They seem pretty comparable to me.
Because I was not a right-wing neo-nazi.
Wonder where this goes this time.
It's not hypocritical for someone to believe that Cloudflare should kick nazis off their service and at the same time believe Blizzard should stand up to China.
Human beings are capable of exercising nuance and understanding complex topics. I don't want to generally go around punching or kicking people, but if I'm cornered and someone is trying to do harm to me, I'm going to fight back. It's the context around such actiona that defines whether or not it was just.
In a democratic society, the people voices are heard.
In a dictatorship, only the small elite that controls the government's voice is heard.
It was a post-game interview on a Blizzard event in a Blizzard broadcast. How is that different from "a private company not wanting to host <content>" ? The player had supported HK freedom on his Twitter in the past, yet was allowed to play in the tournament. Gaming events have not been places for sharing political ideas, like social media is.
The situation is entirely driven by Blizzard, for fear of their potential revenue stream out of China.
This is in contrast to the NBA scenario, where China did speak out against the NBA, and later began to cancel contracts.
That they chose to toe the party line on their own, without prompting from the Chinese government, with swift and overwhelming penalties on the player and shoutcasters doesn't exactly speak well for Blizzard.
If I demonstrate to you that I'm going to shoot your legs if you don't tell me I'm pretty by doing so to people around you, and then I walk up to you and you tell me I'm pretty, would it be accurate to say you chose to tell me I'm pretty all on your own, totally unprompted? Can I say that you chose on your own merely for a potential future in walking? Hey, you won't be killed by the loss of your legs.
Why would China treat the (comparatively huge and influential) NBA one way, and (comparatively tiny) Blizzard another?
Activision Blizzard is in no risk of going bankrupt even if they lose the entire Chinese market.
We've seen this all before with the "terrorist" label, the "communist" label in Hollywood blacklists, various Puritan attempts at censorship for sex, films, music, etc.
I wished I believed this much in our centralize opaque institutions to create these red lines consistently, reliably, and fairly. Which is amusing because much of the people pushing for this the hardest are often the same people who would never hand over such power in almost any other scenario.
The only reliable outcome, that we've seen repeatedly over and over in history is that once you start expanding censorship beyond just the obviously bad-guys (spam, violence, etc) and start wadding into the grey areas of speech is that:
a) context and intention, which are critical in day-to-day discourse, are increasing ignored as the system scales and the scope increases
b) the line will only keep expanding into a broader and broader group ("you did it for x, why not y?!!")
c) false positives dramatically increase
d) due process is only afforded in rare situations where the individual is already famous/powerful and can stir up enough controversy forcing the gatekeepers to actually consider it carefully
Everything goes great at the beginning as you sweep up the low hanging fruit. It's the long run where this 'solution' really gets tested - which is the phase we're now entering on many platforms.
The difference is content. I hate the tendency to fall back to arguments about free speech when that is not the point. Yes, of course everyone should be able to express views individually, but that doesn't mean I don't care about the content of what is being said. That doesn't mean everyone is entitled to the ability to ram that message down everyone's throat through every possible route.
Yeah, companies have a right to self-censor, and consumers have a right to punish them for that.
Hell yes I support CloudFlare kicking off neo-nazis, hell no I don't support Blizzard silencing HK protestors. No hypocrisy because what is being said matters.
What you're saying isn't free speech at all; it's supporting the right to express speech you agree with and being ok with views you don't being taken down. In particular, free speech isn't "the point" to you.
As for compelling companies to do business with people they don't want to, we crossed that line long ago, they can't refuse service to people on the ground of race, sex, etc. Are you in favor of getting rid of anti-discrimination laws?
That's not true, the list of protected classes includes religion, gender, familial status and veteran status. All things which people have control over.
But the point is we've already stomped all over any "right" a business has to deny service to someone. Instead of defending this right and the new age of corporate fascism that comes with it, why not go for something fully universal and remove a tool for CCP manipulation at the same time?
