I gotta say, recent events have left me shaken to my core. I thought I believed in free speech, to the point where I started a company dedicated to providing privacy and communications products that were not subject to control by any central authority (that turns out to be very hard!) But watching the events of the past few years unfold I am no longer convinced that this would really make the world a better place. I always thought that in the end cooler heads would prevail. But we've now done the experiment in a big way and the results seem overwhelmingly negative to me, to the point where they present a credible existential threat to civilization, on a par with climate change.
Maybe someone here can talk me down from this new position. But the evidence seems pretty overwhelming to me right now.
Free expression is chaotic. It always has been and it always will be. It will always have lies and misinformation, some people will even believe the lies. But this is also the beauty of free expression - it prevents anyone from using it to enact total control. Speech that is free will always seed doubt against ideas, regardless whether those ideas are true or false. It's an avenue that allows anything to be questioned.
Propaganda and misinformation have been around for a long time. Mark Antony and Octavius engaged in a war of misinformation.[0] People in those times had far fewer avenues of information. If somebody sold them a false story, then people were probably more likely to believe them. We're still here though.
I think what's been happening over the recent years is that people have finally started waking up from the End of History. The world is as chaotic as always.
> But this is also the beauty of free expression - it prevents anyone from using it to enact total control.
This is the really tricky part, though... absolute free expression only prevents people from enacting total control if it persists; however, free speech is not something that can’t be undone.
This is a form of the paradox of tolerance. If people use their absolute free speech to push lies and propaganda that allows them to gain enough control to then suppress future free speech and maintain their own power, we are no longer protected by free speech.
Even if you believe truth always eventually wins out if free speech is allowed, that doesn’t mean that we won’t hit a point along that path where free speech is restricted, and our meandering path towards truth suddenly stops.
Now, I don’t think restricting free speech is the answer, but we can’t pretend that it is impossible for people to use their power of free speech to prevent free speech in the future.
It’s almost as if education is a proxy for being a social conformist. But people still think school cures groupthink. It does the opposite by definition.
We’ve got one of the most educated populations in the world. Europe is only recently catching up to is in e.g. the percentage of people with college degrees.
College degrees are not a relevant metric. What percentage of the population are being taught fundamental critical thinking skills? How many are taught how to evaluate the quality of data and the quality of sources? How many people have a good grounding of statistics? Or civics? Or logical fallacies? How many people can describe the scientific method?
I don't have many vivid memories of my primary school education but one of them was being taught how to be suspicious of claims made in advertisements. That one class stuck with me for a long time. (This was in Melbourne, Australia sometime around 1988.)
Very few people are being taught this anywhere. Even M.D.s (some of the most intelligent and educated among us) have so little statistical knowledge they can barely reason about novel type 1 versus type 2 errors.
I wouldn't put MDs on such a high pedestal. They're people who specialize, just like people in many other professions, and having little knowledge of statistics beyond an (oft-forgotten) undergraduate-level course wouldn't surprise me. It's a different story for doctors who go the research route rather than practicing medicine, of course.
My classmates who went on to become medical doctors were no smarter and possibly less ethical. What they had was the family circumstances to delay gratification. Sometimes this was family wealth to support them for years, other times it was the family pooling their resources for one chosen member of the family, other times it was the family wealth to support them going to a lower tier medical school, and lastly it was family members who got them positions. I really hated the guy who cheated in honors English and went on to become a doctor.
Turning your descendants into doctors and lawyers is one of the traditional ways families use to preserve their wealth. It isn’t because these people were smarter.
> how to be suspicious of claims made in advertisements. That one class stuck with me for a long time. (This was in Melbourne, Australia sometime around 1988.)
FWIW, advertising and to a larger extent advocacy in 1988 and what is today are entirety different animals.
Though I do agree with your point. The number of college graduates does not equate to higher critical thinking of a nation's populace.
I did attend a journalism class almost a decade ago. Even though the powerful effects of mass media on people were likened to a magic bullet [0] It would be correct to assume that social media tech today has transcended this very capability and in more powerful ways than ever imaginable by its inventor.
> FWIW, advertising and to a larger extent advocacy in 1988 and what is today are entirety different animals.
There certainly are more forms and techniques of advertising, but if you teach the fundamentals sufficiently well, the critical thinking skill set can adapt as advertising adapts.
An important fundamental is to recognise that you have a desire for a product or service and to know to be conscious of the chain of events that have led to that desire.
You mean tracking? Advertisements themselves didn't change. And you don't need any complex countermeasure, just knowing that the information not trustworthy is enough for all practical purposes and for all information sources. People who fall for lies have only one wrong assumption: that the information they receive is trustworthy, once that one is out, it stops working for good.
I think integrity might be what you're aiming toward. When people are taught to live integrous lives and manage to do so, they are more able to see a lack of integrity when it comes.
Education isn’t a panacea. Think about how there’s the stereotype of pro-Confederates as ignorant hillbillies but then look at who reacts whenever someone suggests not having an inaccurate statute in a public place or naming a U.S. military base after someone who fought against the U.S. military. You’ll find people with Ph.Ds arguing to protect that, not because they’re incapable of learning but because they were deliberately educated with incorrect information and, since the results haven’t harmed them personally, will use their critical thinking and analytic skills to mount as strong a defense as they can. Thinking “critically and independently” is also how people who believe in creationism, are anti-vaccination, climate change deniers, opposed to public health practices during the pandemic, etc. explain their beliefs, too, often sincerely.
I’m not sure how to break that cycle. It seems to require some kind of forcing function which pushes the topic into verifiable facts and logic but that’s hard to against opposition and only works when things are fairly clear-cut (e.g. you can show Robert E. Lee was a bad person from historical records but it’s not easy to objectively prove the causes of poverty or crime rates).
I disagree. If you notice with American politics both sides believe in strong dogmas. There is no middle ground.
They both have made their beds and they will lay in it.
Corporate Dems (control the Democratic Party) and the MAGA (control the GOP) have their own ecochambers. MSNBC, CNN, etc indoctrinate the Dems. Talk radio for the GOP.
The two cults will continue to clash. I wonder if the people will wake up.
The "wake up" approach doesn't seem to be working, but we do need some way of reforming our society around the idea of the mighty middle that is not represented by the extremes.
Or we need to stop using words like fascism, tyranny, racist just because someone disagrees with us. That shift to cooler more informative language is just as difficult for educated people. Even on HN, so many threads devolve into Godwin’s law. I will say that one exception is education about human cognition. Trying to reason without a strong grasp of our own psychology and good ways of framing epistemological problems is like writing software without regard to hardware. Useful to some extent but prone to unforseen gotchas.
Or maybe a middle that's not dominated by dogma or ideologies. There's many pieces of truth located pretty far from the center of various political ideologies, but the ideologies taken as a whole also contain a stunning amount of falsehood and simplification.
I would hope we could have both. Honestly, I'm not a fan of the policy platforms of any politicians who have claimed to be in the middle.
Being left or right doesn't mean that you necessarily have to throw reason and critical thinking out the window. Being an extremist, sure; devotion to dogma is often a feature of extremism, but that's not the same thing.
having two strong parties seems like an inevitable artifact of first past the post voting (lesser of two evils thinking, "wasted" votes, etc.), and unless "the people" can constitutionally get something like ranked choice voting done federally, i'm not sure what the way forward is. any thoughts?
I'm an independent. I like some of the ideas of the Right that they believe that States are governments to experiment with. I'd suggest FPTP and other solutions to just attempt to do this locally and in a State or two. It will get traction, if it's worth it to the governed population. That's my suggestion, start small.
> I like some of the ideas of the Right that they believe that States are governments to experiment with
That's mostly feels like just all talk, though. A concrete example: California would love to do some health care experiments, including going single-payer. However, the state can't do so without permission from the federal government to use Medicare funding in different ways (obviously there is no way a state could fund something like that itself without state-level tax increases that would never get past the electorate). GOP-controlled Congress would never go for that, in part because they don't want to be seen by their base as "supporting socialism", and also in part (I'm conjecturing here) that they're afraid that it'll work and they'll be proven wrong.
From the GOP's perspective it more seems like "states should experiment... as long as they're experiments we agree with".
Nope. As long as there is potential for other powers to grow or counteract it, you have a chance to course correct. Isn’t that what a vote is good for?
The misconception is that there is a form of speech that doesn't have lies or misinformation. People seem to imagine that there is some perfect form of moderation that will only present us the unvarnished truth. That simply isn't the case. You're only limiting the lies to those that serve the interest of whoever controls the moderation.
Lack of free speech necessitates an over abundance of control, misinformation, lies, and overt propaganda in order to quell any free thought that would push people to ask questions openly. That is the distinct irony of people saying we must control free speech, thought, and information, in order to prevent misinformation from compelling people to violence or what have you. It doesn’t work that way, and it’s openly promoted on this website quite fervently.
The only speech that brings people back to the middle, away from the extremes, is free speech and open debate. That is it.
I think free speech is a very difficult pill to swallow when it's not convenient for your own agenda. As soon as one side makes an exception then the other side can, all the way to full censorship of each other's opposing sides.
This is fascinating to observe in political chat rooms and message boards where anyone submitting a dissenting opinion is called a spy or troll and will be banned until there are no dissenters left.
It is a difficult pill to swallow because convincing someone they are going down the wrong path where free speech reigns requires nuance, knowledge of subject, listening, empathy, and tact. All things people are too lazy to do now, especially politicians, teachers, media, and media gatekeepers, who are the worst offenders of this, and simply wish to drive eyeballs, create a monopoly for their crappy ideas, and rile up their bases. Simply banning something never actually makes it go away, especially ideas.
It’s easier to declare them as an enemy of the state, communists, nazi’s, right wing, left wing, formenting insurrection, compelling violence, or whatever other set of buzzwords that sound dangerous enough and catchy.
Then you feel morally justified in silencing them, although you really haven’t silenced them, now they simply go into the dark recesses of society and simmer for years or decades, sometimes a generation or two, until it spills out in actually violent and chaotic ways.
I just wish people would actually sit down and talk again in real life. I wish online forums would stop driving engagement with votes and likes, and would stop downvoting and silencing for actual opinion or thought and drove real healthy engagement that cut this sort of behavior off at the knees.
I feel like a dinosaur at this point watching the comet come in.
Yeh this feeling of watching a comet resonates. I have a theory that we arrived at this point because sadness, anxiety, and loneliness in the world has increased due to social media and people's reward systems being messed up. People will usually rage when there is something else in their life that is not going quite right. Anyway, just a theory. I love reading back stories of those who have ventured from the center to a further right/left position and why. Honest accounts including other things going on in their lives. Because these stories aggregated are the reason why things are the way they are.
So yes, more face to face, less social media / news addiction.
We're also waking up to the fact that free speech is an incredibly difficult ideal to uphold. Hate speech, fake speech, etc are testing the limits. Other ideals like religion are much easier to uphold in a mostly secular society until a new religion threatens the place of a dying incumbent. Really all these ideals are great when we're on the same page, until we aren't.
> But this is also the beauty of free expression - it prevents anyone from using it to enact total control.
This ignores all the historical events where groups leveraging said chaotic nature of free speech succeeded in establishing totalitarian regimes which enacted total control over the entire population, including it's supporters.
Well, actually ... one of the best lessons from the interwar period is that political parties must be forbidden from keeping their paramilitary units.
Because at the moment of the coup, well-organized paramilitary units (SA or Czechoslovak People Militias or Italian Camicie Nere) were always the crucial factor in success, and not just a mob of random rabble aroused by someone's speech.
All the later hotspots on the European map (North Ireland, Basque Country, Corsica) broke this rule and the local irredentist parties had a "political wing" and a "militant wing".
The founding fathers(FF) knew this. The FF created a system of government that acts as a society consciousness. Allowing for passion (the House) but having frontal lobe mechanisms (the Senate guards against the mob mentality).
The recent insurrection happened specifically because of the laziness/apathy/intentional (take your pick, I'm certain one is true) of the Congress. It was their job to protect DC and with a rally on the same day nonetheless, yet the law enforcement was gravely lacking. Also the DC mayor and even the POTUS, yet none took the responsibility.
As for Parler, they acted like little children. Whining and not doing much. They attack a hornet's nest then cry when they get stung. They should've been prepared instead of telling Tucker Carlson's audience their entire system of weaknesses.
Peter Kolmisoppi, one of The Pirate Bay co-founders, criticized their behavior as well [1]. (Not being prepared, whining, etc)
Society is starkly divided between the rural and urban elites. There will always be bad eggs. BLM/Qanon are equally screwed up. But the kicker is two major things. We need better discourse and more civic engagement. No change will happen without our engagement (for either side).
Can you please elaborate how a movement against police brutality and racism is in any way comparable with a group that supports a conspiracy theory regarding a cabal of satanic-worshiping cannibals?
American society tends to not like riots. 'Moral purity' doesn't justify physical wrath and destruction [1]. The collective society tends to benefit with using our Republic government as an instrument of recourse/change.
Using a small microcosm to judge any movement is a psyop by someone trying to reduce your critical thinking skills. Please figure out how to understand the grievances of 'the other side' because it's blinding you to a destructive discourse environment. Dare I say 80% of Americans would actually enjoy many 'other' people, if they were open and less hostile that mutes any chance to fixing mutually agreed upon problems.
[1] - I understand I'm opening myself to many historical counter arguments. But please understand that today isn't the 1850s. Nor the 1960s...etc.
And now he's out. The system's not about preemptively stopping theoretical bad acts per se (although if it actually stops real incoming threats, great), but rather, about being able to evaluate and change course when human fallibility inevitably leads to bad policies, bad choices, and bad outcomes. It's a work in progress, particularly as to how we can properly disincentivize future attempts and hold those who actively attempted to overthrow the Constitutional state by force without resorting to Minority-Report style overbroad invasions of privacy, but at least we can do that. These things are such non-starters in China and Russia that the former more or less acquiesced to a corrupt state and the latter has an economy that was so thoroughly disposessed by the few from the people that its GDP is on par with New York City despite 60 times the population, and with no recourse. Change is never easy nor always correct, but at least that opportunity exists here. It doesn't in many places that purportedly have "order" over "liberty" as the central value, as they end up with neither.
You don't think USA achieved that by being the best ones? See for example history of relationships with Cuba, the same goes for pretty much everything, not only Cuba.
I think free speech ends at specific threats or calls to violence. Call me the n word all you want. But if you threaten my life you should be stopped. Either by the police or by me.
I think free speech is necessary, but not free speech to harass or threaten violence. Free speech including the vile and negative won't make the world a better place. Arguing against the bad ideas will. But I do not think it's the burden of society to court speech that falls in the category or harassment or threats of violence.
> I think free speech ends at specific threats or calls to violence. Call me the n word all you want. But if you threaten my life you should be stopped. Either by the police or by me.
Then what about lies? The real problem of the last few years is that really blatant lies have been remarkably successful in the "marketplace of ideas" and quite hard to effectively argue against (if you disagree, try using facts and reason to convince a QAnon believer that the world isn't run by Satan-worshipping pedophile Democrats who Trump & Muller are secretly preparing to defeat in a blaze of glory). Those lies are fuel for those "specific threats or calls to violence."
I think a lot of the conventional beliefs around free speech make assumptions that may not be as true now as they were in the past (e.g. most of the participants will act in good faith (or at least have some shame) and act reasonably, and that any participants that don't will be quickly identified and ostracized). The error is sort of like classical economics theories incorrectly assuming people will be rational economic actors when they often aren't.
And what of the lies which led us into the Gulf War and the Iraq War? Hundreds of thousands of people are dead because of those lies, and they were broadcast from coast to coast by every credible news media organisation in existence. The same organisations now being lauded as the bearers of ultimate truth.
When the next set of lies is rolled out to land us in another unending conflict, I would quite like the internet to be a place where information can freely flow. My fear of governments is far greater than my fear of kooky people on the internet.
> And what of the lies which led us into the Gulf War and the Iraq War? Hundreds of thousands of people are dead because of those lies, and they were broadcast from coast to coast by every credible news media organisation in existence. The same organisations now being lauded as the bearers of ultimate truth.
What "lie" led us into the Gulf War? Are you claiming that Iraq did not in fact invade and conquer Kuwait?
And what about the stuff about Iraqi WMDs? I'm obviously not claiming that lying was invented in the last few years, so pointing out some lie that gained traction in the past doesn't really challenge anything I said.
> When the next set of lies is rolled out to land us in another unending conflict, I would quite like the internet to be a place where information can freely flow. My fear of governments is far greater than my fear of kooky people on the internet.
There's a good chance that the kind of freely flowing information I'm talking about will likely just lead you to a different lie. If the truth (or interpretations approaching the truth) is a needle in a haystack, it's unlikely that many people will actually ever find it. That's a problem.
> Are you claiming that Iraq did not in fact invade and conquer Kuwait?
I am claiming that the Nayirah testimony helped manufacture consent for US military involvement.
> I'm obviously not claiming that lying was invented in the last few years, so pointing out some lie that gained traction in the past doesn't really challenge anything I said.
You claimed that the problem of the last few years was blatant lies gaining traction in the marketplace of ideas. I am pointing out that lies have forever gained traction in the marketplace of ideas, while also being co-signed by authoritative news sources and politicians.
> If the truth (or interpretations approaching the truth) is a needle in a haystack, it's unlikely that many people will actually ever find it. That's a problem.
I agree, but I don't believe that restricting speech or massively censoring information is the correct solution. Or a solution at all.
>> Are you claiming that Iraq did not in fact invade and conquer Kuwait?
> I am claiming that the Nayirah testimony helped manufacture consent for US military involvement.
Oh, I see. I think the difference is that wasn't really the casus belli for the Gulf War (the Wikipedia entry doesn't mention Nayirah at all, for instance), while the WMD lie was the literal casus belli for the Iraq War.
> You claimed that the problem of the last few years was blatant lies gaining traction in the marketplace of ideas. I am pointing out that lies have forever gained traction in the marketplace of ideas, while also being co-signed by authoritative news sources and politicians.
I think we're using different definitions of "blatant." I'm talking about stuff like QAnon or Stop the Steal. In comparison, the lies you're talking about are far more credible and believable.
> The real problem of the last few years is that really blatant lies have been remarkably successful in the "marketplace of ideas" and quite hard to effectively argue against
so I think it's fair to point out that this is not in fact a new problem, and that private companies probably aren't going to solve it.
> so I think it's fair to point out that this is not in fact a new problem, and that private companies probably aren't going to solve it.
The new problem is is not the successful spread of lies, but the frequent successful spread of lies at massive scale that fall apart at the slightest inspection. Basically: bonkers conspiracy theories becoming mainstream consensus in large segments of the population.
We do have some limits on lies. There are libel/slander laws.
These limits are usually very weak, though. They vary from place to place, but tend to have a high bar, are expensive to pursue, and have many exceptions.
Those don't cover other dangerous types of lies, like telling people drinking bleach will protect them from COVID, or telling them COVID is a hoax and they shouldn't wear masks, or the whole antivax thing.
Furthermore these laws almost exclusively apply when speaking about specific people. QAnon people can be sued if they say "Hillary Clinton drinks the blood of children". However they are safe saying "Democrats drink the blood of children." I don't understand why these two should be treated differently from a moral, ethical, or legal perspective.
Also these are largely viewed as civil issues and not criminal so Hillary Clinton needs to take them to court and not the State. These two issues combined basically give Americans free rein to make up whatever lies they want about whatever group they wish to defame.
Are all part of a type of information wherein we can make rules and try to apply them fairly.
Saying 'Twitter allowed this but not that' is besides the point - it illustrates that Twitter is either inconsistent or hypocritical or both ... but it doesn't abnegate the notion that policies can be crudely made to work.
If you straight up threatened to murder someone on Twitter, they'll take it down.
The problem of 'mass mistruth' is much more complicated, because of course, making the stupid claim that 'the COVID vaccines kill 50% of it's recipients' probably would normally be within the realm of protected speech - but when 100% of Americans are subject to such lies, 25% of them refuse to take the vaccine, and 5% of them want to get violent an overthrow the CDC & murder Fauci because he's 'killing children' - well it becomes a problem.
