I've never (to my knowledge) had any issues re: legal requests about my site, but I can say that I've been a happy customer of Dreamhost for many years now. Support is quick, friendly, and knowledgeable, and the pricepoint for the product (shared server, web-hosting and domain renewal, unlimited bandwidth and storage) is a no-brainer for me. I'm not surprised to see that the host advocates for its users when it can.
Makes me happy to have been using Dreamhost for over 10 years now. I got in on the my domain crazy insane package, and have mostly gotten along with them. I am still super-angry they took away my squirellmail and forced the webmail into a non-FOSS webmail though.
Free speech is not just a constitutional amendment, it's a cultural value. It happens when DreamHost protects a website that is organizing legal protests, spending more per hour on legal fees than the website will pay over its lifetime.
It happens when Cloudflare refuses to cancel service to some of the most disgusting sites on the internet, even though they're on the free plan and Cloudflare has no legal obligation to continue to host them.
It happens when reddit fights tooth and nail, at great expense and with no reward forthcoming, to maintain some of the most toxic communities on the internet, only agreeing to close them when there is truly no other choice.
It happens when computer scientists invent technologies like tor, freenet, and bitcoin, allowing unpopular groups to get their message out and collect donations, even if the majority would prefer that they be banished.
And yes, it even happens when a small ISP steps up to host The Daily Stormer, secure in their knowledge that the best way to contend with such filth is to let the sunlight disinfect it, rather than trying to bottle it up and hoping that bottle never breaks.
America is exceptional in its embrace of the cultural value of free speech. However bad we are about it sometimes, the rest of the world (including Western Europe) is much worse. This makes me proud to be an American citizen.
Getting a little tired of these 'exposure will cure-all' type of comments. The only thing accomplished by not quashing sites like Daily Stormer is desensitizing us to them which only leads to legitimizing.
Getting a little tired of "not all speech should be free" comments. You're trading one brand of facism for another. Don't try to wrap your brand in the appearance of progress.
To discuss does not legitimize. If you are fearful of an idea being debated, that says more about you than the idea.
I prefer absolute freedoms that prevent interpretation from being used to suppress those freedoms. There are costs to living in a free society. I support those rights in their entirety, and I'm not sorry for doing so.
I prefer absolute freedoms that prevent interpretation from being used to suppress those freedoms.
So wait, when someone says "kill all Jews" that's an idea to be discussed, but when someone says "let's censor people who call for that" that's somehow worse, and not simply also speech you can also discuss?
Has anyone here ever actually been near a group of, say, more than two actual nazi skinheads? Would you discuss their ideas in their basement?
I'm not for censorship either, but I know what would be needed to confront such people -- namely, going past their "ideas" and to the root, their fucked up, impotent personality -- isn't even allowed on HN. If you get personal here, you're gone. So that's laughable from the get go in a way.
Yet if you discuss "ideas" with a Nazi, you're just in endless quick sand. I tried discussing with Nazis, and I'm still up for it (I even tried discussing with pedophiles, but I totally noped out of there because it also achieved nothing and it was even more depressing than the Nazis). But I know the murderous cold that lingers there, and how no Nazi stands on their own. If you win the argument, you get a cold smile saying "just you wait", and that's it. Then you're back to square one. But if you didn't even try that you simply don't know what you're even talking about.
edit: take the guy who murdered one person and wounded 19 severely by driving with their car into protesters. His father died early and his mother didn't know what he was up to. I'll just say, this family could used help 10-15 years ago. I don't know how or by whom, but in a magical fantasy world, that would have been the correct solution -- now you can do nothing, just look at the spilled blood. If you want to prevent more of that, look at the people who are growing up with pain today... but by the time their fist is clenched beyond a point, it will take something special or very big to change them, and otherwise they will just hate or even kill, just dwindle mentally or even suicide. Hitler wasn't random, he's the prototype. Stalin wasn't random, he's the prototype. Mental issues are the problem, fucked up childhoods are the problem, not "ideas". Don't assume everybody is that far gone, but also don't delude yourself thinking this is about ideas. And frankly, too many people here aren't even on to themselves enough to meaningfully look at anyone else's personality, and should deal with their own obedience and hiding behind abstractions first.
It's not that it's better or worse. Saying that you should kill all Jews is, morally, a horrible statement to make. However, saying it is different from acting on it. While it's a statement that most would (and should) find problems with, that is not enough to silence that person. My belief is that this discussion is not simply "one or the other," i.e. there's no point to weighing two views against one another. The moral outrage against a person calling for a genocide is not enough to justify silencing that person's speech, because the two levels of social misdeeds do not overlap.
It's not about moral outrage, heh. I guess the US is really a child when it comes to this, once the continent was laid to waste we probably can see eye to eye on this much better. Until then, did you deal with real Nazis before? I did. That guy who wrote a response and then deleted it, probably because they weren't anonymous, did. Anyone else? Anyone coming at this from the street instead of an ivory tower? Ever got chased by a group of Nazis? Stuff like "kill all Jews" is just a mating dance for them, the real talk, and the real weapon collection, happens behind closed doors. So, did anyone at least actually deal with even the TIP of that iceberg, before they're trying to tell me how I can defend myself?
There's a very clear social contract of tolerance though: Tolerate all speech by those who do not violate the social contract of tolerance by using their speech for intolerance. Tolerance is not an absolute. It's a peace treaty.
Then you can pretty easily ask: civil rights protests? Using speech--and violence!--but not violating that contract. They tolerate all who extend that contract to them. LGBT activists? Using speech--and violence!--but not violating that contract. They tolerate all who extend that contract to them.
The daily st-literalnazipropaganda-ormer? violating that contract. Suppress it. Destroy it. No platform should allow it. Nazis in Charlottesville shouting "Jews will not replace us"? violating that contract. Suppress them. Make them fear. They do not tolerate all who extend them that contract.
Social mores are social norms so widely/fervently held that they predicate the law itself, such as prohibiting incest.
The term was invented to refer to these types of commonly held beliefs by a sociologist.
Your argument seems to boil down to "ban all ideas the left does not agree with" to me. Tolerance in your definition confuses me. It seems like you try to make it appear like it means tolerating other's speech (with the "Tolerate all speech..."), but your own comment is very clear about not tolerating the speech of all those groups of people (even if they would extend the right of tolerance to your speech -- obviously, literal Nazis might not, but someone like James Damore certainly would). With a close reading of your comment, it seems like you leave the definition of "tolerance" unopened. Does it mean the tolerance of lifestyles? Of speech? Of religion? What happens if someone's religion mandates intolerance?
I think that, while tolerance works well as a vague social value, trying to define it and draw a border around what it is or isn't will only result in destroying the rights of one's opposition. The word can be used in a variety of way in a variety of contexts; I would propose that any use of violence against someone for holding another idea is a form of intolerance, and from your comment it clearly seems that you disagree. The only "clear social contract of tolerance" is one that is tainted by everyone's political views. Where you would advocate for the removal of those who stand against LGBT rights, a religious Christian/Muslim/Jew would advocate for the removal of you for denying their right to speak their minds.
Let's apply my test: What happens if someone's religion mandates intolerance? Then they are violating the social contract of tolerance--we should not allow that to be done.
a religious Christian/Muslim/Jew would advocate for the removal of you for denying their right to speak their minds.
They can speak their minds about anything they'd like, so long as they don't advocate for the suppression of the rights of others. That is the thing that is not allowed. Their right includes that qualifier; it is not an absolute right to speak. This qualifier is the safety net that stops a tolerant society from being eaten by intolerance.
(I am not saying that free speech as outlined in the US constitution, for instance, meets this formulation from a legal standpoint; I am saying that social mores do and should, and certainly private speech and private platforms should be formulated in this way.)
Then you can pretty easily ask: civil rights protests? Using speech--and violence!--but not violating that contract.
You can say that now because you're on the other side of the history.
But put yourself in the dorm room of someone organizing one of the first lunch counter sit-ins. That organizer is using their speech to convince a group of people not to tolerate the segregation that made it illegal for them to sit non-violently in a public place.
Now imagine a potential activist who agrees with your first paragraph hears the speech of this organizer. Do you really think it's clear that potential activist will end up participating in the sit-in?
"Do not tolerate the segregation that has made it illegal to sit non-violently in a public place."
Let's see... whose speech is this organizer advocating intolerance against? It appears to be the business owners who say "some people cannot be here, because they are black."
So, the business owners are violating the social contract I outlined: their actions are intolerant. The organizer is, therefore, not breaking the contract.
Someone who followed the principle I argue for would land on the side of the protestors in this case.
This is such a tricky issue. I do think so many of these sites do nothing but promote hate and violence. However, let's imagine we decide to go with the rule 'You are allowed to shut down a website that incites violence'
Someone has to determine what constitutes 'inciting violence'. There will be some websites that are targetted for shut down while some won't be; there is no way to get around this. What gets targetted will be the ones that go against the group who has the ability to choose the targets (a government agency or perhaps a private ISP).
Second, what stops a false flag from getting a site shutdown? If a site allows comments, a person hostile to the site could post a violent comment, and then you would have justification for shutting the site down.
Third, you will get false accusations. Take, for example, the civil rights movement in the sixties. You don't think state governments in the south wouldn't have accused the various protest groups as inciting violence? It doesn't matter that they were peaceful protests, they would have certainly argued that organizing sit ins and protest marches was a form of violence. While we might say, "Well clearly those were peacful and would be allowed to have their protest", that doesn't mean a court run by that same government wouldn't see differently. You don't think a southern court in the 60s would have sided with the government when they accused the civil rights groups of being violent?
Once you give the government an out to get around free speech requirements, they will take it whenever they can.
What do you think the word "fascism" means? It doesn't mean "banning some behaviors".
Calling humans "monkeys" is not debate.
Why should Cloudflare be morally obligated to offer free speech to Daily Stormer, when Daily Stormer doesn't offer free speech to non-racist non-murderers?
Fascism isn't the only ideology that promotes suppression of speech, but it's probably the first one that comes to most people's head. I don't think it's that hyperbolic to declare censorship as fascist.
Freedom of speech is a core democratic principle. You can't have a democracy without freedom of speech. It doesn't really matter if the censorship is done by a few big corporations or the government. The effect is the same. If some ideas become wrongthink and can't be distributed or discussed, democracy dies.
Sure, it starts with the most extreme, least defensible things. Like stormfront. But it won't stop there. Before you know it any speech even mildly critical of immigration is silenced and you get the situation going on in Europe.
What happens when the next red scare happens? Politics is like a pendulum - it goes back and forth. Just a generation ago Communism was the persecuted ideology. People on the far left were blacklisted, silenced, and discriminated against. Was that ok with you? You want it to be 10x worse next time, by establishing a culture with no tolerance of differing opinions? Because that is where we are heading.
Defending freedom means defending undesirables first. Because undesirables are always the people who benefit most from freedom. Copyright violaters are the first people to adopt torrents. Pedophiles are the first people to adopt tor. Hackers and drug dealers are the biggest adopters of bitcoin. Undesirable extremists are going to be the group to benefit the most from free expression.
"Before you know it any speech even mildly critical of immigration is silenced and you get the situation going on in Europe."
This seems... odd. I don't think right now there's any (western) European country where this occurs. Sure: it has occurred and has contributed to a backlash against 'political correctness'. But this doesn't sound like a description of the Europe I live in. Just the stereotypical Europe shown on some american TV, where muslims run a lot of cities and all ghettos are offlimits to non-muslims.
An an European, I'm kind of offended you're stretching the definition of fascism to also include "anything that suppresses free speech". Can you please not water down the definition of a term linked to the killing of millions?
It seems to me that free speech values in the US are not quite as absolute as you make them out to be. Especially when the interest of powerful people or big corporations come to play.
Ag-gag laws are abhorrent. Most Americans agree. They're a relatively recent problem (Most have been passed or on the ballot since 2012, so last five years) caused by corrupt politicians that Americans are working to solve.
Pointing at them is classic whataboutism. We have problems in the US. We mostly confront them headon rather than pretending they don't exist. Suppression of speech is pretending they don't exist.
