You are revealing your biases and the distortion of your particular information bubble. Many of the people being name-called and deplatformed are not hateful and are not parts of hate groups. If you could transcend your particular bubble, you'd see that many people who are simply normal Republicans, libertarians, centrists, and independents are being caught up. There are huge numbers of people who are essentially being lied about -- in the most transparent fashion, supported with circular references produced by biased activists that ultimately don't go to any documented facts. What this abuse of "moderation" is actually doing, is fanning societal outrage and destroying the credibility of the Left.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuX87JFzLFc

The extremists, both the Far Left and Far Right, gain in the short term from this, because it gains eyeballs and membership through this reinforcing circle of outrage.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE3j_RHkqJc

The dying legacy media naturally joins in on this spiral of outrage and clickbait.

Popper's paradox of tolerance is a thing, we can't tolerate actual nazis who would silence everybody in the name of 'openness'.

And the far-right types are still responsible for vastly more actual violence than the far left types. A couple nazis have been punched and antifa got out of hand in Berkeley once.. meanwhile, synagogues have been burned down, mosques shot up, a Sikh guy in Texas got shot because someone those he was one of "the arabs"...

The problem on the left side honestly isn't violence, it's suppression of speech. The far left in the tech industry has control of speech in a way that's pretty novel, and they need to be more careful and less righteous. It feels good to call someone a nazi and cast them out, but let's exercise some restraint and save that for actual nazis.

"Authoritarian" is what fits best here. It's what you call people who give up on convincing you and start coercing you.

Society shouldn't tolerate those who would damage our society's foundation and ultimate safety valve of Free Speech, particularly if they do it in the name of 'openness'.

The far left in the tech industry has control of speech in a way that's pretty novel, and they need to be more careful and less righteous.

The novelty is important. It's intellectually dishonest to use the time lag of laws catching up, particularly when the potential damage to discourse and society is so huge.

It transforms any situation in which someone does have authority -- even domain limited authority -- to make a call without unanimity into an authoritarian one.

If that's what authoritarianism was, every parent, teacher, property owner (and therefore business), employer, and manager would be one.

It would make law itself authoritarian.

> particularly when the potential damage to discourse and society is so huge.

Can you be more specific about an instance of damage to discourse? If it's huge, presumably it's easy to argue some high visibility cases where key valuable concepts that would be carried in discourse have become scarcely available.

And presumably, there'd be a case that these key valuable concepts aren't subject to any of the traditional philosophical limits on free speech (which as broadly respected as it is, has, like most of the law, not been absolute).

One might even expect the damaged areas of discourse to be manifestly more valuable to the point where compelled participation on the part of tech companies in sustaining them seems reasonable.

According to [1], while there are 4x as many US domestic far-right terror attacks as Islamic ones, the death tolls (excluding 9/11) are about the same. But only 1.1% of the US is Muslim.

Of course it's not really accurate to call Islamic terrorists far-left - I don't think their ideals fit with the rest of the left. But the total death toll of terrorism in the US is negligible [2], so to allow one's opinions to be directed by who does the most terrorism is the ultimate tail-wagging-the-dog.

[1] https://www.politifact.com/california/article/2017/aug/31/wh...

[2] https://ourworldindata.org/does-the-news-reflect-what-we-die...

When we talk about the far left which controls the tech industry to the point where it can control speech, are we talking about very effective capitalists who are somehow nevertheless economic leftists (and apparently have shareholders of the same bent), or are we talking about a socially oriented far left, perhaps even largely managed by historically disadvantaged classes (and also have shareholders who support them)?

Because I can't think of any good definition of "the far left" that matches the incentives, philosophy, and power behind the tech companies out there.

The closest argument I think could be made is that there's enough vocal users who are concerned about certain kinds of content that some companies feel compelled to respond to that concern. One can argue that has its own issues, but it's pretty distinct from control.

> It feels good to call someone a nazi and cast them out, but let's exercise some restraint and save that for actual nazis.

I agree that nazi (like fascist) can be a term that's expanded to the point of dilution. But... what's an actual nazi? If we don't know the answer, will we be able to act effectively with our saved effort? If we're looking to history as a guide, do we draw the line at something comparable to 1943 nazis, or 1933 nazis, or 1923 nazis?