One key thing to understand that nobody here in HN wants to contemplate is that the 'commons' is utterly not a clearing house of information wherein the truth rises to the top. This is totally the opposite. The commons is an arena of populism where we plebes act on instinct and emotion, we chose the information we want to hear, we buy into the lies of groups and ideologues.
The truth is almost irrelevant, because it can only ever be contemplated in the context of legitimate authority, which is why we 'mostly trust' the CDC, Homeland Security, our Judicial system etc. etc..
'Coordinating Violence' is a problem that can be dealt with in all but the eyes of those wanting 'absolute free speech'.
But 'Lies and Misinformation' we must understand is actually a serious problem, and worse, there's no clear path to how we can solve this.
There's no doubt we don't want corporations, and not 'Tim Cook' making these decisions, probably not individual bureaucrats or ideological politicians ... we're all going to have to work hard to find something that works and that is fairly transparent and fair. FYI Apple doesn't want the headache of deciding who speaks and not - they just want to make money and not get into risky scenarios.
The difference between a lie and a mere falsehood or even a mistake is intent and knowledge. The legal system is perfectly capable of determining intent and knowledge (when including not just actual but cases where knowledge was recklessly disregarded). We also already have laws that in certain contexts outlaw such lying. The most common examples are perjury and lying to officials either FBI or immigration, the latter specifically in the context of one's status. The laws, particularly the first two, lost a lot of their punch because of rampant misuse by authorities - the latter overused by federal agents to buy time to build cases they can't otherwise Constitutionally establish legally, the former was found to be so common among police testimonies that it had both a term - 'testilying' and hundreds of academic papers on the subject leading to no reform and little added enforcement. We also have laws against defrauding - which usually just adds onto a specific intent to gain something of value. It's not that we can't keep free speech as the Constitution sets it but still regulate particular instances where the state can prove a case of bad intent and knowledge, but the long history of applying these laws not for justice but for coercion, to fill quotas, carelessly, and unevenly have eroded the erstwhile authority prosecutors have in using them without creating a political issue for him or herself. I think restoring integrity in the system so that these cases can be taken as nonpolitical is arguably an even more difficult task, but certainly if done right, would have the most legitimacy and be the most narrowly targeted.
But outside of that I'd much rather have corporations than bureaucrats handling such matters, because at least they can be incentivized to do the right thing. After all, corporations are ultimately voluntary entities formed and owned by average people, and when their conduct fails to match societal expectations, they lose customers and revenue, which is at least some incentive. Furthermore, they're protected by the constitution to do the moderating. They are allowed to keep the undesirable off their platform. No matter how much Josh Hawley wants to nationalize big tech to make America into White China, he can't actually do it without an armed mob. In contrast our administrative laws and particularly those with enforcement powers have effectively been turned into the Constitutional backdoor that through sheer luck Trump was unable to realize as the easy and if not legal, at least unchallengeable way to stage a coup, just as their suppression and kidnappings over the summer resulted in no real consequences, it's by design, and one that circumvents much of the Bill of Rights with essentially no oversight, judicial or congressional, the former by doctrinal custom and the latter by negligence. They pose a much greater danger, because they not only get into risky situations, legally they're effectively immune from almost all responsibility in a way that even puts qualified immunity to shame. I hate to pose these not as hypotheticals but as actual comparisons, but Apple haven't kidnapped me for all the complaints I made about the shitty 2017 MacBook keyboard yet, while federal agencies with militarized regulatory enforcement powers have, supposedly all through mistakes, "deported" over a thousand American citizens to random countries they have no connection to. They're the backstop we should never lean on.
> But outside of that I'd much rather have corporations than bureaucrats handling such matters, because at least they can be incentivized to do the right thing. After all, corporations are ultimately voluntary entities formed and owned by average people, and when their conduct fails to match societal expectations, they lose customers and revenue, which is at least some incentive.
Those are some awfully large assumptions. We know that incentives are not trivial to structure, companies choose not to comply (think about how companies like Facebook just write fines off as a business expense), or actively attempt to interfere with the processes which manage those incentives.
Similarly, your definition of companies is unsupported by evidence. Few average people create them (it costs too much), and they're only completely voluntary in a few areas where entry costs are low, consolidation is uncommon, and the services are voluntary. In computing, for example, what percentage of people have a realistic choice other than deciding whether they prefer Apple to Google, or Apple to Microsoft?
A better approach is to stop assuming sweeping properties inherent to the sector and look at the incentive structures. Almost all organizations do exactly what they’re setup to do and need outside visibility and oversight to make sure that aligns with the larger needs of society. Both government agencies and companies produce bad results when the incentives don’t align — as we can see in this very case where it’s easy to ignore problems when the alternatives cost money.
Should we ban hyperbolic exaggerations? phrasing things in way that makes it seem like its a Biblical battle between good and evil, should be allowed in my opinion. I think its questionable how many literally belief in those things. But exaggerating things has been part of story telling forever.
Its also not that off to call someone a witch, that literally brags about staying youthful by applying a cream made from baby foreskins.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BY2aOHQlAco
And referencing Epstein island, which many elites did go to, is not really a conspiracy theory anymore. Its a documented fact.
In this instance I don't think calls to violence are really the problem at hand. Specifically, what is the difference between getting on a box on a street corner and calling for the death of so and so and saying the same thing on the internet? The difference is the speed at which the message propagates and the breadth and targeting of the audience that hears it. The technology and its unregulated use are the problem not primarily the speech it facilitates. Facebook and Twitter in how they are designed are the problem. They are the equivalent of giving everyone an information machine gun with infinite advertising backed ammo and then asking everyone to abide by the honor system. We don't do this in the physical space and we shouldn't in the digital space. We are currently in the process of learning all of the old lessons of society building the hard way when it comes to the internet. Thats because Twitter and Facebook didn't intend to build societies they intended to make money. They did both but only really cared about the latter.
Do you mean like when Kathy Griffin was holding up the presidents bloody head with no recourse? Or the summer riots which were heavily coordinated on Twitter? Twitter is still in the app stores. Extremism is on Twitter, Facebook, and all platforms, yet they came together like a mob and eliminated the one they didnt like.
Yes, I agree. Iran's supreme leader is still on twitter. But a counterpoint is that that ISIS was driven out of twitter and FB systematically. Correct me but you're implying in your statement is they "eliminated the one they didn't like [because of political views]" but that's not necessarily the only reason
EDIT: Given your other responses, we're at an impasse. Bowing out.
I forgot the other reason: to give a gift to the new party in power in hopes of stopping the anti-trust cases. The dems were nudging some of them, ill be interested to see if we get a magical 180 degree turn.
It was a stupid gesture on her part and she paid a step price for that act, so it wasn't so free.
When talking about the riots that happened it important to acknowledge all the players. Most of the protesters against police brutality were peaceful and exercising first amendment rights of the first degree -- complaining about government abuses.
No platform recourse and they didnt even ban the material, even today. You could say the capital protestors were “mostly peaceful” as well as the vast majority did not storm the building. Even those on the capital steps were a tiny minority of who showed up. Im really not here to argue case by case and combat mental gymnastics for why one sides extremism is ok but the others is not. Im simply pointing out that all platforms have extremism and calls for violence but only one was banned swiftly.
So you're saying that she didn't have a right to post that picture at all?
Again, what she did was stupid and tasteless, but if you think that it was intended as a call for violence then you're venturing into Rorschach test territory.
The capitol "protest" was designed to lead to the attack on the house. Perhaps many present were just there to just "speak up" but the breach itself was no accident.
She lost a lot of work over it -- therefore she did pay a price.
As stupid and tasteless as it was, to make it into a call for others to cut off his head is specious at best. And that's a key issue in play: the intent of the the message.
One of the major threads of the political discourse is that right wing businesses, representatives and protestors are being treated differently than left wing ones. How would you - even theoretically - make that case without drawing comparisons?
There is little room to argue that if any figure associated with the right was waving a mock severed head around that would be cause for extreme social, business or potentially legal consequences and/or people losing faith in basic civil liberties. There would be panic.
The standards are too visibly different for the gap to be dismissed.
Left wing protestors were protesting against police brutality. And violence occurring at those protests must be recognized as having outside agitators intent on derailing the peaceful protest.
The right wing protestors at the capitol were trying to overturn the results of the democratic process, and were prepared to do so by force.
I don’t see how this can be dismissed as “whataboutism” to discuss examples of how the specific policy under discussion should impact different types of speech.
It’s literally the topic of discussion. You could say, two sides of the same coin, but it’s not even really that.
Where do you draw the line for violence and inciteful speech? If you’re willing the draw a different line depending on the policy goals of the person speaking, then you’re taking a political position not a moral one.
What do you do when people simply want to spew emotional tirades and mindlessly copy memes, and won't argue in good or any faith? What is that worth really?
That's their right to spew whatever they want. Just because it's worthless doesn't mean we should stop it. I personally think every single conversation in Twitter is absolutely worthless, maybe even has negative value. Does that give me the right to shut down Twitter? No. I value free speech so if people want to waste their time spewing nonsense, that is their right.
I think this point of view neglects the emergent properties of a society where millions of people can spew nonsense all at once, at the speed of light, using AI assisted audience targeting. Crackpots and liars have existed since the beginning of time but never before has a technology been designed to so readily amplify and reenforce their nonsense. Never before has a technology been so adept at hiding from you that the speaker is a crackpot or liar.
It’s not even just the visibility, it’s the direct harm the actions of these people cause. Whether it’s to their own personal relationships or nation states. QAnon should make a lot of people nervous about the state of unfettered free speech and the idea that the counter to bad ideas is more speech.
"At the speed of light" isn't the problem. We also used to communicate at the speed of light through MySpace, text messages, and so on without these specific problems.
You bring up a good point. I don't engage with folks like that. I assume they're already indoctrinated or an influencer from outside of the country or a troll. If I'm feeling empathetic I might try to appeal to the human in them.
Edit: If you're asking me as if I were the host of the free speech platform. I guess I would allow everything except anything that violated criminal law. And would keep a law firm on retainer to field complaints and give the final say to our legal department. It's a tough question.
If 10% of Americans are convinced that QAnon is behind the scenes running the show, and they believe that, and act on it in a variety of ways, then it's a huge problem.
I suggest with the election, COVID and QAnon together we are probably already feeling the results of mass misinformation.
It's an ugly problem because none of us really want to suppress people for saying something not technically true. I mean, who doesn't like a good alien conspiracy theory? Until it gets out of hand ...
QAnon is as successful as it is because it is tapping into the cognitive dissonance created by things like federal mishandling of the Epstein case (slow walking allegations made since the 90s, the 2007 sweetheart deal which granted immunity to any unnamed co-conspirators, not having raided Epstein's New Mexico ranch to this day, etc), as well as the fact that wealthy and powerful elites continued to associate with him long past the point his predations had become an open secret, and they have suffered no professional or legal repercussions whatsoever.
The mainstream media says "he killed himself and was a one-off and all these rich people just wanted to solicit charitable donations and there's nothing more to see here," and anyone with two skeptical brain cells to rub together can see that's a lie and (if they are actually moved by the horrendous circumstances of the Epstein case to find out the truth) they go searching for alternative sources of information, at which point they're often easy game for disinfo merchants of various stripes who gain a foothold simply by not insisting they're crazy for even asking the questions in the first place.
The insistence that this is purely a problem of "mass misinformation" seems almost belligerently blinkered to the broader context and reasons why our society's institutions have lost credibility and trust.
It's as successful as it is because it is KNOWINGLY tapping into the cognitive dissonance, for the purpose of inciting domestic terrorism and the collapse of Western society.
Basically, look at the things you cited as the reason such an attack could be effective, even unanswerable. If the rich people, etc etc, behaved better and weren't awful, it would be a lot harder to mount such an attack. But it was made easy to do, and for that reason the whole 'freedom of speech' thing is nothing more than an attack vector at this point. We've lost that. There is no way it's sustainable the way some people would like it to be sustainable. There are powerful interests, state actors, weaponizing every little shred of freedom to destroy Western society, and I don't see any good answers at this point.
It was a weakness. We could have freedom of speech as long as it wasn't being weaponized on a massive scale against us. We could have freedom of speech so long as massive calculated lying wasn't a primary tactic, so long as people could be taken at face value. That's simply not true anymore.
The Epstein case and QAnon are separate things. If QAnon decides to include Epstein as a part of their fiction, that doesn't make QAnon real.
My suspicion is that QAnon is an alternative reality game created by imageboard trolls. But then foreign adversaries saw in it a potential to subvert the US and they decided to amplify it as much as they could. This suspicion is not based on any hard evidence, but I think it is plausible.
Foreign adversaries from troll farms spend their entire day finding ways to cause harm and troll farms are a cheap way to inflict that harm. Unlike the cold war era, they don't have to pay operatives to travel to the US, they just need social network accounts. Remember when Russia interfered with the US election by buying ads in social networks? Those ads are available here:
All these ads have the objective of amplifying any narrative that is against the best interest of the US. Make everyone angry, make people fight each other, cause economic harm, amplify dissent, diminish governance. And everyone is falling for it, again:
- Foreing trolls amplifying antivaxxers and antimaskers have the objective to make everyone sick and stretch lockdowns forever so that the US economy is ruined.
- Foreign trolls amplifying racists and race baiters have the objective of divide the US into groups and make them fight each other, as well as diminishing trust in the government.
- Foreign trolls amplifying anti-science discourse also have the objective of make people skeptical about science, drive people away from science, with the added bonus of making people fight each other, incentivize pollution, demoralize the population, etc.
However, those foreign adversaries could not be successful if it wasn't for one person: Trump. Foreign adversaries love Trump because he is the person that promotes division and infighting. Trump denies climate change. Trump said vaccines cause autism. Trump said you should inject yourself with bleach, and downplayed the coronavirus. Trump uses racist dog whistling... Trump is the wet dream of any foreign intelligence service, he did more harm to the US than the KGB could ever do throughout the entire cold war. If you voted for Trump, you are not a patriot, you're a giant chump... and if you cannot see it now, there's no hope for you.
In the United States we’ve always understood free speech does has its limits: slander/libel, “yelling fire in a crowded theater” — I feel like calls for violence and genocide already fall well out of our boundaries of free speech. But it’s always been understood political speech is unrestricted.
I do think people have cynically exploited this understanding by trying to classify calls for political violence as merely political speech, arguing that as long as the calls for violence have a political angle it’s free speech. And arguing moderating such things censorship.
You do. But the idea of free speech has been twisted and warped to mean speech without social or economic consequences and that is where it goes wrong.
I doubt you believe that speech should be more criminalized than it already is. I think most of us agree that having an opinion, no matter how outrageous or evil, should not be a crime. We agree on exceptions to this for outright threats of violence.
The expectation that speech should be free-as-in-beer. That you are entitled to a platform. That you should be free of all consequence. This the problem.
Providing privacy and communications produces not subject to control of a central authority isn't a bad thing! But we also shouldn't just be mindless cogs in the free speech money machine.
But that is exactly the problem: how do you separate the two? Once someone figures out a way to profit from "free speech" the profit motive takes over and infects the whole system. I don't see any way around that without compromising freedom.
I think banning online advertising causing these sites to charge their users for the service would right a lot of wrongs automatically, when the free market can start to kick in and do it's job.
It makes it so Facebook's product becomes online photo sharing, instead of it's current product which is manipulation and addiction.
Corporations aren't the only ones that advertise. Completely eliminating advertising would restrict speech for both corporations and individuals.
Maybe I want to create a charity and am looking to raise awareness for a fundraising event I am having.
Maybe my dog ran away and I want to get the word out about a monetary reward I am offering for helping to find them.
Maybe I am a touring comedian and I want to advertise my next show.
Maybe I am an amateur photographer and want volunteer subjects to help hone my craft.
The list goes on and on for potential non-corporate uses of advertising. If we want to treat corporate speech and individual speech differently, I think there is a much more important place to start: Citizens United v. FEC.
In all of those cases you can just say what you want to say, you don't need to pay for special treatment to put your message in front of an unwilling audience. Restricting advertising isn't restricting speech, it's restricting the ability to pay for special treatment for your own speech.
> Restricting advertising isn't restricting speech, it's restricting the ability to pay for special treatment for your own speech.
That isn't the way it works in the US. There are some restrictions on advertising, but is fundamentally protected speech in the US and therefore can't be banned outright.
> echo chambers, are the very epitome of lack of free speech [...] since members of echo chambers only hear one argument, echo chambers are radicalizing, and they are radicalizing because they don’t have free speech
Thanks, that's actually a really insightful way of looking at the problem.
I think there's something to be learned by comparing our current situation to WW1 and the Cold War. In short, we in the present can identify the root cause that will lead to a major crisis (powder keg), but we don't know if that crisis will actually happen (spark).
For WW1, it was clear to at least some involved that the war was the twins of extreme nationalism and imperialism coming home to roost. We judge these factors very harshly in hindsight because of the devastation WW1 caused. For the Cold War, we avoided complete nuclear Armageddon in the Cuban Missile Crisis only because of a few sets of steady hands. Since WW3 didn't happen, I think we judge the root social issues of the Cold War less harshly. Both situations were obvious powder kegs to their particapants, but one was lit and the other was not.
I think it is clear that our present age's powder keg is being filled by the near cost-free and instantaneous point-to-point communication enabled by the Internet. The ratcheting societal polarization, erosion of trust in traditional sources of authority and institutions, and the metastasizing of pseudoscience and conspiracy theories are all products of self-reinforcing filter-bubbles and people becoming untethered to their real life communities. Like with the Cold War, we may get lucky, but like WW1 we also may not. Should we abandon the ideal of free speech to try and mitigate a future major crisis? Or will we make it out the other side as circumstances change?
Sorry, no takeaway from me, but I think that's the situation were in. :(
The trouble is when people conflate “free speech” with “absolute prohibition on any societal, cultural, or personal means of making any value judgment about any speech, as well as any mechanism whatsoever to encourage any type of speech and discourage any other type of speech.” It’s this “speech agnosticism” version of “free speech” that worries me.
> The trouble is when people conflate “free speech” with “absolute prohibition on any societal, cultural, or personal means of making any value judgment about any speech, as well as any mechanism whatsoever to encourage any type of speech and discourage any other type of speech.” It’s this “speech agnosticism” version of “free speech” that worries me.
And that "speech agnosticism", ironically, is actually a rejection of free speech. Free speech only really can work if the members of society act as a filter for bad stuff.
That’s how I’ve come to think about it too. Free speech is vital to allow ideas to be expressed and criticized, in the same way that the methods of science are about conjecture and criticism. The ability to challenge orthodoxy is vital in science, but so is rejection of “bad science” and even more so rejection of the notion that there can be no discernment of any qualities of scientific claims.
Honestly I think the legal status quo is pretty close to ideal: governments may not limit speech, but platforms can clamp down on anything they want. The only problem with the platforms is that they still somewhat cling to the idea that they won’t censor speech, which is frankly ridiculous. Of course they will censor, they should just admit it and clamp down any speech they find abhorrent. Allow the marketplace (and marketplace of ideas) to work.
The status quo has brought us to today. The platforms only act when they see that the political winds have shifted. There were precisely zero “profiles in courage” among the platforms until after the election. We can expect nothing more - they’re businesses beholden to investors and regulators above all else.
I'm surprised at the lack of recognition that Google and Apple banned Parler as soon as the dems gained all 3 branches of power. It could not be more clear what the motive was. Extremism and violence are on Twitter and Facebook all day long. They're still in the app stores.
There must be some line. Sure you can build your own server and connect it to the internet, but if you're handing out cards with an IP address, marketability is limited.
IP address connectivity should be a universal right. DNS is trickier, but the root level companies that provide names should be required to host your NS records (not your DNS servers themselves).
After that I don't believe the internet owes you anything.
ISPs get common-carrier status - I think platforms should be able to have this protection and requirements too, if they want it. For ISPs this protects them from things folks do with their service, meaning they don't have to completely monitor your use.
The problem is the amount of power held by just a few "platforms." The government may not legally be able to censor what they don't like, but if they can influence the platforms that can it amounts to the same thing.
"In Europe, Speech Is an Alienable Right: [the European Court of Human Rights] upheld an Austrian woman’s conviction for disparaging the Prophet Muhammad."
It is an interesting reading - it gives a very different impression than the article.
