See Sarte’s comments on Anti-Semitism; the holders of odious beliefs are generally not “playing the same game” as those who oppose them, and giving space to all ideas, no matter how awful, is actually conferring an advantage on the worst.
Defined by you? No thank you.
Defined by society? Twenty years ago, homosexual marriage was an odious belief by that standard. Today, it's not (instead, opposing it is now considered odious). Same with racism sixty years ago. Same with slavery 160 years ago. "Odious" is a moving target. But for your argument to have any force, "odious" has to have some real moral weight to it, not just be society's current consensus.
That leaves odious as defined by a group of right-thinking people. Problem is, there are many candidates proclaiming themselves as being the right-thinking group, and they all contradict each other. How are you going to pick one? By what you most agree with? Again, no thank you.
(Note well: This is not "no thank you" specifically to eschaton. It's "no thank you" to any individual who wants to set themself up as the arbiter of what is "odious". I don't want anybody to have that power - unless it's me, of course.)
Whenever you participate in a community you accept that there are going to be individuals controlling the discussion to an extent and cleaning up things that affect the site in a negative way. For example no matter how kindly you might argue or how much data you may provide on how the Jewish people should be eradicated, that sort of comment would get you rapidly flagged on HN.
The definition of odious does evolve over time according to a societies standards, and I don't think it's a particularly big leap to say calls for genocide are odious. Communities do eventually need to take a stand for what they represent, for allowing people with said beliefs on their platform means those people represent the platform.
Look, I'm glad that racism and genocide are banned on HN, and that I don't have to wade through the garbage. CW wasn't trying to be HN, though. It had moderators, but they had a different set of filters, and they let a lot more through. That was by intent and design.
Then some people decided that, because it allowed stuff from the far right, it was supporting the far right, and that wasn't OK - any forum that allowed it at all had to be shut down, even if they allowed it from the far left as well.
From what it sounds like from the article (not an unbiased source, I know), the CW moderators were doing pretty well at their intended task, and a pretty interesting community was flourishing there. But some outside people decided that their definition of "odious" should be the one enforced, and threw various increasingly dishonest hissy fits until CW shut down.
Is that really a good thing?
Is it really a good thing if more than one group figures out that they can do it?
The urge to censor viewpoints that we consider odious is strong, but I'm really not sure it's the most righteous course (especially as it was practiced here).
Communities have to have a baseline stance of things they don't support, otherwise you can rapidly turn into the flaming heap that is Voat and other various sites. As for the actual data relating to the CW thread, the data only tells us what people self-describe as, not necessarily the frequency of their posts, the content contained within or how closely the poll reflects the actual userbase. This is before going into issues of people potentially gaming the poll and other problems with online polling.
As for the urge to censor viewpoints, that is inherently part of human nature. The internet has only made it easier because the anonymity allows for zero consequence. To fix this problem requires either destroying human nature or tearing apart the internet as you and I know it. There's always going to be a disagreement with how far it should go; some people believe Reddit should've never banned FatPeopleHate. Other people believe Reddit still fosters far too many incredibly vile subcommunities. Everyone has a line eventually. And there's always going to be people that disagree with where the line is drawn.
FALSE. But you do in fact support censorship (or at least deplatforming, which I vehemently despise).
Here's what your position is like. Remember that baker in Colorado who wouldn't bake a cake for a gay wedding, because he felt that he would be participating in something he didn't think was morally right? You're agreeing with his position. In fact, his position is less extreme than yours, because he was willing to sell them any cake in the store, but wasn't willing to design a custom cake for them.
Yet I suspect (am I wrong?) that you think that the Colorado baker was in the wrong. But you're using his logic.
Your second and third paragraphs I think I agree with.
In the baker case, he decided that he would not support gay people. I believe gay people should be a protected group (as they are not harmful nor do they generally espouse harmful beliefs). You're right in that he felt that he would be supporting gay people, and my point is that he should support gay people, not that through some strange mental gymnastics I believe he's right to not support them (??). This is the reason why protected groups exist because if a person believes 'I refuse to offer service to women because I refuse to support women', we as a society believe that to be a net negative.
