This is not exactly isolated to the far-right. It's anyone who is bad at arguing or finds themselves beaten logically and needs an illogical escape. We should call that out on all sides.

Uh, the person you're replying to doesn't appear to be far right, and he did a pretty good job of arguing against the substance of what Cohen said.

When did he argue against anything Cohen said? He just said his comedy sucks and he’s “the worst kind of strongman”, while implying that Cohen wants to take basic human rights away from people. If that’s not an ad-hominem, it’s pretty close.

Not only did I not insult his comedy, I actually even called it funny.

Cohen from his ADL speech genuinely believes that platforms should be publishers and should be on the line for what is posted to them - and therefore the publisher should censor all words which disagree with its opinions. He doesn't use the word censor, he instead uses the words "restrict", "limit" and "delay". He uses examples like hate speech and racism, and while that sounds fine on the surface, he makes it very clear he believes publishers can rightfully restrict speech in many ways well beyond what the law requires.

In arguing for censorship, he is restricting the freedom of expression and that is against human rights. While it sounds great when it's focused on "big platforms" of "American Billionaires", forcing online platforms to be publishers is de facto censorship and it doesn't only affect Facebook, but your small community forums and message boards too.

Yes, I do accuse Cohen of playing the strongman. He's a wealthy comedian (his net worth is about $130M) who made his money by filming himself manipulating other people, and he believes average people shouldn't be able to post freely on the internet without someone (the platform, the Government) approving their speech. That's an abhorrent view and it's in stark contrast to the belief that humans should have agency.

So let me get this straight, a person who supposedly got a platform to manipulate many others at once (and thats dangerous, according to you) is saying that manipulators shouldn't get a platform to manipulate many others at once, and you find that... also bad?

Worst case it might be hypocritical, but the claim is certainly inconsistent. The question is, how do we handle dangerous manipulators on social media? Are they not a problem at all?

I've already flagged lph's comment smearing vorpalhex but I see it as so egregious I'm also going to list the HN guidelines that I see it as breaching:

> Be kind. Don't be snarky. Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.

> When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names

> Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.

> Eschew flamebait. Don't introduce flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents.

> Please don't post shallow dismissals

> Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle

I'm sorry, are you talking about Cohen? He's not usually considered far-right.

Are you suggesting that I'm far-right?

The four stages of argument:

- I'm right because ...

- You're right because ...

- You're ugly!

- Person 'A' hits person 'B'.

One thing I've noticed about the far-left is that they have a tendency of dismissing anybody they disagree with as far-right.

One thing I've noticed about authoritarians is that they have been pretty successful at categorizing anything outside of their Overton window as "far", a corollary of branding authoritarianism as "centrist".