Fighting Neo-Nazis and the Future of Free Expression
eff.org"[W]e strongly believe that what GoDaddy, Google, and Cloudflare did here was dangerous. That’s because, even when the facts are the most vile, we must remain vigilant when platforms exercise these rights. Because Internet intermediaries, especially those with few competitors, control so much online speech, the consequences of their decisions have far-reaching impacts on speech around the world."
Well said. I'm glad EFF is not burrying their heads in the sand and hiding behind the "but they're nazis!" Excuse.
Indeed. It seems as though the entire West has lost its collective mind about the importance of free speech and free expression as bedrock principles which ensure peace, stability and prosperity.
Additionally, I view these acts of censorship as a great opportunity for blockchain and other nascent decentralized web technologies to take off. It's a classic case of the innovator's dilemma - when a company or industry seems ascendant, it becomes complacent to new threats, and the seeds of its destruction are sown right underneath it. Sometimes it even assists in the process. (Microsoft's neglect of IE, allowing Mozilla to flourish in the mid-2000s, is one of my favorite examples.) With their suppression of speech, these centralized services are quite possibly hastening their own demise.
Someone needs to invent a Godwin-like rule about the word "blockchain" being used in Internet conversations...
I don't understand how Godwin's rule is useful. Its only effect on arguments is that on top of the inevitable "Hitler" comment you now also get an inevitable "Godwin" follow-up, usually delivered with the air of having somehow won the argument. It's beyond redundant IMO.
There's no such thing as "Godwin's Rule" - it's "Godwin's Law" and it said nothing about winning arguments; only that as the length of an argument increased, the probability that a comparison with the Nazis would appear approached 1.
You can't invoke it either. It's a statistical observation.
How is that a useful observation, though?
As the length of any internet argument grows, the probability of anything being said would approach 1.
I don't know about anyone else, but unless the discussion is actually historical in nature, then the point at which I find a discussion ceases to be interesting and reverts to name-calling is about the point that Godwin's Law appears.
That's because people abuse Godwin's law (or what they think it is) to shut down discussion.
Taken from Wikipedia;
Godwin's law itself can be abused as a distraction, diversion or even as censorship, fallaciously miscasting an opponent's argument as hyperbole when the comparisons made by the argument are actually appropriate. Similar criticisms of the "law" (or "at least the distorted version which purports to prohibit all comparisons to German crimes") have been made by American lawyer, journalist and author Glenn Greenwald.
Godwin's law does not claim to articulate a fallacy; it is instead framed as a memetic tool to reduce the incidence of inappropriate hyperbolic comparisons. "Although deliberately framed as if it were a law of nature or of mathematics, its purpose has always been rhetorical and pedagogical: I wanted folks who glibly compared someone else to Hitler to think a bit harder about the Holocaust", Godwin has written. In December 2015, Godwin commented on the Nazi and fascist comparisons being made by several articles on Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, saying: "If you're thoughtful about it and show some real awareness of history, go ahead and refer to Hitler when you talk about Trump.
Godwin's Law has been repealed: https://mobile.twitter.com/sfmnemonic/status/896898183246303...
"Any internet conversation of unbounded size will inevitably attempt to solve social problems with a blockchain."
Hardly. America is just finally catching up to Europe on banning hate speech.
...which isn't a good thing in my opinion.
One more quote because I think it sums things up very well:
"Protecting free speech is not something we do because we agree with all of the speech that gets protected. We do it because we believe that no one—not the government and not private commercial enterprises—should decide who gets to speak and who doesn’t."
Although the only thing actually protected by the First Amendment is protection against censorship of speech by the government. Private commercial enterprises can do what they want (since technically you should be able to move to a competitor).
1. Even if the First Amendment is only limited to the government, the concept of free speech predates and extends far beyond the First Amendment.
2. Does the Constitution apply if the government allows private entities to take over roles of the government? There is the concept of utilities and common carriers that extend upon this logic.
3. Even without the above points, one should still be able to see a double standard being applied to violent/extremist speech. Saying a company can do whatever it wants doesn't explain what the company actually wants. If the company is applying a double standard to what speech it allows, then the true wants of the company is something we need to discuss and decide do we want to tolerate.
An interesting example for your comment might be the use of private prisons, and probation companies.
This is also dangerous for clear reasons. If speech deemed bad is censored we may have no examples with which to contrast good ideas. Think of free speech as natural selection for ideas.
John Stuart Mill thought free speech should extend into the private world:
Society can and does execute its own mandates: and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with which it ought not to meddle, it practises a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. Protection, therefore, against the tyranny of the magistrate is not enough: there needs protection also against the tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling; against the tendency of society to impose, by other means than civil penalties, its own ideas and practices as rules of conduct on those who dissent from them.
This is precisely true. The Constitution does not offer protection from the vagaries of capital, but capital realizes that certain ideologies, like brands, are toxic. Thus the New Yorker and Economist covers this week depicting the President' relationship to extremism.
Why not? If I own a bar I shouldn't be allowed to decide what entertainment I hire based on their content? We can't have a society where all speech is protected, even from private actors.
It can't be phrased clearer while still distancing themselves from the cause clearly and coherently... unlike other people.
On that same note: Good riddance. Policy and processes are probably in no case ever too slow to take effect. Thanks to Google and GoDaddy for Pavlov'ing me towards reasonable human understanding, and thanks for EFF for making me aware that that there's a problem with "learning" things that way.
because it takes balls to stick up for freedom these days and let's be honest, most people just don't have the balls these days. fear is winning.
It was dangerous, but also their right to do. The CEO of Cloudflare called out his own action as capricious and not good practice, but he still did it. Because hey, they're literally nazis. And anyways, one of Cloudflare's major services is filtering out spam, noise, and malicious traffic...
The situation was called out clearly for what it was. It was his right to do it, and it was understandable that he did it, and he should be able to do it.
The problem is that the centralization of these services gives them so much power that it's problematic for free speech that they do it.
The latter is the problem.
except they are.