According to the document, she claimed Muhammad was a pedophile in a series of seminars "Basics of Islam" that pretended to be objective courses but were organised by a far-right political party.
The judgement also mentions that saying something offensive or untrue on purpose and then claiming "it was just my opinion" doesn't protect you from repercussions, that you are allowed to criticise current practices of religion but not on bases of what someone allegedly done hundreds of years ago when societal standards were different, and that fine 480 Euro is on the low end of a range and not disproportionate.
So as I understand it, a far right person was deliberately shit-stirring in a propaganda seminar and got slap on the wrist (fine of ~ 15 % median wage) to be more careful next time.
The ruling says that when you do it in context of pretend-seminar that's far right propaganda, and you do it mostly to to anger and hurt people to divide society - then when you get fine of 480 EUR your human rights are not violated.
"She held “seminars” in which she presented her view that Muhammad was indeed a child molester. Dominant Islamic traditions hold that Muhammad’s third wife, Aisha, was 6 at the time of their marriage and 9 at its consummation. Muhammad was in his early 50s. The Austrian woman repeated these claims, and the Austrian court ruled that she had to pay 480 euros or spend 60 days in the slammer. The ECHR ruled that Austria had not violated her rights."
So it appears that she set out to attack Islam and then received a relative slap-on-the-wrist for it. Neither of those affect the principles, but still....
"I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard. Today, we will see whether Republicans stand strong for integrity of our elections. But whether or not they stand strong for our country, our country. Our country has been under siege for a long time. Far longer than this four year period."
"So we are going to--we are going to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue, I love Pennsylvania Avenue, and we are going to the Capitol, and we are going to try and give--the Democrats are hopeless, they are never voting for anything, not even one vote but we are going to try--give our Republicans, the weak ones because the strong ones don't need any of our help, we're try--going to try and give them the kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back our country. So let's walk down Pennsylvania Avenue."
To the USG, that's incitement—look what happened immediately after.
There aren't 25K troops in DC as I write this because Trump did not incite a coup/insurrection, they are they because he did. The reaction itself is the proof.
You may not think Trump's rally should have had that effect, but at this point, it's moot: it did.
Counterpoint: the attempted coup was gonna happen anyway, regardless of what Trump said.
I'm very weary of a country and a government in which we can be charged with "incitement" or even treason for suggesting to peacefully exercise our 1st amendment rights to dissent against it.
Directly after Rudy told the crowd “let’s have trial by combat!”, the President told his followers to march on the capitol. Then he watched
them lay siege to the capitol on TV for hours before half-heartedly telling them to go home. To me, that’s credible incitement to violence.
Making factual statements about Islam is not incitement to violence. The woman did not want or ask those who dislike her remarks to get violent or lose self-control.
I think everyone knows that in this new era of US politics the president will be impeached at least once every year after his party will lose the House.
According to the Bible God "came over" a 12 year old Mary, sneaking into her bedroom at night like some creepy uncle, to "pop her cherry" before her newly wed husband Joseph could.
The child of that came to be known as.. Jesus.
Which should be a stark reminder that all Abrahamic religions have their roots based in such absurd and ancient practices that none of them hold up much to scrutiny under modern standards except when framed solely around an entirely fictional "Good guy miracle making baby Jesus".
All religions are frankly horrific at one point or another. And all of the countries (that I'm aware of) that are officially atheist are rather unpleasant, I think you might agree. Everyone's family tree is not an acyclic graph, and contains some ugly people. All of this up, in detail, is true, and everyone knows it. Having "seminars" on it simply makes it a club to be used to beat on someone you don't like. (Doing that here will likely get Dang to rough me up, perhaps even before I have pissed you off. And rightfully so; see the guidelines.)
The bottom line is, the Moslems I've known have been better people than anyone I've met who believes rights and truth are the only limits on what they would say.
Interestingly, "typical European Free Speech laws" are both more and less restricting than you would see in the US - there's more limits on harmful ideologies and violence but less restrictions on sex and nudity, for example.
Of course it's not just constitutions and laws - movie ratings are not de iure laws but work that way de facto - and EU limits other things, like advertisement of pharmaceuticals.
Comparing the different approaches needs finesse and not just "free US vs non-free Europe".
> there's more limits on harmful ideologies and violence but less restrictions on sex and nudity, for example.
Also more mindful about privacy, in many EU countries one can't just doxx people, not even criminals.
A popular example is this story about a Swiss parliament secretary who got fired for posting nudes from her workplace.
EU outlets censored her face and left the nipple [0], US and AUS outlets showed her face but censored her nipple [1], while the British Mirror pixelated both [2].
What about the lessons of Europe before WWII? The lessons of fascism and authoritarian communism arising in heavily censored states without the right to free expression? The lessons of fascists and communists enacting further censorship and surveillance as a means of enforcing their power? The lessons of fascism and communism corrupting well-meaning laws, laws initially curtailing civil liberties for the safety of society as a whole?
What do you mean by “European”? And what laws are you talking about?
Does this include the laws made in East Berlin or other communist countries? Do you think Le Pen didn’t get into power because of free speech laws? It seems to me like she just didn’t have quite enough support to get in.
What about the laws made in post-communist countries like Poland or Hungary or Belarus? (Or Lithuania or Latvia?)
Perhaps you mean countries like Sweden or Norway? It does at least seems to make the news there when some neo-nazi is punished for what American prosecutors would have to consider free speech.
I don't see why a future collapse into tyranny of a country in Europe would have to involve a revival of the symbols of any particular defeated regime. If they needed symbols for propaganda purposes, they'd draw from legal symbol pools, like Roman culture. (It "worked" once...) More likely, they would draw from contemporary symbols that already had positive sentiment associated with them.
The point being, it's not clear whether German speech laws are frosting or cake. If the German people wanted to destroy Europe and themselves, that would be enough whether they did it with the symbols of a defeated dictator or not. People point to European speech laws as examples of reasonable protections, but I'm not sure if they're stopping anything. The real bar against the collapse of liberal democracy is the fact that the people living in those countries don't want it to happen, and understand why it would be bad for them.
> I don't see why a future collapse into tyranny of a country in Europe would have to involve a revival of the symbols of any particular defeated regime.
Though it might not really be a "revival," since the symbols were never really killed off in the first place. A lot of the flashpoints building up to this one involved removal of these symbols.
It might also be worth pointing out that those flashpoints were originally put into place deliberately, in a mostly failing attempt to bring the country back together, and then left in place until they went off.
Symbols retain power for a long time. That's why we're not seeing a swastika revival in interior design or anything like that, even in places where the Nazis did not exist. Another good example is the U.S. confederate flag, which only existed officially for a few years and was decided against by a bloody and brutal military loss. However, it's retained enough significance that someone just pranced through the U.S. Capitol with it. If it doesn't have power as a symbol, why not pick a new flag?
Obviously banning a symbol is not going to prevent future violent movements by itself, but it also seems wise to not leave still-hot embers of symbolic power lying around for the next would-be demagogue to fan back into a fire. People trying to pick up those old symbols are giving a very strong signal about their ideology.
I agree that the main bulwark of a society against falling into fascism is its people's memory of the past and willingness to prevent recurrence of such episodes though.
> I don't see why a future collapse into tyranny of a country in Europe would have to involve a revival of the symbols of any particular defeated regime
It wouldn't have to. But having watched Hitler sell the idea that Germany was being unjustly punished for Jewish lies a generation earlier, they drew the conclusion that [West] Germany was quite likely to see would-be tyrants rallying around a Lost Cause narrative and that vulnerability to this was a bigger problem than a lack of diversity in holocaust historiography. Or more straightforwardly, they figured German democracy faced a more imminent threat from neo-Nazism than a slippery slope towards an Official State Version of History. A view which seems to have persisted even after reunification with the East which had considerable recent experience with the pervasive censorship involved in promoting its Official State Version of History.
That's an interesting fact that puts the issue into a light I hadn't considered. Fortunately, the literal "lost cause" language of the American Civil War has already run its course, caused its damage (up to and including a presidential assassination), and the country has survived. Would banning confederate symbols have prevented the assassination of Lincoln? Probably not, to be honest. I wonder if it would have prevented anything.
I don't see it preventing Lincoln's assassination, no. Jim Crow laws? Possibly not, and there were better ways of preventing them. But we wouldn't be seeing angry mobs fighting over statues today if they'd never been put up and we wouldn't have seen a mass membership second Klan if the first one hadn't been ruled constitutionally protected shortly after it had been forced to disband
The post Civil War US is an experiment in taking the precise opposite stance to postwar Germany: positively encouraging the losing side to romanticise their cause so long as their revisionist history downplays the slavery bit. Some northerner presidents even paid tribute to General Lee. I think it's difficult to argue reconciliation and race relations have been helped the resulting counter narrative that it was actually a pretty noble thing to defend their way of life against other states who only pretended to be concerned about negroes though.
The best example is that right after the holocaust and "never that again", half of the western political spectrum turned a blind eye to the various genocides and crimes against humanity happening in the communist block. Clearly no lesson was learnt. The two great totalitarian ideologies of the XX century have a lot in common. These laws that target one but ignore the other are I think at best misguided if not cynical. The French equivalent of those laws was proposed by the French communist party...
I guess my question is really what the effect of such laws was? Obviously there has been general prosperity and peace between the Western European countries but this may have been due to other reasons.
There doesn’t seem to be much more resilience in the population to the kind rhetoric we’ve seen recently in America. Indeed, there seem to be many parallels. Maybe the laws helped but we see less difference now as Europe after the war started “further behind”?
It’s certainly true that holocaust denial is illegal in Germany. It isn’t, for example, illegal in the U.K. (there was a libel case lost by David Irving against someone who called him a Holocaust denier where he tried to prove he was a legitimate historian however), and there are surveys showing that some percentage of the population don’t really believe it (but maybe this is the fact that for even seemingly trivial survey questions, some proportion of people give the wrong answer). I suppose here I would just point out that Europe is a big place.
Recent events such as the BLM riots or the riot at or nation's capital? I don’t agreer with either though I find it troubling that the politicians seem to be a lot more concerned with their safety than they were about private citizens safety or property during the BLM riots earlier last year.
About free speech making the world a better place.. those last 2 words are very subjective. It seems the only voices that were silenced were those with opposing opinions of our corporate ‘masters’.
Also is a better world - whatever that is - a required outcome for free speech? I think it’s a basic tenant of freedom and a free world. Being oppressed either by a corporation or a government is still oppression.
9/11 shook many to their core which lead to the Patriot Act. Now — almost 20 years later — every conversation is tracked, every packet intercepted, 19 years of war overseas, millions killed or displaced, extrajudicial detainment and torture abroad, unaccountable secret government entities.
Time will only tell whether the existential threat of free speech is real, but my best guess in “no”: people are still in shock of recent events, but over time it will be clear that giving up our freedoms in a rash reaction to a crisis is not the right decision.
The "experiment" is not one of free speech but of ever-increasing state power. The benefits of control and the costs of losing it are growing ever-larger, so each side will fight harder to get the power. Politics got us here. Voting got us here. It will not get us out.
Now that the social media companies have played the card of deplatforming the ideological opposition, the power structure of the establishment will expect that behavior going forward. When the pendulum swings, you might find some of the now-loud voices being silenced.
We can't rely on "the right guy" holding that much power, since power corrupts. There will be no "healing" until the power of the central government declines, unless you think we should start building the Gulags / re-education camps to simply silence the wrong-thinkers.
But what should you do?
Keep building tools to empower the individual against the surveillance apparatus of the state and of giant corporations! Build in ways to communicate even if large ISPs start blocking your traffic or are taken offline. Build ways to transfer value between users to circumvent financial censorship. Technology can overcome the dystopia that we face, since politics does not offer any hope of a better tomorrow.
Do you forget the lies that got the U.S. into the first and second Gulf War? The cover-up of the NSA surveillance state? The Vientam War? The Church and Pike committees? The lies covering up the excesses of the USSR (including the Holomdor)?
I do not subscribe to the notion that authoritative sources always lie, but the lies they do tell are by far the most damaging in terms of their cost in human life.
The only way to fight that is with freedom of speech. Yes, people will abuse it, but the cost is still absolutely worth it.
That's the problem with absolutist positions, they rarely survive contact with the real world. I commend you for having a principled position on this, and I'm sad that you ran into this particular bug. But human nature treats absolutism like loopholes, it gives a person the opportunity to ignore the spirit of what is given and take the letter instead leading to all kids of nastiness.
Free speech would be a great thing to have, in a society where people are not hell bent on destroying each other and their own societal structure given half a chance. Memes are very powerful and the wrong meme has the power to wreck much more than good memes can help repair due to the asymmetry between destruction and creation. Destruction is far easier than creation.
My first instinct is to think, that you never believed in free speech in the first place, however I'd like to hear some examples of what shook you to the core.
I imagine he's referring to right wing extremists storming the capitol building to overthrow a democratically elected leader and imprison and perhaps murder members of the house of representatives. Just a thought.
That wasn't even close to successful though and didn't have any consequences in the end. If this is the worst that can happen then shouldn't that strengthen his views that free speech is just fine? Free speech has given us gay rights, abortion and many other things, having a few bumps on the road like this isn't a problem, the problem is if we argue that we can no longer accept bumps in the road and therefore must no longer maky any progress.
Depends, are you setting the goalpost for "believing in free speech" as far as tolerating the President of the United States using social media for spreading the idea that the elections were stolen from him and that people should fight the results?
Way before that you could see that people became radicalized by consuming conspiracy theories far, far faster than any individual or organization could pull them back to sanity.
There's people making a living out of spreading dangerous lies to millions and millions spend their waking hours consuming them and not researching the opposite, the culmination was an abortive coup on the US Capitol, in between literally hundreds of thousands died in a pandemic where whole geographical regions were convinced that it was a hoax and that attempts to control it were a power grab.
If that's too little for you to accept someone's faith in unhindered free speech to be shaken, well, hard to find an angle to argue from, it's a hard absolute you're presenting.
It doesn't matter if he told them or not to grab the zipties and make the pipe bombs, he was riling them up about how their country was being stolen from their dear leader, the only politician who cares for them, right before their eyes, and to take that sentiment to the ceremony of ratification of the elections he lost.
Parler was a place where people discussed these things leading up to an abortive coup or revolution, however you want to call it. The US clearly doesn't have the means to control these things as of now, Big Tech taking the matter on its own hands is merely symptomatic of the lack of legislation preventing the spread of radical fascist ideology.
I've reconciled my newfound disinterest in the principle of freedom of expression like this:
Lies and threats are already illegal if you lie about a person who has the power and standing to use the court system to enforce that.
If harmfully you lie in the legal system, it's perjury or filing a false report.
If you lie to trick somebody into giving you money (and they can show damages and standing), it's fraud or false advertising.
If you lie to hurt somebody, it's
defamation... again, if they can show damages and standing and they have the money for lawyers
And threats of violence are theoretically illegal but basically you need a good lawyer to get that enforced.
But now, we have vicious rumors about objective facts. Threats against reality itself. Global Warming can't sue for defamation. BLM and Antifa activists aren't even members of a real organization - could they even sue about the vicious lies about them, if they had the money to do so?
If a thousand loosely affiliated people push information about a vague cabal of vampiric pedophiles and one of them snaps and "heroically" kills somebody, who is liable for speeding the defamatory information that led to that death? If it was one, clear person, it would be a clear crime with a clear defendant.... But if it's thousands of anonymous trolls, does that make it legal, or does it simply make the laws judging it illegal impractical to enforce?
I think Dominion Voting Systems is one of the few orgs trapped in this web of deception that is actually a clear legal entity that has standing to sue and can show real damages from all the slander about them.
Basically, harmful lies are theoretically illegal but defacto legal. So I'm okay with finding alternate means to close the gap between theory and practice, in the absence of a proper legal framework.
I'm going to go one step further. Anyone can be antifa, even the facists. Same with blm and racists. There's absolutely no governing body, and from what I've seen, there's at least a visible portion of the antifa who care little for facism opposition and more for wrecking shit.
That's the catch with these movements. Any description of them is by necessity a generalization.
It is a challenge. Giving people a voice means that good and bad (depending on anyone's personal view) voices are amplified. Hate is strong and it takes time for people to "have enough", only then do cooler heads prevail.
The main issue is the ability to amplify and spread so easily. Social media is built upon addiction because addicted people view more ads. How different would social media look with just a few changes like no ability to repost/retweet/copy&paste/etc and what if you never saw who liked a post and what if you weren't show things that your networked liked? These things are what creates the echo chamber. People are lazy. Most wouldn't take the time to gather information and create original posts.
I think privacy is another issue. We should always have some expectations of privacy. Regardless of which party you favor, what if the government bans your way of thinking? The ability to share a counter message is crucial to any stable system. If there is only ever one message, all is lost and you see things like North Korea.
I think there are ways to do communications applications that are freedom empowering and not subject to a central authority. The question comes down to support. Will people pay for that or use the free ones that abuse them with ads and manufactured outrage? I'm curious on what your product vision is, could you give an elevator pitch?
I disagree and here’s why: in a free society you have to convince participants to act in good faith by showing good will towards them. No amount of trying to control someone by censoring them will stop them from pursuing their beliefs. Instead, you need to hear their needs and use the public discourse of opinion to formulate a path forward that benefits all members of the society.
One of the things that was burned into my mind during my college years (math) was the notion that instinct and intuitiveness is only pattern recognition, and you should ignore it when you're on uncharted territory. Without past experiences to tune it, intuition is useless.
We're in uncharted territory now. Our ideals and principles of speech and communication weren't created in times when you could reach millions from your home, or manufacture opinion, or create alternative narratives. So those principles don't necessarily apply to current times.
Insisting in the old views will get us the same result as those battles where soldiers would march following the old ways in perfect classical formation against the first automatic weapons. And I don't want to be shredded.
"In other words, we have what should be an illegal product barred in a way that should also be illegal, a sort of ‘two wrongs make a right’ situation."
I think this is why so many of our choices seem tough right now: We made the wrong decision to get to present state, now any decision we make also looks wrong.
Okay, it's been a while, more data is available now, and I can provide a counter argument:
This whole event was planned on social media in the open, and still that did not help anyone prevent it. Had it all been planned on Signal the exact same result would have occurred.
I'm afraid I have to concur - in the face of mass communication, the marketplace of ideas that underpins free-speech idealism has failed.
Better ideas do not push out worse ones. And no, I'm not even talking about political viewpoints here - we see ideas based on fantasy, utter unreality, repeatedly winning substantial support and spreading amongst people.
Conversely whenever platforms do allow totally 'free' speech, we see that they degenerate into hives of hate and moderate voices tend to leave entirely.
I don't know what the answer is, but just having public forums made to allow everything, and screeching about free speech when they take a stand, is demonstrably not working.
The consequences of unfettered freedom to propagate lies on mass communication platforms under the banner of "freedom of speech" has directly endangered the democratic proces in the US, less than a week ago.
So to throw your own phrase back at you - it seems pretty obvious to me that democracy is threatened by what we currently think of as freedom of speech on mass media platforms, just as much as you think it would be threatened by any challenge to free speech.
It annoys me that you can look around at the world and decide I'm talking about limits on "acceptable opinion" when we're seeing phenomena like Q, which is based on abject fantasy. This is not a difference of opinion, this is a wannabe coup based on motivated lies.
Further, I specifically mentioned free speech idealism as something that was failing, in the context of people running internet services promising to carry absolutely everything (as the OP was talking about). "Freedom of speech" and "freedom to use other people's infrastructure to bullhorn your hate to millions" are not the same thing. You're still allowed to speak your mind in your local park, or email your weird-ass opinions to your family, even if I decide I don't want to carry your bile on my service.
Why is it that you think any limit imposed on such mass communications is a democracy destroying limit on ideas? This appears to be an absolutist way of looking at things, in a world where we don't currently have absolutes anyway. It's not like we have unfettered free speech, even in the US. Is Germany no longer a democracy because it outlaws holocaust denial? Are you going to throw accusations at them of being purveyors of 'acceptable opinion' ?