Gender identity doesn't seem to be consciously changeable. Some people's gender may be different from their biological sex, but the identity itself is pretty deeply rooted.
Familial and veteran status are also not changeable i.e. if you already have children or are a veteran, you can't go back and change that fact. Even though people have some degree of control over having a family in the first place or serving/not serving, because they have been used as a dimension of discrimination in the past, they've been lumped in as a protected characteristic. There's also nothing bad about having a family or serving/not serving - in contrast to discrimination over a criminal record (legal in many places AFAIK), which like familial & veteran status also can't be changed and which people also have some degree of control over.
Familial status is changeable: you can marry, have children, divorce, give children up for adoption, and be widowed. All of which change family status. Actually, even aging of children changes family status, since the age of children is itself a factor relating to the family that is covered by protections against family-status discrimination.
> discrimination over a criminal record ... which ... also can't be changed
Criminal record can legally be changed in both directions, though neither is under the full and exclusive control of the possessor of the record (though they certainly have an influence, in both directions)—new convictions, expungements, and pardons are all real things.
Coercing someone into doing that under pain of discrimination is pretty cruel though.
> though neither is under the full and exclusive control of the possessor of the record
That's why I said not entirely in one's control. I'm aware pardons, expungements exist.
Now consider how that applies to a white supremacist, the also have have a deeply held faith in their beliefs (as with most fringe groups), probably more so than most than most religious people. And their beliefs are often equally abhorrent. Why is it OK to discriminate against people that think the white race is superior but not to discriminate against people that think they're gods chosen people? What do we do when a religion thinks it's OK to discriminate against gay people?
> Gender identity doesn't seem to be consciously changeable. Some people's gender may be different from their biological sex, but the identity itself is pretty deeply rooted.
Some people switch based on mood, making it not an inherent characteristic:
> Genderfluid people often express a desire to remain flexible about their gender identity rather than committing to a single definition.[20] They may fluctuate between differing gender expressions over their lifetime, or express multiple aspects of various gender markers at the same time.[20][21] They may at times identify as bigender - shifting between masculine and feminine; or as trigender - shifting between these and a third gender. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-binary_gender
And as a social construct it can change based on societal expectations and roles.
> There's also nothing bad about having a family or serving/not serving - in contrast to discrimination over a criminal record (legal in many places AFAIK)
On the military I disagree, there is something bad about being a willing participant in wars of aggression and I'd much rather be able to discriminate against them then I would a stoner that landed in jail.
So instead of arguing about grey areas of what is an inherent trait and what is changeable along with how to handle conflicts between protected classes that themselves discriminate, let's make it illegal for companies to discriminate against individuals/organisations entirely?
What does that even mean though? You can't discriminate against anyone for any reason whatsoever? What if they have terrible hygiene? Insult everyone around them? A company can't discriminate against candidates who don't have the requisite job skills? They can't fire someone who subtly undermines or plots or otherwise plays politics? Isn't that anti-meritocracy?
Protected classes are (mostly) "what someone is" - that's why they're "protected". The stuff I listed above is "what someone does" and depending on context it's totally valid to use it as a reason for discrimination.
> Now consider how that applies to a white supremacist
White supremacy isn't a religion.
> Why is it OK to discriminate against people that think the white race is superior
How did anyone find out that this person is a white supremacist though? They probably said or did something, right? Seems like discrimination due to actions, not beliefs, to me. As a businessperson would you trust an employee who openly proclaims such beliefs to treat all their co-workers or your customers with equal respect? At the very least, I'd question their judgement in other matters, because they fell for such an idiotic and backward ideology and then talked about it. As a citizen, would you trust a government official who espoused such views to treat everyone they deal with equally?
> not to discriminate against people that think they're gods chosen people?
Because it's a religious belief (I understand that's a tautology - "it's illegal because it's illegal"). Nevertheless if your employee goes beyond belief into action - discriminates against a colleague or customer - you have grounds to fire them.
> What do we do when a religion thinks it's OK to discriminate against gay people?
