The far right is losing its ability to speak freely online. Should the left defend it?

[Saint Frankenstein]

"Free speech was the left’s rally cry. But the fate of the Daily Stormer, a hate site ‘kicked off the internet’, signals the increasing irrelevance of the first amendment"
The far right is losing its ability to speak freely online. Should the left defend it?

Great article.

 

[Mister Silver]

I look at it this way:

This forum has rules against hate, correct? If someone hates on another person, that person gets reprimanded, warned, eventually banned if the hatefulness continues correct?

I see banning hate filled white nationalists forums from the internet as no different.

 

[Flame]

As of right now, I'm somewhat indifferent as it was on a company server. They are completely free to buy the setup to make their own forums and the servers. However if the government or government agency decided to intervene and begin banning/removing their own servers then I will stand up to defend their rights to speak their minds.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

The alarming aspect of this is that the Internet has become increasingly corporatized and domain holders can shut down domains on a whim or from pressure from political activists, to silence unpopular points of view. This is weaponizing the Internet, basically. It is worrying if you believe that the Internet should be public and open.

 

[David1967]

"Free speech was the left’s rally cry. But the fate of the Daily Stormer, a hate site ‘kicked off the internet’, signals the increasing irrelevance of the first amendment"
The far right is losing its ability to speak freely online. Should the left defend it?

Great article.

The idea of free speech is to protect the speech of those we may not like to hear. Its all good when those you don't like get shut down, but what about when they come after you?(generally speaking of course). So to be fair, they should also shut down extreme left sites...But that begs the question of where you draw the line of definition for extreme left, or right. On second thought ,let em both talk without threat of violence and let the stupid things they say do the job. And it will.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

I look at it this way:

This forum has rules against hate, correct? If someone hates on another person, that person gets reprimanded, warned, eventually banned if the hatefulness continues correct?

I see banning hate filled white nationalists forums from the internet as no different.

This forum doesn't have rules against hate. There's plenty of hateful people here. There's even users that I hate (who I have on ignore). It has rules against trolling and uncivil behavior.

What if the white nationalist isn't hateful or doesn't express their views in a derogatory manner?

 

[Mister Silver]

Free speech does not exclude one from the consequences of that free speech. Have your free speech, but liable is real. Have your free speech, but hate speech still has its consequences.

 

[Sanzbir]

Basically in general if you run a company and you want to limit your services to a subset of people: that's your right.

However, what you cannot do, is say that your terms of services are "X", and then decide later to remove someone who hasn't violated their agreement with you.

If you agree to host a person's website with an agreement that doesn't specify that they can't use it for racist reasons, and then you revoke it after the fact, I don't see why a corporation should be given the liberty to suddenly remove users who aren't violating that corporation's policies.

At the very least, it's false advertising by saying this service is open to anyone, then deciding that retroactively it's not open to Nazis and terminating your services to them after you have already taken their money and come to an agreement with them.

I look at it this way:

This forum has rules against hate, correct? If someone hates on another person, that person gets reprimanded, warned, eventually banned if the hatefulness continues correct?

I see banning hate filled white nationalists forums from the internet as no different.

The issue is bigger. Right now we've got deplatforming happening without violating a host's terms of service. Or hosts suddenly changing terms of service to enable them to deplatform.

Essentially its corporations saying they can do whatever they want, even if you have a virtual agreement with them and are following the rules laid out by their agreements. This is not a good thing, for anyone, unless we can get courts to actually uphold the terms of service for websites on behalf of the users.

Otherwise it allows corporate censorship for any reason at all, even if you haven't broken any of their rules. And that cannot be good in the long run, so why enable them to do it today against these reprehensible groups??

Basically if a corporation gives you an agreement and says "You can use this site or platform in exchange for this and following these rules" and you agree and abide by those rules, the corporation should be bound by them as well. It'd be akin to going to McDonalds, agreeing to pay $1 for a cheeseburger, and then, after eating the burger, being told that now the price of your meal was $50 and you had better pay up. Corporations should not be allowed to change the terms of their contracts on their users.

I can't imagine anyone thinking that would be a good idea in any other context.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

As of right now, I'm somewhat indifferent as it was on a company server. They are completely free to buy the setup to make their own forums and the servers. However if the government or government agency decided to intervene and begin banning/removing their own servers then I will stand up to defend their rights to speak their minds.

That is a very good point. It's not like this a state that put its foot down, this is about a corporation that decided Stormfront was too great a liability. It could be we are seeing the beginning of the state truly becoming powerless over a corporation.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

"Free speech was the left’s rally cry. But the fate of the Daily Stormer, a hate site ‘kicked off the internet’, signals the increasing irrelevance of the first amendment"
The far right is losing its ability to speak freely online. Should the left defend it?