Another example: Americans are constantly blasted by Europeans for racism. Racism is a very real problem in America - That's why groups like Black Lives Matter exist. We deal with these problems with speech, like the aforementioned group. As such, some fairly basic indicators, like the public opinion on miscegenation have been trending in a good direction - Less than 20% of America disapproves of it[1]. The data is not quite quantified in the same way, but there's an argument that in Germany, that number is more than 40%[2]. Across the EU, 35% of people would be upset if their child were dating a black person. The numbers are not directly comparable - The US numbers are about interracial marriage as a whole, not personalizing it about "your child", and I've seen firsthand that there's a difference. But those aren't numbers that swing that far. It might be equally bad, it might be a little worse in the US. It's not the sea change that it's so often presented as - Racism is a global problem, not a US one.
cops in EU are not targeting black people, that's why we don't need groups like "black lives matter".
I come from Italy, parents in Italy are upset even if you ask them what they think about their children marrying someone from the village 2 Kms away from theirs
As a European, I look down on Americans having decided that free speech includes giving people money or mistreating employees as a corporation because of the corporation's religious views.
Excuse me while I enjoy the benefits of our fascist socialism.
Think and feel all you want on our "limits to free speech" (which vary widely per country). But please don't water down the definition of fascism for your own rhetorical ends. Fascism does not equate to "any infringment of freedom" and it should not be. Moving the goalposts on that one leaves us less able to deal with real nazis.
You're obviously pro-free speech. But surely, if speech is so important, it is also important to make sure it can be effective. If one waters down definitions like that, the ability to speak effectively against dangers diminishes.
I'm an european, way too young to have seen WWII. But I deal with its broad consequences, that still permeate society and psyche in subtle ways, daily. To see the evil of fascism repurposed to mean something else, just makes me sad. Don't screw up our heritage please.
A private corporation deciding not to host /actually fascist/ content because they're getting bad press for it has nothing to do with free speech. And criticizing another corporation for hosting, again, /actually fascist/ content is perfectly within the scope of the 1st amendment.
Yes, yes it does have a lot to do with free speech. It strikes to the heart of the issue.
Free speech isn't just a paragraph in the American Constitution that appeared there out of nowhere. It's a larger cultural norm that allows you to share your ideas and, much more importantly, allows you to hear other people's ideas without censorship. Whether censorship comes from the government, university, or some megacorp is completely irrelevant to whether it is an infringement on free speech.
Free speech isn't just a paragraph in the American Constitution that appeared there out of nowhere. It's a larger cultural norm that allows you to share your ideas and, much more importantly, allows you to hear other people's ideas without censorship.
Right.
Whether censorship comes from the government, university, or some megacorp is completely irrelevant to whether it is an infringement on free speech.
Wrong, unless you mean a university or corporation literally physically censoring you from communicating something. See sib response by dragonwriter. If a university disinvites a speaker or a corporation stops hosting someone customer's website, nobody's right to free speech was infringed upon. Sure, you may accuse them of acting against the spirit of the value of free speech, but that's their prerogative and they are in fact simultaneously exercising their own right to free speech by choosing not to host/amplify another's speech they find repugnant.
Most censorship in China is done by the private sector. It doesn't come direct from the government. Instead, the government makes it clear that various types of speech are deemed unacceptable, but remains vague about exactly what. For example the PRC likes to crack down on "rumours".
The consequence is that the private sector is a huge and critical part of how China censors information. Actual direct government censorship is relatively limited: it's all based on distributing vague principles to the private sector combined, with punishments for failure to comply. The result is people interpreting the principles in the most aggressive way possible.
In the west, governments have egged on progressive agendas and passed laws that punish various kinds of speech (e.g. "hate speech"). But most of the censorship is done by the private sector, who are trying to interpret vague principles in ways that'll avoid them being targeted for punishment. The fact that in the west the media and various ideological groupings have as much to do with it as a government agenda doesn't change the fact that most of the ensuring censorship is still run and managed by the private sector.
Ok, but were an American to find themselves legally censored by another American individual or corporation, they could take their business elsewhere/start their own newspaper or webhost/become a soapbox preacher, whatever. None of those are options in the Chinese case.
Free speech is precisely the norm of private parties being permitted to choose what speech they will make, or allow to be amplified, with their resources.
Private censorship of what is transmitted by the censors' own resources is not only not an infringement of free speech, it is central to the essence of the concept of free speech.
Likewise, criticism of others' speech and advocacy against others amplifying or supporting it is also a central part of the idea of free speech.
I'm German. We've seen "absolute freedom of speech" lead to Hitler's rise to power. We have not seen restrictions on freedom of speech lead to anything similar. I'm okay with us erring on the side of "fascism" this time around if we know the other path to have led us to actual fascism before.
Hitler's rise to power was not a consequence of free speech or democracy, as I've seen argued elsewhere.
It was the result of a weak, young democracy that couldn't/wouldn't stop political parties raising private armies and beating the crap out of their opponents, combined with deep seated cultural problems (resentment at the outcome of WW1, latent anti-semitism etc).
If you really believe suppression of free speech stops dictators committing horrible crimes, explain Stalin.
The communist rise to power was an actual civil war. Hitler rose to power by democratic election (assisted by violent thugs and demagoguery and ultimately corruption but still an election).
By that standard the USSR had lots of democratic elections.
Some of the unwritten standards by which we judge an election democratic or not are things like "do people get beaten up for campaigning". When we see violence and then a leader who wins 97% of the vote in places like Africa, we don't hesitate to call it a sham democracy. Why would we do differently for Germany?
Hitler wasn't elected with 97%. The NSDAP's election results looked like this:
May 1924: 6.6%
December 1924: 3.0%
May 1928: 2.6%
September 1930: 18.3% (second largest party)
July 1932: 37.4%
November 1932: 33.1%
March 1933: 43.9% (last free election)
November 1933: 92.1%
March 1936: 98.8%
April 1938: 99.1%
Sure, the NSDAP won 90% of the vote after all other parties were dissolved in June 1933 but all elections before that were "democratic". The NSDAP didn't even get into power with a direct majority. They formed a coalition government with another party, the KSWR/DNVP (who got 8% of the vote).
Also note that by that point the government had been destabilized since the 1920s, ruling only with an absolute minority of the votes.
In 1930 the left-wing parties (KPD and SPD) actually campaigned against ever having another war with very successful demonstrations.
The NSDAP campaign in 1930 was the first campaign organised by Goebbels. It was based on conspiracy theories like the economical crisis being an international conspiracy against Germany, appeals to national identity, scaremongering against communism and capitalism. They actually toned down the anti-semitism on Goebbels' orders.
This was a "small government" democracy in action. An unstable one, yes, but the elections were democratic. The Nazis exploited the instability of the government and the economy and they used scaremongering and demagoguery to get the relative majority, but they won democratic elections and they had a significant share of the votes before being in a position to force the outcome.
The Daily Stormer is not a 'debate' site. The owner/operator explicitly calls for war. I get you like the universal free speech idea but there isn't a valid form of Nazism that's A-OK once you get over the genocidal bits.
I would not consider an idea more legitimate just because it has a website, nor would I consider it less legitimate just because some censorious asshole in a web host's abuse department decided to kick it out.
"If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the process of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence."
Getting a little tired of these 'exposure will cure-all' type of comments. The only thing accomplished by not quashing sites like Daily Stormer is desensitizing us to them which only leads to legitimizing.
Perhaps this is because not enough people are stepping up?
When was the last time you challenged a proclamation from some Fox News ditto head? When was the last time you looked at someone in your family spouting racist garbage and called them out on it?
"Exposure cures all" only works if someone is also willing to take on the challenge of creating the exposure.
It's interesting to see how differently similar comments were voted on the post about Google rejecting a neo-nazi domain compared to this post about DreamHost defending anti-Trump protesters, yet the same holds true.
I will only use companies that always defend their customers for my own small business and personal sites.
There is some signalizing going on here, but I can't say I can sympathize with a Daily Stormer social media post assassinating the character of a woman who was murdered over the weekend. That kind of media coverage does affect vendors for Daily Stormer, which I assume is the only reason GoDaddy or Google cared to drop the hosting contract. I'd guess that CloudFlare will continue to push the content-indifference (so long as it is legal) -- that seems to be their corporate policy.
Can you provide examples of how the US is better in this regard?
As a counterexample, in Europe, no company can fire an employee for "perpetuating gender stereotypes", or any other opinion, while in the US it seems quite easy to fire people for any reason.
The guy gets a wage from state TV, and created the poem in the first place as an example of what is banned. The poem literally uses the most ridiculous insults he could find just to ensure it would be banned.
Mr Boehmermann's lawyer said the ruling went against "artistic freedom".
"We believe that the court's decision in its concrete form is wrong, given that it deems those parts dealing with Erdogan's approach to freedom of expression to be acceptable," said Christian Schertz.
The said poem could easily qualify as protest art because it actually proved Germany is not really that much better than Turkey in terms of freedom of speech or freedom of artistic expression if you wish.
Germany is not really that much better than Turkey in terms of freedom of speech or freedom of artistic expression
That kind of rhetoric trivializes how repressive the Erdoğan regime really is. With all its faults, Germany hasn't locked up thousands of innocent people on shady claims of conspiracy or terrorism, or shut down independent TV stations or newspapers. Germany also hasn't abolished its strict division of power and given the president or chancellor absolute power.
Germany has some very strict speech laws because of the whole Hitler thing over half a century ago. It’s illegal to do the Nazi salute, use the Nazi version of the swastika, etc.
And that's wrong. It's not helping - Far Right protests are almost as much of a problem in Germany as in the US, despite the fact that the police can and will lock you up for those views. If anything it has incited more people to view those things with respect - Mostly rebellious youths, but many of them never leave once they've adopted the lifestyle. Suppressing speech never has the intended effect of making it go away. It only makes it nastier and more virulent, by giving it an enemy to fight and it's followers the badge of oppression.
I've actually met ex-nazis in Germany and I don't believe the causality you're proposing holds up.
Yes, neo-nazis think the "jews" are running the country and keeping them down, but this is no different from how the antifa think the "fascists" are doing the same.
The recent rise of nationalism in Germany actually has more to do with both major parties having become indistinguishable in many cases and "moderates" flocking to the extremes to "punish" the government.
It's a lot like trolls on 4chan spreading racist memes "for the lulz" until they end up having become actual white supremacists participating in Nazi rallies instead of merely shitposting on the Internet.
Right-leaning "moderates" vote for the right-wing extremists (NPD if you're really angry or AfD if you are more of a realist) out of spite and then fall for the rhetoric as they continue exposing themselves to their messages.
The only effective treatment against this disease seems to be constant exposure to other people with other ideas coming from other walks of life.
Yes, there's an East/West divide in neo-Nazi density in Germany, but it's also very much a rural/metropolitan divide. If all the people around you look, talk and think like you, everything different becomes a threat to your way of life.
The poem was part of a satirical performance. The performance was deemed protected speech, although the content of the poem by itself would have been a violation of a libel law (§ 103) explicitly protecting foreign heads of state that is being abolished as a consequence of this precedent.
He's also still very much able to "make a living off of his comedy". His "Schmähkritik" (the title of the piece as well as the crime reciting the poem would constitute) was just a single one-off performance on a publicly funded TV show.
I certainly concede that Google's firing of James Damore is a rejection of the cultural value I was talking about. I didn't mean that every institution in the US accepts it, just that it seems to be more accepted than it is in other countries.
I don't have much insight into European companies and how strongly they protect speech as a matter of policy, but rulings by the EU have been extremely discouraging. Here are some examples:
1. The EU's "right to be forgotten" can compel the removal of content that is both true and relevant. [1] In the US, my right to publish true facts about you trumps your right to have them swept under the rug.
2. The EU can compel publishers to remove content they deem "hate speech." [2] If you look up the EU's definition of hate speech, it actually sweeps broadly into what the US would call protected speech. For example, Germany's "incitement of popular hatred" [3] can be used to prevent newspapers from advancing the argument that migrants are disproportionately likely to commit crimes. Since there is no truth defense against hate speech accusations (unlike libel in the US), a newspaper that is dragged into court on hate speech charges couldn't defend itself by proving that what it wrote was true.
Those are indeed shameful examples and definitely discouraging.
Nonetheless, alone they are not enough to prove the point. I could go and find other cases for the US too.