Side with the party being discriminated against in that case. It's also not OK for a gay person to discriminate against someone based on religion.
> Some people switch based on mood
Not at all. Some people have different gender identities at different times. That's still part of their gender identity. Calling it "based on mood" makes it seem capricious and arbitrary. But if it was really so then wouldn't they choose not to do it so they could fit into what society generally expects - being cisgendered. Most people want a hassle-free life and don't want to be discriminated against.
> And as a social construct it can change based on societal expectations and roles.
This is a meaningless statement. "I'm female/genderfluid but I'm expected to act male in my society due to my body so I'll do that to fit in." is pretty oppressive. That same person may be able to live their true identity in a more free society. Voila gender changed due to "societal expectations", but the fault really was of society. It wasn't the individual's choice to hide their identity in the more repressive society.
> a willing participant in wars of aggression
People join the military out of a sense of patriotism, to get an education, to escape poverty, or travel and see the world. They don't decide to start wars of aggression, the politicians do that. It's also bad national policy (in terms of self-preservation) to allow discrimination based on veteran status, because that will discourage people from serving in future. Regardless of one's feelings about individual conflicts, most nations today can't do without a military and you have to treat service members well after they have served.
There's gender expression, and there's gender identity.
The people that use that phrase to 100% include gender identity are pretty much all anti-trans bigots. I do take it up with them when the opportunity arises, but if you're going to say the same things then you're part of the problem. You can't say something and be blameless because you heard it from someone else.
> that identify as gender fluid or making up the alphabet soup of modern genders
Maybe some of them are going too hard on the need to categorize everything, but they're still not choosing that underlying nature.
Free speech - for people you agree with. Well, I'm glad we sorted out that mess.
Hell yes I support civil forfeiture with no due process. There's no way it will be ever done to innocent people.
Hell yes I support the executive branch getting more and more power. There's no way someone terrible would ever be the President and use that power.
and now:
Hell yes I support corporations policing free speech. They are on our side! There's no way it will ever be done to me or people I like.
do you get the idea?
Am I a fucking terrorist sympathizer if I speak out against torture and extrajudicial indefinite detention? No. I don't give a shit about them, but whatever I support done to them might be done to me.
Am I a fucking Nazi sympathizer if I speak out against abuse of power by unaccountable private entities? No. I don't give a shit about them, but whatever I support done to them might be done to me.
Beyond the government? It's just not that simple. The solution is compelled speech? If I run a company, I have to broadcast people calling for my death, for example?
Should Blizzard be forced to allow anyone to say anything on their show? What if someone starts promoting a competing product? How do you deal with who is allowed to demand airtime on their particular thing? What proportion of exposure are given bits of speech given?
I'm not saying there aren't issues with companies having control over speech—this case is absolutely an example of that—but you are pretending that compelling companies to allow any speech is simple.
How would it possibly work if I couldn't be fired for insulting a customer at work, or telling them to shop at a rival instead. How would it work if news networks were required to broadcast my rant about whatever I want? Do I have to associate with the neo-nazi who wants me dead because I can't apply consequences for their speech?
I agree that this case is an example of unjust consequences of speech, and I think Blizzard did the wrong thing. It is not the same as being arrested and convicted for it, and it's not that simple.
People are free to associate and do business with whoever they want to and that is all part of the marketplace of ideas. Blizzard is choosing to get into bed with the Chinese government and cloudfare chose to get out of business with nazis and their customers get to decide how to react that. Right now it seems to be going poorly for blizzard and well for cloudflare.
When you go against the mainstream American stance to curry favor with an authoritarian regime that is also a current political enemy, well, that's kind of kicking the hornet's nest.
By this standard, Cloudflare's censorship of TDS is far less defensible that Blizzard's censorship of blitzchung. Saying that speech within the mainstream should be allowed and speech outside the mainstream should not be allowed is a violation of this tenet. If you support freedom of speech, you should support TDS's right to speak as strongly as blitzchung's.
Apparently not, considering how many US companies have decided that this is kind of talk is forbidden.