They say "we agree with the ban" but then say "it's dangerous!"
of course it's dangerous, and yes, the speech is vile. but freedom of speech doesn't stop when we are insulted.
Can't agree more. Today it's Nazis, tomorrow it's not showing enough support for the chosen candidate. This is the one slippery slope. It's evident in PC-speech. Today's PC speech is not the PC speech from the 90s.
And it's not that I don't like Pc speech. I prefer it. But I also don't want it to be the only kind of speech one can use for discussion. Try and have any good philosophical argument without breaking PC boundaries.
It's a scary thing when one group controls the narrative of what is acceptable and unacceptable speech.
I don't see one group controlling that narrative. I see a wide variety of groups uniting to reject one particular narrative/ideology that is widely agreed to be toxic on its own terms; its loudest proponents explicitly call for genocide and war, and that is literally an incitement to violence against the many and various targets of their dislike.
I'd encourage you to check out material from groups like Life after Hate that specialize in deradicalization of former white nationalists to get their first-hand perspective on the psychology of fascism.
I can't reply to dead comments and can't link to the original page (because it's no longer accessible by DNS) but this article reports on examples of explicit calls for violence by far right commentators: https://itsgoingdown.org/unite-right-organizers-encourage-gu...
I understand the argument that such determinations should be 'left up to the law' but the corollary of that is asserting that regular people should not have any political agency to express their own opposition to movements they find threatening or inimical to their values.
I'm sticking to a very narrow interpretation of what counts as threats/incitement here.
No, there is no slippery slope. This is a group that advocates an ideology that, when it was put in place, resulted in catastrophe for mankind.
In other words, what they advocate is what exists at the bottom of the slope. You know, Godwin's Law and all that?
>This is a group that advocates an ideology that, when it was put in place, resulted in catastrophe for mankind.
And what about other ideologies which have had similar results? How many has died under communist? What about religious extremist whose beliefs have led to mass murder?
Are we being consistent with the reasoning? If not, then the reasoning given isn't the actual reasoning, so what is the actual reasoning?
Ideologies that inadvertently caused many deaths are different from one where mass murder is the stated goal.
What happens if the deaths are a direct result, but not openly stated in the 10 minute summary?
Take for example, a group that wants to remove undesirables from the US (I'll leave which group open for imagination, it doesn't really matter). They advocate non-violent removal through legal means. This sounds nice in practice, but many, especially libertarians, will quickly realize that any police enforcement of such laws would result in threats of violence. Namely, either the group leave willingly or police will begin to physically attack them to arrest them, and any resistance would be met with tasers on a good day or bullets on a bad day.
Even though they advocate non-violent methods, I think it is reasonable to say they are actually advocating violence (unless they can purpose some truly non-violent method that I'm unaware of).
So, what next, the communists or Marxists because the ideology they espouse caused even more deaths?
I agree they are a hateful group. An odious group of people possibly only superseded in their vileness by extremist religious fanatics who won't hesitate to kill, but we're not shutting their speech down, are we?
In my view, this is one of those things that is binary. Either you have free speech, or you don't. There is no in between, finessing it. You end up with lese majeste and other nonsense bullshit.
This post is wrong on so many levels.
Those ideologies did not have the hatred and violence at their core that Nazism did. That's why there is no "Godwins Law" when it comes to Marxism. That's my point: This is the most reviled philosophy that currently exists, and people are complaining about "free speech" when previously they would shriek "Godwins Law" whenever comparisons are made. That's how far we've fallen.
Saying that free speech is binary is incredibly misguided and a root cause of the problem. It's overly simplistic and absolutist and quite frankly, is complete and total nonsense. At some point something will be uttered that you or some other "free speech absolutist" will object to.
Are you kidding? Have you not read up on what they did during the Great Leap Forward? Innocent people, their own people, were pulled out of their dwellings charges made up on the spot and killed in the squares. What Stalin did in Ukraine was pretty much pure hate for them.
Yes, I object because your cause will be coopted to further a specific ideology at the expense of all others.
I did. I also read up on the use of racial slavery and genocide of native Americans as the basis of Americas rise to power.
Unlike you though I am able to understand that one of them(Nazism) has racial superiority and oppression as a core feature of their ideology while the others do not.
Again, there is no "Godwins Law" for Marxism/American Capitalism. I wonder why that is???
I think you are putting far too much into this "Godwins Law" thing. Just because Hitler is viewed as one of the worst people in history, doesn't mean he was the worst. Attila the Hun or Nero would have a good chance at the title if they were more recent.
But at the core of this argument is who has the right to decide what beliefs are allowed and what ones are not? For example I'm against ISIS, but think I have no right to suppress their speech. But I'll happily try to convince someone that the ISIS ideology is evil.
> as a core feature of their ideology while the others do not.
They seem to be exceptional, but if we curtail their speech that means it leaves other, undoubtedly less offensive, speech to be up for negotiation. For instance I'd be pleased to see some of your authoritarianism curtailed if it wasn't for ideals of freedom of speech.
Actually, racial and moral superiority were a big factor in the ideology for enslaving and killing native americans.
They probably do in places which suffered from it (Ukraine).
America was not the first or last European colony. Mexico was a colony, Brazil was a colony with even worse racism -bad things happened and continue to happen everywhere. Slave trade continues in the middle east. Today. Read up on what Latin American colonies did to the native populations. It's not different. They didn't have confederates.
I don't see how any of that should subjugate free speech.
Murderers have free speech --I'll wager more than a few victim's families wish they did not. I believe they should still have that right.
Should we go to Japan and also try to shut down the speech of those still in support of the imperial campaign in China, one of the most atrocious incidents of all of WWii?
You are right about the countries that suffered from Communism. East European countries, or Poland at least treat Nazism and communism as equally evil. There even is a passage in Polish Constitution (Article 13) that makes both Nazism and Communism exceptions from the free speech rule.
There are many good quotes on freedom of speech to ponder.[1]
I think my favourite is Mencken's.
> The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.
A close second is Wilde's:
> “I may not agree with you, but I will defend to the death your right to make an ass of yourself.”