If we look, though, at the Freedom of the Press report of Freedom without Borders, the US comes after all Western Europe countries (except Italy): https://rsf.org/en/ranking
It's hard to respond to that ranking site since I can't find what factors went into the rankings. If you could be more specific on why the US should rank below Western Europe in freedom of speech/press, I could look into the specific incidents of censorship you're referring to.
I can tell you that, in the US, it's extremely difficult to prevent a newspaper from publishing things the government doesn't want published (see New York Times v. United States), or for a private party to successfully sue them (see New York Times v. Sullivan). It has happened, but it's very rare and there is nothing analogous to Europe's sweeping "hate speech" laws that force newspapers to self-censor anything critical of migrants.
The thing is, what you say about this kind of law is probably true. But freedom of speech goes further than that and, as you mentioned in your original comment, it's not just a matter of laws.
2. The EU can compel publishers to remove content they deem "hate speech." [2] If you look up the EU's definition of hate speech, it actually sweeps broadly into what the US would call protected speech.
The EU as an entity does not prohibit any speech. The EU, at most, publishes directives, which are implemented as laws and implementation is up to the specific countries.
Some coutries deem, for example, Holocaust denial a criminal offense. You can argue if this is good or bad. But let me assure you that Europe is not that hellhole where you not dare say anything.
England, with its insane libel laws may be an exception, but soon it's anyway no more part of the EU.
I would have to disagree about (1). The right to be forgotten is quite important in preventing criminals from being punished twice (first by the law and then by random vigilantes). This fosters reintegration into society, which is considered an important part of our punitive system, perhaps even its primary goal.
In my opinion, this is also far beyond the "good" free speech (as in, free statement of opinion and political dissent) and into the realm of trying purposefully to do damage, by using speech in bad faith, which I think should not be free at all. Then again, e.g. cursing at police officers seems to be legal in the US as well, so I guess this is a cultural difference :)
For example, Germany's "incitement of popular hatred" [3] can be used to prevent newspapers from advancing the argument that migrants are disproportionately likely to commit crimes.
Bull. Shit.
Tabloids still run ridiculously xenophobic and bigoted headlines in Germany even if we're not quite at the level as e.g. UK tabloids.
Saying "there's a correlation between the refugee crisis and a rise in crimes" is protected speech in Germany. Saying "those donkey fuckers crossing our borders must be shot on sight and their children too" is hate speech.
In the US it's acceptable for politicians calling for undesirables like Snowden or Assange to be murdered. In Germany this kind of rhetoric would land you in jail for inciting violence and instigating criminal behavior.
Also in Germany it's forbidden to bring weapons (including "defensive weapons" like shields or gasmasks) to demonstrations. In the US you have neo-nazis and antifa running into each other with riot gear and bashing each others' heads in with lengths of wood. Not to mention paramilitaries parading in camouflage with military-looking gear and firearms.
Incidentally, German riot police doesn't use military equipment and actual violent protests are usually confined to anarchists using improvised weapons to cause property damage.
Since there is no truth defense against hate speech accusations
Again, bullshit. If you use Nazi symbology, loudly shout "gas the jews" and do the salute, you know what you're doing. Stop pretending we're talking about scientific discourse here.
This isn't about some economist or sociologist publishing troubling research findings or level-headed reporting on anything of the sort. This is about bigots venting their hatred and tabloids abusing scare tactics to sell more copies.
Saying "there's a correlation between the refugee crisis and a rise in crimes" is protected speech in Germany. Saying "those donkey fuckers crossing our borders must be shot on sight and their children too" is hate speech.
Which part of that offensive statement is 'hate speech':
a) Donkey Fucker
b) must be shot on sight
c) [their children] must be shot on sight
In US, a) cannot be restricted by the govt. b) and c) can be, provided the govt prove that it was the same thing as asking your right hand to pull the trigger (as it's a clear and present danger).
Moreover, if someone does shoot kids and immigrants, and it was shown that this someone was motivated by your statements, then you can be sued under a civil lawsuit for millions by the family of the people who died.
In Germany this kind of rhetoric would land you in jail for inciting violence and instigating criminal behavior.
In US too, inciting violence and instigating criminal behavior could land you in jail, except American definition of 'inciting violence and instigating criminal behavior' is a lot different than European definition.
A politician calling drone attacks on Snowden or Assange isn't 'inciting violence and instigating criminal behavior' in US.
A politician picking up the phone and asking his brother who is a drone operator to do a drone attack on Assange or Snowden, would be.
I was paraphrasing actual comments made in German that constitute hate speech.
"Donkey fucker" is a racial slur. Most of the racial slurs used in these comments don't translate well, e.g. "oil eye". It's in the same register of language as the n-word in English.
It may not come across that well in English but there's a direct call to action: "shoot them and their children", basically. It's not specifically directed at anyone. Charitably it could be read as "we should enact policies so soldiers do this" but less charitably it's directly calling for people to go out and shoot other people -- which is inciting violence.
I'm fairly certain going on national TV and offering a significant monetary reward to anyone who murders Snowden/Assange/Trump would be illegal even in the US. The only difference is that Germany doesn't require a tangible reward for that to be illegal.
But hey, what do I know, it's not like the US is at risk of bringing lynchings back or something.
EDIT: Oh, and the obvious difference: aside from a strict loyalty to international Human Rights, the German constitution centers around the idea of the indelibility of human dignity. Dehumanizing people is always unconstitutional and promoting hatred around racial identity or ethnic background is almost always dehumanizing.
The fact that google fired him doesn't imply they had the right to do so. There are plenty of illegal firings in Europe as well. Then the employee sues the company and wins. If a judge decides that google firing was legal under those motivations, then you would be right (hasn't happened yet).
Also, in the US, often companies offer you money to not sue them when they fire you. Doesn't mean the firing is legal, simply it is easier for everyone involved that way.
Here the guy was likely fired for saying that he witnessed discriminating hiring practices, i.e. quotas, to improve diversity metrics. And firing a whistleblower is illegal in the US as well. Most likely they will reach an agreement (or they have already reached). The guy will get some money and everyone will move on. Much easier than getting involved with legal stuff for both, google and the engineer.
"no company can fire..." May be true but an employee can be fired for "no reason" or trumped up reasons. I can certainly be fired for my opinion...my contract (in legalise) says I must always represent the company positively.
What also matters is the practicalities and cost of redress and that varies across Europe. It's not the liberal paradise across the board as some suggest.
Free speech is not just a constitutional amendment, it's a cultural value.
Its a phrase that different people use to express different culture values, but the one behind the Constitutional Amendment is, very clearly given the other evidence of the ideology of those wrote it, the freedom of private parties to speak and to use their own property to distribute their own speech and that of which they approve without constraint or compulsion by government.
It is not the idea that private parties, in general, are obligated, morally or otherwise, to amplify speech whether or not they agree with it, indeed, it is diametrically opposed to that idea.
It is true that there are some people who hold to the latter value and call it free speech, but that is entitlement rather than liberty.
It's fairly easy to make parent comment's idea fit what you're saying. You just need one more level of indirection (like always!).
In this case, cloudflare or whatever, is exercising their free speech by saying "We care so much about free speech, we'll amplify these jerk's speech".
I agree that expecting someone to do this for you is indeed a privilege, not a right.
So I'd say the difference between your comments is more semantic than anything. Parent commentor doesn't really imply everyone has a right to this kind of amplification.
Just because not everyone is granted the right in America does not make America worse than other countries. The OP is contending that the US, despite an imperfect record on free speech, is still better at it than anywhere else. Aaron Swartz is not at all a counterexample.
See Meerko's comment on this [1]. The EU has a class of its own freedom of speech violations that America does not. The fact that the US has made mistakes and the EU has made mistakes isn't the deciding factor. The scope of the EU's violations seem broader to me, given differences in the definitions of hate speech [2]. Whereas the U.S. has violated the right of freedom of speech for individuals, its track record is better w.r.t. freedom of speech because the EU chooses to ban a wide portion of speech.
DisruptJ20 was exposed by Project Veritas for (allegedly) organizing illegal terrorist activities. Presumably, that would be the reason for this, rather than their organization of legal protests.
From your own link: "On January 16, 2017, Project Veritas uploaded a video showing DC Antifascist Coalition members of Disrupt J20 plotting to use 'stink bombs' at the DeploraBall. After the video's release, Disrupt J20 denied the statements, saying that the members deliberately gave false information to Veritas.[107] The video led to the arrest of one man allegedly involved in the plan,[108] as well as two associates. All three individuals pleaded guilty.[109]"
America’s and your holier than the pope attitude is hypocritical in this regards. I really must refrain my self to describe it as typical.
You won’t see the same reaction when the story is about anti western Islamic propaganda. And I’m not talking about killing videos but speech that glorifies attacks for example in the same way that in the past day you can still read on the daily stormer how they glorify that domestic terrorism attack...
For the record I’m against any content of that nature but wake me up when it’s not only nazis that needs defending their free speech.
TL;DR: DreamHost was issued a warrant to produce any and all content+logs+metadata about a customer-hosted website that presumably may have been related to violent protests/riots in Washington DC circa Jan 20th (Trump inauguration day). They pushed back on the overly broad nature of the warrant, the DOJ pushed the courts to then "compel" DH to comply.
I think this is an important point. I found the Intercept's article[1] about the ACLU defending Charlottesville protesters' free speech right pretty interesting in that regard: Some people insult and blame the ACLU for defending free speech rights of even the most infamous people, but as the article points out, people fail to understand that if a precedent is set on them, it's diminishing everyone's rights.
The ACLU understands this, which is why they defend such people.
This is a false argument. Speech is not "harming someone".
This is a tactic that seems to be more common recently: trying to equate expression of ideas with violence, and then claiming that violence is acceptable to suppress this supposed "speech violence".
As somebody who has been battling a whole part of his life against PTSD I find it very troubling that people in 2017 still believe that bs that you can only harm people when you use fysical violence.
My sympathies for your condition, but I regret to inform you that the rest of the world does not revolve around you and your symptoms. Speech is not violence harming you, however much you might want to claim it as such.
This is a false argument. Speech is not "harming someone".
it is indeed!
"This article reflects the tremendous interest in the freedom of information in the postwar years. The Soviet Union proposed an amendment that would deny this right to Nazi and fascist groups. This forced the drafters to discuss the question of how tolerant an already just society should be of intolerant groups like Nazis. Taking together Articles 19 and 7, they solved the dilemma by giving everyone two rights: the right to free speech (subject to the limitation of Article 29) and the right to be protected against hate speech."
they're granted by The Universal Declaration of Human Rights
"Any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence shall be prohibited by law."
No not really, this is about the DC riots on Inauguration Day which violated DC peace keeping laws, probably because it's the capitol of America, I'm thinking but read for yourself:
200 people were indicted on rioting charges. What use does the 1.3 million IP addresses have in those cases? How can the DoJ justify that disparity? So yes, it is a little scary.
Especially in light of various american fascist groups interpreting the sitting president's half hearted comments regarding the Charlottesville murder as intentional endorsement of their philosophies.
I think your dislike of the current president is clouding your ability to see facts for what they are. Since the incident he condemned the guilty on the TV, tweeted about it multiple times, his daughter spoke extensively on the subject, various people in the administration condemned it. Prime minister of Canada pretty much repeated Trump's condemnation verbatim and got praised for it. I am not sure what else you need at this point.
It took him 2 days! He first raised a false equivalency between neo-nazis and the counter protestors. And he still hasn't labeled it domestic terorrism.
Either not directly calling out racist attacks as racist is a problem for a president or it isn't. Unless you can tell me how one is different than the other?
I am making the equivalence between attacking those who's opinions are different then yours. There have been more people injured by anitfa then the other way around at these rally's and protests.
An automobile isn't a missile. One is designed for war and destruction, the other is a mode of transportation that can be used as a weapon.
He didn't say much about the resistance gunman who attacked the gop senators or the shooter who shot a republican in the head a few days prior to Charlottesville.
It doesn't say which website exactly. If there's an FBI investigation (which seems possible, even likely, considering how extreme antifa and other "resistance" groups can be), it seems pretty par for the course to request information in order to help locate particular parties.
Be careful clicking on a website who's IP address logs are being demanded by the FBI. Especially if you're on work network
Which is exactly a manifestation of the point about "chilling effects" on speech pointed out by many other comments in these threads.