Were this the 1950s during the Red Scare, people would have said the same thing, except the thing that would have been "far, far outside the American political mainstream" would've been Communists, leftists, pro-unionists, and other members of the political left. You know, the political wing you are a part of.
Want to reconsider your opinion? It's not as if a swing to the right couldn't happen again as the past few years of elections have shown.
Further than nazis?
There is literally no space on the internet that is public. There are only private spaces on the internet. And the internet is pivotal to modern communication.
It's very, very hard to craft a statement that has any meaning that offends nobody.
I believe that the ability to have free speech is important to the US; important enough to be codified into law.
As such I believe that companies who provide communication platforms, that are based on the morals of the US (or more practically who use US resources while conducting their business), should honor free speech.
If they don't - if they only honor convenient speech - genuine and open public discourse will disappear.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
“if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.”
Killing “the jews” silences discussion and debate.
I’d definitely advocate reading Popper’s own words instead of the potentially ambiguous wikipedia summary.
You spout relentless apologia for Chinese government actions; for instance, you were arguing with me in the other thread about whether the pressure focused on the NBA/Rockets was Chinese government action. Silver has now confirmed that it was.
recent subthread on this topic: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21229775
Also who gets to define who is intolerant? Chinese government will surely say that the Hong Kong protesters are intolerant. Does it make it okay to censor them?
I completely agree that opposing views that can be argued against rationally should always be allowed. But we were talking about literal nazis who advocate (and act upon) VIOLENT intolerance.
I don't think there's a hypocrisy here. Private company removes someone from their platform because of a position they've taken that the company disagrees with, and members of the public react in line with their own values.
In the example of Cloudflare & TDS, members of the public that disagree with TDS generally support Cloudflare. Those that support TDS or take a stricter view of the private sector's duty to facilitate free speech criticize Cloudflare.
In the example of Blizzard & BC, members of the public that disagree with BC generally support Blizzard. Those that support BC or take a stricter view of the private sector's duty to facilitate free speech criticize Blizzard.
The difference is the portion of the public agreeing or disagreeing in each case. Which is not hypocracy because TDS and BC do not espouse the same views.
This is fairly simple and not particularly radical, through anti-discrimination laws we already force companies to do business with individuals regardless of whether they want to, it just makes it universal.
Would it be correct to boycott CloudFlare for deplatforming the Daily Stormer? No, because there's nothing wrong with deplatforming Nazis, there was nothing morally reprehensible in Cloudflare's actions.
Would it be correct to boycott Blizzard for severely over-reacting to a pro Hong Kong political act on one of their streams? Yes, because apologizing to a monstrous, despotic regime by throwing tournament players and casters under the bus for supporting Hong Kong is morally atrocious. (As Brian Kibler and other professional casters have pointed out, some generic slap-on-the-wrist would probably have been appropriate, in line with what they would have done if someone took their victory speech to talk about impeaching/not impeaching Donald Trump or something).
This has nothing to do with free speech. I don't care about Blitzcheung or the casters' individual right to political speech on a Blizzard Twitch stream (it doesn't exist). I care about Blizzard's actions, and what they say about the willingness of the company to harm others to protect business interests in a despotic regime during a very important moment in global history.
I'm kind of confused about why you're confused, honestly. It's not very difficult to parse out very obvious essential differences between the two scenarios.
To be slightly hyperbolic, it's impossible to say something of substance that doesn't offend someone. If all we're allowed to say is that which doesn't offend anyone, then nothing of substance can be said.
You do not, should not, and will never have a "right" to "free speech" in media that are privately owned and managed by others. You have a right to not have a government censor your speech. The federal government cannot compell you to remove an editorial from your blog criticizing the government. They may not compell your isp to bar traffic to that blog. Insofar as the ISP is a government mandated oligopoly, it's reasonable to argue that they may not block access to your ip. Must a blogging website provide you hosting? No. You never had such a "right" and you never will. You can argue that they have a duty to provide you equitable and fair service, but we rarely use duties in western political philosophy (an example would be Australia compelling citizens to vote).