There's a group of far left activists, who are also included within a lower tier of non-programmer workers for companies like YouTube and Google, as well as programmers and technologists who are sympathetic to their views. The impetus comes from the 1st group, who has sway with the 2nd group.

can be a term that's expanded to the point of dilution

To the point of a Bernie voting Korean American journalist (Tim Pool) being accused of being one of them, to the point of people yelling to have him mobbed and beaten in the street.

But... what's an actual nazi?

What's key, in 2019, an era when "brands" are easy to create anew, to the point where even kids and the poor have the resources to do so and organize around them, it is not the brand, but the behavior, the semantics, which is important. Who uses violence, intimidation, and vandalism to silence opposition and for political gain? Who dresses up in the same clothes, like "gang colors," and uses anonymity to get away with doing the above?

We need to be skeptical of this authoritarianism masquerading as "justice" and "openness."

... Proud Boys? Just sayin'.

Sure. A few of them are going to jail for criminal political violence. Then, also facing legal consequences are the members of Antifa who were looking for the Proud Boys, and ended up assaulting a couple of innocent Marines going to a dance. One of them was non-white, and the Antifa members apparently were spewing the most vile racist, toxic words the whole time.

Again: We need to be skeptical of this authoritarianism masquerading as "justice" and "openness."

That's either quite a coup... or an unlikely explanation. Possibly even a motivated one designed to work the refs, so to speak.

You know what's much more likely? That any political compasses involved in low-level decisions made at most tech companies are distributed in about the way that staff is. And that you could expect that to be normally distributed unless managing staff skewed it with an emphasis on some value. Which is another way of saying the composition of the company reflects management values. And since market incentives probably still matter, and shape management values, whatever we're talking about in general terms here that's is going on at these businesses, it's probably not just a function of a minority of activists.

> to the point of people yelling to have him mobbed and beaten in the street.

Welp, free speech, you know. Guess there's nothing we can do about that. If we did, we'd simply be using force to silence those people, and it really sounds like you're categorically against that, right?

> it is not the brand, but the behavior, the semantics, which is important.

Brand is semantics. If one is important, the other is.

So... what's a nazi? For that matter, what's "far left"?

> Who uses violence, intimidation, and vandalism to silence opposition and for political gain?

In spite of some of my challenges to the GP, they had some answers to this question you don't seem to have fully processed.

> Who dresses up in the same clothes, like "gang colors," and uses anonymity to get away with doing the above?

I can think of several answers that check at least 2 boxes out of 3 there, maybe even all three to the extent that bureaucracy confers anonymity. What's yours?

> We need to be skeptical of this authoritarianism masquerading as "justice" and "openness."

We also need to be skeptical of those who offer an pretense of concern of vigilance towards authoritarianism, but oddly seem only interested in looking one way -- "this" authoritarianism. Which, since it apparently consists of the tyranny of justice and the threat of forced openness, is likely about as consistent in its conception as the threat of far left capitalists.

If you want a stereotype/archetype, I guess 'woke capitalism' is the ideology I'm talking about.

Interestingly, while we're having a raging culture war between right and left, there's almost no argument about economics anymore. We seem to have settled into a system where the proletariat of both political parties want to move economically left, and the elite of both parties distract them with culture war instead.

Nicely stated.

A lot of the activism happening right now is constructed a way as to annihilate any of the nuances against the position. So the discourse isn't happening inside the issue, which isn't terribly surprising. But just like Congressional leaders voting for bills they haven't read, certain forces of our cultural debates right now are gaining ground without the presence of much discourse.

I look at people like Mike Monteiro (screaming for Jack's head), the anti-de-platforming crowd decrying certain de-platformings, and the free speech crowd decrying all de-platformings.

Is this the discourse? I'm not sure it is.

Part and parcel to Free Speech being foundational to discourse. If one values discourse, Free Speech needs to always be there. The late 1700s equivalent would be, if the manufacturers of printing presses were only letting those with their favored political views print anything. (And if making one's own printing press were practically infeasible.)

Viral discovery in a digital medium is a big game changer, in the same league as printed text. Just because some megacorps are able to do so, doesn't mean all of it should be granted to one particular subset of one particular political persuasion. That's technically legal, supposedly, but not democratic in spirit. That's a minority using resource advantage to manipulate and coerce the public.

This might be more convincing if Nazism and white surpemacy weren't themselves entirely predicated on violence.

This is the kind of criticism you get to make if you're not part of their outgroup. They might be peaceful now (well, except for the steadily increasing violence [1]) but what do you think they're going to do if and when they get more power?