Mencken was of course famously anti-semetic and racist, though the claims of his support of the Nazi's may be overstated.
One interesting quote in this regard is this:
"Any defense of Germany was impossible, he concluded, ''so long as the chief officer of the German state continues to make speeches worthy of an Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, and his followers imitate, plainly with his connivance, the monkey-shines of the American Legion at its worst.''"
Weird to see Hitler, before he became the go-to bad guy, being compared with classic American racism and political violence, with the implication that better is expected of him.
This is how extremism spreads:
1. A Reasonable Position is expressed, in this case - 'Nazi's are very bad'. The Reasonable Position often involves an Enemy that must be stopped. Most reasonable people will agree with the Reasonable Position.
2. The Reasonable Position becomes the overriding factor in any situation that involves it. All other factors and considerations are dwarfed by it and forgotten.
3. Because the Reasonable Position comes to dominate the thinking of the Extremist - who often means well - they come to believe one can only ever be for or against the Reasonable Position. There is no room for moderate positions that try to balance the Reasonable Position with other important considerations and values - in this case, freedom of speech.
4. In order to show support for the Reasonable Position, third parties are forced to action in accordance with the world view of the Extremist. If they try to balance other considerations against the Reasonable Position, they are seen by the Extremist as sympathizing with the Enemy.
5. The fervor of extremism charges through society, trampling on other values and considerations.
Some historical examples:
>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution
But how do you know the reasonable position isn't "Freedom of speech is good"?
And it seems that the "Freedom of speech" position is the one that has expanded more in context than "Nazis are very bad". Thus far people don't seem to be applying the badness of Nazis to non-Nazis (at least not intentionally), but we do seem to be expanding Freedom of speech slowly beyond government censorship to asking private entities to propagate speech.
> But how do you know the reasonable position isn't "Freedom of speech is good"?
Because it's the best (probably only) way to prevent every actual Reasonable Position from overriding every other factor and consideration. If freedom of speech is the default, there's no way an extremist group will stop conversation about any particular issue.
> Thus far people don't seem to be applying the badness of Nazis to non-Nazis (at least not intentionally)
This is Godwin's Law, which is in itself a testament to how common this is.
>Because it's the best (probably only) way to prevent every actual Reasonable Position from overriding every other factor and consideration.
That seems like an unsubstantiated assertion. As we've discussed here, the extremist view of freedom of speech forces your ideas on me. At the extreme I now have to hire people who believe that I should be tortured because I'm a minority.
Any reasonable position taken to an extreme can result in a bad situation. The fact that it's reasonable in moderation is, as you note, what makes it dangerous. Nothing about freedom of speech seems to make it much different than something like "killing innocent people is bad".
And Goodwin's Law is about non-serious internet rhetoric. Not about actually treating people as Nazi war criminals. And oddly we treat Nazi's really well in the US, despite the Reasonable Position most people have about them.
I'm super proud to be a member of the EFF. It's hard to keep a clear head in emotionally tense times like these. It's groups like the EFF that help everyone.
If you can: https://supporters.eff.org/donate
I agree. The ACLU, on the other hand, has begun to rationalize their way out of defending white nationalists. Not exactly a very good defender of civil liberties if they start drawing ideological lines as to who they defend.
I had just started donating to them in the last week, too; I felt a bit silly canceling so soon.
Yep. My reaction to this article exactly. "Hm, I guess I get to keep donating to the EFF."
The takeaway from this for me is not, "Don't get rid of Nazis", but rather, "Have a clear criteria and process for when you will remove content. Follow that process."
Great, 100% agreed with that. Be clear and up front about terms of service, and be clear and open when they are violated.
That said, I'm not 100% agreed that "Whatever you use against Neo-Nazis will be used 'against the ones you love'." That's a slippery slope argument that I personally don't believe. Neo-nazis are such a different class of evil, that it's hard for me to see the same practices being used against someone who is not them.
And that's fine. You get to draw that line in the sand, but you have to do two things: 1) Don't say you are for freedom of expression. you aren't. 2) Be consistent. ISIS propaganda websites must be wholly refused to be hosted. Many (not as fringe as you'd like to think) websites in the Middle East, Eastern Bloc and Russia must also be taken down when discussing the Jews, as well. Any website that blatantly talks about the overthrow of the US government because it is run by the "white patriarchy" (yes, you can be racist against whites too). The lists go on. Denying that a lot of people were killed needlessly in the advancement of a Stalinist ideal, etc. etc.
You get to have that opinion. You get to think that the slippery slope argument is bullshit. That is your right. People told me that I was using a slippery slope argument when I said using the wartime powers act against "terrorism" was a quick sink to unjust presidential powers. I stand by my argument then and I stand by my slippery slope argument now.
There's a lot to unpack in your comment. I do want to address a few things:
> People told me that I was using a slippery slope argument when I said using the wartime powers act against "terrorism" was a quick sink to unjust presidential powers.
Is it different to you that the actions here were taken by companies, not by the government? To the best of my knowledge, there was no mandate to take these sites down.
> Be consistent
Sure, this is my original takeaway from the article -- establish clear boundaries, openly follow those rules when someone violates those boundaries. It causes confusion and uncertainty when you don't follow your published rules.
On your consistency point I agree. On your point about whether its different if the government or companies take the action I pose another question. Is there a difference between the results of the two when companies take more and more power every day? If a company can remove you from interacting with a majority of the internet, is that any different from the FCC or some other agency removing you?
The difference is companies have the power given to them by consumers. The government has power by way of being the government.
Apparently the term "neo-nazi" doesn't really carry the same meaning it used to, going by the number of people who are being accused of being neo-nazis in the last week.
Are you so sure the same tactics will not be used against non-literal nazis? Or that non-nazis won't be named as such in order to then use the same practices on them "justifiably"?
If there's one thing we know with absolute confidence, is that if it's "just to protect the children" or "just to use against the nazis", it's really just that the technique/technology is still in beta test, and GA release is coming soon.