Your statement above expresses a fear to access the site (if even just to judge for yourself what the site contains) due to your IP address potentially being linked in some govt. database with agreeing with the site.
This is exactly why the right to free speech is set forth in the first amendment to the US constitution. To prevent just this sort of govt. suppression in the first place.
I agree with an agenda to counter white supremacists. But saying that some antifa groups are extreme isn't really that controversial, is it? I don't know that they would even disagree.
That's a very tactical criticism. It seems like something very important is being lost in these comparisons. The primary criticism of Nazis and white supremacists is not their tactics or their protests, it's that they are fucking Nazis and white supremacists.
It's not tactical criticism, it is a personal account of what anyone can see by searching youtube for "antifa": that they're thugs who use their supposed "anti-fascism" as a pretext for their thuggery.
If there aren't any nazis, a good old international summit will do.
It would be interesting to hear from Google whether the government has issued a search warrant for the Google Analytics data generated by the site's visitors, which would include IP address.
I consider myself antifa in part because my great grandfather was murdered by the Nazis, and I consider it to be part of my social and civil responsibility to oppose fascism.
While many antifa are anarchists or anti-capitalists, the defining feature is opposing fascism. Don't succumb to a trivializing caricature of antifa as being primarily about wanton violence against property.
Antifa is not just anti-facism. If you go to any of their rallies or counter protests you'll find most are socio-anarchists or communists who don't see anything wrong with violence.
This seems like a convenient time to remind folks that it is incredibly important to stand up against this kind of government action not only when it is conducted against your political allies, but especially when it is conducted against your political enemies. Even if this were a pro-Trump website being subpoenaed, this should sicken you nonetheless. Short-sighted political gain might be had by allowing the government to stomp all over political dissidents you don't agree with, but in a few short years you might find yourself on the receiving end of the same treatment you endorsed. My hope is that those in the alt-right will realize that supporting this kind of action may hurt themselves just as much as it hurts the anti-Trump folks.
That's a strawman. The real issue is that Trump's DOJ is abusing its powers in this case to do a dragnet collection of 1.3 million of its most fervent political opponents.
How is it a strawman exactly ? Is it ok to do anything you want just because you don't like trump ? It would be abuse if it was illegal surveilance, but this ? How exactly is this abuse ?
If you have probable cause getting a targeted warrant is not an issue. For or against Trump has exactly ZERO baring on that. If you want records for 1.3 million people you're in the realms of claiming there's a criminal conspiracy and a measurable fraction of adults in the USA are in on it.
Or you're doing dragnet on your political enemies.
It's wrong if someone working for Obama does it, it's wrong if Reagan does it, it's wrong if Hilary does it, it's wrong if _anyone_ does it. Including Trump. He's not special, he's the same whether you like him or not.
There are 530k national guards /rserved and 460k actual soldiers in America, combined making up 990k.
That's 310k more "threats". Need a bigger army XD
Half America crying out against Nazi's, but extracting information on certain categorized groups and being pro Nationalistic is how NAZIs (Hitler) rose to power in the first place. Some tough irony right there.
Are you saying 1.3 million people directly threatened the president? Really? This is a dragnet plain and simple. Will they find a few threats? Probably. My guess is 1.299 million Americans will needlessly be harmed by this action.
How will they be harmed? What do you suggest FBI should do to protect American interests? Will Google and other hosts block this website just like they are doing with neo Nazi domains? If yes, then probably FBI can rest. Otherwise they have to take measures that ensure the safety of America's elected president.
Who threatened him? Nobody has been accused of threatening - the people who were arrested in the case at issue are charged with rioting.
And even if one of the rioters had also made threats, how is getting 1.3 million ip addresses of visitors to the site that organized the protest possibly salient to that investigation? It's not a forum, there isn't going to be any further incriminating evidence on it. If the threatener visited the site, the went to the protest and made the threat, what exactly does the government gain by proving that he visited it?
I dislike the far left as much as anyone else but not every member of a 'disrupt' groups is an antifa member plotting violence. Most are well meaning individuals who disagree with the president on a variety of issues and have a right to their political opinion and to protest.
I am against the IP subpoena because i think it is at least a violation of privacy and at most unconstitutional. It should be noted that I am also strongly against antifa and their tactics.
I like how you included the fact that he is a conservative activist since "severly editing" would have been enough, and that doesn't seem to be the case with DisruptJ20.
DisruptJ20 countered that it had caught on to the Veritas operation and had thus fed its operative a false plot.
What sort of mental gymnastics is this ? You can't invalidate investigative journalism just because of someone's political alignment and they didn't even make DisruptJ20 look bad they made it look like a bunch aggresive people who think it's they're job to bring the world back to balance.
I'm not even defending this whole dreamhost thing, it's wrong on many levels but your thinking will hurt you.
Since you think government action is warranted, and since it can be argued that HN seems to have an anti-trump bent, I'm assuming you'll be fine if the government wants to know about every single interaction you've had here so that you can be identified ?
...any government? ... Including the inevitable non-trump one?
What is the government action here? They are collecting info about people who are threatening the president. These people belong to groups that have perpetrated violence against those who don't share their viewpoint. There is no censorship occurring. There is no persecution.
This seems like a convenient time to remind folks that it is incredibly important to stand up against this kind of government action not only when it is conducted against your political allies, but especially when it is conducted against your political enemies. Even if this were a pro-Trump website being subpoenaed, this should sicken you nonetheless. Short-sighted political gain might be had by allowing the government to stomp all over political dissidents you don't agree with, but in a few short years you might find yourself on the receiving end of the same treatment you endorsed. My hope is that those in the alt-right will realize that supporting this kind of action may hurt themselves just as much as it hurts the anti-Trump folks.
For my part, I value the right of black/gay/jewish/whoever people to exist and live their lives without threats of violence more than I value freedom of speech.
Right to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness, in that order.
Groups calling for their extermination, I'm not going to stand up for any of them, because they're actively working against the first of those three values.
What good is freedom of speech or assembly when you're being run over by a white supremacist in a Charger?
If that's a slippery slope--that ordering of values that prizes life over website hosting--then it's one I'm still content to stand on, because the alternative isn't taking us anywhere good right now.
Let me remind you that who brought up the concept of "acceptable punching targets" to modern politics was antifa, and that staging a counter-protest in the exact same venue and time as a rally / protest is OBVIOUSLY going to cause trouble.
White supremacists are disgusting.
Other race supremacists are disgusting.
Anarchists are disgusting.
Communists are disgusting.
People calling for dead cops are disgusting.
People looting and committing arson during protests are disgusting.
There's a lot of disgusting people out there, and I'm beyond tired of people trying to escalate things even further. If all this political tension in the US escalates to full-blown civil war, it will be to no credit of a single group, but the many who keep getting excused by mainstream politicians, political commentators and journalists.
The fun fact is that most of this could probably have been widely defused by allowing people to speak up in public, and then providing better counter-speech, but I guess that was hurting way too many feelings.
Indeed. It will also save your company time and money (in more ways than one).
I work for an ISP and I intentionally do not log user <-> IP address mappings. The time I've had to spend producing similar information in response to such requests is very minimal (basically, "sorry, we don't have that!").
I am sure that every single person who always stands on absolutist free-speech principles against the chilling effect of, say, calling for someone to be fired when it turns out they believe women are biologically inferior, will of course turn up to immediately oppose this on principle, and not adopt some sort of "let's wait and see, there may be nuances to this" approach.
It's great to see DreamHost stand up for their users in this instance but they're not always like that.
I had a bogus DMCA takedown filed against a WP blog I have on a DH shared hosting account. DH went into my DB and took the post offline before they even notified me.
Had they bothered to notify me first or spend 5 min reading the blog they would have found it to be clearly fair use.
When you give up your rights to authorities, you are done. Nono this regime is better! They just want to keep us safe! Go read a book and preferably of history. If you consider total control keeping you safe, then go on and do it. People seem to forget the government is supposed to work for you in a democracy. Not the other way around
We already know about neo-nazi racists and gov already investigates them. However, Antifa and these Marxist Resistance groups are radicalized and dangerous groups that regularly entertain violence against Trump and his supporters. They deserve to be investigated as it effects the stability of our country.
You're operating under a pretty severe cognitive bias there.
Anti-fa violence is investigated, but the levels of actual recorded violence, and threats of violence, from anti-fa groups is minuscule when compared to that from white supremacists.
They're simply not comparable.
White supremacists have already murdered people in the US, sometimes in mass killings.
Just a reminder: antifa has devastated Hamburg during the G20 summit, for the simple reason that they were against it. I have yet to hear of any similar action perpetrated by another group.
I've never (to my knowledge) had any issues re: legal requests about my site, but I can say that I've been a happy customer of Dreamhost for many years now. Support is quick, friendly, and knowledgeable, and the pricepoint for the product (shared server, web-hosting and domain renewal, unlimited bandwidth and storage) is a no-brainer for me. I'm not surprised to see that the host advocates for its users when it can.
Makes me happy to have been using Dreamhost for over 10 years now. I got in on the my domain crazy insane package, and have mostly gotten along with them. I am still super-angry they took away my squirellmail and forced the webmail into a non-FOSS webmail though.
Same here - same plan since feb 2007
Free speech is not just a constitutional amendment, it's a cultural value. It happens when DreamHost protects a website that is organizing legal protests, spending more per hour on legal fees than the website will pay over its lifetime.
It happens when Cloudflare refuses to cancel service to some of the most disgusting sites on the internet, even though they're on the free plan and Cloudflare has no legal obligation to continue to host them.
It happens when reddit fights tooth and nail, at great expense and with no reward forthcoming, to maintain some of the most toxic communities on the internet, only agreeing to close them when there is truly no other choice.
It happens when computer scientists invent technologies like tor, freenet, and bitcoin, allowing unpopular groups to get their message out and collect donations, even if the majority would prefer that they be banished.
And yes, it even happens when a small ISP steps up to host The Daily Stormer, secure in their knowledge that the best way to contend with such filth is to let the sunlight disinfect it, rather than trying to bottle it up and hoping that bottle never breaks.
America is exceptional in its embrace of the cultural value of free speech. However bad we are about it sometimes, the rest of the world (including Western Europe) is much worse. This makes me proud to be an American citizen.
Getting a little tired of these 'exposure will cure-all' type of comments. The only thing accomplished by not quashing sites like Daily Stormer is desensitizing us to them which only leads to legitimizing.
Getting a little tired of "not all speech should be free" comments. You're trading one brand of facism for another. Don't try to wrap your brand in the appearance of progress.
To discuss does not legitimize. If you are fearful of an idea being debated, that says more about you than the idea.
You're confusing inciting violence with free speech.
I prefer absolute freedoms that prevent interpretation from being used to suppress those freedoms. There are costs to living in a free society. I support those rights in their entirety, and I'm not sorry for doing so.
So wait, when someone says "kill all Jews" that's an idea to be discussed, but when someone says "let's censor people who call for that" that's somehow worse, and not simply also speech you can also discuss?
I don't think he is saying you can't ARGUE for that?
Then why are they "tired" of such comments?
Has anyone here ever actually been near a group of, say, more than two actual nazi skinheads? Would you discuss their ideas in their basement?
I'm not for censorship either, but I know what would be needed to confront such people -- namely, going past their "ideas" and to the root, their fucked up, impotent personality -- isn't even allowed on HN. If you get personal here, you're gone. So that's laughable from the get go in a way.
Yet if you discuss "ideas" with a Nazi, you're just in endless quick sand. I tried discussing with Nazis, and I'm still up for it (I even tried discussing with pedophiles, but I totally noped out of there because it also achieved nothing and it was even more depressing than the Nazis). But I know the murderous cold that lingers there, and how no Nazi stands on their own. If you win the argument, you get a cold smile saying "just you wait", and that's it. Then you're back to square one. But if you didn't even try that you simply don't know what you're even talking about.
edit: take the guy who murdered one person and wounded 19 severely by driving with their car into protesters. His father died early and his mother didn't know what he was up to. I'll just say, this family could used help 10-15 years ago. I don't know how or by whom, but in a magical fantasy world, that would have been the correct solution -- now you can do nothing, just look at the spilled blood. If you want to prevent more of that, look at the people who are growing up with pain today... but by the time their fist is clenched beyond a point, it will take something special or very big to change them, and otherwise they will just hate or even kill, just dwindle mentally or even suicide. Hitler wasn't random, he's the prototype. Stalin wasn't random, he's the prototype. Mental issues are the problem, fucked up childhoods are the problem, not "ideas". Don't assume everybody is that far gone, but also don't delude yourself thinking this is about ideas. And frankly, too many people here aren't even on to themselves enough to meaningfully look at anyone else's personality, and should deal with their own obedience and hiding behind abstractions first.