At what point is pushing back acceptable? Is it when they start stripping legal protections from (more) people? When they start putting (more) people in camps? When I have to wear a patch identifying myself as Jewish? When they start firing up the gas chambers?

It's not that "there is a right way to think". It's that these people are trying to harm me, specifically. And it's that other people want to pretend that this whole thing is just a difference of opinion.

[1] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/new-zealand-shooting-highlights...

When they talk, you let them. And then you point out, very loudly, how factually wrong, logically insane, and morally bankrupt their position is.

You do this whether or not their position is predicated on violence. You respond to speech with speech.

If people were generally accurate about who is and isn't a Nazi or White Supremacist, this line of thinking might have merit (i.e., the idea that some types of thinking are inherently violent and must be suppressed at the level of speech, but of course who decides that?). But, observing political discourse over the past few years, people are not generally anywhere close to accurate about who is a Nazi or a White Supremacist. So what instead happens is a lot of people who aren't Nazis or White Supremacists get punched and milkshaked as collateral damage, and perhaps they are the majority of the damage.

As a followup, a person could reasonably contend that Socialism and Communism are entirely predicated on violence. They certainly have huge body counts, and consistently. And then you have people who think that Capitalism is predicated on violence. And suddenly everyone is punching everybody and we stop talking to each other, all because you wanted to punch a Nazi.

The road to hell...

From https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14967092

-----------------------

> Men seem very unwilling to recognise that the memo and the discussion itself is harmful.

...you realize where this goes, right?

Like -- suppose you're right; and suppose you're given the power to suppress all such harmful discussions. You apply it. No more such discussion. Great.

Now suppose this occurs but in fact you're wrong. We must then ask: How would you find out that you're wrong?

Well, in such a case, you probably wouldn't. I guess you might find out when the chickens, whatever they are, finally came home to roost. But ideally one wants to find out before then. Better hope the chickens are merely bad rather than catastrophic, seeing as you've been doing absolutely no planning for this case. And hopefully they come sooner rather than later.

(And that's assuming you're a reasonable person who would actually admit error at that point; see below.)

I mean, really... illiberalism, it always goes the same way. You think it's discussion that's harmful? Have you seen the alternative? Because, I mean, examples abound, and how it goes is pretty clear. You're talking about going down a path dominated by humanity's worst tribal instincts. I should hope that's not what you want -- but that's where that path leads. By the time the far-off disaster occurs, do you think it'll be people like you, who are capable of thinking clearly but just think certain discussions should be suppressed, who are going to be running the show? No, it'll the people who are the least reflective, the most tribal, the most doublethinky.

Liberalism, free speech, when working properly, is supposed to work as a negative feedback loop. If you're wrong, you find out. Someone contradicts you, supplies arguments, and then you can consider them and see whether they might be right. As a lot of people have noted, it... doesn't exactly always succeed at this. But suppression of speech... hoo boy, that fails so much harder. That's how you get positive feedback loops. As the professed beliefs of the group get further and further from reality, simultaneously the requirements that you agree, the punishments for disagreeing, get stricter and harsher. You sure as hell don't find the truth that way.

Truth, now... I notice that's something you didn't even mention at all. Because some of the points made in that memo, are, as best as people can currently tell, true. You haven't made any claims about to truth or falsity, only about harmfulness. But do you think the harmfulness of the claims in that memo exceed the harmfulness of shitty civilizational epistemic practices? (Nature can't be fooled, as they say!)

Like, OK, bad epistemic practices might not seem that bad, might seem like a worthwhile tradeoff, if you imagine suppression of specific facts or claims or discussions as an isolated thing. Maybe we don't need to know literally everything. But that's not how it goes. Free speech, liberalism, these are ideas that are unnatural to people, they had to be learned, and they are constantly seeking ways to slip them off or and go back to full-on tribalism (or pervert them in service of it). You may want suppression of particular claims... you will get the bad old days. The positive-feedback loop of doom.

Claims don't exist in isolation, after all; claims have relations between them. You can't just suppress one claim, because people will rederive it from other claims. And if the claim you suppress happens to be correct? Then people will definitely rederive it. So either surrounding claims have to go, or the process of inference itself has to go. Likely both. In fact definitely the latter; you can peel off surrounding claims all you want but eventually you'll have to attack inference itself. And hey, it happens already that people are constantly eager to do that anyway! They only need a little push... and then oops, there's your positive feedback loop. Once you encourage people to use bad methods, they'll use them to reach all sorts of bad conclusions... I expect many of them will surprise you!