I'm not 100% agreed that "Whatever you use against Neo-Nazis will be used 'against the ones you love'." That's a slippery slope argument that I personally don't believe. Neo-nazis are such a different class of evil, that it's hard for me to see the same practices being used against someone who is not them.
You could say the same about digital surveillance of potential terrorists.
And that's a reasonable argument to make, I think. Someone using that argument could possibly convince me that there's enough to suggest these two cases are the same. This, and a few other comments are giving me some food for thought.
Neo-nazis are such a different class of evil, that it's hard for me to see the same practices being used against someone who is not them.
Do you remember how Communists were treated during the McCarthy era?
Do you know what a false equivalency is? They banned a site that no one, even the site runners, would argue isn't explicitly about white nationalism. If anyone bans the likes of Breitbart or InfoWars, then maybe we can start this slippery slope conversation, but until then it's completely disingenuous.
The problem is that whatever group is considered evil can change day to day. Right now 99% of people, myself included, can agree that supremacists or neo nazis are bad people and output evil ideas. However, it wasn't too long ago that the majority of people were against gays getting married, or even different races getting married. When we set up precedent or infrastructure to harm a group outside of the rule of law just because they are assholes, we leave the opportunity open for those in power to remove other groups they don't agree with even when those other groups are not as clear cut evil
Fairly certain that anyone that advocates and supports death camps for Jews is evil. There's no justification IN ANY ERA for this.
That's not the point. Yes they are evil, I'd go as far as to argue that anyone who calls for the death of a group of people based on something they were born into are evil. The point is that when the precedent or ability is created to do these sort of extrajudicial actions to evil people, the ability still remains for it to be used on non evil people. If you let powerful people silence others based on how much you disagree with them, you will quickly find out that there are groups you think are ok that others also think should be silenced
Well, didn't the Nazis themselves prevent people from voicing concerns for the Jews? I guess I don't see how that's not the same thing, except that it was the bad guys who did it?
The implicit assertion you've made is that Google, Cloudflare, and Godaddy are acting as a moral equivalent to the Nazis?
> Neo-nazis are such a different class of evil, that it's hard for me to see the same practices being used against someone who is not them.
My point is that they used the same tactics (obviously different times/technology/etc) themselves to prevent people from supporting the Jews. So "the same practices being used against someone who is not them" is something that has already happened.
NOTE: My knowledge of history is not great. Let me know if I am incorrect.
No, the compliant populace when the Nazi's were taking over, I think was the comparison.
Ok then, lets give Trump, the DOJ and Jeff Sessions the impetus to start drafting legislation to fight 'internet hate speech' and see what they come up with.
edit: > That's a slippery slope argument
Its not. These discussions will be taken over by the political establishment and the courts very quickly with very real consequences.
This seems like a false equivalence to me, given that Google (et al) are not the government nor acting due to pressure from the government. I do understand and value the concern around legislating free speech, but I think different rules apply for governments and corporations.
It only takes one lawsuit that goes to the supreme court to turn this whole debate into a federal legislative debate about civil rights or some other expansive constitutional issue.
When your in a situation where domain registrars and other core infrastructure are making judgements about what political speech they will allow on the internet then I would imagine your very close to a whole host of issues that cut the core of fundamental rights. That's why CloudFlare is so skittish, they know where this could go.
Eventually this rough shot approach is going to hit someone with the resources to fight back. Lets imagine Breitbart gets nuked what then? It's only a matter of time before there is an incident like that. And when it happens its already to late to turn back.
The guy in Denver who refused to bake a gay wedding cake has his case before the Supreme Court this term.
This is already happening.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/24/safe-spaces-un...
Your comment is fairly sparse, but I'm reading that you feel 'safe spaces' are equivalent to Google/GoDaddy/etc. shutting down neo-nazi websites that actively encourage violence against a class of people?
I'm reading that you feel like constructing and attacking a straw-man version of my position ;)
The thrust of the Guardian article was that freedom of speech is no longer valued at Universities in the UK, or at least, to no-where near the level it was value in the past.
Specifically, the practices that people are advocating to use against Neo-NAZIs are, right now, being used in Universities in the UK and elsewhere to shut down political dissent.
That's what I meant by 'this is already happening'.
This is a multifaceted debate; cloudflare is under no obligation what-so-ever to keep retain any customer - unless it has placed itself under a contractual obligation to do so.
The neo-nazi sites themselves should in general not be interfered with from a governmental level - but there should be limitations of even this restriction, when it comes to the advocacy, planning and execution of violence.
In a more general sense I see the silencing of free-speech on the internet as a call to move to a more decentralised structure - as per what seemed to be the original intent - we generally seem to be moving yet further away from such a structure; although there are a significant number of emerging distributed technologies - as yet they seem to be niche in their utilisation.
(Somewhat tangentally, I see the free speech and public emergence of the now emboldened neo-nazis as somewhat a good thing, they were always there - but now they're in the public eye.)
It actually makes me incredibly optimistic about the future of humanity to know that such people exist. It's important to fight for the rights of all - you never know when your cause or beliefs will be in the crosshairs instead of a group as obviously vile as neo-nazis.
I'm pretty sure to fight for people's rights, you have to fight against nazis. At least that's what all my history books told me we did in world war 2.
as unfortunate as it may be, you not only have to fight against the nazis ideals, but also for their right to hold them and speak them in a public forum, like any other citizen. That's from the history books about the country's founding.
Nope. Nazi speech is banned in Germany cause they learned their lesson.
We all know Nazi are bad, no one in their right mind will deny it. But the way they are currently handled through violence and censorship is not right and downright illegal. You are feeding their anger instead of squashing their ideas. We are American citizens and should respect each others right for free speech and engage in civil debate over ideas we disagree. If we resolve to silencing and violence without debate how are we better? Have you talked to any Nazi? Are you sure they know history and what Nazi stands for? etc etc etc I personally haven't met one ever but when I do I won't punch them with a fist but punch them with debate.