Not the person you replied to but I have seen an echo of this sentiment multiple times on HN in the past few weeks. In the end, if you believe that the population at large has to be shielded from what is now a large volume and range of types of speech, it means that you implicitly don't trust them to make the right choices on their own. And if you don't trust them to do that, then it never was about democracy to begin with. If you consider opinions you disapprove of to be illegitimate in democratic terms but opinions you approve of to be the result of the proper process of the exchange of ideas, then you implicitly recognize that it is about technocratic management of that exchange of ideas and the influence of the population rather than the actual exchange among free individuals.
It has little to do with absolutes but actually the basic underlying concepts. For the record, I agree that technocracy is generally a better idea. But the word democratic ought to be employed to actually mean something.
Again, it's not about opinions when outright lies and fantasy have lead to an actual attack on democracy and democratic institutions in the US last week.
Couching this in terms of disagreement with opposing or unnaproved viewpoints is to (wilfully?) miss the point.
Democracy apparently cannot function when demonstrably false information flows so unstoppably and in such quantity. This is not theoretical. To repurpose a quote from Ben Goldacre, everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not to their own facts.
I'm not proposing a solution here, more pointing out a failure mode in the curre t setup. But I disagree that having unfettered lies abounding is the only way to execute democracy. Again I would ask - do you consider Germany undemocratic?
This is a misunderstanding of the argument I'm making here. To break it down in more direct terms:
Premise A: For something to be democratic, the population has to wield power directly or indirectly by electing representatives.
Premise B: we cannot let just any type of speech or information propagate, because certain types of information are liable to make the population do bad things and harm democracy.
The premise B immediately runs into problems with A for a number of reasons:
1. We are implicitly agreeing that there is a caste of people that knows better than the population at large, and we count ourselves within that group when arguing about the topic (the "I'm stuck in traffic" instead of "I am the traffic" conclusion)
2. The flow of information and speech must be controlled so that the population is only exposed to certain things.
If the information or speech flow the population is exposed to must be controlled lest they do the wrong things, and that this control must be exercised by some vaguely defined group of reasonable people that includes the arguer, then in this scenario the population cannot be said to actually wield power and the arguer cannot be said to actually believe in democracy but presumably in some form of technocracy.
You end up with a paradox in which people claim to want democracy while arguing that a control and screening of the population is absolutely necessary for democracy.
To be clear, I am in general agreement with you that unfettered lies pose an existential risk. But it is not in any way a democratic sentiment: it is a technocratic one since in this case you do not trust the population to wield supreme political power on its own, without guidance.
I fundamentally disagree that placing some limits on speech is necessarily destructive to democracy or implies the removal of power from the people, particularly as the people have the power to elect those that could change such a policy.
Yelling 'fire' in a crowded theatre is not protected speech, yet we don't challenge the democratic credentials of a nation that prevents that, nor is such a rule considered beyond the reach of democratic governments to change or alter, it is not an untouchable decree handed down by a group of bien pensants. Nor do we say such things about criminalisation of incitement to violence. Perhaps something in this mode of thinking is more appropriate.
And I'm also going to have to say again - this is not something I'm proposing as a solution. I am not even proposing a solution
I am identifying a failure mode in the sort of absolute free speech idealism that is common and particularly in the "marketplace of ideas" concept. I don't know how to fix it but it is clear that it is a threat to democratic principles in and of itself in the face of mass communications. And I disagree that taking steps to address it would necessarily be undemocratic, depending on what those steps are.
By your A and B premises, Germany is undemocratic, even though their rules on holocaust denial could be democratically removed were there the will to do so.
The thing is, the argument I outlined earlier wouldn't have been very compelling a decade ago. As you have shown, there are examples of speech restrictions that aren't that big a deal. Some people might indeed debate the finer merits of free speech such as genocide denial in such and such countries but in the end it rarely affects the entire fabric of society beyond a few individuals getting convicted here and there. So to answer your question, I do think Germany is still democratic despite my own argument because whatever restrictions currently exist aren't that important in the bigger picture of how the state functions.
But now with social media misinformation, we are moving from the tutorial of shouting 'fire' in a theater to the boss level whose final form we can only speculate on. That's what in my opinion ought to motivate some fundamental questions about what democracy is actually supposed to be moving forward.
Essentially, I'm totally on board with your failure mode idea: it's just that we diverge on the definition of what democracy is. If the future of society consists in heavy manipulation of information feeds for the purpose of maintaining a specific equilibrium, I believe it is better referred to as a technocracy especially if that manipulation will mostly be done by tech companies and other unelected officials. In this case, if Germany were to regularly curtail certain forms of speech with fundamental consequences on how the broad masses of voters behave (a path it is already on in my view) then it will eventually cease to be meaningfully democratic as the years go by. But I accept and understand that there are other ways of evaluating the situation.
Twitter and Facebook aren’t “free speech,” as the wags remind us all the time. In fact, they’re machines for hyper-self-reinforcing echoes of the national id.
More speech leads to truth, unless you can choose to wall yourself off from all critical speech that offends you. Then you just self reinforce and self radicalize. The Twitter/AWS response is a larger version of the same American reaction that got us here.
I’d like to see social media designed to get at truth, not just dopamine. It makes no sense to me that you can’t get a retraction tweet sent to THE SAME people who view a false tweet. And yet you can’t.
But what’s the solution then? “We are going to forcibly expose you to speech you’d rather not see, for the greater good” is no less dystopian than just banning people.
In the old days of the Internet, you carefully selected the newsgroups and websites you wanted to read. This worked pretty well.
There were places where heated arguments about politics and religion took place, but it wasn't forced into your face as soon as you logged on. You had to choose to look for it. But if you just wanted to read about coding or sci-fi, discussions generally stayed on-topic.
We weren't in this crazy world of 'everyone's an activist'. We were in a world of 'Don't feed the trolls', and that was wise advice. Now you're essentially encouraged to bait the trolls to score 'likes' and 'karma points', bonus points for getting an opponent banned.
We can't uninvent social media, but maybe we can learn some lessons from the rather-less-destructive Internet of the past?
People have to understand that this is what free speech actually looks like. Some people want to say some things, and other people don’t want to say them, so the latter choose not to help the former. In this case, the people running Amazon decided not to help the people running Parler anymore.
And it is decentralized. No central authority told Amazon to drop Parler; Amazon decided on their own.
I think a lot of young people came up thinking that “free speech” meant no one ever gets shut down for any reason. And they grew up thinking that tech platforms are like the government; neutral and inalienable. Neither was true and IMO it is very good in the long run for people to now understand and accept this.
> And it is decentralized. No central authority told Amazon to drop Parler; Amazon decided on their own.
Actually, Amazon didn't decide on their own—which is why none of us are surprised by their "decision". It was made for them, somewhere else. But where? By who? How?
You'd think on a site supposedly interested in computer science that people would be aware that distributed consensus is a thing. You don't need a literal monarch (or a conspiracy—same thing), there are many ways to achieve consensus in a distributed fashion that are extremely robust.
In fact, distributed consensus (as everyone here already knows) is substantially more robust overall. (Cockroach is more robust than Postgres, etc.) With a monarch, you can simply replace them—it's no harder than swapping in a new CEO. But with distributed consensus, the entire apparatus has to be torn down simultaneously. Yikes!
So ask yourself, what institutions are involved in forming consensus in the US today? Are they government, private, or both? Are they democratic or oligarchic? Etc. We know it can be done, the only question is: where are the nodes? How do they communicate? What's the protocol used? Etc.
The US today runs a distributed consensus algorithm that made Amazon's decision about Parler for them, i.e. the values and decisions made by that consensus filter down to supposedly "independent" businesses like Amazon, who implement them. And if Amazon disobeys that consensus, everyone else in the system (especially the press) will gang up on them until they do….
tl;dr There's nothing independent about what Amazon did, distributed political decision making in the US decided their actions for them.
Let me put it this way: I can give Amazon zero attention and still know what they are going to do, simply by paying attention elsewhere.
Can you? I suspect you could too. We all can, none of this is a secret.
So…is Amazon a node in the political decision making apparatus if you can ignore them entirely and still predict their behavior? I would argue that is strong evidence Amazon is not a decision node when it comes to political decision making, they are a follower node. I would argue that all mainstream US businesses are follower nodes.
Non-political business questions? Sure. I agree US businesses like Amazon are mostly free to act independently. Shutting down Parler, though, was a political decision. An expression of power. In that realm, Amazon was not the one in charge.
Always question everything you are told, especially by central authorities, mainstream popular media, etc.
Seek out information from variety of sources and discern the truth from fiction.
What you may think is evidence may be completely opposite of what it actually is.
Especially any narratives that are pushed to convince people to voluntarily give up privacy and freedoms.
Just look at all the regular people going around screaming at other people to put on masks. What happened to make these people go screaming at other people?
If you're on this board and worked on tech projects, you should be able to spot propaganda in process.
What makes central authorities and mainstream popular media inherently more suspicious?
I disagree that having worked on tech projects would help you spot propaganda. It is illogical to assume you're an expert on the stock market just because you know how to code. (There's a fallacy name for this one which is escaping me)
> What makes central authorities and mainstream popular media inherently more suspicious?
I'll take a stab.
Central authorities tend to be and to become political in nature. Their incentives include, among other things, maintaining their funding and not looking bad (eg: maintaining a purpose for existing, excusing their own misbehavior, making any political benefactors happy). What they say will probably align with those institutional incentives first, before truth. It can also stop them from saying things they ought to.
Mainstream popular media does not exist to be an objective arbiter of truth but instead because enough people want to consume it. It's a business, albeit a business that has an incredible amount of power over not only the public's opinion, but what they should care about, both through what they report and what they don't report. They will push as many emotional buttons as they can to keep you coming back. Because they have a lot of power over the public they are targets for actors wishing to advance their own goals.
Individual journalists are not a-political and you shouldn't expect them to be. Assume all reporting is tribal (especially if you agree with it), and that not only is the story as presented probably biased towards their own view of the world but that they've probably also left inconvenient things out.
Political creatures tend to associate with those they agree with, and are in turn controlled by the group.
Potential ostracism from their in-group is another source of bias.
This makes sense. It's hard to find the truth given extreme polarization. I don't trust individual posts on social media. My reasoning for trusting mainstream news outlets was that maybe they have more journalistic integrity than the newcomers who have a lot less to lose. I guess I must rethink.
First, high frequency trading is using code to gain alpha in stock market trading. Tech expertise is more important than reading balance sheets in this arena. It may be illogical, but it works and are used by many high profile Wall Street firms.
Most people working in tech have sense of awareness, that things are not quite what they seem. That's why there are so many people in tech heavily involved in decentralization, crypto, etc.
While I agree in principle, the easiest way to fall for propaganda is to believe yourself immune to it.
I would advocate for a two-track solution where you keep a healthy skepticism but try to be aware of your own pareidolia and possible lack of understanding of certain topics, and accept the idea that we are just jumping from one bubble to another (notice how "question the narrative" people tend to speak and think along the same tropes?)
I don't mean total skepticism of everything for its own sake, but the idea that a person ought to pick their battles carefully and keep reminding themselves that they can't understand the world as easily as they think they do. It's important not to confuse skepticism for insight or critical thought.
Trump is a central authority and fox news is a mainstream popular media. I don't think that questioning them amounts to conspiracy theories or that doing it should get you banned.
What exactly is "Free Speech" are we talking about the constitution or some hard to defend philosophical idea?
There hasn't been any legal free speech issues here. Fundamentally, if you make a platform, you can (mostly) enforce whatever policies you want about the type of speech you allow. This is why Parler is trying to chase this from an anti-trust angle, not a 1st Amendment angle.
If you are talking about the more general philosophical idea, keep in mind we are talking on Hacker News. Here, right now we are moderated. Much discussion on Parler which caused Apple, Google, and Amazon to hit them with the ban hammer is banned here as well. Likewise, most online forums ban talk of murder, rape, death threats, etc.
Parler itself has policies against this kind of content, if they didn't, Apple at least wouldn't have allowed them on the App Store. Parler does not enforce their own Terms of Service. If they did, we wouldn't be here now.
Your commitment to free speech was likely never very deep or thoughtful if these events are enough for you to do a 180. Could it be you have fallen into a filter bubble so well insulated you don't realize it? Such a realization might also shake a person but it has the virtue of proximity to truth and the possibility of being corrected quite easily.
I think everyone would benefit if we stopped using the phrase "free speech" because it consistently derails the conversation into a 1st amendment vs private companies argument. Which is a very tired argument at this point.
A better word for what's happening is "censorship" and society's willingness to allow organizations to censor their customers.
> I thought I believed in free speech, to the point where I started a company dedicated to providing privacy and communications products that were not subject to control by any central authority (that turns out to be very hard!) But watching the events of the past few years unfold I am no longer convinced that this would really make the world a better place.
I've gone completely the other way. At one point my thinking was that private companies running these platforms weren't a problem as long as there wasn't a monopoly. So government censorship is a problem (monopoly on force), Apple and Google are a problem (duopoly / two "regional" monopolies) but there is no reason to criticize Twitter for removing anything because they actually have competitors.
Recent events have led me to believe that removing central control from the distribution of information is an imperative.
Because having more alternatives only matters if the alternatives are actually different. Uniform obsequiousness to the party about to be in control of the government isn't a marketplace of ideas.
If I want to try to be ideologically consistent, there is still an antitrust argument to make. Uniform behavior when the alternative would attract a large contingent of users implies collusion, or government censorship via capitulation to some not so veiled threats from legislators. But one way or another this is a threat to democracy.
MSNBC is now arguing that Comcast et al should stop carrying Fox News. Comcast is the parent company of MSNBC.
The answer has to be disintermediation. Which also solves the real problem, which is centralized platforms purposely promoting controversial content to increase engagement. QAnon came from Facebook, not Parler.
Do recent events make you confident that you can trust every government administration not to abuse a hypothetical power to regulate speech?
Freedom of speech may have great value in helping to prevent (or reduce the probability of) totalitarian dictatorship and democide. If so, this value will only be realized infrequently, and only speculatively (e.g. when a politician comes close to taking power and fails, we can speculate that perhaps they would have succeeded if they had been able to regulate speech).
It's possible that freedom of speech makes society worse in various ways, but that this is outweighed by the positive value of even very infrequent averting of totalitarian dictatorship or democide.
One question is, does freedom of speech make totalitarianism more or less likely?
What is "a credible existential threat to civilization" to you? The recent riots seem to be more than adequately handled through existing law enforcement procedures. Obviously the police can't prevent every crime, but in this case investigation and prosecution seems to be enough to remove bad actors. We know what the consequences of free speech are, and even if the downsides are amplified 1000x by its enemies, the downsides are still manageable by existing institutions.
What are the known consequences of not having free speech? Is there a large country where this hasn't resulted in the death and/or oppression of millions? Even Mao's China had the Cultural Revolution, which was more destructive than the BLM and Capitol riots combined. Clearly not having free speech prevents neither civil unrest nor insurrection against the lawful authorities.
If you're looking for a dream solution where the world becomes great, than free speech will never get you there. You will probably be attracted to the unproven promises of some ideology or another due to lack of alternatives. If you're looking for a comparison of real-world consequences where one imperfect solution outperforms another, then so far free speech has yet to produce a Holocaust, a Holodomor, or a Three Years of Great Famine. The lack of free speech has.
>What is "a credible existential threat to civilization" to you? The recent riots seem to be more than adequately handled through existing law enforcement procedures.
The crowd (who had previously been chanting "hang Mike Pence") came within about 30 seconds of being face to face with Vice President Pence and some large fraction of Congress (source [0]). They came very close to being overrun before the building was evacuated.
We can't know what would have happened. But we know what might have happened. And it very nearly could have happened.
I'm not ready to call that "more than adequately handled".
For context, I don't expect any government to be able to prevent violence and conflict. The best we can hope for is to keep conflict to a manageable level. We've had numerous assassinations in this country in the past, and it held together. The threat of a possible assassination of a right-wing figure absolutely does not rise to the level of "existential threat". If you don't want to call it "adequately handled", fine, I'm not going to argue those semantic distinctions especially as it's not necessary for us to have the same perspectives here. I'm just saying that society is still intact, and would still be intact even if Mike Pence had been attacked.
Other than the personal tragedy to Pence and his family, the worst outcome of an assassination would be people struggling to reconcile their ecstatic glee that Pence had keen killed with their furious rage that right-wingers attacked someone. If anything, division and conflict within the Republican Party only seems to strengthen their opposition. These events lead to less power held by the right, not more. Republicans shooting themselves in the foot is not an "existential threat to civilization".
Law enforcement has been failing to take the threat of right-wing extremism seriously for a long time. I think that's what we should be focused on addressing instead of clamping down on speech. The situation at the capitol should never have been allowed to escalate to the point that it did.
> What is "a credible existential threat to civilization" to you?
For example: a delusional or demagogic leader who promulgates lies about the outcome of an election in order to fire up a mob and incite them to attempt to violently take over the seat of government of a country with nuclear weapons.
Not that such a thing would ever actually happen. I guess I'm just a worrier.
What's the worst-case scenario if they had succeeded? That they take some people hostage and have a stand-off until the FBI takes them down? There was no path to them attaining any actual power. Their actions were violent and bad, but had no actual effect on anybody outside of D.C. That is not what I call an "existential threat".
Again, you have to compare the downsides of free speech vs the downsides of censorship. If you only look at the cons of free speech, then of course you will hate it. But if you compare one impotent riot to the tens of millions dead as a result of suppression, then free speech seems much more valuable.
> There was no path to them attaining any actual power.
They currently have actual power. Their leader is currently the president of the United States. For the next 48 hours he could nuke Tehran if he wanted to.
And what actually happened is far from the worst-case scenario. Imagine a comparable mob, but well organized, and armed with assault rifles. That was (and remains) a real possibility.
You seem determined to focus only on the worst possible hypothetical downsides and not consider anything else. Of course in this case free speech will prove to be an evil that must be eliminated. You win.
That would be very bad if it happened, although existing institutions proved sufficient to prevent this.
Still, we've had many assassinations in our history, often at the presidential level. None of them were "existential threats". They were all handled by existing institutions and did not require throwing out our core values.
The worst-case scenario is the end of democracy in the USA in the next 15 years.
If one side stays convinced the elections were fraudulent and Trump is a victim , it will cause a permanent shift in how Americans see their own democratic elections.
Historically, since democracy has existed, that vacuum is always filled by an authoritarian leader.
I find it odd that most of this could have been prevented if just one judge had said "you know what, you have a lot of notarized affidavits, and a reasonable claim to harm considering you lost the election by conventional wisdom, and you can't legally access any further data to prove your case unless we enter a discovery stage, so, sure, let's play this out and be done with it."
I also find it odd that none of the lawsuits prevented combined the affidavits (generally considered sufficient evidence to proceed) and reasonable proof of harm. Always one or the other (or neither).
Nothing will pour more gas on that fire than censorship.
I basically agree with your analysis on that point, and I'm resentful of Trump for helping to create that problem. But I consider big tech censorship to be the first step to an inevitable end of democracy, "destroying it in order to save it".
It's a really hard problem because the "anti-censorship" argument is also used by the side that wants to destroy democracy once in power.
Historically, Americans have succeeded at destroying ideologies by grossly impeding on free speech and other constitutional rights when there was political will.
Currently, I'm not sure there is a sign of political will to restore democratic norms by suppressing white-supremacism.
> Historically, Americans have succeeded at destroying ideologies by grossly impeding on free speech and other constitutional rights when there was political will.
Native American autonomy and agency, African Americans obtaining land after the Civil War or stimulus measures after the Great Depression, Communism...
Of course, the combination of limiting free speech for decades leads to the death of the ideology because no one picks it up.
> Native American autonomy and agency, African Americans obtaining land after the Civil War
Unfortunately these were suppressed with violence, far more than mere censorship. I don't think these causes are dead at all, however. Many Native Americans still pursue these goals and occasionally enjoy victories, while the other cause has changed with the times and shifted focus from land to a more vague idea of reparations.