Great article.

Do you mean defend or facilitate?

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

Do you mean defend or facilitate?

Defend their right to free speech.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

Basically in general if you run a company and you want to limit your services to a subset of people: that's your right.

However, what you cannot do, is say that your terms of services are "X", and then decide later to remove someone who hasn't violated their agreement with you.

If you agree to host a person's website with an agreement that doesn't specify that they can't use it for racist reasons, and then you revoke it after the fact, I don't see why a corporation should be given the liberty to suddenly remove users who aren't violating that corporation's policies.

At the very least, it's false advertising by saying this service is open to anyone, then deciding that retroactively it's not open to Nazis and terminating your services to them after you have already taken their money and come to an agreement with them.



The issue is bigger. Right now we've got deplatforming happening without violating a host's terms of service. Or hosts suddenly changing terms of service to enable them to deplatform.

Essentially its corporations saying they can do whatever they want, even if you have a virtual agreement with them and are following the rules laid out by their agreements. This is not a good thing, for anyone, unless we can get courts to actually uphold the terms of service for websites on behalf of the users.

Otherwise it allows corporate censorship for any reason at all, even if you haven't broken any of their rules. And that cannot be good in the long run, so why enable them to do it today against these reprehensible groups??

Basically if a corporation gives you an agreement and says "You can use this site or platform in exchange for this and following these rules" and you agree and abide by those rules, the corporation should be bound by them as well. It'd be akin to going to McDonalds, agreeing to pay $1 for a cheeseburger, and then, after eating the burger, being told that now the price of your meal was $50 and you had better pay up. Corporations should not be allowed to change the terms of their contracts on their users.

I can't imagine anyone thinking that would be a good idea in any other context.

Wonderfully stated.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

The issue is bigger. Right now we've got deplatforming happening without violating a host's terms of service. Or hosts suddenly changing terms of service to enable them to deplatform.

Very frequently those terms of services include a clause about the issuing company being able to notify the agreement at anytime without notification or consent. If you actually read those things, they tend to not be very agreeable.

 

[Sanzbir]

Very frequently those terms of services include a clause about the issuing company being able to notify the agreement at anytime without notification or consent. If you actually read those things, they tend to not be very agreeable.

Yeah, but the thing is in most contexts like that, clauses that allow one party of the contract to alter or terminate the contract at will later are historically ruled by courts as being non-enforceable and invalid clauses.

We don't allow corporations to do this for any other service, but the internet, apparently, is the one time that they can get away with making one-sided contracts that they can change at will. It's odd, to say the least, that they are permitted to get away with such things, when in a context devoid of the internet they would be forbidden.

 

[Mister Silver]

Free speech only gives one the freedom to state whatever he wishes, it does not give one freedom from the consequences that the free speech brings about.

Imagine a student being sent to the principal's office for using his freedom to speak by insulting another student.
In the office, the student says, "freedom of speech". The principal replies, "And my right to speak demands you are suspended for one week."

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

Free speech does not exclude one from the consequences of that free speech. Have your free speech, but liable is real. Have your free speech, but hate speech still has its consequences.

In a civilized society, that "consequence" is debate, even heated debate, but not all out silencing.

 

[Mister Silver]

In a civilized society, that "consequence" is debate, even heated debate, but not all out silencing.

The far right is losing its ability to speak freely online. Should the left defend it?

 

[The Kilted Heathen]

It's very much the issue of "free speech for me, but not for thee". It's one of the many growing reasons why I detest the far-left as much as I do the far-right.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

The far right is losing its ability to speak freely online. Should the left defend it?

Bad analogy. We're not arguing over civil behavior. This is about the right to hold politically incorrect views and air them. You can do this in nasty ways or civil ways, like with any view. For example, I'm a Nationalist or even a Fascist but I don't behave in rude ways (most of the time, anyway, haha), even though my views may be well hated on this forum and the views of my ideological enemies are allowed and even privileged on the forum.

 

[Ingledsva]

I'm all for free speech, - even if I hate what they are saying, - however, - there is a difference between free speech which is defended by law, - and inciting a riot, or other hate crimes, which are against the law.

If they stepped over the line, - they should be taken down. If they didn't, - they should be able to defend themselves in court.

18 U.S. Code § 2101 - Riots

*

 

[Mister Silver]

Bad analogy. We're not arguing over civil behavior.

Because an adherence to an ideology of disrespect toward others rights is so behaviorally normal.