This is of course ignoring the context of the situation where we believe in free exercise of religion while also denying a man on death row access to his religion [1], which shows more the hypocrisy of the Supreme Court's decision on the baker case vs the Dunn v Ray case. But that's a whole 'nother can of worms.
Your argument is essentially saying people should have the right to discriminate on the basis of age, religion, gender etc because to not allow so is censorship. People should not be forced into supporting something they disagree with, correct? Which then ties back into my core argument in that everyone has a line; society has reason to try and shift that line (to avoid discrimination) and communities have reasons to draw their own line as well (to signal for causes they support or to limit the scope of discussion).
Publication does not mean endorsement of the view. You see this in the disclaimer in all the editorials: "The views expressed are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the position of [publication]". They can publish, on their platform, views that they disagree with. On that point, you are simply wrong.
But your views here (that publication equals endorsement, and that communities should shut down views they don't accept) - I find those views to be odious. Contrary to the ideals of America, even. Should I be able to get you banned from HN? If they don't, should I say that HN endorses your views, and get a howling mob to shut HN down?
That's the fundamental issue here. It's not just those people out there. It's you. Your views offend people. It's going to happen to you. Think well whether you really want odious views removed.
And it's going to be me. That's why I'm so defensive here. I already hold views that some find odious; as society moves its position, I will hold more. Within the next ten years (and maybe a whole lot sooner), this is going to be me. That's why I'm opposed to societal censorship. If a mob can shut down the alt right for being too far outside society, they can shut down you and me when they decide that we're too far outside the new norm.
Should we just accept society's definition of what is right? No. Either there is a real right and wrong, or their isn't. If there is, why do we think society will converge on it? Why do we think that society's view evolves to ever-increasing correctness? (It has, in the past, evolved to ever-increasing conformity with the current view, but that doesn't say much.) Rwanda, for instance, abruptly decided that murdering one race was perfectly good. China decided that social pressure to conform to the party line was good. (You may say that was imposed on them by the party, and you'd be right. But it still became the way the society behaved.)
On the other hand, if there is no real right and wrong, why should we treat society's current views as if they had moral force?
About the baker: If you don't like that one, try this. A print shop prints flyers for a Richard Spencer rally. Is the print shop endorsing Richard Spencer's views? How about if they design the flyer? Where do you draw the lines between what happened on CW, the print shop, and the bake shop, and why do you draw them there?
Publication is, essentially, endorsement. Let's say I hosted a blog, and then I decided on my blog to constantly host people whom deny climate change. I can add a disclaimer to the end of all of their posts and say 'these represent views I personally do not endorse', but if the entirety of my blog consisted of those sort of views, people would naturally question what I really believe. At a certain point it is endorsement depending on how odious the behavior is. If the Washington Post decided to publish an article on how black people are responsible for all the evils in America, that would be a blemish on their reputation even if they added said disclaimer.
> Contrary to the ideals of America, even. Should I be able to get you banned from HN? If they don't, should I say that HN endorses your views, and get a howling mob to shut HN down?
If you haven't realized yet, this is why flagging and voting down posts exists on HN. It exists so that the users can self-curate content and remove things that are considered particularly odious. If you consider that contrary to American ideals, then why are you participating on a site contrary to your beliefs? Posters on HN can and do shut down people espousing alt-right beliefs.
>That's why I'm opposed to societal censorship. If a mob can shut down the alt right for being too far outside society, they can shut down you and me when they decide that we're too far outside the new norm.
This is the answer from someone scared of progress or change. This was the exact argument made during the Civil Rights era by people who were afraid of black people gaining rights: They were scared of mobs shutting them down, stopping them from being racist. Does this mean the mob is always right? No, but it does mean that you should strongly consider whether or not your beliefs are truly outdated.
Society as I mentioned evolves and changes over time. Sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. I would hope you would agree that society evolving to give more rights to people previous deprived of them to be a good thing. And I would also hope you realize that the reason why there's such a strong reaction against the alt-right is because they want to specifically take away those rights from minority populations.