Private citizens may or may not publish your material on their media at their discretion. You have zero right to any of their bandwidth, resources, or otherwise, again, in general. Furthermore you shouldn't, because that would in fact be tantamount to governmenr infringement of the freedom of speech of those private citizens.
The internet is pivotal to modern communications, yet it is effectively entirely private. If the citizens and their representatives felt strongly enough to create common carrier laws for telegraphs (see a sibling comment for more details), why should we feel differently about speech that travels over channels designed and built for communication across internet?
> governmenr infringement of the freedom of speech of those private citizens
Those "private citizens" are actually corporations making billions of dollars in profit to provide us, in part, with communication channels on their platforms.
You don't have a right to free speech on the comment section of my blog, or my twitch chat stream, or my discord channel. Those platforms enable me to moderate that content. If they lacked that feature, it wouldn't support or undermine anyone's rights, mine or yours.
How property rights for those resources convey corresponding constitutional rights of users (or other government imposed requirements, see for example insurance and healthcare) is something that is continually in tension and requires constant litigation.
As distinct, say, from the twitch chat feed on my speedrunning channel.
The first telegraph network banned journalists who reported bad things against the telegraph company. They manipulated stock prices and influenced elections. That is why common carriage laws were made, which required communications platforms to provide neutral service to everyone.
I'm sure that you would have been there, bravely defending the coal barons right to shut down journalists trying to report on union organizing, because they are a private corporation and they can do whatever they want on their property and not answer to anyone. You would have screamed "muh freeze peach" at journalists trying to report about labor abuses. Because they are not entitled to use the private telegraph network.
Of course the line between ubiquitous large platform and government is blurry. That is why communications companies over a certain side must be forced to platform everyone, and can only be permitted to ban them when they have met certain criteria.
In general though, yes, you have no right to have a particular editorial published in the new york times on your behalf. What the press deigns to publish is protected. You're also free to start your own paper, or blog, or whatever.
NO, you really aren't free to do that.
If every means of communication is in private hands, and access is denied to you, then you effectively have no free speech.
I am really depressed by the radical libertarian corporatism here on HN.
If an oil company brought all the land around your house, and put up a wall on all sides, and refused to let you leave, I feel like people here would defend that. Because you are not entitled to be on other people's private property or what ever. And it was your fault for living in the center of the land they brought, and no freedom from consequences.
And the first mediums of mass communication were 100% private, so to reiterate what I said before, everyone should be cool with them systematically excluding people they consider to be "nazis". To them, union organizers and journalists are a dangerous threat to public order...
Shut up journalist, you are not entitled to use their private telegraphs that were subsidized by the government. You were banned because of your hateful speech against our corporation. No freedom from consequences, loser. Go whine about muh freeze peach elsewhere.
The post you replied to said that those things would have to carry you. What are you even ranting about at this point?
> If every means of communication is in private hands, and access is denied to you, then you effectively have no free speech.
Which is a theoretical risk only. But I'd say the answer is that you can buy whatever size internet connection you want and then host it yourself, in the exceptionally unlikely situation that no data center in a thousand miles will rent you space.
(This would require 'common carrier' rules to be broadened very slightly, I'm aware things aren't perfect.)
That's exactly what this discussion is about - you're not free to start a blog. Running any form of web site on the internet requires the support of multiple private companies, which can and do shut sites down at their whims.
I doubt ISPs would easily cut someone's home internet off. Is there precedent for that?
2. Some ISPs (possibly overlapping 1. or not) explicitly disallow hosting of any service on their Internet plans that they categorize for home use in their Terms of Service.
Access to some blog-hosting SaSS is another issue entirely.
I'm content to provide my own stack from the server up. There is no realistic scenario where I can be deplatformed from purchasing hardware sufficient to host a blog.
But really, by your logic, they have no right to report on union organizing, because it's a private company and they should be allowed to cover up human rights abuses, because the first amendment does not protect it, or something.