Nazis don't have ideas. They will jump from truth to lies as it suits them to win an argument. They do not live in the world of civil debate. Think of them as trolls from before trolls were a thing. They are not an ideology, they are a hate movement. Silencing them does not make their hate grow, they are already fundamentally about hate. They are a passion, not an ideology. Tell me what is the tax policy of a fascist? They have none, save that of whichever system they hijack en route to their only real mission, which is the elimination and persecution of their perceived enemies. We fought the worst war the world has ever seen to stop them because once they got rolling, they had to keep growing to survive. That's the nature of hate. They certainly weren't going to be stopped by debate.
From Sartre: "The anti-Semite has chosen hate because hate is a faith; at the outset he has chosen to devaluate words and reasons. How entirely at ease he feels as a result. How futile and frivolous discussions about the rights of the Jew appear to him. He has pleased himself on other ground from the beginning. If out of courtesy he consents for a moment to defend his point of view, he lends himself but does not give himself. He tries simply to project his intuitive certainty onto the plane of discourse. Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past. It is not that they are afraid of being convinced. They fear only to appear ridiculous or to prejudice by their embarrassment their hope of winning over some third person to their side."
It seems that America is going to insist on finding out what fascism is really about the hard way.
So in your estimation, Nazi hate is so powerful that even the example of World War 2 and seventy years of progress in racial equality was not enough to inoculate the vast majority of the people of the United States against it -- but passing a law against saying it in public will?
Yes, it would help. It's been 70 years since WW2 ended and people are fast forgetting its lessons. Take an example, pretty much everyone agrees that ISIS uses the web as an online recruitment tool to radicalize young people and that they are very effective with it. This point is fairly non-controversial. Yet when the same point is made about extreme right-wing movements radicalizing young Americans, these concerns are largely not taken seriously. We expect our youth to be wise, discerning, able to think critically and immune to propaganda in a society that has steadily devalued education for decades.
"Hitler did nothing wrong" is a joke meme, until it isn't.
I don't see open Nazis having a seat in government in any country where it is legal to advocate Nazi ideologies. On the other hand, Austria and Germany, two countries where that is illegal, have together 5 European MP's from their respective Nazi parties.
...because that's where Nazis "originated" from. Just like the U.S. still has KKK members in various positions of authority, while presumably Germany or Austria have no KKK members.
Apparently you haven't seen Trump.
I get where you're coming from, but imagine Trump was openly affiliated with Nazis. He would not have been elected.
Well, I guess it depends on your definition of "open". There is such a thing as an "open secret". And I think we all know which side of the fence Trump is on.
so do you recommend banning all hate movements? As article points out "Those on the left face calls to characterize the Black Lives Matter movement as a hate group." Where do you draw the line?
Note that I am calling for banning hate speech, not the groups themselves.
I would say that there needs to be evidence. We need to live in a reality-based world, not one that makes decisions based on feelings. If there is evidence of BLM making specific claims that calls for persecution or violence then the people making that speech should be charged under applicable hate speech laws. For example I did think that that "fry cops fry" chant or whatever it was from a couple years ago was an incitement to violence.
But overall: I don't think BLM is a hate movement just because some right-wingers want to say it is. But go off evidence and go case by case like we do in a just society.
Also to add: I see this "where do you draw the line" argument everywhere and it is fallacious. We draw lines all the time in our society. That is literally what law is. We outlaw murder, we outlaw theft, and many other things. And there are ambiguous cases that courts need to decide around all these things. Is assisted suicide murder? Is abortion murder? Is pirating theft? These are big questions that we face all the time as a society and debate and come up with answers for. Hate speech would be no different. We decide as a society what is hateful and it becomes law and then we set precedent through the court system. There are plenty of examples of successful hate speech laws implemented in other western countries to get us off to a great start.
Those would be some tough laws to write. It seems like a lot of things that are hate related are very much feelings based and sometimes its just misunderstanding or ignorance. Separating feelings from hate would be tough and may have unintended consequences. Do you know of anyone who thought deeply about this topic?
Sure. Many countries have had these debates and come up with their own solutions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech
Here are a few examples:
In Canada, advocating genocide against any "identifiable group" is an indictable offence under the Criminal Code and carries a maximum sentence of five years imprisonment. There is no minimum sentence.
France prohibits by its penal code and by its press laws public and private communication which incites discrimination, hatred, or violence against a person or a group of persons on account of place of origin, ethnicity or lack thereof, nationality, race, specific religion, sex, sexual orientation, or handicap.
In Germany, Volksverhetzung ("incitement of popular hatred") is a punishable offense under Section 130 of Germany's criminal code and can lead to up to five years imprisonment. Section 130 makes it a crime to publicly incite hatred against parts of the population or to call for violent or arbitrary measures against them or to insult, maliciously slur or defame them in a manner violating their (constitutionally protected) human dignity. On June 30, 2017, Germany approved a bill criminalizing hate speech on social media sites.
In the United Kingdom, several statutes criminalize hate speech against several categories of persons. The statutes forbid communication which is hateful, threatening, or abusive, and which targets a person on account of disability, ethnic or national origin, nationality (including citizenship), race, religion, sexual orientation, or skin colour.
Thanks
>"Those on the left face calls to characterize the Black Lives Matter movement as a hate group."
Neat. You're going to need some proof or point to some core tenet of BLM that makes them hate group. Not that hard to do with Nazis.
No one is labeling random groups as being hateful or racist. It's literally in their (Nazi) stated ideology. The EFF should be ashamed of attempting to draw the comparison and bolster what is essentially a conservative narrative. It requires a good amount of willful ignorance or just straight up dishonesty to make it.
Note: wow I got brigaded. From highly upvoted to negative in the space of an hour.
First, it's not illegal - although it does raise interesting questions of where public space ends and private property begins.
If we resolve to silencing and violence without debate how are we better? Have you talked to any Nazi? Are you sure they know history and what Nazi stands for? etc etc etc I personally haven't met one ever but when I do I won't punch them with a fist but punch them with debate.