And with regards to the baker thing, you managed to miss my point entirely. My point is that your concept of American ideals is flawed and broken: Because we have not and never applied those ideals equally. The baker case was never truly about endorsement or religious liberties: It was about entrenching the right to discriminate against minorities.
I hope you would realize that the reason there's such a strong reaction to the "alt-left" is because this kind of thinking leads people to such crazy places that they would defend Soviet gulags as "compassionate." https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/09/11/soviet-labour-ca...
The 20th century had horrors of Naziism and racism, yes, but it also had horrors perpetrated in the name of "progress" and "reeducation." If you have emotionally internalized the horrors of Germany and Jim Crow, but haven't done the same with the USSR, the Cultural Revolution, and the Khmer Rouge, then I can understand why ideologically-enforced progressivism might seem harmless and noble.
Considering how our president behaves and excuses members of the alt-right, I'll start worrying about the alt-left when and if they start holding positions of power. Before you start trying to point out further members of the alt-left: I'll just remind you that it was during that same speech that the alt-left term was invented.
Let's just go from the last week. Here is some left-wing violence:
https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/22/us/conservative-activist-assa...
Here is a weekly roundup of anti-semitism, and much of it is from the left (associated with Britain's Labour party):
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/02/week-headl...
And for hate crimes, the news is that Jussie Smolett has been arrested for staging the "modern-day lynching" against him that has captured national attention for the last few weeks:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/jussie-smollet-chicago-attack-h...
I'm not saying the alt-right is nothing to worry about. I'm saying the left is capable of real harm too.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Edit: it looks like you've been using HN primarily for political battle. That's against the rules here, and we ban accounts that do it. More importantly it's against the spirit of this site, so please don't.
It also looks like you've been crossing repeatedly into incivility. Please don't do that either.
But, I am starting to see a serious issue with posters on HN engaging in bad faith arguments and spreading heavily anti-scientific nonsense. Not only have I seen posters here openly defending pedophilia [1], arguing in bad faith by making deliberately misleading arguments [2], people not even attempting to make an argument [3] and many more non-arguments [4]. This is without even mentioning the posts I have seen being highly transphobic and comments/articles made by trans-people (with good arguments!) being voted down into the abyss, both of which I could find examples were it not 3AM. I have flagged many comments and tend to err towards only the most egregious and while I can understand that the moderation team can only do so much at a certain point the trend I'm noticing is deeply concerning. If you don't want HN to be a site with any sort of political battles, then HN needs to better define what kinds of things make up politics. I avoid making threads here and I generally don't stray from the topic of said threads. But ultimately if the goal of the site is to flag and move on when you see someone make a bad faith argument or make a political post: That's tacitly leaving bad arguments unchallenged, especially when the flagging system fails to work.
And I want to make it clear that this isn't an argument against you in particular dang; but rather the issues I see looming on the horizon for HN. Hence my increasing frustration.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19213130
[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19189546
If you just look at the speech by itself, who Trump was referring to was unclear. The protest was originally over whether some statues were to be torn down, and he could very well have been talking about those protestors.
But if you look at his presidency in total, the fact that he's never has appeared to expressed support to neo-nazis or murder(!) of people of the alt-left before or after should make it clear that he was supporting the people protesting the removal of the statues and not the alt-right.
CW has this. They are very clear about their guidelines: https://www.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/a6wues/cult...
> As for the actual data relating to the CW thread, the data only tells us what people self-describe as, not necessarily the frequency of their posts, the content contained within or how closely the poll reflects the actual userbase.
Scott did a random sample of comments from CW:
> During the last few years of Culture War thread, a consensus grew up that it was heavily right-wing. This isn’t what these data show, and on the few times I looked at it myself, it wasn’t what I saw either. After being challenged to back this up, I analyzed ten randomly chosen comments on the thread; four seemed neutral, three left/liberal, and three conservative. When someone else objected that it was a more specific “blatant” anti-transgender bias, I counted up all the mentions of transgender on three weeks worth of Culture War threads: of five references, two were celebrating how exciting/historic a transgender person recently winning an election was, a third was neutrally referring to the election, a fourth was a trans person talking about their experiences, and a fifth was someone else neutrally mentioning that they were transgender. This sort of thing happened enough times that I stopped being interested in arguing the point.