(And what is the scope of this suppression? Shall the hidden truth be kept alive in the academy, say, with a strict cordon, so that the facts may be known by the chosen few but never applied outside where it might be necessary? Shall those who wish to learn a subject have to first learn only the public parts, and then apply to join, to learn the hidden secrets? Or shall it extend even to them? Is the pursuit of truth itself something that must simply be forbidden?)

It's a dark road you're suggesting here -- and not a new one; an old one, an ancient one, one whose failures we know very well. I'll take whatever harmfulness the truth might pose over that any day. I don't think it can really hold a candle to that."

-----------------------

And yes, you could stretch the "predicated on violence" to encompass a lot of things. But that's just a slippery slope fallacy. Nazism and white supremacy literally have dominance over and/or extermination of others as their explicit goals.

Massively!

But that doesn't mean it's impossible to tell. Look at the "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville:

Yes, many of the attendees were National Socialist equivalents. However, what I see in recent years, is that someone advocating for Free Speech for everyone can be held falsely equivalent. That's going too far. Someone criticizing Antifa branded violence can be held as falsely equivalent. That's also going too far. Very often, I see ideologues who basically proclaim that people who don't agree with their platform are to be falsely equivalent. Example: Kirsten Gillibrand Compares Being Pro-Life to Racism | ‘The Other Side Is Not Acceptable’

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pN6XKChXMJ4

It's as if someone, somewhere, is trying to spread emotionally charged, outrage inducing, anti-intellectual ideas designed to short circuit discourse. As a society, what we instead need to do is to quell outrage, promote intellectual integrity and rational discourse.

Scott covered that also:

https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/10/30/sort-by-controversial/

The way people are starting to behave, that story actually doesn't seem all that hard to believe anymore.

I think that's a bit telling - people are, by and large, being deplatformed for hate speech.

"Hate speech" doesn't have a legal definition, so it can be anything, and now the term is being used dishonestly and arbitrarily. The YouTuber "Black Pigeon Speaks" had his channel completely deleted yesterday, apparently for "Hate Speech." This was despite his considerable popularity, his strict adherence to the known YouTube rules, and his lack of community strikes. Just how arbitrary is this? His channel is now back, just as arbitrarily. (He is an expatriate living in Japan, who likes to rescue animals, and who tests center-left on the Political Compass test.)

Also witness how Phillip Defranco, who is as middle of the road as they come, was caught up in the recent New York Times hit piece.)

it does not have laws obligating institutions (such as universities or social media companies) give these people a platform for hate speech.

There is judicial precedent. A mining company that built and owns all the roads and sidewalks in town can't prohibit someone from driving and walking down them to disseminate pamphlets and to canvas.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsh_v._Alabama

Right, but the regular mass shootings by Ben Shapiro fans isn't a concern.

Ben Shapiro has long been a consistent and vehement critic of the Alt-Right, and they have taken concerted action against him. (This, according to the SPLC!) The vast majority of his fans aren't mass shooters, just as the vast majority of __insert group here__ aren't violent.

It's precisely this kind of reductive and indiscriminate characterization of groups which you are supposedly against, but which you have just engaged in. I support your right to say it, and will exercise my right to point out you're wrong.

Edit: In many countries, hate speech does in fact have a definition. Just because it's not in the US legal code doesn't mean it's undefined - that's why your right wing media personalities can have trouble coming into Canada.

you know this is a joke amongst the actual extreme-right. the Christchurch guy even said Candace Owens radicalized him. they say it because they don't like ben shapiro and they want to tarnish his name it seams to be working.

(Note that this also implies that politics plays basically no causal role in what he did - and yet, this basic fact about the Christchurch event makes me extremely nervous about alt-right or hate content nonetheless. In fact, it makes me more nervous, not less! Because if it turns out that criminal psychopaths can easily exploit this sort of content as an excuse or pretext for their murderous acts, that's definitely something we want to know. Do note that, plausibly, "rational debate" and the like - the usual arguments for maximum free speech! - do not apply to psychopaths in general; these individuals entirely lack affective empathy or a moral sense, and even their theory-of-mind abilities (without which no "debate" can plausibly exist!) might be severely degraded, at least when it comes to 'deep' reasoning about others' affects/emotions, goals, perspectives etc.)

Some politics is sociopathic. Some is perhaps better characterized as nihilist. Accelerationism, which is what is advocated by the Christchurch shooter, is both sociopathic and nihilistic.