And what will you do if they respond by punching you with a fist? I have talked to a lot of nazis, and listened to them, and have been doing so a very long time. Individual people can abandon the nazi ideology; according to people in the deradicalization movement, the most likely triggers for doing so are the birth of a child (more so if a daughter), or receiving kindness/compassion from someone who is normally a target of theirs.
But the nazi ideology is explicitly predicated on the idea of violent struggle for dominance rather than peaceful cooperation, in contrast to most others. Those who adhere to that ideology and call for the subjugation of other races, genocide, or war are not engaged in debate; they are issuing threats.
I thought we were talking about America, here. I might have been mistaken. Nazi speech, as well as a great number of things are illegal in Germany that aren't in America. We have completely different foinding documents, government policies and laws.
Interestingly enough, Germany has a Nazi party and they have a seat in the European parliament.
I think we should examine the effectiveness of bans on speech r.e. limitation of the spread of an ideology.
For example, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center (not a group with an incentive to deflate numbers), at its peak the National Alliance had 1,200 members. All together, there are a few thousand active Neo-Nazis in the United States.
In contrast, let's take 2 countries where advocating Nazi ideology is illegal: Austria and Germany.
In Austria, the Freedom Party, founded by a former SS officer, has 50,000 members, 13 seats in the Upper House (similar to the Senate in the US) and 38 seats in the lower house as well as 4 in the European Parliament.
In Germany, the NPD received over 600,000 votes in the most recent election and now has a seat in the European Parliament.
I don't think comparing the adoption rate of Nazi ideology in nations where it was historically successful to nations where it was historically unsuccessful is appropriate.
A more equivalent comparison is Nazi ideology in Germany/Austria to Klanist ideology in the United States. The list of US politicians with Klan affiliation is long.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ku_Klux_Klan_members_in_United...
In addition to this, comparing Austria and Germany, which both are multi-party systems, to a two-party system like the United States is problematic in this context. A significant chunk of the GOP and their voters likely support the same policies that the Freedom Party or the NPD support, but it's much harder to label or quantify that group.
Which is why I used active members and the Southern Poverty Law Center as well as voting numbers.
These numbers aren't comparable. You're equating membership of an actual Nazi group with being a member of a far-right party with historical ties to Nazis. A much more apt comparison to these parties would be to look at members of the GOP who support far-right policies, but that's hard to quantify.
FWIW, I don't have a particularly strong opinion on whether laws banning Nazi speech have a large impact on the number of people supporting that ideology. I don't think they increase the number of Nazis, and it makes sense to keep them around given the historical context of countries like Austria and Germany even if they don't have an impact on that number.
I do think you're quite far off the mark if you think less than 0.001% of the U.S. population identifies with Nazi ideology, while it's something like 1% for Austria and Germany.
I don't think the GOP/NDP comparison is apt, because Germany attempted to ban the NDP completely and the NDP works continuously with literal Nazis. If the KKK had a political party of its own, that would be comparable. There are only a few thousand members of the KKK left, though, so that is unlikely to occur.
I think that for the same percentage to identify with Nazi ideology it would require millions of people to be so comfortable with it that they would openly give Nazi affiliated parties their support.
I don't think millions of people support Neo-Nazis in the US.
None of those people are currently serving in any capacity in Congress and almost all of them are dead. I don't deny that the KKK was big in the US and had political power in 1926.
Also, The Southern Poverty Law Center estimates that there are 190 active KKK groups with between 5,000 and 8,000 Klan members in the U.S. That's a far cry from Austria and Germany.
The bigger issue I see is that by taking away these people's ability to discuss their beliefs they are going to be further radicalized. If they don't believe they can change things peacefully through protest they will become violent.
That's the main reason I don't agree with the banning of daily stormer and google banning Gab.ai from the play store. They are only further enforcing these people's beliefs that the powers that be are against them.
So should we instead replace NBC and make it the Daily Stormer network so they feel that the powers to be aren't against them?
No one is saying they can't discuss their beliefs, they just can't do it with the support of certain private companies. In the same way, if I owned a restaurant, I wouldn't allow them to host an informal "Daily Stormer Night" at my restaurant. I shouldn't be forced to having to have them use my restaurant as their unofficial homebase.
>No one is saying they can't discuss their beliefs...
A lot of people are saying that.
Here's where it gets interesting. If you leased an apartment, could your landlord evict you for for hosting dinners in support of the KKK? That's more similar to what happened with the hosting and service provider denials.
Housing law has special sets of protection distinct from even the law governing general public accommodations, so (without an argument that the specific service is be very much like housing), it's probably not the most reasonable analogy to use.
This depends on the terms of the lease. That seems completely non-controversial to me. There's a bunch of stuff in my lease that I couldn't do, which are perfectly legal in many other contexts (smoke inside, have a dog, have big parties, etc...). Likewise, a KKK friendly lease would also be legal and honestly I don't think you'd have a hard time finding people who would be willing to have you.
And I've yet to find someone who has said they can't discuss their beliefs. They just don't get "our" support to do it.
So it's non-controversial for your landlord to evict you because they don't like your dinner guests?
As I noted, it depends on the terms of the lease. I was stating that if you violate the terms of the lease that eviction was non-controversial. That said, I'm not an expert in rental properties.
It wouldn't surprise me if all of these services have some verbiage in their TOS or contract that allows them the right to stop service if the content being served is deemed to be inappropriate by them.
Absolutely! I'd justify it by the potential risk of discomfort those guests pose to my other tenants.
> SUSPENSION AND CANCELLATION. Google may in its sole discretion, suspend or cancel Registrant’s Registered Name registration (a) if Registrant breaches this Agreement (including a breach of any of the representations and warranties in Section 7); (b) to comply with a court order or other legal requirement; (c) as required by ICANN, a Registry Operator, or law enforcement; (d) to protect the integrity and stability of the Services; (e) if there was an error in the registration process for such Registered Name, or (f) if Registrant’s Account is disabled or terminated.
https://payments.google.com/payments/apis-secure/get_legal_d...
I wonder which clause they cited to execute the suspension.