This is why all the claims of "odious views", "how the Jewish people should be eradicated", and other things you've mentioned in this thread fall so flat to me. People claim stuff like that is flying around to justify their call for greater censorship and shunning. But when you dig into the details about what people are actually saying, it virtually never lives up to the labels that have been put on it.
Today’s dogma was yesterday’s odious belief. If we feel that the correctness of consensus opinion is on the rise, shouldn’t we be hesitant to freeze out future changes? If we feel it is falling, shouldn’t we want some protection for today’s correct ideas when they become odious again?
I can really only imagine subscribing to this viewpoint from within a long-term stable utopia whose primary threat is that someone will spoil it.
EDIT:
>What it does is normalize those beliefs and enable them to propagate while simultaneously exhausting those who oppose them.
I think this is is simply a mistaken view of human nature. Nothing confirms a conspiracy theory quite like jack-booted thugs who are actually out to get you for saying it. Nothing galvanizes a cause quite like official suppression. See the Streisand Effect or, for that matter, Christianity.
The point is not to convince the person you are talking to, which is very difficult given how much people stick to their political beliefs, but to convince the lurking third party, who has weakly held opinions. If they can see in the debate that one person has the stronger argument, you can convince that third person. If they see one side refuse to debate, angrily yell, and banish the other to places like the_donald, well, maybe the undecided lurkers will wonder if perhaps the person got angry because they had no good counter-argument, decide to go explore a place like the_donald, or some other echo chamber where they just become more convinced, that also has no counter-acting voices of reason. The people in the_donald agree with you by the way, and don't give space or respect to people with odious blue tribe beliefs.
Sunlight is the best disinfectant.
By condoning silencing there is the risk you will be silenced - and the article demonstrates how the same means of suppression may be applied when your norms are judged unacceptable and it is intolerable for another to not censor.
Both have valid points and the precise answer is likely nuanced and/or a matter of opinion.
> Because I was not a socialist.
> Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—
> Because I was not a trade unionist.
> Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
> Because I was not a Jew.
> Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
A translation of the German poem by pastor Martin Niemöller [1]
Kill Nazis before they kill you.
They censor blood in games, too.
The quote is from a German pastor, not a representative of the German government or its people.
Maybe a few years ago I would have found this argument convincing. But here is the current state of the Internet (from the article):
> it was always that the the thread was “dominated by” or “only had” or “was an echo chamber for” homophobic transphobic alt-right neo-Nazis, which always grew into the claim that the subreddit was dominated by homophobic etc neo-Nazis, which always grew into the claim that the SSC community was dominated by homophobic etc neo-Nazis, which always grew into the claim that I personally was a homophobic etc neo-Nazi of them all. I am a pro-gay Jew who has dated trans people and votes pretty much straight Democrat. I lost distant family in the Holocaust. You can imagine how much fun this was for me.
I think it's hard to claim that even people with truly Anti-Semitic beliefs are somehow playing a more deceptive game than this, or appealing more to people's biases and irrationality.
I await my turn for making this observation.
These questions don't just manifest in a vacuum. And if they are worthwhile asking, then IMO (and stressing IMO) it doesn't matter if they're rhetorical or directly interrogative in delivery or purpose.
Asserting otherwise feels like an excercise in projecting.
Norms like "people shouldn't be silenced even if their speech is despicable" are the Geneva convention in the war of the words. They're social technologies which allow people who disagree to coexist peacefully. These are the insights of the enlightenment, and liberalism as the word originally meant.
I'm skeptical of this - I've never seen a polite racist argument, for example, or a polite homophobic one. The closest I've seen is a post riddled with condescension - something along the lines of "you don't understand, I'm trying to save your soul from the sin of homosexuality."