Do note that, plausibly, "rational debate" and the like - the usual arguments for maximum free speech! - do not apply to psychopaths in general; these individuals entirely lack affective empathy or a moral sense, and even their theory-of-mind abilities

If you go and look at the documented video of both Far Left and Far Right extremists committing acts of violence, intimidation, and vandalism, you will see precisely what you have described above. "These individuals entirely lack affective empathy or a moral sense." This is actually why you want to accord them Free Speech. If civic discourse is operating correctly, such people inevitably reveal themselves for what they really are. The problem with 2019 and recent years, is that civic discourse and the news media are broken, and much of the complete picture may be hidden from view from within a particular information bubble.

You're tying to equivocate throwing a milkshake at a politician with actual violence.

>https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2019/apr/03...

Um. You do realize that politifact article ends with "reported incidents are going up, total incidents are going down", right?

Here:

> Analyses of the National Crime Victimization Survey indicated that the majority of crime victimizations were not reported to the police from 2009 to 2014. Reported victimizations have picked up, and unreported incidents have went down since 2015, after a significant drop in both categories in 2014.

And their "Share The Facts" summary: "Only for reported crimes"

Finally, throwing milkshakes, just like throwing rotten fruit, is violence - mild violence, but still a very different thing than speech.

It's not limited to milkshakes. Lets apply some symmetry, say that the hateful rhetoric from the left has fanned Islamic attacks [1], or is what caused two black teens pouring gasoline on a white 13-year old, saying "This is what you deserve. You get what you deserve, white boy." as they set him on fire [2].

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20184712

[2] https://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/teenagers-poured-g...

Who are you including? Socialist guerrillas in Latin America? Islamists?

I went searching and looked into where this idea of mine came from. My statement is a little out of date, stemming from 2017 so I'll retract it partially. If you look at this Washington Post article, and scroll down to the bar chart, for 2016 amd 2017 you'll see 11 killings by the right wing extremists and 16 killings by the left wing extremists.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/in-the-united-states...

However, you'll note that the number isn't zero. It's just that the mainstream media is very left biased, and engages in the kind of "not technically censorship" suppression of information typical of the West, as called out by Noam Chomsky in Manufacturing Consent. Note how effective that style of soft suppression was in preventing your awareness of those killings.

It did remind me of the congressional baseball game shooter, who as far as I remember, didn't kill anyone (though not for lack of trying). That was stacked against several more successful mass murder attempts from right wingers.

What we should be concerned about, is how the dishonesty and bias distorts the information available to the public, and destroys civic discourse.

I still think antifa is blown out of proportion for propaganda purposes

Citation needed

There's no impartial judicial system involved here, the people driving the deplatforming are self-appointed activists within these companies who are emotionally invested in 'doing something'. They're not moderate, or careful, or measured. That's not their nature.

If you want to get a bit of data on how "moderate, or careful, or measured" they are, note that the pro-deplatforming crowd characterizes Ben Shapiro -- a devout adherent of Judaism, a consistent critic of the Alt-Right, and a primary target of the Alt-Right according to the SPLC -- as "Alt-Right." That's just one example. There are lots of examples. Labeling is being used as an intellectually dishonest weapon enabling censorship and suppression.

And I don't see why the fact that he's jewish negates the fact that he's engaged in hate speech several times - some nice examples here:

>If you wear your pants below your butt, don't bend the brim of your cap, and have an EBT card, 0% chance you will ever be a success in life.

>Israelis like to build. Arabs like to bomb crap and live in open sewage. This is not a difficult issue. #settlementsrock

Thanks for that.

he's engaged in hate speech several times - some nice examples here:

>If you wear your pants below your butt, don't bend the brim of your cap, and have an EBT card, 0% chance you will ever be a success in life.

>Israelis like to build. Arabs like to bomb crap and live in open sewage. This is not a difficult issue. #settlementsrock

Thanks for the examples! The 1st is a criticism and throwing shade at particular behaviors. I had a colleague who did that with his pants. Who was from rural Michigan, BTW. Might I ask what your justification for saying it's "hate speech?" Are you by any chance trading in racial stereotypes? (This is a danger of ideologies like Intersectionality which obsess over identities like race.)

The 2nd is nationalism. Sure, you can criticize him for that, but it's not "hate speech."

Thanks for the examples of how arbitrary "hate speech" can be.