Interesting. I'm not a lawyer. Could the DailyStorm sue Google over this? I don't see anything in that agreement that says Google could've put their domain on client hold.
"It’s unclear whether this is for a limited amount of time, or whether Google has decided to effectively take ownership of the dailystormer.com domain permanently"
Wait, what, they can do this? So if I get Google to host my domain they can just take it at will? Given the value of some domains that's insane. Google must be on shaky legal ground here.
I was surprised by this too, but Google is one of the biggest kids on the playground right now, so I guess it's natural for them to throw their weight around.
Obvious note: Outsourcing your stuff to a 3rd party like that is risky, and should be considered so
It's not really about them being a big kid in the playground ... they're surely a minor player in the DNS hosting market.
It's more that their internal extremism means they feel justified in doing this sort of thing because they feel 'dangerous' speech must be suppressed.
I am concluding that Google is no longer trustworthy enough to run a search engine.
"incite hate"
That is a scary, clever manipulation of language. Inciting violence is an exception to free speech because it is directly linked to a specific violent result.
"Hate" is non-specific, and not an action at all. It often means nothing more than offending someone or violating some political correctness. Hate speech is and should be protected speech.
Hate speech is protected from the government interfering with it. Other than that, there are no protections. Google or any other company or individual is perfectly free to give a platform to only the speech they decide to. Because they too are protected from government interference.
True, and we are free to criticize them for abusing their power. Further, we should reconsider the high amount of trust we place in Google, et al.
I really don't understand the resistance here. I have heard no arguments against no-platforming isis propaganda. Youtube, twitter, facebook all have a policy of removing such content. I don't really have a problem with white supremacists also being no-platformed. These are private entities, deciding for themselves that they refuse to be party to such content. Let the dipshits buy their own damn servers.
Now, the minute either group is harassed or arrested by the government over things is when it becomes a problem. That is actual censorship, and should be resisted.
The point that's being made is that, indeed, as private entities they have the right to ban this content from their sites.
But due to the SIZE of these operations, their actions practically amount to censorship.
Saying that the right of free speech only protects you against the government does not mean much in practice, in these circumstances.
It means all the difference in the world. It means that they won't be arrested for their speech. They won't be jailed. They won't be executed for speaking out against the government. Which is, ironically, very different from the historical treatment of dissidents by governments who adopt their politics.
It also means that, for example, they have the freedom to pool funds and buy their own server, and host it in a datacenter that is willing to do business with them, or they can host their shit on ipfs.
It's not like someone like Level 2 is stepping in and saying "We are going to deep inspect all traffic going across our pipe and filter nazi traffic"
Writers on free speech thought social pressure was a more effective censor than the government:
Society can and does execute its own mandates: and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with which it ought not to meddle, it practises a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. Protection, therefore, against the tyranny of the magistrate is not enough: there needs protection also against the tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling; against the tendency of society to impose, by other means than civil penalties, its own ideas and practices as rules of conduct on those who dissent from them.
It also means that, for example, they have the freedom to pool funds and buy their own server, and host it in a datacenter that is willing to do business with them, or they can host their shit on ipfs.
It's not going to help them much if they can't get a domain registrar, or effective DDoS protection (rather relevant given their situation).
So what? The Daily Stormer isn't being treated as a pariah because Andrew Anglin is Caucasian, but because he calls for white supremacy and war against others.
So what?
So they don't get freedom of speech, which is the discussion here. Most people believe freedom of speech is a good thing we want.
And also that it has limits. Eliminationist threats don't deserve constitutional protection for the same reason as other kinds of criminal threats.
Which is why we should stop calling this a free speech problem and call it what it is: a monopoly. The government can actually do something about that one.
I concur!
"on the Internet, any tactic used now to silence neo-Nazis will soon be used against others, including people whose opinions we agree with"
I'm amazed at how the HN's Libertarian streak gets subdued when discussing free speech (which only enjoins the government). Private individuals and corporations should be free to decide who they want to do business with (even if it's under duress of bad PR).
When Brendan Eich was ousted[1] from Mozilla, I warned that the boycott threat set a bad precedent. The counter argument at the time was that "his donation wasn't free speech" and rights weren't negotiable. In the aftermath of 3 people losing their lives in Charlottesville, supporting the Daily Stormer is clearly Bad for Business™ - even if none of the companies are explicitly stating how commercially toxic DS has become.
1. He was ousted, his resignation was a technicality
>I'm amazed at how the HN's Libertarian streak gets subdued
I'm not. The moral lukewarmness and willingness to stick to quite literally the HN (obviously comprised of white suburbanites) echo chamber should be quite obvious at this point on the site, to anyone willing to observe such patterns and how political rhetoric on this site is contained. Commenters seem to do damn near anything to not even so much as turn their heads to the left socially. Look at which comments are being downvoted in this thread and objectively ask yourself whether those downvotes have actual merit.
So what is being defended here in reference to the ideal of free speech? Actual Nazis with a known ideology, and known consequences of that ideology, are trying to spread their message. This isn't a matter of some moral ambiguity or merely silencing those we have "disagreements" with. I'd be nice if people in the U.S. would stop feigning ignorance or neutrality all to put up some faux enlightened defense of an abstract ideal. Be practical. It's not going to be a slippery slope. We're not going to turn into 1984. A private company chose to not do business with a group of people hellbent on spreading a totalitarian racist ideology. An ideology that speaks to some pretty primal fears and habits of humans. It's okay to correct for it.
I'll repeat it again, just to end: it's okay and necessary to silence these people. It's not going to open Pandora's box. Not addressing the problem will. I think the EFF's take on this, while noble, is naively idealistic.
Even more disturbing to me is that Youtube has started banning UFO research channels like Steve Greer's CSETI. I don't really bother watching these channels and consider the UFO thing a bit of a quasi-religion, but they aren't inciting violence or hate against anybody.
Has Google decided they are now the truth police? Is Google taking it upon themselves to be like the Chinese censorship bureaus except for the whole world? I think this shows that the hate speech censorship is a real slippery slope.