Conversely I've also been called a racist/bigot for claiming white people didn't invent racism/slavery, or that statistical differences in social groups shouldn't automatically be attributed to oppression, or that Frederick Douglass is evidence of how someone can free themselves from oppression.
They obviously had never studied MLK, Frederick Douglass, or world history, though I'd bet they had spent plenty of time watching cable news and shallow mass media.
The reason they called me those things was not because I was actually espousing hatred, but rather because I was suggesting something antithetical to their ideology.
Ideological differences are a major source of arguments turning ugly and lots of downvotes, if you disagree with whatever majority in that particular forum.
Hmm. That sounds like it can be frustrating, but I can see how it can happen. For example - what's the point of claiming "white people didn't invent slavery?" I can't think of any reason that doesn't involve a blanket statement about either white people or some other race, which would be prejudgement/prejudice by definition. Hence, smacks of racism. Similar for statistical differences in social groups - dangerous territory as it is what "rational racists" try to do all the time. I use those statistics all the time though to demonstrate that it's impossible to prove that a group of people have a certain average IQ or some other grab bag trait because of race, due to noise from other variables like socioeconomic status, local culture, local healthcare availability, local government policy, etc.
I could easily say that in response to a claim that white people invented slavery, in total innocence that somebody would read me as racist. I am somewhat naive, in my defense.
It is impossible to respectfully argue for a racist or homophobic position. The very nature of what you’re arguing for is that some people are inherently less than others, which is the opposite of respect.
But if you state such an argument without using naughty words, a lot of people will misinterpret that as respectful and demand that it be given respect in turn.
For example, what if I argued in favour of racial segregation of schools because it would give a better environment for children to learn in, being around role models they could easily identify with and not get sucked into cultural traps like thinking being academically excellent means you're acting white.
I think this is a racist position. It explicitly discriminates on the basis of race. I also think it could be an honest argument. Is it respectful? I personally think it is.
(To be clear, I'm not in favour of racial segregation of schools. The "acting white" thing is overdone and normalizing a binary division isn't good.)
This is part of why a racist argument can’t be respectful: it’s fundamentally opposed to basic reality.
Is it possible that such an argument could be made honestly? Sure, by an ignorant nimrod. Does that make it respectful? No, part of respect in an argument is making sure you have a grasp of the basic facts before you spout off. Is it bad to block ignorant but honest nimrods in an attempt to block racist shitheads who have learned to cloak their arguments in polite-sounding language? No, for every ignorant nimrod there are a hundred racist shitheads, and you’re not going to educate the ignorant nimrods by giving equal footing to the racist shitheads.
Have a listen to this if you can find the time:
http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/13-miss-buchanans-per...
It was enlightening to learn the subtleties of segregation at the time, from black people in the period. It might not change your mind, but it would lead you to be less hasty to descend to namecalling, not least because you'd learn who you risk calling ignorant racist shitheads.
The argument against giving racist shitheads a platform does involve namecalling, and I don’t much care.
My point is that in 2019 this statement has no meaning because there are wide swaths of the audience (not just fringe elements) that will label nearly everything "racist". The main point of contention in this thread is whether you should ban unpopular opinions or let them stand on their own. Racist comments are and should be unpopular but when the definition racism is widened to include half the population then censoring "racists" and hitting a bunch of false positives becomes much more damaging that not censoring "racists" and letting actual racists expose their own ignorant thinking.
Half the population didn't vote for Trump.
I think that's what we're supposed to be reading between the lines here, that half the population voted for Trump and have now been unfairly demonized as racists and homophobes and that, because of this, the terms "racist" and "homophobic" have no meaning... but no. Those terms still have a definite meaning, and half the population didn't vote for Trump.
Also, the demonization isn't entirely unfair. At least, it's not entirely arbitrary and without merit. There was a definite and overt narrative of racial identity and struggle behind the populism of Trump's campaign, and its appeal to white supremacists was well documented by mainstream media, and the narrative of Trump's success as a revolution of white cultural identity was even defended here on Hacker News a few times.