> stimulus measures after the Great Depression, Communism
I don't think those are dead at all. They may not be especially popular among normal people, but one can certainly get elected and openly preach violent revolutionary ideology like "We are coming to dismantle this deeply oppressive, racist, sexist, violent, utterly bankrupt system of capitalism, this police state. We cannot and will not stop until we overthrow it and replace it with a world based instead on solidarity, genuine democracy, and equality – a socialist world." [0] The organizers of BLM have explicitly stated that they are "trained organizers, trained Marxists" in the context of BLM's having adequate ideological direction. [1][2]
However, what if the election really was fraudulent? I mean the video in Georgia after the election observer were sent home, were pretty incriminating.
Also seeing how BLM got backing and did way more damage, makes this all look pretty one-sided. It's only okay if they do it.
Interestingly, the democrats would have fixed the elections but only managed to win the Senate in a tight run-off?
After spending $100 million, the Trump campaign's legal team found no admissible evidence of election fraud, just videos they can use for future campaigns attacking democracy.
What is happening to this site? The comment above is alleging election fraud, which has been debunked by multiple court rulings from judges across the political spectrum. It is not downvoted, flagged, nothing. The comment responding it to it gets downvoted?
My best guess is that liberals stopped reading higher in the thread. I would hope that moderates and conservatives would not find those claims very credible, but perhaps they do or are not so offended as to downvote.
I was personally fine with the integrity of the election right up until censorship ramped up. Now I have zero confidence that I would hear about any problems. I still don't think the election was "stolen" or anything, but I'm no longer confident enough to downvote such an opinion. How are we supposed to really know what's true or not when we only hear one side of the story?
What censorship? The president himself was saying the election was stolen from him for two months and that was basically the only thing the nightly news talked about (other than COVID) every day. At some point we should be able to say "Enough, evidence or GTFO," without being accused of silencing discussion.
I don't know anything about what the nightly news ran. All I know is that when my news sources got around to talking about it, a couple days later it's "oh I have to be very careful what I say about this, I already got a notice threatening a ban". From my perspective, the period of free discussion was extremely limited.
I'm not at all sympathetic to the "we have to crush this viewpoint" camp since they amplified Hillary's claims of a "stolen election" for years. [0] You can't tell just one side "evidence or GTFO" and expect anyone to take you seriously. Especially when the new narrative is that elections are fair and unstealable, which directly contradicts the claims of an unfair stolen election in 2016.
> I'm not at all sympathetic to the "we have to crush this viewpoint" camp since they amplified Hillary's claims of a "stolen election" for years.
Clinton never claimed the counting of the votes were rigged, and I know of no serious politician claiming that Clinton should be installed as president because of the claimed Russian meddling, whether they believed it or not.
So, on one hand, we have a candidate who was pretty much dropped like a hot potato by fellow Democrats the moment she lost the election. On the other hand, we have mainstream media giving hundreds of hours of coverage to a president insisting he actually won the election, when all evidence says he didn't. ...And you're saying who is censored?
How is the video in Georgia debunked? They sent observers home (even a big newslet posted this on Twitter at that time), counted the ballots afterwards and Biden had a spike.
And btw I am from Germany, so I am on neither "camp".
No you saw a conspiracy theory peddled by Rudy Giuliani, the man in charge of the Trump legal challenge to the election.
The video is so wrongly interpreted, Republicans were the first one to debunk it.
It's important to note, in a video, when someone leaves the screen or the room... you can't assume they've been sent home.
You mean how one side for the last four years has said that Trump "stole" the election due to Russian interference.
The fact is, this is all whataboutism. This is all due to instructional failure. Americans increasing do not trust the institutions, the media, the government, 'elites'. This lack of trust is the root cause for growing conspiracy theories. The answer to this is not to stifle speech, but to have more speech. After all, sunlight is the best disinfectant.
1) I'm not an American and don't give a shit about American politics
2) Do you think that Russian interference changed the result of the election? If it didn't than the huffing and puffing about the Russians stealing the election is just as false as Trump's current claims
3) Trump supporters can equally point to affidavits and "evidence" about vote tampering. Whether you believe that evidence or not is another story.
My point was not about trump or biden stealing the election, it was that institutional trust is low. People no longer believe what the government or the media put out. No doubt some of this is driven by the "narrative approach" to truth, where everything tells a story that aligns to a group's ideology.
> fire up a mob and incite them to attempt to violently take over the seat of government of a country with nuclear weapons
You know the buttons/switches/etc to launch missiles (nuclear or not) are not at the Speaker's podium in the House, right?
In fact, "taking over the seat of government" here was literally just that.. a physical seat. The US government applies authority in people via roles not via seating position.
Were they a bunch of assholes? Yes and they should be prosecuted as such.
This is how a 'coup' works - the objective is not to 'take control of the country' by force, but of the political system.
If that violent mob was successful in 'stopping the count' - then it very seriously threatens the legitimacy of Biden being president.
Why do you think that Congress reconvened right after the violence and very quickly pushed through the vote? And didn't wait a few days?
If the vote confirmation doesn't take place, someone takes the case to SCOTUS wherein they might rule the process was not complete and 'now you have two Presidents' - and very ugly ambiguous situation that could spiral out of control very quickly.
The fact that SCOTUS could have ruled 'incomplete process' may embolden millions of 'hard Constitutionalists' to one side.
This stuff happens all over the world, all the time. These things are fragile.
It was a nice little lesson in how actually fragile 'even the USA is' and that this is serious stuff.
If you're going to imagine Constitutional crises, you should understand the rules we're working within. Check out the first section of the 20th Amendment and please report back how there could be two Presidents.
Narrator: Turns out the system isn't that fragile. It continues on regardless because there are contingencies built in and improved upon over the years.
Obviously there wouldn't be '2 Presidents' by any reasonable application of a set of very clear rules.
But those rules are not clear.
One camp would believe, that Biden won a fair election, as stated by the DOJ, Homeland Security and the State Officals (it's their perogative), and that the preformative process of validating the results in Congress wasn't entirely necessary.
The other claim would claim with 'the election was disputed' and that the failure to confirm the results in Congress was a 'fully legal act' that abnegates the possibility of Biden from taking office.
AKA '2 Presidents' by virtue of you you interpret the outcomes of those events.
The 20th Amendment does not help us clarify that situation.
In these contentious scenarios, the credibility of institutions is stretched and populism starts to take hold.
It would be major crisis.
This is why institutions started to rally around 'one camp' as to facilitate a proper transfer of power.
Since much of this debacle was based off of misinformation, it speaks directly to issues with 'truth' and 'freedom of expression'. I'm not sure if there is an obvious answer on the table, but there are definitely problems.
Thanks for clarifying. I think your example is perfect:
Your conspiracy theory is not based facts, law, or well-established interpretations of either and yet you're fully bought in and sharing it. I see how that could be dangerous, but I think silencing you would be worse for you personally and society as a whole.
'Who would be President on Jan 20?' - if the vote to approve the electoral results on Jan 6th were not completed - or - if the results provided by the states were 'rejected' by a congressional vote.
?
Bonus points if you can tell us how the 20th Amendment clarifies that for us.
Also, irrespective of what the legal outcome might be, what would most US citizens actually believe? Would the losing faction have enough faith in the institutional decisions such that they do not revolt? After all, we just saw a fair election in which ~30% of the electorate 'do not believe' the results.
You do see the 20 000 soldiers out there for inauguration? Why do you suppose they are there?
Finally - here is some background material to help figure out who wins in the end [1]
> Who would be President on Jan 20?' - if the vote to approve the electoral results on Jan 6th were not completed [...]
Bonus points if you can tell us how the 20th Amendment clarifies that for us.
Nancy Pelosi.
Amendment XX: “The terms of the President and Vice President shall end at noon on the 20th day of January [...] If a President shall not have been chosen before the time fixed for the beginning of his term, or if the President elect shall have failed to qualify, then the Vice President elect shall act as President until a President shall have qualified; and the Congress may by law provide for the case wherein neither a President elect nor a Vice President elect shall have qualified, declaring who shall then act as President, or the manner in which one who is to act shall be selected, and such person shall act accordingly until a President or Vice President shall have qualified."
3 USC § 19(a)(1): “If, by reason of death, resignation, removal from office, inability, or failure to qualify, there is neither a President nor Vice President to discharge the powers and duties of the office of President, then the Speaker of the House of Representatives shall, upon his resignation as Speaker and as Representative in Congress, act as President.”
^ Exactly. There are lots of unclear and open to interpretation areas of law but this isn't one of them.
We have a well-established process with clear steps which apply in good times and bad times, whether any of the players like them at the moment or not.
It's not tough but people have to discard their conspiracy theories in favor of facts, laws, and reason.
There is no 'conspiracy theory' in the clear and obvious observation of an insurrection on Capitol Hill wherein many attempted to thwart the Jan 6 validation of votes.
Despite Dragon's decent response, it is far from clear what the outcome would be where the vote to have been stopped.
It's also false to suggest that the laws are clear enough to disambiguate these situations.
At very least, there would be a constitutional legal war the likes of which the country has never seen.
But most importantly - the issue is one of populism: if 1/3 of the country does not believe the results of what was by all accounts an unambiguous outcome - and were capable of literally stopping the process - then it 'doesn't matter what the law is' because already the system will have gone beyond objective reality and due process. It's Game of Thrones then.
> It's not tough but people have to discard their conspiracy theories in favor of facts, laws, and reason.
OTOH, one should not ignore conspiracy theories if one is trying to explain the actions of Q cultists.
Just because there is a clear reality doesn’t mean that every actor is motivated by that rather than a distorted, conspiracy-theory driven one on which fringe or outright untenable theories of law are among the basic operating premises.
"If a President shall not have been chosen before ..."
"If, by reason of death, resignation, removal from office, inability, or failure to qualify ...”
So Biden will not have been 'chosen' or did not 'qualify' ?
If the Jan 6 vote did not happen or if the results were not approved - Joe Biden was still unambiguously 'chosen' by in a free and fair election by all accounts?
Would the factual legitimacy of his election result in SCOTUS validating his claim to the Presidency?
Can the voting procedure (Act of 1887) [1] meaningfully deny the Biden his ascension to President?
VP Pence himself (a lawyer) indicated that he did not have the authority to stop the process.
It seems pretty ambiguous, and that legal scholars would be all over the place with this, no?
But my question was rhetorical - to illustrate that there's a wall of legal ambiguity in that situation, enough to enable considerable populist rancour to take hold, whereupon the winner may not have enough political momentum to actually take power, irrespective of what some entity like SCOTUS says.
Would Democrats even remotely accept anything other that Biden as President?
Why would they ever submit to 'Pelosi' as being President - which would be an admission of defeat, or even or possibly another election?
If the 'election was rigged' - doesn't that invalidate the entire Congress as well? Including Pelosi? And all the Senators?
If a free and fair election were already held in November, and it was overturned for political reasons, what would be the point of having another one, if the results can be ignored on the basis of populism?
> If the Jan 6 vote did not happen or if the results were not approved - Joe Biden was still unambiguously 'chosen' by in a free and fair election by all accounts?
The only account that has any force under the Constitution is the one made by Congress of the electoral votes cast by the States. That's why it was the target of the insurrection; if that could be manipulated, whether by giving courage to secret allies who might otherwise have a failure of conviction in Congress (what Trump overtly called on the crowd to do), or intimidation, or by forcibly removing members who were obstacles, then the election results could be undone; the “steal” could be “stopped”.
> Would the factual legitimacy of his election result in SCOTUS validating his claim to the Presidency?
Almost certainly not, and if it did it would be the Supreme Court voiding the Constitutional reservation of the role of judging electoral results from Congress, a different kind of coup.
> Would Democrats even remotely accept anything other that Biden as President?
No, if it was clear that the count was going to be obstructed and incomplete, rather than completed with a different outcome, but the House was capable of acting, they'd probably just elect Biden Speaker.
> If the 'election was rigged' - doesn't that invalidate the entire Congress as well? Including Pelosi? And all the Senators?
Legally, they are separate elections held at the same time, so, no, not in the eyes of the law, even if the first part was a conclusion of law, rather than a propaganda point to rationalize an application of raw power, which is what it would be.
> If a free and fair election were already held in November, and it was overturned for political reasons, what would be the point of having another one, if the results can be ignored on the basis of populism?
The same reason authoritarian regimes usually have elections; purely performative, rather than substantive.
> If that violent mob was successful in 'stopping the count' - then it very seriously threatens the legitimacy of Biden being president.
If it just stopped the count, and Congress took no other relevant action thereafter, the Presidency and Vice Presidency would become vacant at noon on the 20th and Nancy Pelosi, by virtue of her office as Speaker of the House, would succeed to the Presidency.
But supposed the Congress (or a sufficient subset to deny a quorum in either House) were detained, and Grassley and Pelosi were killed. Then, when Trump's term expired, Trump loyalist Mike Pompeo (while cabinet members traditionally submit their resignation at a change in administration, they don't automatically leave office) would be next in line of succession with vacancies in the Speaker and President Pro Tem positions.
And, more likely the goal, what if Pence were killed (and probably Grassley, too) but then.Senators were released and a President Pro Tem amenable to exercising the arbitrary power Gohmert suggested the presiding officer would have in the electoral vote count were elected, and presided over the vote count as the Vice President was vacant?
(I do think any scenario results in “two Presidents”, I do think several result in “one President (in some cases of dubious legitimacy) who isn't Joe Biden, and (in several scenarios) is either Trump or a Trump loyalist."
I don't think there's a credible threat to civilization, but perhaps a credible threat to our prevailing thoughts on governance.
There is no good justification that the people of Los Angeles should have to live under the rules and cultural customs of Mobile Alabama. Nor should the people of Mobile Alabama be forced to live under the rules and cultural norms of Los Angeles. As long as we re forced to toggle back and forth between which group is forcing the other to live under their own preferences there cannot be peace.
The separation you are seeing is real, but it's not negative. The path forward is more freedom, perhaps even separation.
The black population of Mobile would be more free to run their schools the way they want, including perhaps things like having prayer in class. If Alabama closed its borders to undocumented immigrants the wages of poor blacks would likely rise due to reduced labor supply.
There are examples of federal systems where things that can be agreed upon are shared at the federal level, and things where disagreements cannot be reconciled are managed at the state level.
One of the ways we've gone wrong as a society recently is thinking that there can only be one way, and everyone has to adhere to it. People need to be allowed to disagree, because everyone will find themselves on the side of "wrong" (i.e. less optimal for achieving one's goals) at some point.
We have states openly talking about secession. Of course they're not serious yet, but it's like dropping the d word in a marriage, it can't be undone. I predict it won't get much more violent than we've seen over the course of the last year. And when the divorce does happen it will seem inevitable.
Covid19 is pretty much a product of no free speech, they claimed it to be "misinformation" at first about human to human, no doctors were allowed to talk about it, what else evidence do you need? Like don't trust the wearing facial mask is not only helpful for others but also yourself "misinformation"? So you see, the problem is, who decide what's "misinformation"? And what if they are wrong, like they did so many times, but in a time no other voice is allowed? Think about it
* The world, and the US has always gone through periods of chaos. This is not the first time we've seen violence and strife, with assassinated presidents and students mowed down by bullets. What's happening now is not worse than what happened before and somehow we still kept free speech intact.
* While certain speech is hateful, painful, and even somewhat dangerous, stifling it only increases pressure and isolation among those being censored. They become more extreme. Furthermore, they are made to seem dangerous simply by the fact that we are censoring them rather than letting them be. The ACLU used to defend KKK marches, and we derided them for the idiots that they are, but still let them march. Furthermore, there's no way to engage in and work through the mental mistakes these people are making if we don't even let them talk. Lastly, they get a persecution complex and don't trust anything the "other side" says. It makes things worse.
* One of the main reasons these people are getting violent is because they are suffering, in poverty, without jobs, and recognize that something is seriously wrong society. They falsely attribute it to race or communism or some other thing, rather than the greedy corporate oligarchy that only gives the common man scraps. The elite would rather resort to censorship than to actually address the problems that cause these people to be unsatisfied and vulnerable to fascistic propaganda. Free speech is not dangerous in an equitable society.
* similarly to the last point, who will decide what speech is ok and what speech is not? The public? That would be mob mentality without standard. The government? Most politician are greedy and self serving. Corporations like facebook? They are beholden to the dollar. No one can be trusted to fairly choose what is not ok to say.
> Lastly, one of the main reasons these people are getting violent is because they are suffering, in poverty, without jobs, and recognize that something is seriously wrong society.
Yeah, if you look at the people detained and identified in the Capitol riot, they aren't people who got violent because they were suffering, in poverty, or without jobs; they are largely middle class and up, currently employed, well-established. It's violent defense of privilege, not a desperate response to poverty and suffering.
I don't know the veracity of your statement, but censorship, particularly of right wing narratives, has been a hot topic for a long time, not just after the capitol riot. Your statement would imply that the massive support for Trump is only due to people wanting to protect their privilege. You are denying reality by ignoring the vast swath of poor people that voted for Trump because he claimed he would address their needs. This is an undeniable fact.
> Your statement would imply that the massive support for Trump is only due to people wanting to protect their privilege
No, I was addressing a claim about why people are becoming violent in the context of the Capitol insurrection (which, while a large mob, is not a large or representative share of Trump supporters).
Why that narrow group is getting violent and why the much larger group of Trump supporters support Trump have no necessary relation; they are different effects and different groups of people, but if you want to change topics from the violent fringe to Trump support mother generally...
> You are denying reality by ignoring the vast swath of poor people that voted for Trump because he claimed he would address their needs.
Trump lost most decisively among the poor, and won the better-off. This is an undeniable fact.
43% of US poor voting for Trump (from your own link) is just going to be ignored?
By the way, you never addressed most of my original post, rather resorting to picking off one part with a snarky comment, somehow implying that it's obvious that censorship is the way to go and it's not worthy of debate.
> But we've now done the experiment in a big way and the results seem overwhelmingly negative to me, to the point where they present a credible existential threat to civilization, on a par with climate change.
A lot of these issues seem largely peculiar to the US. Trumpism, birtherism, Pizzagate, "Stop the steal", QAnon, etc – all movements originating in the US, focused on US-specific political issues, and with most of their followers in the US. Other first world countries don't seem to have this issue to anywhere near the same extent.
And that's why I don't think it is "a credible existential threat to civilization, on a par with climate change". A credible existential threat to the future existence of the United States maybe, but the US != civilisation. The US could all magically disappear tomorrow, and human civilisation would survive. It would be a setback, no doubt, because the US makes an important contribution to the global economy, but nothing the world couldn't recover from.
And, the realistic worst case scenario isn't the US magically disappearing. The realistic worst case scenario is that Americans get worse and worse at co-existing with each other to the point that the idea of breaking up the US becomes mainstream, and then it maybe actually happens. If that came to pass, it would be the end of America as we've known it, but it wouldn't be the end of human civilisation.
> Other first world countries don't seem to have this issue to anywhere near the same extent.
The kinds of things you listed happen all the time in marginal, developing, or failing democracies. There are a lot of people who believe that the US shares many of its attributes with ailing democracies, so this should not be too surprising.
I'm not sure it's free speech exactly, but the ability to hang put with like minded people exclusively. The internet makes that fairly easy. You just ban everyone who disagrees from your little forum, or drive them off.
I don't see any clear fix though. Even the big sites like Facebook and Reddit have that going on.
Of course, I admit this went on before with things like religious groups that isolated people to convert them to the cult, but it's far easier to generate the effect now.
I’m stunned at how frequently this sentiment is being brought up. We have a significant event happen and many of us are so quickly ready to give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety.
I can almost forgive younger folks for these sentiments, but those of us who lived through 9/11 should know better.
How many of us lamented the surveillance and overreach of the government then? Remember all the news articles about potential for repealing the patriot act? Remember how as time went by the overreach felt more and more egregious?
Would our country be in a better place if in an alternate history we had near-perfect surveillance on civil rights leaders? On purported communists in the 50s? On bootleggers? Agitators for suffrage? On black people during reconstruction?
If you think “yes” then it’s consistent to want more surveillance now. If you’re like me and think that such surveillance then would have the country in a worse place now then recognize the current moment for what it is: a serious attack on our democracy and a reflection of deep divide. It is NOT a good reason to become Yet Another Authoritarian State.
Consider this hypothetical: what if Trump had won and Biden supporters stormed the white house, and had organized using a primarily left-leaning social network. Would AWS and others, have responded the same way? My guess is no. That isn't to say that they wouldn't do anything, but I doubt the social network would be completely shut down with so little notice.