Maybe you should investigate the context before leaping to conclusions. According to this discussion Many people view Greer as a swindler/scammer.
https://www.reddit.com/r/UFOs/comments/6toeoz/cseti_youtube_...
Wait, is this true? Could you provide a source?
The Daily Stormer is still expressing itself freely at http://dstormer6em3i4km.onion/ Latest featured story "Atari Promises Faggots It’ll Produce Homo Video Games." Does it really matter that Cloudflare dropped them? You have a right to free speech, not a right to be promoted by Cloudflare and Google.
Don't we already block and shutdown Islamic terrorist sites? How are Nazi terrorist sites different?
You're getting warmer.
If the EFF really wants to support free speech they could host the Daily Stormer and see what happens to their donations.
It seems duplicitous to force someone else to bear the cost of facilitating toxicity.
We have to be steadfast to the idea that defending the free speech that you might find repulsive is defending your own right to free speech.
That's a great way to put it! I am going to use that.
I understand the argument that they're making, but the EFF also offers a browser extension to block adware (privacy badger). Is hate speech somehow more justifiable than adware?
You're free not to install it, and the EFF has no overwhelming market power that makes it impossible to avoid their extension.
Google, Cloudflare, etc, not so much.
The internet needs a constitution.
Should all forms of speech be defended and accessible in a public domain?
Should instructions on how to make explosives be accessible and defended?
In Brandenburg v Ohio, Supreme court stated that only speech that is "directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action" should be punished. This is called Brandenburg paradigm and it's currently a legal standard for what's considered hate speech in US.
Not saying they should, but they have. Many times. The most famous example would be the anarchist cookbook which is still being printed and sold
Should strong encryption software be accessible and defended? Do not forget the fight for PGP.
Most importantly, understand that it is not the speech which is being defended.
Yes.
Uneducated people should be protected from ideas that are proven to be bad. Looks like America just can't learn lessons like Sandy Hook or this one.
Uneducated people should be protected from ideas that are proven to be bad.
Like capitalism?
Or free Negroes?
Western Culture?
Please don't make it absurd. The border is very clear. Ideas that undoubtedly caused tens of millions of deaths. It is even worse than child porn.
> Ideas that undoubtedly caused tens of millions of deaths.
Like slavery or manifest destiny? both ideas that America as a whole supported at one time, and used ideas like "they are too uneducated" to prop up.
Ideas that undoubtedly caused tens of millions of deaths.
Yes, I mentioned Western Culture, didn't I?
Can you please make a complete list of all of the ideas I can't read about because I'm too stupid? Thanks!/s
Who decides who is uneducated? Who decides what ideas are so bad they can't read? What's the enforcement mechanism?
1. Incitement to hatred based on religion, sex, race. 2. No need to decide who is uneducated. 3. Who decided that child porn is bad? I believe America can manage it. Most European countries could.
Again, what's the enforcement mechanism?
Who decides who is uneducated?
What are the parameters for "bad"?
1. It is better to protect everyone. Uneducated people don't know history. Those who know are not affected anyway. 2. If more than 10 mil died because of some idea = bad
Google is rightly protected from government interference of their right to exercise free speech just like all individuals and companies in the US.
The EFF is confusing a free speech problem with a monopoly problem. One would hope they aren't suggesting that the government be allowed to interfere with Google's speech.
So if they aren't, they are basically saying "bad boy, shame on you" to Google and others. It will have zero impact.
The right way to solve this problem is to name the actual problem and forget about free speech: monopoly. Break up Google and these other companies and problem solved.
I prefer to stand against groups that promote violence.
> CANTWELL: "a lot more people are gonna die before we're done here" [1]
I'm pretty sure the Daily Stormer said something similar. I don't need that crap in my backyard.
I've sided with the EFF on many, many, many causes.
I've sided against Google on numerous causes.
The EFF are wrong. Google is correct.
And yes, the reasons are complicated. But "slippery slope" is a facile fallacy.
Ultimately, society can, does, and must defend itself from attacks. Including attacks on the underprivileged (of whom the Fascists and Nazis at question here are not).
The history of media and new-media utilisation in demagoguery, totalitarianism, mob incitement and rule, and fascism is rich. It should give strong cause to pause to those who've sung (and believed) the narrative of the all-positive, peace-and-harmony bringing Internet. As I long had.
And am now pausing.
Epistemic systems gain significance when they can be abused for personal, political, nationalistic, or fascistic gain. That was the insight of a friend of mine some months back. Call it "the paradox of epistemic systems".
This includes Hacker News itself, which seems to have quite the fascist problem, and an unwillingness, at the moderator level itself, to face that, over concerns of "dignity".
Those concerns are very, very, desperately and sadly misplaced.
https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/5wg0hp/when_ep...
https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/6ufeu1/does_ha...
> This includes Hacker News itself, which seems to have quite the fascist problem
And here we go.
For all the people who (correctly) wondered "how broad will the definition of 'nazi' get", well, parent just helpfully illustrated it for you. The Hacker News comments section has been declared full of fascist unpersons who must be silenced at all costs.
But remember:
> But "slippery slope" is a facile fallacy.
Far from it. You're equating the observation that a fascist tendency exists with an unjust accusation of participation therein. You're also conflating advocacy of ideology with essential personal characteristics.
The way you get people to not care about real Nazis is to cry wolf every time you encounter a political position you don't like.
If we apply those same standards to antifa, they too are a violent, irrational hatemob with blood on their hands. The only difference is they have nice excuses about how it's ok when they do it because of systemic oppression. Even as they wield establishment power against their opponents.
Neonazis are not a significant threat. An abandonment of enlightenment values due to media induced hysteria is. We already saw what passes for unacceptable speech with Damore, even if it's eminently reasonable and moderate. The same people who can whip up a giant shitstorm over nothing are now saying you should trust them in knowing what fascism is.
No thank you. If you justify the means with the ends, you enable people who thrive in such an environment, and they are far more dangerous and insidious than a neonazi clearly advertising being an intolerant twat.