Not all forms of violence are considered morally reprehensible and this definition changes over time. For example most Americans don't consider the revolutionary war to be unjust - despite its proponents calling for the death of British soldiers.

The decision of what is just violence needs to be subject to the market place of ideas. If it were not we'd still be in a feudal system - most regime changes come about with violence. This is also why speech advocating the abolition of free speech must also be tolerated.

3) Speech about taboo subjects is necessary to explore the hypothetical. Current ideas of human rights were in the past taboo.

Re:GoDaddy has shut down Richard Spencer’s white supremacist... by anigbrowl on Monday May 07, 2018 @10:32PM (#17018375)
1) People aren't automatons but there's abundant empirical evidence of their suggestibility, which is why we have the concept of incitement to begin with. I'd argue that we have yet to fully understand the dynamics of this in dynamic communications media.

2) Comparing violence instigated against an oppressive government (perceived or actual) with that instigated against generic vulnerable individuals seems sort of specious. Arguing for a marketplace of ideas while opposing GoDaddy's decision to cease carrying on business with a particular purveyor of ideas seems contradictory.

3) I really can't get with your idea of comparing past struggles for human rights (which expand liberty in the aggregate) with exhortations to rape and murder, which severely abridge it. That's not merely absurd, but obnoxious.

Re:GoDaddy has shut down Richard Spencer’s white supremacist... by slededit on Tuesday May 08, 2018 @12:27AM (#17018819)
Its not contradictory. If Go-Daddy is correct and I'm wrong then I'd like that to become evident. Stifling ideas does not lead us to the most optimal solution. Much of human history can be described as a breadth first search and a series of local optima - to get to a higher level we've had to undergo some regression. Perhaps its possible to have our cake and eat it too but I fear we won't get there by shutting down discussion regardless of its content.
Re:GoDaddy has shut down Richard Spencer’s white supremacist... by anigbrowl on Tuesday May 08, 2018 @12:51AM (#17018902)
Idea purchased in blood and pain are not worth the asking price. This conceit of an optimal ordering is nothing more than utilitarian teleology. I fail to see what good your propose to discover by being an accessory in the subjugation of more than half of humanity and wish no further part of this conversation.
Re:GoDaddy has shut down Richard Spencer’s white supremacist... by slededit on Tuesday May 08, 2018 @01:13AM (#17018955)
> Idea purchased in blood and pain are not worth the asking price

By this logic democracy isn't worth it. Should we succumb instead to the wishes of strongmen willing to use violence in the name of pacifism? It is not by accident that one of the first things to go when a totalitarian regime takes power is freedom of speech.

Re:GoDaddy has shut down Richard Spencer’s white supremacist... by anigbrowl on Tuesday May 08, 2018 @02:09PM (#17023154)
You persist in equating violence against oppression with oppressive violence and making excuses for incitements to rape, enslavement and murder. No liberty or social good has ever been raped into existence.
Re:GoDaddy has shut down Richard Spencer’s white supremacist... by mieseratte on Monday May 07, 2018 @08:52PM (#17017880)
A comparison to what? I stated an opinion on the role service providers should take in regards to content, that is, neutrality.

Should no opinions on border policy or policing be allowed because the "end-user" would be harmed? Or only specific ones? What if I think we should assassinate Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi for leading ISIS? Am I not being valid, or is it fine because he's a "bad guy?"

If there is genuine incitement, let there be a court order.

Businesses should not be arbiters of acceptable speech. This is bad territory.

Re:GoDaddy has shut down Richard Spencer’s white supremacist... by anigbrowl on Monday May 07, 2018 @09:29PM (#17018109)
I think you know perfectly well what I meant.
Re:GoDaddy has shut down Richard Spencer’s white supremacist... by mieseratte on Tuesday May 08, 2018 @09:19AM (#17020671)
I know exactly what you mean, destruction of free speech because you find certain speech intolerable despite it being nothing more than speech.

You want thought-crime.

I think you know how insane a view this is, which is why you cannot simply come out in favor of it but must beat around the bush and ask vague questions trying to entice someone else to say it.

At least Richard Spencer is willing to publicly stand behind his words. You would rather hide.

Re:GoDaddy has shut down Richard Spencer’s white supremacist... by anigbrowl on Tuesday May 08, 2018 @02:19PM (#17023277)
I've made it abundantly clear, in this thread and going back years, that I consider free speech to have limits. Speech acts have consequences both in law and everyday life, and to pretend otherwise is facile. Incitement to violence against the innocent is one of those. It is you who has kept ducking plain questions and pretending not to understand them.

Just so there isn't any ambiguity, I find your excuse-making on behalf of incitements to engage in rape, enslavement, and massacre contemptible.

Re:GoDaddy has shut down Richard Spencer’s white supremacist... by mieseratte on Monday May 14, 2018 @08:15AM (#17064754)
> I've made it abundantly clear, in this thread and going back years, that I consider free speech to have limits. Speech acts have consequences both in law and everyday life, and to pretend otherwise is facile. Incitement to violence against the innocent is one of those.

There is a clear legal line between genuine incitement and protected speech. This is my point of contention. If it is illegal, let the authorities require its removal.

> It is you who has kept ducking plain questions and pretending not to understand them.

Because you are using rhetorical questions to attempt to paint me as some type of monster who supports horrific crime because I want due process of law.