It's not that it's better or worse. Saying that you should kill all Jews is, morally, a horrible statement to make. However, saying it is different from acting on it. While it's a statement that most would (and should) find problems with, that is not enough to silence that person. My belief is that this discussion is not simply "one or the other," i.e. there's no point to weighing two views against one another. The moral outrage against a person calling for a genocide is not enough to justify silencing that person's speech, because the two levels of social misdeeds do not overlap.
It's not about moral outrage, heh. I guess the US is really a child when it comes to this, once the continent was laid to waste we probably can see eye to eye on this much better. Until then, did you deal with real Nazis before? I did. That guy who wrote a response and then deleted it, probably because they weren't anonymous, did. Anyone else? Anyone coming at this from the street instead of an ivory tower? Ever got chased by a group of Nazis? Stuff like "kill all Jews" is just a mating dance for them, the real talk, and the real weapon collection, happens behind closed doors. So, did anyone at least actually deal with even the TIP of that iceberg, before they're trying to tell me how I can defend myself?
There's a very clear social contract of tolerance though: Tolerate all speech by those who do not violate the social contract of tolerance by using their speech for intolerance. Tolerance is not an absolute. It's a peace treaty.
Then you can pretty easily ask: civil rights protests? Using speech--and violence!--but not violating that contract. They tolerate all who extend that contract to them. LGBT activists? Using speech--and violence!--but not violating that contract. They tolerate all who extend that contract to them.
The daily st-literalnazipropaganda-ormer? violating that contract. Suppress it. Destroy it. No platform should allow it. Nazis in Charlottesville shouting "Jews will not replace us"? violating that contract. Suppress them. Make them fear. They do not tolerate all who extend them that contract.
A social contract is codified neither in the US constitution, nor US law. Legal constructs preempt social moores.
But we're talking about social mores and private actions here in this thread...
Social mores are social norms so widely/fervently held that they predicate the law itself, such as prohibiting incest. The term was invented to refer to these types of commonly held beliefs by a sociologist.
Your argument seems to boil down to "ban all ideas the left does not agree with" to me. Tolerance in your definition confuses me. It seems like you try to make it appear like it means tolerating other's speech (with the "Tolerate all speech..."), but your own comment is very clear about not tolerating the speech of all those groups of people (even if they would extend the right of tolerance to your speech -- obviously, literal Nazis might not, but someone like James Damore certainly would). With a close reading of your comment, it seems like you leave the definition of "tolerance" unopened. Does it mean the tolerance of lifestyles? Of speech? Of religion? What happens if someone's religion mandates intolerance?
I think that, while tolerance works well as a vague social value, trying to define it and draw a border around what it is or isn't will only result in destroying the rights of one's opposition. The word can be used in a variety of way in a variety of contexts; I would propose that any use of violence against someone for holding another idea is a form of intolerance, and from your comment it clearly seems that you disagree. The only "clear social contract of tolerance" is one that is tainted by everyone's political views. Where you would advocate for the removal of those who stand against LGBT rights, a religious Christian/Muslim/Jew would advocate for the removal of you for denying their right to speak their minds.
"Tolerate all speech..."
...the next word is "that", a qualifier. And that qualifier answers literally all your questions?
There is no successful formulation of absolute free speech, because then you must allow intolerance, which takes over. This isn't a new question. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance https://extranewsfeed.com/tolerance-is-not-a-moral-precept-1...
Let's apply my test: What happens if someone's religion mandates intolerance? Then they are violating the social contract of tolerance--we should not allow that to be done.
They can speak their minds about anything they'd like, so long as they don't advocate for the suppression of the rights of others. That is the thing that is not allowed. Their right includes that qualifier; it is not an absolute right to speak. This qualifier is the safety net that stops a tolerant society from being eaten by intolerance.
(I am not saying that free speech as outlined in the US constitution, for instance, meets this formulation from a legal standpoint; I am saying that social mores do and should, and certainly private speech and private platforms should be formulated in this way.)
You can say that now because you're on the other side of the history.
But put yourself in the dorm room of someone organizing one of the first lunch counter sit-ins. That organizer is using their speech to convince a group of people not to tolerate the segregation that made it illegal for them to sit non-violently in a public place.
Now imagine a potential activist who agrees with your first paragraph hears the speech of this organizer. Do you really think it's clear that potential activist will end up participating in the sit-in?
edit: clarification
"Do not tolerate the segregation that has made it illegal to sit non-violently in a public place."
Let's see... whose speech is this organizer advocating intolerance against? It appears to be the business owners who say "some people cannot be here, because they are black."
So, the business owners are violating the social contract I outlined: their actions are intolerant. The organizer is, therefore, not breaking the contract.
Someone who followed the principle I argue for would land on the side of the protestors in this case.
This is such a tricky issue. I do think so many of these sites do nothing but promote hate and violence. However, let's imagine we decide to go with the rule 'You are allowed to shut down a website that incites violence'
Someone has to determine what constitutes 'inciting violence'. There will be some websites that are targetted for shut down while some won't be; there is no way to get around this. What gets targetted will be the ones that go against the group who has the ability to choose the targets (a government agency or perhaps a private ISP).
Second, what stops a false flag from getting a site shutdown? If a site allows comments, a person hostile to the site could post a violent comment, and then you would have justification for shutting the site down.
Third, you will get false accusations. Take, for example, the civil rights movement in the sixties. You don't think state governments in the south wouldn't have accused the various protest groups as inciting violence? It doesn't matter that they were peaceful protests, they would have certainly argued that organizing sit ins and protest marches was a form of violence. While we might say, "Well clearly those were peacful and would be allowed to have their protest", that doesn't mean a court run by that same government wouldn't see differently. You don't think a southern court in the 60s would have sided with the government when they accused the civil rights groups of being violent?
Once you give the government an out to get around free speech requirements, they will take it whenever they can.
The current "out" is to let private companies run the entire infrastructure of speech itself. That's worrying.
What do you think the word "fascism" means? It doesn't mean "banning some behaviors".
Calling humans "monkeys" is not debate.
Why should Cloudflare be morally obligated to offer free speech to Daily Stormer, when Daily Stormer doesn't offer free speech to non-racist non-murderers?
Fascism isn't the only ideology that promotes suppression of speech, but it's probably the first one that comes to most people's head. I don't think it's that hyperbolic to declare censorship as fascist.
Freedom of speech is a core democratic principle. You can't have a democracy without freedom of speech. It doesn't really matter if the censorship is done by a few big corporations or the government. The effect is the same. If some ideas become wrongthink and can't be distributed or discussed, democracy dies.
Sure, it starts with the most extreme, least defensible things. Like stormfront. But it won't stop there. Before you know it any speech even mildly critical of immigration is silenced and you get the situation going on in Europe.
What happens when the next red scare happens? Politics is like a pendulum - it goes back and forth. Just a generation ago Communism was the persecuted ideology. People on the far left were blacklisted, silenced, and discriminated against. Was that ok with you? You want it to be 10x worse next time, by establishing a culture with no tolerance of differing opinions? Because that is where we are heading.
Defending freedom means defending undesirables first. Because undesirables are always the people who benefit most from freedom. Copyright violaters are the first people to adopt torrents. Pedophiles are the first people to adopt tor. Hackers and drug dealers are the biggest adopters of bitcoin. Undesirable extremists are going to be the group to benefit the most from free expression.
"Before you know it any speech even mildly critical of immigration is silenced and you get the situation going on in Europe."
This seems... odd. I don't think right now there's any (western) European country where this occurs. Sure: it has occurred and has contributed to a backlash against 'political correctness'. But this doesn't sound like a description of the Europe I live in. Just the stereotypical Europe shown on some american TV, where muslims run a lot of cities and all ghettos are offlimits to non-muslims.
An an European, I'm kind of offended you're stretching the definition of fascism to also include "anything that suppresses free speech". Can you please not water down the definition of a term linked to the killing of millions?
As an American, I look down on the limits of speech in Europe with disdain.
Free speech isn't responsible for genocide; the electorate is.
OK, fine.
Then how, as an American, do you justify Ag_gag laws?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ag-gag
It seems to me that free speech values in the US are not quite as absolute as you make them out to be. Especially when the interest of powerful people or big corporations come to play.
Ag-gag laws are abhorrent. Most Americans agree. They're a relatively recent problem (Most have been passed or on the ballot since 2012, so last five years) caused by corrupt politicians that Americans are working to solve.
Pointing at them is classic whataboutism. We have problems in the US. We mostly confront them headon rather than pretending they don't exist. Suppression of speech is pretending they don't exist.
Another example: Americans are constantly blasted by Europeans for racism. Racism is a very real problem in America - That's why groups like Black Lives Matter exist. We deal with these problems with speech, like the aforementioned group. As such, some fairly basic indicators, like the public opinion on miscegenation have been trending in a good direction - Less than 20% of America disapproves of it[1]. The data is not quite quantified in the same way, but there's an argument that in Germany, that number is more than 40%[2]. Across the EU, 35% of people would be upset if their child were dating a black person. The numbers are not directly comparable - The US numbers are about interracial marriage as a whole, not personalizing it about "your child", and I've seen firsthand that there's a difference. But those aren't numbers that swing that far. It might be equally bad, it might be a little worse in the US. It's not the sea change that it's so often presented as - Racism is a global problem, not a US one.
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interracial_marriage_in_the_Un... [2]http://www.equineteurope.org/IMG/pdf/ebs_437_en.pdf
Thanks for your thoughtful reply. Just one comment:
I don't think that my comment was whataboutism. Not when I reply to the following quote:
"As an American, I look down on the limits of speech in Europe with disdain"
Which implicitly puts an absolute to free speech in America. Which it's most definitely not.
cops in EU are not targeting black people, that's why we don't need groups like "black lives matter".
I come from Italy, parents in Italy are upset even if you ask them what they think about their children marrying someone from the village 2 Kms away from theirs
But then they won't shoot anybody who does it
It's not really racism.
it's old people being old
I don't, and they have been repeatedly struck down by our courts. Checks and balances between overzealous legislators and our judicial branch.
As a European, I look down on Americans having decided that free speech includes giving people money or mistreating employees as a corporation because of the corporation's religious views.
Excuse me while I enjoy the benefits of our fascist socialism.
So you shouldn't be able to support political causes?
And most Americans are opposed to shit like the Hobby Lobby crap, just like most Europeans are opposed to what Russia does.
Also, cut out the whataboutism. It's dishonest.
No, you shouldn't if they are based on hate
Countries that allow this kind of "political support" are idiotic.
The main difference between Europe and USA is that we Europeans have learned from our past mistakes
Think and feel all you want on our "limits to free speech" (which vary widely per country). But please don't water down the definition of fascism for your own rhetorical ends. Fascism does not equate to "any infringment of freedom" and it should not be. Moving the goalposts on that one leaves us less able to deal with real nazis.
You're obviously pro-free speech. But surely, if speech is so important, it is also important to make sure it can be effective. If one waters down definitions like that, the ability to speak effectively against dangers diminishes.
I'm an european, way too young to have seen WWII. But I deal with its broad consequences, that still permeate society and psyche in subtle ways, daily. To see the evil of fascism repurposed to mean something else, just makes me sad. Don't screw up our heritage please.
A private corporation deciding not to host /actually fascist/ content because they're getting bad press for it has nothing to do with free speech. And criticizing another corporation for hosting, again, /actually fascist/ content is perfectly within the scope of the 1st amendment.
Relevant xkcd: https://xkcd.com/1357
Can you please point me to the comment where someone claimed it violated the first amendment? I can't find it.
Yes, yes it does have a lot to do with free speech. It strikes to the heart of the issue.
Free speech isn't just a paragraph in the American Constitution that appeared there out of nowhere. It's a larger cultural norm that allows you to share your ideas and, much more importantly, allows you to hear other people's ideas without censorship. Whether censorship comes from the government, university, or some megacorp is completely irrelevant to whether it is an infringement on free speech.