Trump supporters can't have their anti-establishment cake and eat it too. They can't support a campaign which galvanized right-wing extremists and xenophobes and then complain that people think they might be racist.
Half the population didn't vote for Trump.
Then again, Trump got over 40% more votes than Bill Clinton did for his first term.
Consider, for a moment, homophobia, not as a trained fear, but a usefull emotional reaction. One party hates a third party, the second party can controll that emotional reaction, by sanctioning this behaviour (lets call this sanctioning/ controlling religion).
Thus, without saying anything disrespectfull to anyone, just stating that we are a sad, retarded species in full blown denial of what we where and are - and the state of economic surplus keeps civil peace afloat, i took your concept of homophobia for a ride.
PS: I predict, that the love of your life will check on your emotional inner workings regularly, by telling you little stories about a gay co-worker. If you don not show a emotional reaction, i predict increasingly hostile reactions and worries.
Turing and Haber-Bosch did more for gay rights then all those processions (catholic back then - rainbow now) combined.
It's only a small step from there to get to viewing innocent videos turns children into victims if the interest is sexual; if, one day, the children (possibly now adult) find out about the creepy people on the internet, they will suffer the harm.
I won't bother repeating them here, but the point is that those arguments are rarely made in good faith. Usually it's someone making a hateful argument cleverly to make it more palatable.
Tone of voice does not carry on the internet.
Worse, Good moderation is simply a better training environment for the next generation of harassers and bad users.
From my experience - basic rules got rid of the dumbest type of harasser currently active on the forum, but then created a medium for a more evolved and trained harasser to arise. What used to be obvious hate speech, misogyny and so on was exchanged for veiled abuse and dog whistles.
The rule of moderation is that your attackers keep moving up a Turing-like scale, till inevitably their arguments are indistinguishable from genuine comments made out of ignorance or lack of malice.
This ignores the damage done to your relation with the community, peace of mind, and the paranoia that slowly starts to grip your team as people threaten you, try to doxx you, and worse.
While you may rarely meet insane people in real life, because of the limitation of physical reality - online behavior is not regulated by the needs of actually having to use calories to move your body to interact with a person.
Instead, its a lot cheaper for people to give in to obsession and hammer away on a keyboard as they vent their frustration on someone standing between them and speaking their mind about things they feel strongly about.
God- I could write chapters on what happens when you have enough disgruntled users who decide to make a new forum, driven only to hate your team and moderation style - then spend their time attacking you.
But in the most delicious of ironies - the new forums created to target your rules and moderation style, eventually have a crisis of behavior which they fix by foisting similar rules as the one that got them banned in the first place.
At this point you really should ask yourself whether to continue moderating such comments. If you're at the level of hearing "dog whistles", you're already starting to act in bad faith.
I think Scott Alexander correctly identifies the biggest problem of moderation: that while you may think that it's about fostering civilized discourse, it isn't. When you get recognizable, it becomes primarily about protecting reputation of your own brand or name.
In other cases, it highlights my point - it is a subversive form of hate speech and it gets past the mod team:, and starts the radicalization process Or polarizing process.
On the other hand it may be a genuine comment, naturally arrived at by a user, but it pattern matches with the mod team and it gets removed.
For example an old argument which is now easily refuted is “brownies have larger families, and their growth rates are over taking natives!”
That’s a factually correct argument, but it’s an incorrect conclusion which takes (took) advantage of average user ignorance.
But the other issue is that this thread stays up, other people who come across it get “red pilled” or “triggered”.
Subsequently the thread becomes a source for flame wars, “engagement”, and propagates schisms in the community.
In the end moderators have to act based on the taxonomy of ideas presented, not their possible sincerity. Leaving it up will only cause further damages.
As a result moderators, (probably like the police) drift away from the average user views and behaviors.
This is the fundamental crux of the moderation problem, if not of communication itself : we can never know the intent behind a statement.
Is it a sincerely held view by someone who is not a Bigot or racist? Or is it sinister and malignant sentences designed to get past moderators and radicalize/convert users and disrupt other communities ?