Nevertheless, I would oppose the idea of de-platforming Ben Shapiro. I don't trust the people making the decisions, and I don't want them to become the arbiters of what is and is not acceptable speech in our society. Sure, today they may de-platform someone I dislike, such as Ben Shapiro, but tomorrow, they may de-platform someone I like.

Really, that makes no difference to the effect on Free Speech.

much like the ones being deplatformed are generally doing for their own ideas.

Which is an activity which is enshrined and constitutionally protected. Really, any website which claims to be a "platform" and enjoy the protections of that status needs to be called to account. If they are going to act as publishers with editorial input, they should be held to account for that as well.

People who think it's ok to harass/threaten/attack people because they don't like their speech are in the same boat as people who catcall/harass/stalk women because of the way they dress, because they use the same rationale: "they were asking for it by expressing themselves that way"

Different speech has radically different consequences. Are you saying zero speech should be met with violence?

If you feel the need to punch someone in the face for saying that abortion or illegal immigration is wrong, you need to take a serious look at your mental state, and not try to pretend in some abstract way that they are threatening your wellbeing in order to justify your violence.

I never said that, in fact I posted the opposite in the post you just replied to, where I demonstrated that some speech does have legitimate physical consequences. Your consistent misrepresentation of the posts in this thread make me think you are either trolling, arguing in bad faith, or genuinely don't understand what is being discussed.

The law is not the same as public consensus, and it does not have the same guidelines/requirements.

I don't support punching nazis, but that is not the same as deplatforming them

The rights are in fact more expansive than the laws which protect them. Hence just because something is legal does not mean it is not a violation of rights.

Many cases of 'deplatforming' are in fact a violation of the right to free speech. If a group of megacorps which own the systems we use to enact discourse and make a living decides to do everything to prevent you from using those systems, they are violating your rights.

Zero speech should be met with vigilante violence. Speech which is direct incitement should be reported to law enforcement.

No. No incitement to violence and criminal activity. However, people shouldn't engage in extra-legal censorship of media, unless they are willing to take on all of the responsibilities of a publisher. If an entity claims to be a "platform," there is precedent that Free Speech outweighs property rights.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsh_v._Alabama

Isn't that an infringement on my freedom of speech to call a belligerent nazi a pathetic waste of resources?

I'm all for you getting on YouTube "to call a belligerent nazi a pathetic waste of resources." But if YouTube is going to call itself a "platform," then it shouldn't be infringing on your right of Free Speech to do so.

Platform has never meant "open to everyone". You always have the right to shout racist slurs from your soapbox in the public square (at least until a police officer cites you for disturbing the peace or something), but don't expect to do the same in Joe's ice cream parlor and not get thrown out. Consequently, if you go into the KKK headquarters and start preaching equality, they have every legal right to have you kicked out as well

The link GP posted is literally about that, when "Joe's ice cream parlor" is actually the entire city, maybe you should.

Should Google be allowed to forbid criticism of Google on their platforms? I mean, perhaps - but it's hard to argue that there couldn't be consequences from that.

In the 20th century, here's how you could tell the good guys from the bad guys. The bad guys forced you to agree. If there were inconvenient facts or opinions, they were suppressed and the people espousing them were coerced. By contrast, the good guys were open. They let people criticize them, letting their good deeds speak for them. The bad guys destroyed lives just to get their way. Here's the thing: The good guys and the bad guys weren't properly defined by their flags. They weren't confined to particular geographic areas and constrained by borders. The good and bad were defined by the above actions.

So let's apply that to the present day. How does Google behave? Are they the kind of people who would suppress opinions they don't like? Are they the kind of people who would do something intellectually dishonest, like leave out the references? Are they the kind of people who would be the opposite of open, and use superior force to get their way?

Indeed, it's hard to argue that there couldn't be consequences from that. The arc of history is long, and it bends towards justice.

If you think it should not have vetos, then any (legal) topic is acceptableº, and "Free Speech" is the bedrock of discourse. Since discussions and decisions are held in public, people may find them painful.

If you think it should have vetos, then anyone may declare a topic unacceptableº. Not triggering a veto becomes the key to productive discourse. As one cannot veto what they haven't heard about, many controversial discussions and decisions are made in secret.

º Mechanisms for punishing unacceptable speech range from social isolation through economic isolation and finally to physical isolation.

That's not a free market of ideas. That's a free-for-all. That's Gandhi's, "an eye for an eye, making the whole world blind."