Right.
Wrong, unless you mean a university or corporation literally physically censoring you from communicating something. See sib response by dragonwriter. If a university disinvites a speaker or a corporation stops hosting someone customer's website, nobody's right to free speech was infringed upon. Sure, you may accuse them of acting against the spirit of the value of free speech, but that's their prerogative and they are in fact simultaneously exercising their own right to free speech by choosing not to host/amplify another's speech they find repugnant.
Most censorship in China is done by the private sector. It doesn't come direct from the government. Instead, the government makes it clear that various types of speech are deemed unacceptable, but remains vague about exactly what. For example the PRC likes to crack down on "rumours".
The consequence is that the private sector is a huge and critical part of how China censors information. Actual direct government censorship is relatively limited: it's all based on distributing vague principles to the private sector combined, with punishments for failure to comply. The result is people interpreting the principles in the most aggressive way possible.
In the west, governments have egged on progressive agendas and passed laws that punish various kinds of speech (e.g. "hate speech"). But most of the censorship is done by the private sector, who are trying to interpret vague principles in ways that'll avoid them being targeted for punishment. The fact that in the west the media and various ideological groupings have as much to do with it as a government agenda doesn't change the fact that most of the ensuring censorship is still run and managed by the private sector.
Ok, but were an American to find themselves legally censored by another American individual or corporation, they could take their business elsewhere/start their own newspaper or webhost/become a soapbox preacher, whatever. None of those are options in the Chinese case.
Free speech is precisely the norm of private parties being permitted to choose what speech they will make, or allow to be amplified, with their resources.
Private censorship of what is transmitted by the censors' own resources is not only not an infringement of free speech, it is central to the essence of the concept of free speech.
Likewise, criticism of others' speech and advocacy against others amplifying or supporting it is also a central part of the idea of free speech.
I'm German. We've seen "absolute freedom of speech" lead to Hitler's rise to power. We have not seen restrictions on freedom of speech lead to anything similar. I'm okay with us erring on the side of "fascism" this time around if we know the other path to have led us to actual fascism before.
Hitler's rise to power was not a consequence of free speech or democracy, as I've seen argued elsewhere.
It was the result of a weak, young democracy that couldn't/wouldn't stop political parties raising private armies and beating the crap out of their opponents, combined with deep seated cultural problems (resentment at the outcome of WW1, latent anti-semitism etc).
If you really believe suppression of free speech stops dictators committing horrible crimes, explain Stalin.
The communist rise to power was an actual civil war. Hitler rose to power by democratic election (assisted by violent thugs and demagoguery and ultimately corruption but still an election).
By that standard the USSR had lots of democratic elections.
Some of the unwritten standards by which we judge an election democratic or not are things like "do people get beaten up for campaigning". When we see violence and then a leader who wins 97% of the vote in places like Africa, we don't hesitate to call it a sham democracy. Why would we do differently for Germany?
Hitler wasn't elected with 97%. The NSDAP's election results looked like this:
Sure, the NSDAP won 90% of the vote after all other parties were dissolved in June 1933 but all elections before that were "democratic". The NSDAP didn't even get into power with a direct majority. They formed a coalition government with another party, the KSWR/DNVP (who got 8% of the vote).
Also note that by that point the government had been destabilized since the 1920s, ruling only with an absolute minority of the votes.
In 1930 the left-wing parties (KPD and SPD) actually campaigned against ever having another war with very successful demonstrations.
The NSDAP campaign in 1930 was the first campaign organised by Goebbels. It was based on conspiracy theories like the economical crisis being an international conspiracy against Germany, appeals to national identity, scaremongering against communism and capitalism. They actually toned down the anti-semitism on Goebbels' orders.
This was a "small government" democracy in action. An unstable one, yes, but the elections were democratic. The Nazis exploited the instability of the government and the economy and they used scaremongering and demagoguery to get the relative majority, but they won democratic elections and they had a significant share of the votes before being in a position to force the outcome.
The Daily Stormer is not a 'debate' site. The owner/operator explicitly calls for war. I get you like the universal free speech idea but there isn't a valid form of Nazism that's A-OK once you get over the genocidal bits.
That's a very slippery slope there.
I would not consider an idea more legitimate just because it has a website, nor would I consider it less legitimate just because some censorious asshole in a web host's abuse department decided to kick it out.
Said more eloquently than I could ever hope to...
"If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the process of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence."
- Justice Louis Brandeis, Whitney vs California
You can have hundreds of years, if all you have is a piece of paper and 100m³ block of concrete, you still do not have enough time.
Perhaps this is because not enough people are stepping up?
When was the last time you challenged a proclamation from some Fox News ditto head? When was the last time you looked at someone in your family spouting racist garbage and called them out on it?
"Exposure cures all" only works if someone is also willing to take on the challenge of creating the exposure.
Your slippery slope is one other countries have already fallen off of.
It's interesting to see how differently similar comments were voted on the post about Google rejecting a neo-nazi domain compared to this post about DreamHost defending anti-Trump protesters, yet the same holds true.
I will only use companies that always defend their customers for my own small business and personal sites.
There is some signalizing going on here, but I can't say I can sympathize with a Daily Stormer social media post assassinating the character of a woman who was murdered over the weekend. That kind of media coverage does affect vendors for Daily Stormer, which I assume is the only reason GoDaddy or Google cared to drop the hosting contract. I'd guess that CloudFlare will continue to push the content-indifference (so long as it is legal) -- that seems to be their corporate policy.
Can you provide examples of how the US is better in this regard?
As a counterexample, in Europe, no company can fire an employee for "perpetuating gender stereotypes", or any other opinion, while in the US it seems quite easy to fire people for any reason.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-38934027
German court upholds its ban on comedian's Erdogan poem
Not the exact same business situation, but is that an example? Guy can't make a living off of his comedy because he's mocking a dictator.
The guy gets a wage from state TV, and created the poem in the first place as an example of what is banned. The poem literally uses the most ridiculous insults he could find just to ensure it would be banned.
The whole purpose of the poem was to get banned.
Does that change anything?
Mr Boehmermann's lawyer said the ruling went against "artistic freedom".
"We believe that the court's decision in its concrete form is wrong, given that it deems those parts dealing with Erdogan's approach to freedom of expression to be acceptable," said Christian Schertz.
per one of the links in that article
Yes, they wanted to get the poem banned, so the law would be appealed (which it then was).
The said poem could easily qualify as protest art because it actually proved Germany is not really that much better than Turkey in terms of freedom of speech or freedom of artistic expression if you wish.
That kind of rhetoric trivializes how repressive the Erdoğan regime really is. With all its faults, Germany hasn't locked up thousands of innocent people on shady claims of conspiracy or terrorism, or shut down independent TV stations or newspapers. Germany also hasn't abolished its strict division of power and given the president or chancellor absolute power.
I don't like Germany, I don't like Germans, but I'm sure that I would live in Germany rather than in Turkey right now.
And so would you
Stop pretending we believe your rethorical bullshit
Have you read said poem?
Yes, it's about on the level of South Park as far as material goes.
And South Park is a national treasure. Why does Germany prevent it's national treasures from being viewed?
Germany has some very strict speech laws because of the whole Hitler thing over half a century ago. It’s illegal to do the Nazi salute, use the Nazi version of the swastika, etc.
And that's wrong. It's not helping - Far Right protests are almost as much of a problem in Germany as in the US, despite the fact that the police can and will lock you up for those views. If anything it has incited more people to view those things with respect - Mostly rebellious youths, but many of them never leave once they've adopted the lifestyle. Suppressing speech never has the intended effect of making it go away. It only makes it nastier and more virulent, by giving it an enemy to fight and it's followers the badge of oppression.
Citation needed.
I've actually met ex-nazis in Germany and I don't believe the causality you're proposing holds up.
Yes, neo-nazis think the "jews" are running the country and keeping them down, but this is no different from how the antifa think the "fascists" are doing the same.
The recent rise of nationalism in Germany actually has more to do with both major parties having become indistinguishable in many cases and "moderates" flocking to the extremes to "punish" the government.
It's a lot like trolls on 4chan spreading racist memes "for the lulz" until they end up having become actual white supremacists participating in Nazi rallies instead of merely shitposting on the Internet.
Right-leaning "moderates" vote for the right-wing extremists (NPD if you're really angry or AfD if you are more of a realist) out of spite and then fall for the rhetoric as they continue exposing themselves to their messages.
The only effective treatment against this disease seems to be constant exposure to other people with other ideas coming from other walks of life.
Yes, there's an East/West divide in neo-Nazi density in Germany, but it's also very much a rural/metropolitan divide. If all the people around you look, talk and think like you, everything different becomes a threat to your way of life.
The poem was part of a satirical performance. The performance was deemed protected speech, although the content of the poem by itself would have been a violation of a libel law (§ 103) explicitly protecting foreign heads of state that is being abolished as a consequence of this precedent.
He's also still very much able to "make a living off of his comedy". His "Schmähkritik" (the title of the piece as well as the crime reciting the poem would constitute) was just a single one-off performance on a publicly funded TV show.
You are correct. I think the EU in general has better protections
I certainly concede that Google's firing of James Damore is a rejection of the cultural value I was talking about. I didn't mean that every institution in the US accepts it, just that it seems to be more accepted than it is in other countries.
I don't have much insight into European companies and how strongly they protect speech as a matter of policy, but rulings by the EU have been extremely discouraging. Here are some examples:
1. The EU's "right to be forgotten" can compel the removal of content that is both true and relevant. [1] In the US, my right to publish true facts about you trumps your right to have them swept under the rug.
2. The EU can compel publishers to remove content they deem "hate speech." [2] If you look up the EU's definition of hate speech, it actually sweeps broadly into what the US would call protected speech. For example, Germany's "incitement of popular hatred" [3] can be used to prevent newspapers from advancing the argument that migrants are disproportionately likely to commit crimes. Since there is no truth defense against hate speech accusations (unlike libel in the US), a newspaper that is dragged into court on hate speech charges couldn't defend itself by proving that what it wrote was true.
[1] http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/court-imposes-r...
[2] https://www.theverge.com/2017/3/14/14920812/germany-facebook...
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech#Germany
Those are indeed shameful examples and definitely discouraging.
Nonetheless, alone they are not enough to prove the point. I could go and find other cases for the US too.
If we look, though, at the Freedom of the Press report of Freedom without Borders, the US comes after all Western Europe countries (except Italy): https://rsf.org/en/ranking
It's hard to respond to that ranking site since I can't find what factors went into the rankings. If you could be more specific on why the US should rank below Western Europe in freedom of speech/press, I could look into the specific incidents of censorship you're referring to.
I can tell you that, in the US, it's extremely difficult to prevent a newspaper from publishing things the government doesn't want published (see New York Times v. United States), or for a private party to successfully sue them (see New York Times v. Sullivan). It has happened, but it's very rare and there is nothing analogous to Europe's sweeping "hate speech" laws that force newspapers to self-censor anything critical of migrants.
On this page there are their criteria: https://rsf.org/en/detailed-methodology
The thing is, what you say about this kind of law is probably true. But freedom of speech goes further than that and, as you mentioned in your original comment, it's not just a matter of laws.
You just proved that EU is a better place to live.
The EU as an entity does not prohibit any speech. The EU, at most, publishes directives, which are implemented as laws and implementation is up to the specific countries.
Some coutries deem, for example, Holocaust denial a criminal offense. You can argue if this is good or bad. But let me assure you that Europe is not that hellhole where you not dare say anything.
England, with its insane libel laws may be an exception, but soon it's anyway no more part of the EU.
I would have to disagree about (1). The right to be forgotten is quite important in preventing criminals from being punished twice (first by the law and then by random vigilantes). This fosters reintegration into society, which is considered an important part of our punitive system, perhaps even its primary goal.
In my opinion, this is also far beyond the "good" free speech (as in, free statement of opinion and political dissent) and into the realm of trying purposefully to do damage, by using speech in bad faith, which I think should not be free at all. Then again, e.g. cursing at police officers seems to be legal in the US as well, so I guess this is a cultural difference :)
Bull. Shit.