You're really getting the power dynamic wrong here, carelessly swapping between powerful institutional actors and individual actors as though they were interchangeable and pretending I made a value judgement about a strawman you constructed. My point is that the issue is complicated and deserves more care. The ideologues claiming to champion a distorted, unbounded "free speech" flatten every issue and refuse to engage with the complexities of harm.
They employ a technique that allows them to lazily wave away every piece of evidence we have about what is necessary to foster healthy, constructive, inclusive communities online and offline.
It's worth remembering that at that point in time, the anti-union faction was strong and brutally violent.
The issue you're grappling with is something that has no clear cut answer, namely: the question of whether doxxing is ever appropriate, and which major publications still face intense heat over. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/26/reader-center/whistle-blo...
We in the modern US simply do not have a frame of reference for how brutal these activities were. Being outed as a union contributor in many cases was equivalent to a death sentence. A small excerpt from when a union activity was "doxxed" to the union busters:
>>> More than 200 vigilantes or "citizen deputies", under the ostensible authority of Snohomish County Sheriff McRae, met in order to repel the "anarchists." As the Verona drew into the dock, and someone on board threw a line over a bollard, McRae stepped forward and called out "Boys, who's your leader?" The IWW men laughed and jeered, replying "We're all leaders," and they started to swing out the gang plank. McRae drew his pistol, told them he was the sheriff, he was enforcing the law, and they couldn't land here. There was a silence, then a Wobbly came up to the front and yelled out "the hell we can't."[4]
Just then a single shot rang out, followed by about ten minutes of intense gunfire. Most of it came from the vigilantes on the dock, but some fire came from the Verona, although the majority of the passengers were unarmed.[5] Whether the first shot came from boat or dock was never determined. Passengers aboard the Verona rushed to the opposite side of the ship, nearly capsizing the vessel. The ship's rail broke as a result and a number of passengers were ejected into the water, some drowned as a result but how many is not known, or whether persons who'd been shot also went overboard.[6] Over 175 bullets pierced the pilot house alone, and the captain of the Verona, Chance Wiman, was only able to avoid being shot by ducking behind the ship's safe.[5] <<<
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_union_busting_in_th...
Yes, it was wrong of CloudFlare to do that, and if I could choose a competitor I would.
And you would change your mind if someone accuses you of being a "nazi" and your account is immediately terminated. And yes it could happen to you. In this day and age anyone can be called a Nazi. Left leaning Jewish professors are getting called Nazis and assaulted and deplatformed. If it can happen to Jordan Peterson, it can happen to anyone.
So when it comes to the point, corporations have decided that they can arbitrarily deny service to whoever they please, for political reasons.
So I don't want to hear any of you complain about what Blizzard is doing. You should support Blizzard, because "freedom of speech does not mean freedom from consequences". Any Hearthstone player that insults China should have any company they do business with drop them. Because these are just the consequences of being hateful. From the point of view of a lot of Chinese people, supporting Hong Kong makes you an imperialist hateful biggoted sino-phobic "nazi" of sorts.
Ha.
The modern neo-nazi movement subverts mechanisms for questioning and checking power, even going as far as subverting the brand power of "free speech" to mean their speech and only their speech, in order to accumulate power around themselves and their interests. It is tragic that we can't have conversations about imperial powers suppressing independence movements without connoting that those principles protect speech suppressing and threatening minority groups.
Remember when The Daily Stormer got kicked off CloudFlare and a whole host of other platforms, to the point that no one would take their business and they were effectively censored? The average take on that seemed to be a mix of "Free speech doesn't apply to private companies" and "If you don't like it, build your own CDN/DNS/Paypal/certificate authority etc"
So what's the difference with this? Again, I agree completely with the concerns here, but what happened to TDS and a lot of other fringe sites was even more blatant and serious: They were de facto banned from the internet, whereas this is all over...a video game.
Did everyone come to the conclusion that corporations are powerful enough to effectively snuff out free speech since that happened, or is it different because this is China, or...?