> Just so there isn't any ambiguity, I find your excuse-making on behalf of incitements to engage in rape, enslavement, and massacre contemptible.

I am not making excuses for crimes. I am suggesting we follow the due process of law before silencing speech.

I find your attempts to silence speech you disagree with a horrific path to fascism.

Now let us agree to disagree.

Re:GoDaddy has shut down Richard Spencer’s white supremacist... by slama on Monday May 07, 2018 @07:24PM (#17017323)
If he wrote a book with similar content, would you have the social expectation that book stores would sell it or a publishing house would publish it?
Re:GoDaddy has shut down Richard Spencer’s white supremacist... by slededit on Monday May 07, 2018 @07:35PM (#17017379)
Book publishing has a long tradition of publishing "inappropriate" content, and has never needed regulation. By contrast internet infrastructure is much more an oligopoly by nature of the technology. Much like the telephone has regulation so that someone cannot be cut off by what they say over it - so too should the internet.

For a long time the internet has followed the book publishing model. If one website won't publish your works go to another or start your own. However this model fails if upstream providers refuse to provide you the means to do this. The further upstream you go the fewer entities there are as alternatives.

Re:GoDaddy has shut down Richard Spencer’s white supremacist... by ocdtrekkie on Monday May 07, 2018 @06:25PM (#17016975)
While the First Amendment (in the US) doesn't apply to private companies, which is what you're thinking of, this doesn't mean GoDaddy isn't restricting free speech, in a general concept manner.

GoDaddy is legally able to do what they're doing, but people can still find what they're doing detestable, and there's an argument to be made that while the First Amendment doesn't currently protect people from actions like this, that our laws really should.

The street corner is no longer the place speech is conveyed. Speech is now conveyed primarily via online platforms, which are pretty much all corporate owned. The First Amendment is no longer significantly empowered to do its job.

Re:GoDaddy has shut down Richard Spencer’s white supremacist... by anigbrowl on Monday May 07, 2018 @06:59PM (#17017164)
people can still find what they're doing detestable

Please explain to me the vital public interest at stake in protecting explicit calls for the abandonment of due process and participation in atrocities by law enforcement, and incitements to rape, murder, and other crimes with emphasis on particular ethnic groups as detailed in the mentioned letter (https://lawyerscommittee.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Clar...).

I find it odd that the idea of terminating an automated publication service is considered a greater moral ill than the idea of committing the egregious human rights violations which would have a far greater impact on the liberty of the target populations. Perhaps we could establish a calculus of social ills? I'm really anxious to know how many rapes, enslavements, and murders it takes to outweigh the injustice of someone suffering an impediment to publication of content inciting such acts.

Re:GoDaddy has shut down Richard Spencer’s white supremacist... by ocdtrekkie on Monday May 07, 2018 @07:36PM (#17017386)
I don't think you can weigh "incitement" nearly as severely as an act curtailing rights to speak their mind. You are trying to equate the horrific acts of rape, enslavement, and murder, with the act of writing text on a website about such, and I do not believe those two things are equal.

There is only so far I believe you can place blame on someone. While it is obvious that you can blame someone who commits a murder for that murder, there's an increasingly tenuous attempt to blame someone who told them they should commit a murder that I do not buy into. It seems to remove the agency of the murderer to try and cast the blame onto someone else.

Re:GoDaddy has shut down Richard Spencer’s white supremacist... by anigbrowl on Monday May 07, 2018 @08:41PM (#17017798)
You are trying to equate the horrific acts of rape, enslavement, and murder, with the act of writing text on a website about such

Writing about a behavior and encouraging people to engage in said behavior are distinctly different sorts of speech acts. I don't know what you find 'increasingly tenuous' about the very detailed and specific exhortations identified here. Writing such is of course not the same as committing it, but I don't agree with your position tha it's free of any culpability. Again, it seems like you're more troubled by people exhorting such behaviors being thrown off the platform than by the impact upon those targeted by such statements.

Re:GoDaddy has shut down Richard Spencer’s white supremacist... by ocdtrekkie on Monday May 07, 2018 @09:49PM (#17018192)
I definitely am more troubled by actions against people than words against people.
Re:GoDaddy has shut down Richard Spencer’s white supremacist... by anigbrowl on Monday May 07, 2018 @10:35PM (#17018384)
I'd point out that the altright.com website violated GoDaddy's ToS first, rather than their website being pulled for something one of them said or associated themselves with in another context. This is a peculiar hill to die on.
Re:GoDaddy has shut down Richard Spencer’s white supremacist... by ocdtrekkie on Tuesday May 08, 2018 @12:33AM (#17018840)
Again, I'm not saying GoDaddy didn't have a legal right to do it.

I'd be happy to die on the same hill as the guy who wrote "First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Socialist."

Re:GoDaddy has shut down Richard Spencer’s white supremacist... by anigbrowl on Tuesday May 08, 2018 @06:42PM (#17025977)
Who's closer to the 'they' in this example - is it GoDaddy declining to provide hosting services to website operators, or the people using that website to propose massacre, re-education by rape, and murder of people because they Jewish?
Re:GoDaddy has shut down Richard Spencer’s white supremacist... by jacksmith21006 on Thursday May 10, 2018 @09:35AM (#17038663)
Depends on what thing we are talking about. Take YouTube. I think no advertisers you boot the content and problem solved.

YT keeping the content on the site means YT is subsidizing.