Tabloids still run ridiculously xenophobic and bigoted headlines in Germany even if we're not quite at the level as e.g. UK tabloids.
Saying "there's a correlation between the refugee crisis and a rise in crimes" is protected speech in Germany. Saying "those donkey fuckers crossing our borders must be shot on sight and their children too" is hate speech.
We're talking about the kind of statements that get showcased on sites like this: https://perlen-aus-freital.tumblr.com
In the US it's acceptable for politicians calling for undesirables like Snowden or Assange to be murdered. In Germany this kind of rhetoric would land you in jail for inciting violence and instigating criminal behavior.
Also in Germany it's forbidden to bring weapons (including "defensive weapons" like shields or gasmasks) to demonstrations. In the US you have neo-nazis and antifa running into each other with riot gear and bashing each others' heads in with lengths of wood. Not to mention paramilitaries parading in camouflage with military-looking gear and firearms.
Incidentally, German riot police doesn't use military equipment and actual violent protests are usually confined to anarchists using improvised weapons to cause property damage.
Again, bullshit. If you use Nazi symbology, loudly shout "gas the jews" and do the salute, you know what you're doing. Stop pretending we're talking about scientific discourse here.
This isn't about some economist or sociologist publishing troubling research findings or level-headed reporting on anything of the sort. This is about bigots venting their hatred and tabloids abusing scare tactics to sell more copies.
If you say that's all that gets called "hate speech" you're being deliberately dishonest.
I don't have to pretend.
Which part of that offensive statement is 'hate speech':
a) Donkey Fucker
b) must be shot on sight
c) [their children] must be shot on sight
In US, a) cannot be restricted by the govt. b) and c) can be, provided the govt prove that it was the same thing as asking your right hand to pull the trigger (as it's a clear and present danger).
Moreover, if someone does shoot kids and immigrants, and it was shown that this someone was motivated by your statements, then you can be sued under a civil lawsuit for millions by the family of the people who died.
In US too, inciting violence and instigating criminal behavior could land you in jail, except American definition of 'inciting violence and instigating criminal behavior' is a lot different than European definition.
A politician calling drone attacks on Snowden or Assange isn't 'inciting violence and instigating criminal behavior' in US.
A politician picking up the phone and asking his brother who is a drone operator to do a drone attack on Assange or Snowden, would be.
I was paraphrasing actual comments made in German that constitute hate speech.
"Donkey fucker" is a racial slur. Most of the racial slurs used in these comments don't translate well, e.g. "oil eye". It's in the same register of language as the n-word in English.
It may not come across that well in English but there's a direct call to action: "shoot them and their children", basically. It's not specifically directed at anyone. Charitably it could be read as "we should enact policies so soldiers do this" but less charitably it's directly calling for people to go out and shoot other people -- which is inciting violence.
I'm fairly certain going on national TV and offering a significant monetary reward to anyone who murders Snowden/Assange/Trump would be illegal even in the US. The only difference is that Germany doesn't require a tangible reward for that to be illegal.
But hey, what do I know, it's not like the US is at risk of bringing lynchings back or something.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynching_in_the_United_States#...
EDIT: Oh, and the obvious difference: aside from a strict loyalty to international Human Rights, the German constitution centers around the idea of the indelibility of human dignity. Dehumanizing people is always unconstitutional and promoting hatred around racial identity or ethnic background is almost always dehumanizing.
The fact that google fired him doesn't imply they had the right to do so. There are plenty of illegal firings in Europe as well. Then the employee sues the company and wins. If a judge decides that google firing was legal under those motivations, then you would be right (hasn't happened yet).
Also, in the US, often companies offer you money to not sue them when they fire you. Doesn't mean the firing is legal, simply it is easier for everyone involved that way.
Here the guy was likely fired for saying that he witnessed discriminating hiring practices, i.e. quotas, to improve diversity metrics. And firing a whistleblower is illegal in the US as well. Most likely they will reach an agreement (or they have already reached). The guy will get some money and everyone will move on. Much easier than getting involved with legal stuff for both, google and the engineer.
"no company can fire..." May be true but an employee can be fired for "no reason" or trumped up reasons. I can certainly be fired for my opinion...my contract (in legalise) says I must always represent the company positively.
What also matters is the practicalities and cost of redress and that varies across Europe. It's not the liberal paradise across the board as some suggest.
Its a phrase that different people use to express different culture values, but the one behind the Constitutional Amendment is, very clearly given the other evidence of the ideology of those wrote it, the freedom of private parties to speak and to use their own property to distribute their own speech and that of which they approve without constraint or compulsion by government.
It is not the idea that private parties, in general, are obligated, morally or otherwise, to amplify speech whether or not they agree with it, indeed, it is diametrically opposed to that idea.
It is true that there are some people who hold to the latter value and call it free speech, but that is entitlement rather than liberty.
It's fairly easy to make parent comment's idea fit what you're saying. You just need one more level of indirection (like always!).
In this case, cloudflare or whatever, is exercising their free speech by saying "We care so much about free speech, we'll amplify these jerk's speech".
I agree that expecting someone to do this for you is indeed a privilege, not a right.
So I'd say the difference between your comments is more semantic than anything. Parent commentor doesn't really imply everyone has a right to this kind of amplification.
If you are not sure what you're saying is bullshit, just ask Aaron Swartz.
Just because not everyone is granted the right in America does not make America worse than other countries. The OP is contending that the US, despite an imperfect record on free speech, is still better at it than anywhere else. Aaron Swartz is not at all a counterexample.
It's bullshit that western EU is worse than US.
Even if we consider my country, Italy, where we already had Berlusconi and the granddaughter of Mussolini is in the parliament.
USA don't learn from other countries mistakes.
And when they make their own mistakes (and we in Italy had suffered a lot because of them), they say "we are still better than you"
No, they're not.
See Meerko's comment on this [1]. The EU has a class of its own freedom of speech violations that America does not. The fact that the US has made mistakes and the EU has made mistakes isn't the deciding factor. The scope of the EU's violations seem broader to me, given differences in the definitions of hate speech [2]. Whereas the U.S. has violated the right of freedom of speech for individuals, its track record is better w.r.t. freedom of speech because the EU chooses to ban a wide portion of speech.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15013897 [2] https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-03-19/free-spee...
Meerko's comment is not relevant for twO reasons:
- it asserts USA is better than most western EU, it's false
- it asserts that freedom to hate is proof of more freedom, but if people are not protected against hate speech and hatred, nobody is really free
DisruptJ20 was exposed by Project Veritas for (allegedly) organizing illegal terrorist activities. Presumably, that would be the reason for this, rather than their organization of legal protests.
Have a source for any of those claims? Project Veritas lies a lot. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_O%27Keefe
From your own link: "On January 16, 2017, Project Veritas uploaded a video showing DC Antifascist Coalition members of Disrupt J20 plotting to use 'stink bombs' at the DeploraBall. After the video's release, Disrupt J20 denied the statements, saying that the members deliberately gave false information to Veritas.[107] The video led to the arrest of one man allegedly involved in the plan,[108] as well as two associates. All three individuals pleaded guilty.[109]"
[107] Bethania Palma (January 18, 2017). "Progressive Group Claims to 'Sting' Sting Video Maker James O'Keefe". Snopes. http://www.snopes.com/2017/01/18/dueling-stings
[108] Peter Hermann (January 25, 2017). "Meetings of activists planning to disrupt inauguration were infiltrated by conservative group". Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/meetings-...
[109] Hermann, Peter (March 7, 2017). "Protester pleads guilty to conspiring to disrupt DeploraBall for Trump supporters". The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/protester...
Stink bombs... o the terror /s
America’s and your holier than the pope attitude is hypocritical in this regards. I really must refrain my self to describe it as typical.
You won’t see the same reaction when the story is about anti western Islamic propaganda. And I’m not talking about killing videos but speech that glorifies attacks for example in the same way that in the past day you can still read on the daily stormer how they glorify that domestic terrorism attack...
For the record I’m against any content of that nature but wake me up when it’s not only nazis that needs defending their free speech.
Upvoting this, but except the last paragraph.
Anyone care to compare Dreamhost to Webfaction?
TL;DR: DreamHost was issued a warrant to produce any and all content+logs+metadata about a customer-hosted website that presumably may have been related to violent protests/riots in Washington DC circa Jan 20th (Trump inauguration day). They pushed back on the overly broad nature of the warrant, the DOJ pushed the courts to then "compel" DH to comply.
Would they have done the same for a right-wing website? Just as importantly, would HN be just as pro free speech if they had?
Free speech as a value and ideal must be content-neutral.
I think this is an important point. I found the Intercept's article[1] about the ACLU defending Charlottesville protesters' free speech right pretty interesting in that regard: Some people insult and blame the ACLU for defending free speech rights of even the most infamous people, but as the article points out, people fail to understand that if a precedent is set on them, it's diminishing everyone's rights.
The ACLU understands this, which is why they defend such people.
[1] https://theintercept.com/2017/08/13/the-misguided-attacks-on...
Most likely no.
Freedom comes at a cost: we value more the freedom to not be harmed than the freedom to harm.
Those trying to harm other people _must_ be less free to do so.
Freedom is not neutral
This is a false argument. Speech is not "harming someone".
This is a tactic that seems to be more common recently: trying to equate expression of ideas with violence, and then claiming that violence is acceptable to suppress this supposed "speech violence".
As somebody who has been battling a whole part of his life against PTSD I find it very troubling that people in 2017 still believe that bs that you can only harm people when you use fysical violence.
I agree. The job witch-hunt at conservatives in the IT industry is pretty harmful too.
My sympathies for your condition, but I regret to inform you that the rest of the world does not revolve around you and your symptoms. Speech is not violence harming you, however much you might want to claim it as such.
it is indeed!
"This article reflects the tremendous interest in the freedom of information in the postwar years. The Soviet Union proposed an amendment that would deny this right to Nazi and fascist groups. This forced the drafters to discuss the question of how tolerant an already just society should be of intolerant groups like Nazis. Taking together Articles 19 and 7, they solved the dilemma by giving everyone two rights: the right to free speech (subject to the limitation of Article 29) and the right to be protected against hate speech."
they're granted by The Universal Declaration of Human Rights
http://ccnmtl.columbia.edu/projects/mmt/udhr/article_19.html
"Any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence shall be prohibited by law."
https://www.article19.org/pages/en/hate-speech-more.html
Scary and outrageous.
No not really, this is about the DC riots on Inauguration Day which violated DC peace keeping laws, probably because it's the capitol of America, I'm thinking but read for yourself:
https://beta.code.dccouncil.us/dc/council/code/sections/22-1...
The rioters broke DC law. Nothing scary, nothing shocking, it's a click bait title and nothing more.
200 people were indicted on rioting charges. What use does the 1.3 million IP addresses have in those cases? How can the DoJ justify that disparity? So yes, it is a little scary.
Especially in light of various american fascist groups interpreting the sitting president's half hearted comments regarding the Charlottesville murder as intentional endorsement of their philosophies.
I think your dislike of the current president is clouding your ability to see facts for what they are. Since the incident he condemned the guilty on the TV, tweeted about it multiple times, his daughter spoke extensively on the subject, various people in the administration condemned it. Prime minister of Canada pretty much repeated Trump's condemnation verbatim and got praised for it. I am not sure what else you need at this point.
It took him 2 days! He first raised a false equivalency between neo-nazis and the counter protestors. And he still hasn't labeled it domestic terorrism.
He also didn't label the liberal protester who attacked people with a bike lock as terrorists.
Are you making a an equivalence between a bike lock and a 2 ton missile used by a neo-nazi. That's disgusting
I'm still waiting on Obama's similar statement regarding this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_shooting_of_Dallas_poli...
Perhaps Trump had issues "untangling motives" hence the delay: http://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/jul/9/obama-says-moti...
Regarding Obama, that's whataboutism.
On not knowing all the facts. That's never stopped Trump before when a brown person was the perpetrator
Either not directly calling out racist attacks as racist is a problem for a president or it isn't. Unless you can tell me how one is different than the other?
I am making the equivalence between attacking those who's opinions are different then yours. There have been more people injured by anitfa then the other way around at these rally's and protests.
An automobile isn't a missile. One is designed for war and destruction, the other is a mode of transportation that can be used as a weapon.