If you are only for free speech if you find the speech tolerable, then you don't understand the concept or you are not for free speech.
Similarly, If you only support democracy if people vote the way you want, then you do not understand the concept of democracy or you do not support democracy because that is not what supporting democracy means.
There has been violent riots in the US all throughout 2020, I think they were bad, but I don't think for one moment the right solution was to prevent the people who attended them from being able to voice their opinions.
There were also claims that the 2016 election was fraudulent and illegitimate since 2016.
If you were okay with all of that, but just object to this because of the outcome, you should look at why.
It may be worth reading Public Opinion and Liberal Principles, Conjectures and Refutations, Chapter 17 by Karl Popper (https://pastebin.com/1JdawXUd)
One counterpoint: everyone knows that as the makers of these tools we have power over others. Somebody somewhere must have a plan to manipulate us. Personally I take whatever I read with a huge grain of salt and stick to time-tested principles with minor updates.
it's possible that free speech is not the problem, but internet. Mush like how eating food isn't bad but concentrated, processed foods are. They say "everything in moderation", but with technology we are way passed "normal". We have super communication power, and organization wield those powers for financial gain.
Free speech in not dangerous in a low-tech environment, its like whole food. Technology magnifies humans, our good and bad.
I think ted kaczynski (unabomber) was right in many ways. Think about how much damage humans can inflict on the rain forest without technology. It would take considerably more energy. Same thing with technology and communication.
I'm going to just take a guess that the hundreds of replys basically regurgitating talking points have not helped your thoughts. I dunno what the answer is, but good luck man, it's a scary world we live in right now.
I have been on HN since it launched, and I have never had a comment garner this many responses. I've had to stop reading them because I just can't keep up. But from the ones I have read, I am even more dismayed than I was before. The most disturbing thing to me is the number of people who are just shrugging off the capitol riot as just another cost of doing business in a free society. If the riot were an isolated incident that might be a valid position, but it wasn't. It was the culmination of years of a very deliberate propaganda strategy designed to get people to discount facts. And it worked. That is what scares me, because once you succeed in getting people to ignore facts, you are truly gazing into the abyss.
We seem to have dodged the worst of the potential fallout for the time being. Next time we might not be so lucky.
I was watching Legal Eagle discussing if Trump incited the mob / insurrection https://youtu.be/XwqAInN9HWI and he goes over some previous cases of “incitement of violence” and it’s crazy how high the bar is.
On the other hand, tech companies can very quickly take down illegal content, like child pornography or people singing Happy Birthday. I do think they have the technical chops + content moderators to at least try to curb some of the more inflammatory posts.
But, it’s not illegal. So they won’t do it, in fact, they’ll profit like Facebook matching body armor ads to groups of people plotting to hang the Vice President. The solution might be to lax the definition of imminent threat, or consider that someone with millions of followers is basically planning acts of violence with a retweet. The fact that people think “it’s just a retweet” means you have zero responsibility and accountability for influencing millions of people shows how we are not prepared technological changes.
I can’t talk you out of it because I am very confused and conflicted. I think I know what needs change, and even how, but not change to what.
Well, this is the thing isn't it, threats of nonspecific violence are a normal part of American politics. You could find thousands of examples of that kind of thing from both sides.
The unusual thing is turning that violence into reality.
Would it be great to dial that down? Yes. Will the Republicans stop doing enraging things and calm the situation? No.
Let me be more direct - how do you think these powers of restriction on "influencing people" you want, will be used by an administration you don't want? Do you think there might be some foreign countries where such powers are already in place, that could give us a clue how things might turn out, or is America too much of a unique exception to be able to learn from anyone else's experience?
Tweeting "burn the whole thing down" to a generally liberal crowd is a figure of speech which implies, by and large, the need for complete reform.
To far-right "conservatives", white supremacists, violent insurrectionists, and paranoid militias, it implies something completely different.
In other words, someone tweeting "burn the whole thing down" to a liberal following in regards to a judicial appointment is a very different thing from Trump or other far-right "influencers" tweeting "burn the whole thing down" to a large and frequently violent crowd in regards to their false claims of stolen elections, because it's reasonable to assume that people upset about the replacement of RBG aren't going to literally burn down the capitol, whereas it's clear that a (small but sufficiently significant) subset of Trump followers were not only willing to, but able to and intent on, burning down the Capitol in response to the false stolen election claims.
Codifying a double-standard of when it's "reasonable to assume" that certain threats are figurative based on political orientation of the speaker is just the kind of thing that pours fuel on the fire.
It's not quite a plan, is it? Like, what exactly are they asking people to burn? "It"? And it's not necessarily advocating violence, either; while arson is terrible and destructive, it is not necessarily violence against people.
It's pretty well short of actually calling people to violent acts. The wording would need to be more specific.
Sure; they'd probably apply strict scrutiny [0]. In the USA, speech is typically protected by default; the burden of proof is on the prosecution to show that the speech was harmful.
Seriously, have you never heard an angry American yell that they are frustrated with the status quo and would like to "burn it down" [1]? It is a common refrain and generally taken as a hyperbolic statement about the speaker's dissatisfaction with the actions of the government.
Finally, if you're in the USA, you have the right to a trial by jury if you're accused of crimes [2]; you do not need to worry that some appointed judge will find your speech harmful, but rather that a panel of your peers will unanimously agree that your speech is harmful.
To what end are you arguing? Do you honestly think that the 6th Amendment will be repealed, or that strict scrutiny will suddenly not be applied when appropriate?
(I suspect that this entire comment thread was started in order to try to pull a rhetorical gotcha, and you didn't actually expect somebody to respond to your words as written, but hopefully you've learned some constitutional law on this beautiful sunny MLK Jr. Day.)
How is it a "rhetorical gotcha" to ask what it would look like to consistently apply a proposed principle or law?
Equal protection under the law is also a constitutional principle (I knew that one already, thanks), but it seems in short supply in much of modern thinking and advocacy.
The first question somebody should ask when advocating some kind of measure aimed at their adversaries is: what would it look like if this was applied to my friends also?
Groups like the ACLU used to think this way, which is why they defended the most undesirable groups advancing the most repulsive ideas.
That kind of thinking is going by the wayside as longstanding liberal principles like freedom of speech, due process, presumption of innocence, etc. are all going by the wayside, tarred by their association with the "right wing."
I agree entirely with your point. I think, however, that there's something of a false equivalence: It is not the case that the tweets which are inciting violence are coming from all political believers in equal share.
We don't get "longstanding liberal principles" by publishing our speech on a private corporate platform. Freedom of speech and due process are merits of the law and not of Twitter's terms of service. Twitter is free to ban all incitements to violence without banning all hyperbolic political speech.
They ACLU haven't left their liberal principles by the wayside. They warned about the power of social media companies as recently as January 8, after the events at the Capitol.
"ACLU Counsel Warns of 'Unchecked Power' of Twitter, Facebook After Trump Suspension"
"For months, President Trump has been using social media platforms to seed doubt about the results of the election and to undermine the will of voters. We understand the desire to permanently suspend him now, but it should concern everyone when companies like Facebook and Twitter wield the unchecked power to remove people from platforms that have become indispensable for the speech of billions – especially when political realities make those decisions easier," the statement read.
"President Trump can turn his press team or Fox News to communicate with the public, but others – like many Black, Brown, and LGTBQ activists who have been censored by social media companies – will not have that luxury. It is our hope that these companies will apply their rules transparently to everyone."
The statement you quoted is a good statement, I agree. And maybe the ACLU is re-finding its way. But the ACLU has changed, and it's not just me saying this, it's the former head of the ACLU:
> ‘I believe that the national ACLU, if the Skokie case arose today, would not take it. They might take the same case for the Martin Luther King Jr Association, but they wouldn’t take it for the Nazis.’
> As Kaminer has long argued, the rot has been setting in for some time. But since Trump’s election, the ACLU has been more noticeably shying away from contentious free-speech cases.
> But we've now done the experiment in a big way and the results seem overwhelmingly negative to me, to the point where they present a credible existential threat to civilization, on a par with climate change.
Free speech is certainly a double-edged sword. For example, would you be comfortable running a large site on which users spread misinformation about climate change? Would you continue allowing that misinformation?
It’s a pretty hard question for me personally.
(Practically speaking, you might seek to redirect profits from that misinformation toward donations that help combat climate change, or something similar to offset the impact of that misinformation.)
I’d be fine with that. Climate change is hard enough that I don’t think banning dissent and reinforcing groupthink is gonna get us to a good place. We should think about designing better solutions and incentives to adhere to those solutions instead. Banning misinformation won’t cure the desire not to go along with a plan. It just kicks problems with aligning incentives down the road.
It's up to every democracy to decide the limits of any freedom. Germany bans Nazi symbols, communications, and organizations altogether, and it doesn't appear as if their state is suffering.
Also, Apple and Android ban porn, which is basically an entire industry.
I think you are confusing the freedom with the technologies used to amplify the use of that freedom. This is similar to the current debate about the second amendment. The right to bare arms doesn't mean we give everyone an M60. The freedom of speech doesn't mean that we should give everyone an unlimited megaphone to the world. Licenses for the use of powerful technologies have been pretty effective in limiting the damages they can cause in untrained hands. Maybe the solution to your troubles is a license to broadcast media on the internet.
> Freedom of speech doesn't mean that we should give everyone an unlimited megaphone to the world
But should we have a huge megaphone manufacturer handing out free megaphones to anybody who shares their political views, while refusing to sell megaphones to people who don't, and actively trying to prevent competitors from making their own megaphones?
> The right to bare [sic] arms doesn't mean we give everyone an M60.
Actually, most second amendment advocates believe that this is exactly what it means. They think that the whole point of the second amendment is to empower people to resist the government by physical force.
And they are wrong as evidenced by many Supreme Court rulings. Find any point of view and I'll find a group of people that take that view to an untenable extreme. The only reason they have that view is because they live in a world where its not a reality. If it were those people would likely be dead due to a pandemic of gun violence.
> If it were those people would likely be dead due to a pandemic of gun violence
Isn't that what's happening here, that the belief in "the right to storm the capitol" has got out of hand? After a while it doesn't matter that that's not the SC ruling, if it's what enough people with guns believe.
Prior to the viral pandemic people argued there was a pandemic of gun violence. It turned out that was a drop in the bucket. If the Vegas shooting happened today, it would be a mere blip in the excess death numbers from coronavirus.
I think you made your point, or lack there of, when you considered my point invalid due to the lack of absolute perfection and infallibility of Supreme Court rulings. Absolutist thinking is generally a sign of a weak argument.
Oh yeah, "as evidenced" doesn't mean "due to" as well. You might want to work on your reading comprehension there. The Supreme Court is mearly ratifying what the majority of Americans will accept. And handing everyone an M60 ain't it.
Supreme Court is [merely] ratifying what the majority of Americans will accept.
If this were true then we wouldn't need a Supreme Court at all, and/or it wouldn't matter who gets appointed.
You used the word "wrong". The SC doesn't decide right and wrong. The SC decides what the MO of the government will be, until Congress or a future SC changes it. It's a statement of position, a very powerful one, but not a statement of correctness. The history of the SC makes clear that treating what they say as "right" and everyone else as "wrong" won't lead to any consistent sense of right or wrong.
It's a fundamental principle of the US that people can hold opinions that differ from the current law of the land.
What Supreme Court rulings? The most recent one DC vs Heller explicitly back the individual right to bear arms and forced DC and other cities to roll back their gun control.
The analogy is invalid. Spam is something nobody wants to receive, by definition. The people on Parler voluntarily wanted to communicate with each other but were prevented from doing so by a third party.
A formulation of freedom of speech that might be useful to contemplate is Article 19 of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights:
"Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers." Deplatforming by a third-party that isn't part of the conversation definitely runs afoul of the "seek (and) receive" part of that ideal.
But this is not the case. I am sincerely puzzled to read this by you. When did we have communication not subject to control by any central authority? Usenet?
And we’re still operating — since 1947 — under a national security regime that has practically unaccountable “agencies” that are definitively in the “information” business.
We have yet to see what unfettered communication, operating in a political environment where NO agency operates in the dark and is above the law.
The real problem is that those with money and agenda can create a platform that is difficult for truthful free speech to compete against.
Whether it's Fox News, Republicans and the Capitol Riot or The Sun/Times, Murdoch and Brexit, the fact that the rich have a megaphone that outcompetes truthful free speech is a problem.
So, my question to you is: how do we amplify truth via free speech against these malicious agents?
Unfortunately, I don't know the answer to that question.
I think what matters is to distinguish between "free speech" and "free propaganda".
What we have today isn't a loss of "free speech", but a surge of "propaganda" by powerful actors and the government.
Really nothing here has to do with "free speech" and everything is about what should be done when people in power start exerting propaganda to reaffirm their rule over others?
I still believe in free speech, but now I think that free speech has to come from someone real who actually believes what they're saying. @Bob12345 isn't really someone from the next town over from you, he's a low-paid worker in a troll farm, and his "opinions" are whatever the hell was handed down to him today.
I'd say that full anonymity/pseudonymity works better, but QAnon has shown it's still entirely possible to flood anonymous boards with posts saying whatever nonsense you want them to say -- and to get the rest of the userbase involved in constructing more elaborate rationalizations for your nonsense.
Having free speech is bad, but not having it is even worse. Limiting free speech is a slippery slope once you start it hard to stop it. Suppose what could have happened if there were no free speach but bad actors in the government or in big corporations?
It's because we're on average very unhealthy - part of that is the disconnect from others, we don't have genuine community. We used have multi-generation households: kids, parents, grandparents, maybe even great grandparents all helping out - everyone learning from a seemingly infinite amount of knowledge.
If we weren't in this current dis-eased state then also the community of rational, reasonable people, would be ready and able to rally to counter any threats in the physical world.
What concerns me the most is the online bubbles of irrational, propaganda filled narratives, where if you attempt to engage and counter their narrative at all with reason, you'll be near immediately banned/blocked.
These irrational mobs will find a way to communicate in groups, and they may begin to use encrypted private messaging exclusively. The only solution to this is strong community - online and offline - along with creating a culture of healing, to open people's hearts and minds; we already know these mobs are being influenced by foreign bad actors who want to destroy democracy and cause turmoil, so they need to be confronted/addressed as well.
If we can't get these online mobs under control somehow, to reach them and start helping them reason, if things escalate to guerilla-like civil warfare, then we'll have to start creating borders around our cities with identity verification required. Hopefully it doesn't come anywhere close to that, if it does it could be within 20 years though. It really depends on the policy that gets put into place - people need a UBI and at least 80% of their health needs covered, otherwise dis-ease progression, including stress, leads to lesser educated people with less critical thinking ability, and more hate for the system they will blame for their hardship and suffering and want to destroy said system.
Edit to add: lazy people downvote, add a qualitative reply instead.
Maybe the simple solution you are looking for is that lies should not be considered free speech in the same way that false advertising and fraud is considered illegal in the land of the first amendment. Food for thought.
What is a lie though? And how do you legislate that people speak the truth.
Besides - everyone talks about speaking "their truth", not "the truth".
Trump got in trouble for saying "The election was stolen", but what if he said "I feel like the election was stolen". Its not a lie, he might feel like that.
You just litigated the point. Saying the election was stolen versus you felt like the election was stolen are two completely different things. Regardless, if there is overwhelming proof that something is considered to be true by evidence you can audit and review, straight up denying it is indeed grounds to call into question your ability to speak truth.
I think you are not comparing it with the hypothetical situation that would exist if free speech was clamped down upon.
You are looking through the lens of "my side is in charge of the censorship and my side is right".
Throughout history and around the world you can find plenty of examples of censorship which had really dire consequences.
If your group was at some point to become the one who is censored, how will you be able to argue for free speech?
Imagine for example if there was a retaliation from a far left group who blew something up. Then the right would find some tweets and call it "incitement of violence". Then Trump could enact the Insurrection Act, call people domestic terrorists, and censor for public safety reasons. Your argument then would be undoubtedly for "free speech", and you would have to rely on the good nature of the aggressor to provide that to you. Yes this is far-fetched but it's not unusual in other countries and throughout history.
Keep in mind that the costs associated with free speech are currently visible and obvious, but (precisely because we have free speech) the costs of censorship are not. It is true that a free society will have more protests and unrest, sometimes violently, but that doesn't change the promise that a free country is less likely to have a multi-year civil war or government led genocide in a decade. Given that four people died at the Capitol and millions typically die in wars, that's a trade-off I'm willing to make.
The argument for free speech typically doesn't claim it's better than an optimal world where only truthful and productive speech is possible, just that it's better than what you _actually get_ in practice if you attempt to only allow truthful speech, which is handing unchecked power to the people making that judgement.
What is the evidence that is convincing you that "we've now done the experiment [of free speech] in a big way and the results seem overwhelmingly negative"?
The platforms that amplify these kooks are the same ones that amplify our anxiety. I try, somewhat successfully, to ignore both and get on with my life.
If the lunatics ever did come close to truly taking over then we might have something to worry about but even with the constant onslaught of the past four years it feels as if the establishment — what they criticize as the deep state but which is really just the state — has prevailed as it always has done.
Recent civil rights protests are a different but intertwined thread. I hope that we see some progress there in the coming decade.
Perhaps you could being by asking yourself why a "central authority" is inherently more wise and capable of deciding what people are allowed to think and say than individuals themselves? Does the ability to seize power and become the central authority denote inherent wisdom or morality? History is littered with examples of societies where communications were overseen by a central authority, from Nazi Germany to the Soviet Union. The freedom to think and speak freely is dangerous - like all freedom. But before you reject the concept of freedom you ought to consider what the alternative is.
I don't know why a central authority works better. But it seems to be manifestly true if you look at human history that it works better once you try to scale society beyond the tribe. (At least by my personal quality metric. But I acknowledge that I am strongly biased by the fact that I'm a rich white guy in a society dominated by rich white guys, so I'm definitely open to alternative ideas. But unfettered free speech doesn't seem to me to be working very well, and I don't think that's a reflection of my white privilege. The burden of covid, for example, is falling disproportionately on people of color in no small measure because of denialism. That seems like a bad outcome to me.)
>I don't know why a central authority works better. But it seems to be manifestly true if you look at human history that it works better once you try to scale society beyond the tribe.
Hundreds of millions of people who have been murdered in wars organized by central authorities would probably have a different opinion.
> The burden of covid, for example, is falling disproportionately on people of color in no small measure because of denialism.
If you think that the poorest and most marginalized people in society are the ones who stand to gain from a concentration of absolute power among a centralize governing authority, I urge you to learn some history.
I think "free speech" is not quite as simple as a single concept.
Despite how it's often portrayed, Parler was not hosting uncensored speech, on the contrary it was a heavily moderated platform controlling for a certain set of speech.
I'm not convinced that this example (really any of the examples of speech surrounding Trump) are actually representative samples of what private communications products not subject to control by any central authority looks like.
There is still someone that was exercising free uncensored speech here (under the american 1st amendment definition) - but that person is the person running Parler, and not the users. What we observed with this deplatforming was one set of platforms with relatively little censorship (though a fair bit in absolute terms) stop supporting a sub-platform with a lot of censorship.
One lesson I would take away from this is that enabling platforms on which censorship is performed by a third party not under your control can be scary. The amount of damage bad-faith moderation/censorship can do was surprisingly (to me) high - I would have thought people would notice and reject it more strongly. Uncensored platforms for speech might also be scary, but I don't think Trump gives much evidence for it (sites like 4-chan might, I don't really know).
Another lesson I would take away from reddit's handling of Trump (in general) is that manipulation of algorithmic content discovery can do a lot of damage. There we saw that happening with things like bots upvoting (as well as bad faith moderation), but I think the pattern is more general. If you can choose what people are looking at, especially if you can convince them that it's "organic content", it can do a lot of damage. I'm told that similar issues with Facebook/Youtube content discovery existed as well, but I don't have first hand experience with those issues (youtube tends to recommend random technical and rocket related content to me, and I barely use facebook).
Whether those lessons are "anti free speech" - well that's up to your definition of free speech. I don't think they are under my definition, but I think they are under the US constitutions definition.