The weapon used isn't what makes something terrorism.
He's making an equivalence between violence in the vicinity of protestors and violence in the vicinity of protestors.
Is terrorism the next english word that americans ruin?
He didn't say much about the resistance gunman who attacked the gop senators or the shooter who shot a republican in the head a few days prior to Charlottesville.
Emotions are running too hot.
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15013635 and marked it off-topic.
It doesn't say which website exactly. If there's an FBI investigation (which seems possible, even likely, considering how extreme antifa and other "resistance" groups can be), it seems pretty par for the course to request information in order to help locate particular parties.
It looks like the website is http://www.disruptj20.org/
Source: https://www.dreamhost.com/blog/we-fight-for-the-users/
Be careful clicking on a website who's IP address logs are being demanded by the FBI. Especially if you're on work network
I think everyone who cares about freedom should click the link.
Why would you have to be careful? Reading is not a crime.
You might end up in a database of suspicious anti Trump opponents.
This is exactly why this warrant is unreasonable.
Which is exactly a manifestation of the point about "chilling effects" on speech pointed out by many other comments in these threads.
Your statement above expresses a fear to access the site (if even just to judge for yourself what the site contains) due to your IP address potentially being linked in some govt. database with agreeing with the site.
This is exactly why the right to free speech is set forth in the first amendment to the US constitution. To prevent just this sort of govt. suppression in the first place.
How many people have they killed recently? Are they marching through the streets ripping off Nazi salutes?
Your argument doesn't make any sense. Investigating one group doesn't preclude investigating the other.
I agree with an agenda to counter white supremacists. But saying that some antifa groups are extreme isn't really that controversial, is it? I don't know that they would even disagree.
https://thelongestway.com/2017/04/08/i-dont-like-the-antifa/
That's a very tactical criticism. It seems like something very important is being lost in these comparisons. The primary criticism of Nazis and white supremacists is not their tactics or their protests, it's that they are fucking Nazis and white supremacists.
It's not tactical criticism, it is a personal account of what anyone can see by searching youtube for "antifa": that they're thugs who use their supposed "anti-fascism" as a pretext for their thuggery.
If there aren't any nazis, a good old international summit will do.
I didn't expect to be impressed by that.
I'm impressed by that.
Not sure I agree, but it is well argued and written.
(And yes, I know Rehage from his extended perambulation....)
Updating: interesting, but inappropriate.
https://plus.google.com/104092656004159577193/posts/RCGDd2Gt...
And ... having considered it, I reject the approriateness to the present situation.
Notably: this failed in the case of Nazi Germany, rather profoundly.
https://plus.google.com/104092656004159577193/posts/RCGDd2Gt...
Upvote for the TRON reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kcgosLwPDE
you should delete 'for'
It would be interesting to hear from Google whether the government has issued a search warrant for the Google Analytics data generated by the site's visitors, which would include IP address.
Antifa and the nazis should all be thrown in prison.
We dont need political violence and any more escalation.
Dont believe me. How about the atlantic? https://www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/534192/ How about cnn ? https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2017/08/14/us/what-is-antifa-trnd/in...
Ah yes, nazis and the people fighting the nazis are the same.
https://mobile.twitter.com/dril/status/473265809079693312?la...
I consider myself antifa in part because my great grandfather was murdered by the Nazis, and I consider it to be part of my social and civil responsibility to oppose fascism.
Edit: ¡No pasaran!
Go for it but if you're burning down innocents in your mad dash to stop nazis.
Don't expect sympathy.
While many antifa are anarchists or anti-capitalists, the defining feature is opposing fascism. Don't succumb to a trivializing caricature of antifa as being primarily about wanton violence against property.
Antifa is not just anti-facism. If you go to any of their rallies or counter protests you'll find most are socio-anarchists or communists who don't see anything wrong with violence.
Ask yourself who is defending the counter protestors when the police are defending the white supremacists, kkk, and other assorted fascists.
Historically the police have a poor track record when it comes to choosing sides in the fight against fascism
If you think antifa has too many anarchists and communists, maybe it's time to mask up and help
This seems like a convenient time to remind folks that it is incredibly important to stand up against this kind of government action not only when it is conducted against your political allies, but especially when it is conducted against your political enemies. Even if this were a pro-Trump website being subpoenaed, this should sicken you nonetheless. Short-sighted political gain might be had by allowing the government to stomp all over political dissidents you don't agree with, but in a few short years you might find yourself on the receiving end of the same treatment you endorsed. My hope is that those in the alt-right will realize that supporting this kind of action may hurt themselves just as much as it hurts the anti-Trump folks.
Maybe the government action is warranted here ? A few searches bring up nothing good.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHZSfhd1X_8
And by the looks of it alt-right sites soon will barely have domains, they don't need to worry about the state requesting something like this.
That's a strawman. The real issue is that Trump's DOJ is abusing its powers in this case to do a dragnet collection of 1.3 million of its most fervent political opponents.
How is it a strawman exactly ? Is it ok to do anything you want just because you don't like trump ? It would be abuse if it was illegal surveilance, but this ? How exactly is this abuse ?
If you have probable cause getting a targeted warrant is not an issue. For or against Trump has exactly ZERO baring on that. If you want records for 1.3 million people you're in the realms of claiming there's a criminal conspiracy and a measurable fraction of adults in the USA are in on it.
Or you're doing dragnet on your political enemies.
It's wrong if someone working for Obama does it, it's wrong if Reagan does it, it's wrong if Hilary does it, it's wrong if _anyone_ does it. Including Trump. He's not special, he's the same whether you like him or not.
Ok, I understand. Thank you.
There are 530k national guards /rserved and 460k actual soldiers in America, combined making up 990k.
That's 310k more "threats". Need a bigger army XD
Half America crying out against Nazi's, but extracting information on certain categorized groups and being pro Nationalistic is how NAZIs (Hitler) rose to power in the first place. Some tough irony right there.
For or against Trump is an issue. He is the president. You cannot threaten the president and expect no action from the FBI and secret service.
Are you saying 1.3 million people directly threatened the president? Really? This is a dragnet plain and simple. Will they find a few threats? Probably. My guess is 1.299 million Americans will needlessly be harmed by this action.
How will they be harmed? What do you suggest FBI should do to protect American interests? Will Google and other hosts block this website just like they are doing with neo Nazi domains? If yes, then probably FBI can rest. Otherwise they have to take measures that ensure the safety of America's elected president.
Who threatened him? Nobody has been accused of threatening - the people who were arrested in the case at issue are charged with rioting.
And even if one of the rioters had also made threats, how is getting 1.3 million ip addresses of visitors to the site that organized the protest possibly salient to that investigation? It's not a forum, there isn't going to be any further incriminating evidence on it. If the threatener visited the site, the went to the protest and made the threat, what exactly does the government gain by proving that he visited it?
I dislike the far left as much as anyone else but not every member of a 'disrupt' groups is an antifa member plotting violence. Most are well meaning individuals who disagree with the president on a variety of issues and have a right to their political opinion and to protest.
I am against the IP subpoena because i think it is at least a violation of privacy and at most unconstitutional. It should be noted that I am also strongly against antifa and their tactics.
The video you linked to is by "Project Visuals" which is run by James O'Keefe.
O'Keefe is a conservative activist has a storied history of "severely editing" videos to mislead: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_O'Keefe
I like how you included the fact that he is a conservative activist since "severly editing" would have been enough, and that doesn't seem to be the case with DisruptJ20.
Motive. A conservative activist certainly has motive to make DisruptJ20 look bad. Add in his past history of "editing" and you have your answer.
What sort of mental gymnastics is this ? You can't invalidate investigative journalism just because of someone's political alignment and they didn't even make DisruptJ20 look bad they made it look like a bunch aggresive people who think it's they're job to bring the world back to balance.
I'm not even defending this whole dreamhost thing, it's wrong on many levels but your thinking will hurt you.
Since you think government action is warranted, and since it can be argued that HN seems to have an anti-trump bent, I'm assuming you'll be fine if the government wants to know about every single interaction you've had here so that you can be identified ?
...any government? ... Including the inevitable non-trump one?
What is the government action here? They are collecting info about people who are threatening the president. These people belong to groups that have perpetrated violence against those who don't share their viewpoint. There is no censorship occurring. There is no persecution.
The request was basically a dragnet, and they're collecting far more information than you say they are.
So every person who has ever connected to this website threatened the president?
Because the justice department is demanding the IP address of everybody who ever connected to that website
It's the epitome of silencing exactly that speech, which is protected by the first amendment.
This seems like a convenient time to remind folks that it is incredibly important to stand up against this kind of government action not only when it is conducted against your political allies, but especially when it is conducted against your political enemies. Even if this were a pro-Trump website being subpoenaed, this should sicken you nonetheless. Short-sighted political gain might be had by allowing the government to stomp all over political dissidents you don't agree with, but in a few short years you might find yourself on the receiving end of the same treatment you endorsed. My hope is that those in the alt-right will realize that supporting this kind of action may hurt themselves just as much as it hurts the anti-Trump folks.
For my part, I value the right of black/gay/jewish/whoever people to exist and live their lives without threats of violence more than I value freedom of speech.
Right to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness, in that order.
Groups calling for their extermination, I'm not going to stand up for any of them, because they're actively working against the first of those three values.
What good is freedom of speech or assembly when you're being run over by a white supremacist in a Charger?
If that's a slippery slope--that ordering of values that prizes life over website hosting--then it's one I'm still content to stand on, because the alternative isn't taking us anywhere good right now.
Let me remind you that who brought up the concept of "acceptable punching targets" to modern politics was antifa, and that staging a counter-protest in the exact same venue and time as a rally / protest is OBVIOUSLY going to cause trouble.
White supremacists are disgusting.
Other race supremacists are disgusting.
Anarchists are disgusting.
Communists are disgusting.
People calling for dead cops are disgusting.
People looting and committing arson during protests are disgusting.
There's a lot of disgusting people out there, and I'm beyond tired of people trying to escalate things even further. If all this political tension in the US escalates to full-blown civil war, it will be to no credit of a single group, but the many who keep getting excused by mainstream politicians, political commentators and journalists.
The fun fact is that most of this could probably have been widely defused by allowing people to speak up in public, and then providing better counter-speech, but I guess that was hurting way too many feelings.
Just a reminder that a good system design doesn't store user data. If you don't have it it can't be used against your users.
Indeed. It will also save your company time and money (in more ways than one).
I work for an ISP and I intentionally do not log user <-> IP address mappings. The time I've had to spend producing similar information in response to such requests is very minimal (basically, "sorry, we don't have that!").
I am sure that every single person who always stands on absolutist free-speech principles against the chilling effect of, say, calling for someone to be fired when it turns out they believe women are biologically inferior, will of course turn up to immediately oppose this on principle, and not adopt some sort of "let's wait and see, there may be nuances to this" approach.
It's great to see DreamHost stand up for their users in this instance but they're not always like that.
I had a bogus DMCA takedown filed against a WP blog I have on a DH shared hosting account. DH went into my DB and took the post offline before they even notified me.
Had they bothered to notify me first or spend 5 min reading the blog they would have found it to be clearly fair use.
When you give up your rights to authorities, you are done. Nono this regime is better! They just want to keep us safe! Go read a book and preferably of history. If you consider total control keeping you safe, then go on and do it. People seem to forget the government is supposed to work for you in a democracy. Not the other way around
Asking states voters data, and now that.. It could be more data collection for voter suppression..
I'm glad that Dreamhost is opposing the order. I'm glad to give them my business. To me, it would be no more different if it was an alt-right site.
We already know about neo-nazi racists and gov already investigates them. However, Antifa and these Marxist Resistance groups are radicalized and dangerous groups that regularly entertain violence against Trump and his supporters. They deserve to be investigated as it effects the stability of our country.
You're operating under a pretty severe cognitive bias there.
Anti-fa violence is investigated, but the levels of actual recorded violence, and threats of violence, from anti-fa groups is minuscule when compared to that from white supremacists.
They're simply not comparable.
White supremacists have already murdered people in the US, sometimes in mass killings.
And is there an example of the government asking for information on right-wing website users? I don't remember one.
Just a reminder: antifa has devastated Hamburg during the G20 summit, for the simple reason that they were against it. I have yet to hear of any similar action perpetrated by another group.