Your rights can only be guaranteed if everyone, including you, fulfills their duty to respect the rights of others.
Exercising your freedom of speech and freedom of assembly in order to suppress the other people's right to vote and be represented, as well as using your freedom of assembly to take the lives of others, i.e.: their right to live; is in essence abusing your freedoms.
When you abuse your freedoms, you can expect to lose them.
You can still be a champion of free speech without tolerating hate speech.
In fact, one may even say that deplatforming hate will achieve a greater level of free speech - due to the lack of misinformation and violent ideologies.
Exactly. Freedom is actually slavery because you’re at risk of the dangerous language floating around. By eliminating dangerous language we’re all safer and therefore more free.
I think we need free speech with intellectual discourse. You can discuss Fascism and its properties, drawbacks and advantages but with intellectual rigor.
Social media is not forcing people to do so with 160 characters and instagram stories. Giving people the power to broadcast is going to be the worst idea ever of any kind in human history.
I think it is a measure of civilisation that the US has not lost control to barbarism and kakistocracy.
But it should not have come so close... The Trump rioters have been cultivated and groomed for destruction by a genuinely sick political party with funds from wealthy donors.
> I am no longer convinced that this would really make the world a better place
What definitely would make the world a better place is for people to understand, through education, that intelligent debate must exist and compromise is often necessary for civilisation and culture.
Any person who espouses murder by threat or deed has simply become a tribal animal.
"There is freedom of speech, but I cannot guarantee freedom after speech." -- a dictator
Fascists on the left and right want you to doubt this.
What we saw on Capitol Hill was vile and atrocious, but it was a bunch of uneducated hillbillies that have been indoctrinated. They might have been afforded the chance to invade by Trump insiders, but they would never have toppled our government. In reality, they stood zero chance of threatening our democracy.
Big media and big tech are using this to show you that it's okay if they deplatform and take free speech away. Don't trust it. This is the real threat to democracy. Shutting off dissent. Promulgating only allowed thoughts. Cancelling.
The best way to reach these people and talk them down is by addressing them in a non-violent manner and meeting their needs. The boom years are over, and our economy only works for the top earners. Everyone is unhappy. Left, right, north, south, urban, rural. We are under attack from foreign and domestic powers seeking to divide and polarize the electorate and take advantage of it. The chaos makes it easy for them to distract and compel.
The fix is the hard path. Addressing systemic inequalities, reaching across the aisle, addressing income disparities, and educating our nation's children.
Free speech is one of the things that makes our nation great. Not because it permits hate, but in spite of it. Because it enables love.
I dislike Parler as much as you do, but what's happening right now should shake you to the very core.
> but it was a bunch of uneducated hillbillies that have been indoctrinated.
A woman who flew in her private plane. Serving and former military officers, including intelligence officers. Children of judges. A sitting politician. But yeah, obviously hillbillies.
People are a product of their environment, and this environment with rampant vanity, media run for profit, and late-stage capitalism make people a distinctly unpretty thing, whatever material gains and safety a small part of the global population have gotten from it.
The system of checks and balances worked out. Go say something provocative in China and see how quickly you disappear. I'll take my chances with free speech, democracy, and capitalism.
I tend to think of it like free market capitalism. It sounds great in theory, but in practice, it has some major downsides and regulation is necessary to help deal with that.
Trump has lost the election in the end - the market place of ideas has worked. Establishment prevented the coup -- representative democracy has worked. No need to change anything. Maybe force the 1st amendment on the big tech when an account is verified as non-anonymous.
Also the so called "existential threat" is the result of serious internal issues in the country. (changing demographics, the deindustrialization by the international capital with a tacit agreement of the establishment, the chasm between values of the educated class and the rest of the country)
I think you're misidentifying the problem as being about modern technology for speech. It's not. Trump could have done the same exact thing in the day of fireside chats. A lot of what drove Trump's rise isn't Parler (which didn't even exist in 2018) but talk radio.
The problem is that American is a diverse county of 330 million people who hate each other, and we're too idealistic to engage in the sort of social friction-easing that other societies do to reconcile competing factions.
For example: we clearly have a significant fraction of people in this country who want to pump the breaks on immigration. From a sociological standpoint, it doesn't make a difference whether its 47% or 51% of people. It's a lot! And what's the first thing Biden does even before he's inaugurated? https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-politics-legislation-im...
> President-elect Joe Biden’s decision to immediately ask Congress to offer legal status to an estimated 11 million people in the country has surprised advocates given how the issue has long divided Democrats and Republicans, even within their own parties.
Instead of thinking about America, imagine we're talking about some third world country. Better still, take yourself out of the timeline, and imagine we are historians looking back on what happened 50 years ago. How would you analyze the probable outcome of what Biden is doing, in terms of general principles of how people behave and how countries work?
Frankly, what's going on in America right now is utterly obvious and completely unsurprising to me as someone from Asia. I always try to analyze these things by asking "what would Bangladeshis do?" What would Bangladeshis do if the opposing party tried to give legal status (and voting rights) to 11 million illegal aliens? There would be violent riots in the streets. That's just the predictable consequences of that situation.
None of this is the result of Parler or whatever. It's just the ordinary challenges of running a giant country where people have a very shallow shared culture to tie everyone together.
What’s happening in Assam with the NRC is why I’m not surprised about what’s happening in America. People don’t like it when people who are different from them come to their country, especially illegally, and then vote in their elections, take advantage of their public services, etc. The last couple of hundred years of geopolitics has been people fighting each other until they can have a country with just the people they can stand. The global backlash against immigration is just the other side of that coin.
Now I have my thoughts about granting legal status to illegal immigrants who are already here, from a purely intellectual position of cost/benefit etc.
But let’s not kid ourselves and say that the cost/benefit is what people are disagreeing about here. What this is about is 11 million people from a different culture who didn’t come here legally, but will soon be able to vote in US elections. That’s going to piss off a tremendous number of people, for utterly predictable reasons. If Biden goes ahead and does it anyway, that’s fine. (If he can get the votes.) But that’s why we’re in this position today. We as a country disagree about very fundamental stuff, and every time one side gets into power, they govern without regard to what will piss off the other side. (And I’m not just blaming Biden—Republicans just did that with the Supreme Court appointment.)
Democracy has a severe flaw, it favors reproduction not progressiveness nor the greater good. In any nation with true democracy, a disenfranchised portion of society can win power simply by out-reproducing all other groups for a few decades. All of a sudden a Putin or an Ardogan get voted in and from then on, kiss a brighter future goodbye.
It's a broken system that needs a better alternative that actually does empower progressiveness and the greater good.
The problem I have with this line of reasoning is that it isn't free speech that's the issue here, it's got far more to do with the echo chambers and feedback loops of social networks. However the solution to the social networks have created is to allow those very same social networks to have total authority over what speech is permitted online.
It's fairly obvious by now to most people that these companies are biased, and even if you don't believe so yourself, the fact they have no reason not to be bias should be worrying enough. How do we explain why extremists like Richard Spencer are on Twitter, but the president of the US and Alex Jones is not? It seems if Twitter's goal is to protect you from extremists they do an awful job, but if their goal is to protect you from popular right-wing commentators they do a fairly good one.
The same is true for platforms. The vast majority of the content on Parler was relatively benign, while Twitter and Facebook hosts far more content which we might consider "extremist". However, platforms like Facebook are too big to have to worry about being deplatformed so instead we distract ourselves by talking about how we should ban a bunch of irrelevant platforms that won't make an ounce of difference in the fight against extremism.
I also think we need to put the last few years into some perspective. The domestic extremism we've seen in the US isn't really happening in Europe. Yeah, we have some far-right and far-left parties, but we always have. I live in the UK and just a few decades ago we had ethno-nationalists organising and staging terror attacks daily during The Troubles. In the 1900s we had the rise of various communist and facist groups all over the West which were arguably far more concerning than anything we've seen in recent years. So how exactly does the last few years stand out from anything we've seen in even recent history? It's different for sure, but it always is.
Finally, I sometimes wonder how much of this panic over the dangers of free speech is manufactured. Free speech has always come at a cost, but we've always understood the alternative where a few elites have the power to forcibly suppress speech is far worse. Perhaps I'm wrong, but it seems to me that social media and much of the media have decided that what happened in the US capitol is far worse than anything that happened earlier this year when entire neighbourhoods were destroyed and police officers were being shot dead in cold blood because of lies and misconceptions being spread on social media. I saw very little talk back then about how we need to ban left-wing platforms or censor left wing activists. I personally saw several people I knew tweeting "ACAB" and suggesting violence is necessary in the summer who are now tweeting how awful the violence in the Capitol was, despite it being far less substantial in terms of deaths, destruction and casualties. I know these aren't bad people too, so I can only assume it was the media which convinced them that the endless rioting, looting and police murders were nothing new or anything to worry about, while a group of protestors storming the capitol has gone too far and that something urgently needs to be done about free speech. I don't mean to make this a right vs left thing, I'm just trying to point out how a lot of the panic over free speech seems to be manufactured, or at least leveraged to further political goals.
You should get more information than just from mainstream media.
Otoh the real issue probably is that information does not even matter, only group affiliation does. You'll just believe what confirms your world view and filter out the rest, and so does everybody else.
Perhaps it would be comforting, or not, to know that the recent calls to suppress free speech don't come as a result to any credible threat to democracy and are unilaterally supported from people who have significant political gain to do so.
"In 2010, DNA sequencing company Complete Genomics said that "an interruption of services by Amazon Web Services, on whom we rely to deliver finished genomic data to our customers, would result in our customers not receiving their data on time."
Gaming company Zynga warned about how its AWS foundation could quickly vanish when it filed the prospectus for its initial public offering in 2011.
"AWS may terminate the agreement without cause by providing 180 days prior written notice, and may terminate the agreement with 30 days prior written notice for cause, including any material default or breach of the agreement by us that we do not cure within the 30-day period," Zynga said.
AWS can even terminate or suspend its agreement with a customer immediately under certain circumstances as it did in 2010 with Wikileaks, pointing to violations of AWS' terms of service."
Wonder if they can cancel their government contracts so easily.
When people debate the merits of "on-prem" versus AWS on HN they rarely focus on the contract terms.
FWIW, I agree with your opinion. That includes not letting politicians onto these websites to do campaigning. This was a big mistake. The number of former public servants who have gone to work for Facebook is alarming, IMO. The number of possible future public servants who have worked there is perhaps even more worrisome.
The question is how do you fix that? We should want domain experts in a lot of these government roles, but the primary way you become an expert in an industry is working in that industry.
Let's image we put a ban in place to prevent this revolving door. Why would someone working in the industry be willing to forfeit their post-government career, especially if they are a political appointee and might only have the role for a few years until the next election?
That is a huge disincentive to participate in governing and will likely lead to more career politicians and bureaucrats which isn't exactly an ideal situation.
I think for starters it's important to recognise that the expectation of a "post-government" career is itself a part of this problem. If we instead built long term competence within public institutions, including competitive remuneration and career development like training programmes, there wouldn't be a need to have a door between the private and public sector quite as much in the first place. The reward should be delivered in situ for continued constructive service, not be an upgrade to a private sector gig after holding your nose and/or making decisions you feel will be looked upon favourably by future employers.
Private and public sector employees could collaborate where it makes sense, just like companies sometimes collaborate on shared initiatives like working groups or open source projects.
Government can actually work better than it does in the US -- as it does in other countries -- but one must first accept the ideological premise, which seems to be what holds the country back.
And working conditions. The state often can offer better working conditions. Things like high pay and fixed hours - does not have to be a fantasy salary before it is very attractive to people with families.
> If we instead built long term competence within public institutions, including competitive remuneration and career development like training programmes, there wouldn't be a need to have a door between the private and public sector quite as much in the first place...
That sounds great in theory, but the problem is that many of these leadership roles if not elected directly are nominated by the president and therefore they are political in nature and those politics can flow down through the organization.
For example the FCC chairman, Ajit Pai, is resigning this week. Would he have resigned if Trump was reelected or would he have been re-upped for another term? Is Biden obligated to find this Republican a job somewhere else in his administration? Is Pai just supposed to retire at 48 years old? Can he go back to working for Verizon like he did for a period earlier in career? How many other people at the FCC have or soon will leave the agency due to the change in leadership?
> That sounds great in theory, but the problem is that many of these leadership roles if not elected directly are nominated by the president and therefore they are political in nature and those politics can flow down through the organization.
That could be changed though. It's not how it works here in the UK. The ministers in charge of departments are political appointments, but we also have a substantial politically neutral civil service with lots of headroom for career advancement. (politically neutral to the point that you are not allowed to publically express your political opinions - posting them on social media could be a firing offence)
The US also has an apolitical civil service infrastructure, just not at the top of these agencies. And it is the leadership that people refer to when they worry about the revolving door. No one cares when some low or midlevel USPS worker goes to work for FedEx, they care when the former FCC chair Kevin Martin is tapped to head up Facebook's US Public Policy.
Working for a third party that provides govt infra, we/my org see it as a license to print money and an opportunity to lock govt in. Really perverse incentives.
They pat themselves on the back for falling into it. Congratulations and drinks all round after you've signed millions over to big blue for a glorified application level firewall.
It's already in the trap. Very hard to justify the $$$$ to be platform neutral when sales reps are so good at pushing the savings of jumping in fully with one SaaS.
Your idea is honorable, but do governments have the know-how to do it? It's not only about costs and responsibility, I don't think this could be feasible in most countries, maybe only in China and US.
Lol this is kind of funny given my other post but in addition to having worked in government I’ve also worked in healthcare.
I made about 50% of what I do now at that vendor and was glad to leave. I truly think if people had an incentive to make things better in government and healthcare then things would get better. It was a terrible job but a good starting point. I wonder if health care vendors paid as much as google or Facebook how good things could be.
In fact there are a few people that do try to make things better, but they value their progress over money. Same with teachers. We know they make a fraction of what a tech worker does but the value they provide is immense.
I don’t know if you’ve lived on the west coast and worked in tech but if you have surely you know someone who makes an absurd amount of money at Facebook, or google or whatever and also hates what they do. Imagine if you could pay people faybu bux but to make government work. They would do it. There would be an impassioned soul who is want to make government better and would do so. Instead the government pays half rate and gets half rate old dudes who want to retire in place.
A former Googler got called in by the Obama administration to try and put healthcare.gov back on its rails after the disastrous launch, and the things he learned about it were fascinating. He talks about some of them here
It's not only the pay rate attracting employees who prefer stability to income... It's an entire decisionmaking ecosystem centered around minimizing blame coupled badly with compartmentalization. The end result is employees are heavily incentivized to do things that minimize risk not for the entire project but for their individual department. couple that to the percentage of the work that is done by third-party vendors under strict contracts written before the full scope of the project is understood, and it's a bad recipe.
One of the first problems the embedded team identified with the whole design of healthcare.gov was that every team had responsibility for its individual component, but nobody was empowered to have responsibility for integration. It was possible for every subcontractor to satisfy every bullet point of their contract and the result to not actually be a functioning healthcare exchange website.
> I don’t know if you’ve lived on the west coast and worked in tech
No. I don’t live in the US and don’t work in tech. I work in healthcare and have done so in the private sector and public sector. I don’t think you have pay a an amazing amount to get good people. Decent conditions go a very long way. My public sector pay isn’t worse than my private pay, and depending on how you measure it, the public pay may be better.
Would I be right in thinking that your healthcare experience was all private sector?
Not especially. Government has largely predictable load, and hosting on third parties is eyewateringly expensive (only approved suppliers, who overcharge).
In jurisdictions I’m familiar with it would require (nearly impossible) reform of the bureaucracy to make it possible.
> Your idea is honorable, but do governments have the know-how to do it?
Yes. Governments hosting their own servers is still the norm if anything, the same is true in plenty of large companies. It's not exactly black magic, especially with modern technology. Outside the HN bubble the cloud hasn't really taken over.
> I don't think this could be feasible in most countries, maybe only in China and US.
Smaller countries are easier, there is far less scale to worry about and computers are powerful enough that most government services could just about be run on a single server (in practice you probably wouldn't).
Can you expand on why you believe that (and why you don't find the counterarguments convincing)?
In particular, why isn't this concern addressed by the government negotiating a more favorable contract than the standard terms of service?
(Alternatively, why can the government not address the problem with legal means? In the US, the Defense Production Act can compel private companies to accept and perform government contracts.)
For a valid reason. The government isn't a tech company or an infrastructure provider. You wouldn't ask the government to build their own roads or bridges, so like everything else software and services need to be contracted out as well. Of course that doesn't mean they should use AWS by default, but asking every single government agency to build their own data centers and CDNs is foolish.
> You wouldn't ask the government to build their own roads or bridges
Bad analogy, because we're not talking about the building of bridges (software), we're talking about where they are built.
In your example, the government surely wouldn't pay to have a bridge built on private property where access could be rescinded immediately if the land owner was so inclined.
Why is the assumption that three letter government agencies are signing the same contract with Amazon as a random startup? Amazon built an entire new instance of AWS just for government use. I'm pretty sure they wouldn't be able to deny access on a whim.
In the states most roads and infrastructure projects are built by private companies that are contracted to do so by the government. There's offeten a public bid process between multiple companies to decide who gets the contract.
That seems like the wrong type of job to outsource. You outsource for expert help. This can be done in house with more control over when work occurs to sync with low traffic volume times.
I led cloud transformations at a Fortune 500 and we did make sure to look over contracts and have business agreements in place. YMMV though as we had some weight behind our needs as a government contract would. If you just sign up with a credit card I’m sure it’s different as mentioned however, a lot has changed since 2010.
Did you have any "disaster recovery" plans in place, what you would do if the cloud failed.
I think looking at this issue with the example of "Parler" may be missing the point. The issue worth debating is surely not whether Amazon made the right decision. Of course they did. The issue worth discussing is who gets to make this decision in light of what the decision implies. Due to how much businesses are choosing[1] to rely on companies like Google and Amazon as service providers, these "tech" companies can easily kill other businesses by denying service, without violating any laws in the process.
These "tech" company middlemen are generally not treated like utilities under existing laws but the question is whether they are being treated as such by customers, the public.
1. Perhaps not so much consciously choosing as being persuaded by tech company salespeople and, IMHO, biased "media coverage" (=hype).
Disaster recovery was a hot topic. Most transformations kept DR within the cloud. A few architectures wanted to fail over to another public cloud (AWS->Azure). The issue of “de-platforming” still exists. Most wanted to get rid of the on-prem costs without keeping a rack around for DR.
You’re absolutely right that the real meat of discussion needs to be how a cloud company like AWS makes these decisions? What criteria? What protections does a consumer have? What about data?
There’s a lot of unknowns there. AWS’ Business Agreement you can get their legal and your legal to agree upon, doesn’t really touch on all those points. Further, AWS’ has a canned agreement they use and don’t make concessions even if you’re a Fortune 500.
They all include a NDA about the agreement itself. So yes, the terms are confidential. Even the fact that a particular that you may or may not have an agreement at all is confidential.
With respect to the fact of the existence of an agreement being confidential information, usually an NDA will only apply to information that has not already become public through no fault of either party.
Every Master Service Agreement (MSA) I’ve seen has had a ton of legal back and forth. To say that they all include NDAs is a generalization which isn’t even mostly true in my experience.
Gov is pretty sure has a far stronger leverage than AWS. For example, if AWS cancels unilaterally Gov contracts, Gov will show that as Exhibit A of the need of Anti Trust.
Anyway, if Gov can procure cloud services, they should procure multiple providers and design their service as a cloud agnostic system.
Are there enterprise contracts that do not have provisions under which the supplier can end the relationship for cause?
I have a hard time believing the lawyers for a supplier would let them sign a contract that requires them to provide service to a customer under any and all circumstances with no way out.
Edit to add: if you stick servers in a colo data center instead of signing with AWS, doesn’t the data center contract give them the right to evict you under certain circumstances? If you lease office space, doesn’t the lease usually have terms under which the property owner can evict you for cause?
Analogies (such as leasing data center and commercial real estate) should probably account for the availability/lack of viable alternatives. For example, how much choice, what options does the consumer have in selecting its "service providers".
Building off-prem is one of the biggest boondoggles in the history of our industry.
Unless you stick to S3, EC2, or EKS, you wind up designing your infra for freaky weirdware architectures like Lambda that won't run anywhere else.
Your costs are double what they would be if you just had a platform team imaging and updating servers. Costs can grow unexpectedly, too.
Why anyone is using this trap is beyond me. I guess since folks spend their two year tours of duty at companies before rotating off to some other position elsewhere, they just don't care.
> When people debate the merits of "on-prem" versus AWS on HN they rarely focus on the contract terms.
if this had been electricity or water, instead of AWS compute resources, the tune would've been different.
I think the gov't just need to catch up with regulation - that infrastructure/utility providers cannot terminate without cause in the same way that an electrical utility cannot terminate a premise of electricity abruptly and without cause.
The thing is, you're always going to dependent on someone in the mainstream economic world if you want to have a web presence in North America. Even if you run your own servers, you're at the mercy of your hosting provider, your ISP, your DNS registrar, and even browser level things like Google Safe Browsing. Any of these can be major points of failure.
So yeah, not using AWS would avoid being dependent on AWS, but you're going to depend on someone. In this sense, inclusion on the internet ultimately has a political dimension. I think that's just how it is — we live in a society with politics.
(I'm omitting commentary on Parler in particular because I have no sympathy for them in this or any other case.)
It's pretty baffling how people all of a sudden expect Fortune 500 companies to not act "politically correct" when bad actors are breaking their TOSes. Was there ever a medium backed by a large corporation where you could post calls to violence against politicians without getting booted off?
Twitter, Facebook, Youtube come to mind. The two that immediately come to mind would be Kathy Griffin holding Trump's severed head and Eminem shooting a Trump look-a-like. Neither were deplatformed for these graphic depictions / calls to violence, and one even reposted the offensive media in November.
Kathy Griffin's career still hasn't recovered and this was imagery not a call to action. I find it funny when Griffin gets brought up as if she wasn't "cancelled." Its an example of even treatment not hypocrisy.
TBH most "Free speech" platforms will allow anything except fraud, child porn, and calls to violence that violate criminal law. Baring all of that. There are still places online to host whatever you want.
It's mixed and depends a lot on how far they go into the unmoderated depths. Gab and Parler for example are US company while there's 8kun/chan that are overseas and go/went way further into illegal content.
Playing the devil's advocate here: is this really "exceptional power"?
Before the Internet, fringe, extremist political movements had essentially the same options as every other minor interest group: local groups, physical, mailed newsletters, maybe magazines, booths at whatever kind of group meetings, and maybe news media coverage. All of those options still exist. So the modern state of things hasn't removed anything.
Since the age of the Internet, cloud providers have the same power as any other hosting provider: Geocities, Angelfire, AOL, whatever; they all have acceptable use policies that will get you taken down if you don't obey them. Outside of those, colocation and network providers seem a bit more willing to tolerate things, but they can still cut you off, just like they (sometimes) did in the good old days. And you can still go full-on backbone peer, if you can afford it, which these political groups certainly can.
The bottom line is, you have your old options and you can still host yourself. You have options in between, but if they decide you aren't playing nice, they can hurt you.
The only thing "exceptional" here is the nature and vocality of the groups in question.
I agree; but there are a few worrying trends that we need to keep an eye on with respect to this:
* IPv4 space. IPv4 addresses are increasingly expensive. In a perfect world we'd just get rid of them, but instead, we live in a world where Amazon owns roughly $3B worth of them. They're critical to serving web content; what happens when centralized corporate mega-powers are the only ones who can afford them, or own them?
* Email reputation. Its basically a boys club; if you don't send your emails through a reputable provider, with their acceptable use policies which generally reach far beyond "are you sending spam", you're likely to be spam-listed by the recipients mailbox, of which there are roughly four providers (Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, AOL).
* "Post-email" customer communication channels. Companies increasingly talk to customers over iMessage, FBM, Telegram, etc. These are all closed loops; piss off Apple and you lose that channel. A truly open, federated 1:1 chat solution is necessary. Unaware of any options here; Signal feels like we're getting there, but its not federated. Gaining market adoption is a whole other problem, but stomping on your privacy and freedom tends to be a big motivator.
* Domain registration. I don't think this is a huge threat vector for market freedom, given how many registrars there are and how lax IANA's rules are. Lets keep it that way.
* ARM. There's no way to just go purchase an ARM chip and host a server in your closet; no one is selling them. Amazon and Apple have their proprietary ones they aren't sharing. If the industry moves more toward ARM, to where hosting on x86 becomes intolerable due to software support (I expect it will, but on a timespan of decades), this is a big threat vector for increasing centralization into the mega-corp clouds. Definitely need an "Intel for ARM" (AMD? Nvidia? Uh, Intel?)
> There's no way to just go purchase an ARM chip and host a server in your closet; no one is selling them.
There are indeed readily-available ARM servers from the likes of DellEMC and HPE, and ready-to-integrate motherboards from the likes from Supermicro and Gigabyte, and AMD still sells ARM chips. This is very much opposite of your assertion.
> roughly four providers (Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, AOL).
At least for North America, three. Yahoo! and AOL are already operating under a single company (formerly Oath, now the much more boring Verizon Media Services), and they have "rationalize" (aka merge) their systems.
Sidenote: The Japanese Yahoo! is not related to the American Yahoo! (except it was before early 2000's came along).
Wiwynn will sell you ARM systems with Ampere Altra CPUs today. Systems integrators like Phoenics are booking orders, and various reviews for Mt Jade and Mt Snow suggest they’re not awful platforms.
Most /24 seem to be marketed a little higher than that, so you’re really looking at ~$7500 USD for a minimum size prefix which you could advertise.
I do generally agree with your assertion this isn’t unaffordable, since the people who are most likely to care about owning their IP space instead of borrowing one from a provider like AWS most likely have other more significant costs like LIR fees, renting space/power/cooling for equipment, buying servers and network devices, etc etc.
Well, before the internet, the analogous groups were the TV networks. Those networks were, for sure, likely to ban any of these groups, or if they did put a microphone in front of them, they edited the interview to make sure they looked bad.
But nobody tried to claim, that the three major TV networks did not have exceptional power. Of course they did.
Not really, not during the pandemic in locked down areas.
Also, tech plays a much bigger role today than it did in the heyday of Geocities et al. Combine it with the willingness of other tech forms of censorship like Facebook banning groups and organizing events and Visa banning financial transactions and you have total censorship.
Is this really new? It certainly feels new, but I don't think it is.
There are two issues here.
1) You should be very careful about having your business too dependent on a single supplier or partner. You need to have a backup plan in case that relationship goes bad. That is undeniably true, good advice for all startups, and it has always been true.
2) The more specific case of Parler? Again it feels new, but I don't think it is. There has never been a time in modern history when if all the leading companies in an industry decided your company was too odious to do business with, you would be able to continue to do business.
I'm not saying this is the ideal situation or that we should not discuss how it could be improved, but this is not really anything new.
A corollary to #1 might be to structure your apps and data to be as portable as possible, e.g. use MariaDB or PostGreSQL rather than an AWS-specific dbms, maintain your own backups, etc.
Such portability can pay off in other ways as well. Example: a competitor to Amazon in the retail space told us they would not buy our IoT product with an AWS back end, so we had to port it to an alternative cloud provider.
This probably won't scale well when you get to a level of hundreds of millions of unique users, though.
It also shows the resiliency of the internet. Parler's ability to build their own failsafe network rests on them. I learned a lot of hard lessons with my first failed startup. One of them was not to rely on another platform for my success. If TPB can do it being enemies of nation states. I think Parler will be just fine.
I don’t get all the anti free speech comments here. I rather live in a country with real free speech but no democracy than the reverse. You can’t have democracy without free speech.
Sigh. I am unbelievably tired of people setting this up as "pro free speech" vs "anti free speech". It's inflammatory (who proudly calls themselves "anti-free speech"? It's bad faith just to say that. Anyway.) and it's misleading.
Most critically, almost everyone fundamentally agrees that censorship is a good thing, in principle. Even the most extreme "free speech" oriented websites remove spam, illegal pornography, and deliberate impersonation. Therefore, we both agree with the proposition that sometimes website operators should exercise their discretion and remove content. We are now discussing what should be in the set of things it is acceptable to remove and what is not. But we are not having a disagreement about the concept of censorship.
Another thing to think about: Is a website operator that uses their discretion to remove content not, by that action, exercising their free speech? Would you have the government require website operators to host content they don't want to host? Because that is definitely a First Amendment violation.
I think the discussion shouldn't be about what should be censorship but rather who decides it. So if you put, lets say illegal pornography, on your page, then there is a law that forbids it. Especially in a good system the person who posted it gets prosecuted. On the other hand if companies act like judge and low, it can lead to bad things I think.
Inciting violence and overthrowing a government is already as illegal as child pornography is. Would you rather have all child pornography kept online up until a judge has declared that person guilty?
No, that's not right. See Brandenburg v. Ohio - incitement is explicitly not legal, per the Supreme Court. The classic qualifying line is "imminent lawless action".
The Supreme Court found that Brandenburg's 1A rights were violated. The "imminent lawless action" doctrine was protecting his ability to advocate for violence.
> "spam, illegal pornography, and deliberate impersonation"
Please stop repeating this tired meme. All of things in that list are off-topic or outright against the law; nobody wants to receive those things. The topic is and always was removal of unpopular speech that is
1) on-topic
2) between consenting parties who consciously wanted to send and receive those messages
3) mostly not illegal. (Yes, of course, the illegal parts should have been prosecuted.)
The fact that the discussion being deplatformed is unpopular or deplorable still doesn't justify a uninvolved third-party stepping in to disrupt it.
If your position is genuinely that you believe website operators should be mandated by law to host content they do not want to host except when that content has been specifically determined to be illegal, then we simply disagree on that point - I think that would make the world a worse place and I prefer the world where that rule is not in effect.
But if you believe in allowing the tiniest ounce of operator discretion, you believe in censorship, in principle.
Just think about the absolutist argument for a moment and it becomes incoherent: am I infringing on your free speech if I downvote you? What if I upvote you? If someone reads my comment, then decides not to read your comment, aren't I censoring you just as much as if I gave my friend a browser extension that blocks only your comments?
> "If your position is genuinely that you believe website operators should be mandated by law to host content they do not want to host except when that content has been specifically determined to be illegal, then we simply disagree on that point."
That's another meme I see repeated a lot. If we go back before 1950, the same argument you are making was used justify businesses refusing to provide service to women, minorities, LGBT people, etc. It's funny to see people supposedly on the left recycling discredited arguments from the bigoted right to justify their behavior today.
Society had to create protected classes, making something illegal that was already intrinsically immoral, to make clear that the argument you are trying to make is bogus. Perhaps it's time for liberals (and I mean actual liberals, not the left) to campaign to make political affiliation a protected class too.
Political affiliation being a protected class doesn't help your case. In fact, it already is a protected class in CA. But that doesn't matter, because parler doesn't and didn't claim to be republican, and wasn't removed for hosting republican points of view.
The protected class argument doesn't make sense until Mitch mcconnell and Mike pence are being deplatformed. And they aren't, because this has nothing to do with political affiliation and never did. That's just a mask the bad actors wear.
It is in fact interesting as that's one of key differences between the anti-discrimination laws of different countries.
USA in general considers gender, religion, color, national origin, race, and age as protected characteristics, but permits discrimination on political beliefs - but some jurisdictions in USA do have such a prohibition (e.g. DC - https://ohr.dc.gov/protectedtraits). Some provinces of Canada prohibit such discrimination (in e.g. employment) but some don't. As another example, German constitution at the very beginning (Article 3, https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_gg/englisch_gg.h...) asserts anti-discrimination for, among other things, political opinion.
Universal Declaration of Human Rights Article 2 asserts that these rights shall apply " without distinction of [...] political or other opinion", and European Convention of Human Rights Article 14 explicitly prohibits discrimination based on "political or other opinions", which has also been applied by European Court of Human Rights in e.g. Redfearn v United Kindgom [2012] ECHR 1878.
That would forbid (for example) employers to fire people just because they were active members of Proud Boys or Antifa or the Communist party or KKK or whatever. However, IMHO this would not prohibit practical censorship of political opinions (free speech is not a core human right in either of these two declarations), it would still allow platforms to set rules for messages on their platform and kick out people who violate these rules - it would just disallow them to kick out people for having a political affiliation that they're expressing outside of that platform, but that's not what was happening here.
Parler was not deplatformed due to any free speech issues.
They were deplatformed for blatantly violating the terms of service with multiple platform providers. If you host certain types of content, you are going to have trouble finding a platform.
If your platform allows open discussion of violent acts... you don't have the same options as other platforms. 8chan ran into this years ago.
If you lie to platform providers and host that kind of content on their platform, you should be prepared to get dumped.
Aside from this argument not being based in reality, this isn't even a free speech debate, it's a consequence discussion. Society has a right to reject your speech and not amplify it.
I've been on the Internet since before it had pictures. Hosts have always had this power. It's not new. It's not free speech. You pay for a service, you adhere to their rules. You break their rules, you get booted.
This argument is a dog whistle defense of terrorism.
Maybe, for a moment, consider that if a lot of smart people are disagreeing with you, and you see the situation as trivially obvious and those disagreeing as having hidden, evil motives, perhaps you should reconsider your perspective.
If anything is considered obvious on HN, it’s that Parler’s AWS problem is a bigger deal than what led to it, that “cancel culture” is worse than racism, and that the “mainstream media” should be replaced with “critical thinking”.
The internet becomes more and more important each year. Before the internet had pictures it didn't matter if you got kicked off.
The main problem imo is that you simply can not get a website on the internet without using someone elses service, there are always more layer down that you can get kicked from until you reach the point where ISPs, and domain registers are blocking you.
The US needs to restore net neutrality to prevent these kinds of abuses from ISPs.
When they decide it's in their best interest to do so.
Perhaps lead a vocal protest against Facebook, spread it far enough, and if it gains enough traction maybe Facebook themselves will do it. They could do it at any point and be well within their rights. Same with Apple.
I think that the overarching issue that many are missing is that our corporations are acting as our representative bodies -- we're speaking with our money as consumers -- because our political bodies are corrupt and no longer representing us directly.
If I were running something likely to be deplatformed, I would never consider anything but a multi-cloud solution where no single provider is a single point of failure.
Hindsight and all that. Parler has hosted content no worse than Twitter or Facebook or thousands of other sites. Their banning from AWS could not have been reasonably anticipated. It was an unprecedented act of censorship in response to an unprecedented moment in American history. The world will learn and AWS will likely loose a few customers though not enough to change its policies.
> Parler has hosted content no worse than Twitter or Facebook or thousands of other sites.
Nonsense.
Parler was created because Twitter and Facebook were moderating content. If Twitter and Facebook hadn't been moderating hate speech, Parler would not exist. Posting voices and content which is banned on Twitter and Facebook is the single unique "Feature" of Parler.
Over the months, Amazon has been in contact with Parler's management about moderating violent content and speech.
Facebook and Twitter have hosted content which incites violence and hate speech, but it's far less common and they make (often grudging and half assed) efforts to remove it. On Parler, it's accepted, arguably encouraged.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't some of the Parler violent content and speech that violated the TOS still on Twitter in the form of screenshots? Or have there been efforts by big tech to remove them too?
> Parler was created because Twitter and Facebook were moderating content.
> If Twitter and Facebook hadn't been moderating hate speech, Parler would not exist.
I don't think it's fair to claim Parler was created because Twitter and Facebook moderate hate speech. For example, the Hunter Biden story was actively suppressed on both Twitter and Facebook, essentially confirming long-held beliefs that social media platforms curate based on political ideology.
Twitter and Facebook both have done a horrible job moderating hate speech. Both in terms of over-moderating in some places and under-moderating in others.
But they actually moderate their content, and while there have been a few knee jerk reactions, they've mostly erred on the side of leaving things up rather than the reverse.
Parler has knowingly left threats of rape, murder, and torture on their site indefinitely. The contrast is stark here.
Only if you choose to think it's based on ideology. Fact is, 90% of the top links on FB are right-wing nonsense and conspiracy theories. Doesn't sound like curation to me.
For example, the Hunter Biden story was actively suppressed on both Twitter and Facebook, essentially confirming long-held beliefs that social media platforms curate based on political ideology.
I don’t think anyone can in good faith deny that if Don Trump Jr had allegedly done one-tenth of what Hunter Biden is accused of, the media would have it on 24/7 rotation.
Yes, because doing something and being accused of something don't meet the same bar of evidence.
Meanwhile, the Trump and children have been a Masterclass of nepotism and corruption. Let me know when one of Biden's children become an Aide to the President or put in charge of pandemic response, middle east peace, federal government reform, or the dozen other things Javanka was put in charge of despite being absolutely ignorant and unqualified in those topics.
Not gonna disagree too much because the nepotism bothered me too, but you absolutely cannot deny the progress Jared Kushner made in his role of coordinating ME peace agreements.
Yes you can. Kushner got some Arab states sharing no border with Israel to concede that Israelis are human beings in trade for sweetheart deals on arms. That's not peace, its token agreements backed by arms deals.
I think you are mis-informed here, or perhaps your definition of hate speech is different from mine. Parler was created because there was a perception that the moderation at Twitter was heavily slanted against conservatives. Many respectable people joined Parler, though, again perhaps we have different definitions of respectable. Parler has a moderation mechanism which is manual, not automatic as in Twitter, and like everybody else they ban hate speech, though perhaps not quite as fast.
What likely happened is that Amazon/Google/Apple did not want the risk of being accused as enablers if Trump managed to get on Parler and they decided to pre-preemptively cut Parler loose. Since in this day an age no one gets fired for canceling conservatives it was a winning move no matter what.
> I think you are mis-informed here, or perhaps your definition of hate speech is different from mine.
My issues with Parler are pretty much in line with what Amazon lays out in their court filing against Parler.
> "This case is about Parler's demonstrated unwillingness and inability to remove from the servers of Amazon Web Services ('AWS') content that threatens the public safety," Amazon wrote, "such as by inciting and planning the rape, torture, and assassination of named public officials and private citizens."
Maybe you think "inciting and planning the rape, torture, and assassination..." is an Ok sort of thing for public discourse. That kind of speech is banned here on HN, and as I suggested, nearly every other public discussion group.
> Parler has hosted content no worse than Twitter or Facebook or thousands of other sites.
I disagree. There were open calls for murder on the platform where Parler was notified by Apple, by Google, by Amazon - and nothing happened. Which is the key thing here.
Twitter and Facebook are extremely fast with the ban-hammer, in contrast.
> Twitter and Facebook are extremely fast with the ban-hammer, in contrast.
Twitter and Facebook have recently grudgingly picked up the ban hammer and use it, often too late or ineffectively. But yes, they will eventually act which is the big difference.
According to the CEO of Parler, banks and payment vendors, law firms, text and mail services also cancelled on them. This is why Parler also motivates discussion of alternative currency.
I'm not going to go into all the reasons why a multi-cloud solution probably isn't and why multi-cloud is stupendously difficult (and expensive as you move all that data around) for a scaling business.
But in a situation like this, a company that's likely to be deplatformed, is likely to be deplatformed everywhere. I've seen a screenshot recently of Parler's hardware requirements (when searching new vendors) and it's somewhere in the vicinity of 15,000 cores with more than 400Gbps (sustained) of internal and 100Gbps of external bandwidth (from memory).
The big cloud providers are the only place you can move to when you have those types of requirements (and are still actively growing).
That's about 250 bare metal 64-core servers. You can get that elsewhere, and keep in mind per-core performance on bare metal is going to be higher than you get per-core on shared tenant VMs in the cloud (for several reasons). Those bandwidth needs would constrain you only to larger scale bare metal providers though, which would leave you with fewer options.
The problem sounds like it would have been database sync between locations, which is a major issue in multi-cloud. Most replicated databases are pretty chatty.
You're right though about deplatforming, and the problem is if you are providing a safe haven for a bunch of Nazis like Parler is you are going to be constantly DDOSed. That means you need a lot of DDOS protection, and high end DDOS protection is a significantly smaller market with fewer players than just raw rack-em-and-stack-em hosting.
On the smaller but still “millions of virtual machines” end of the scale: DigitalOcean, Vultr, Linode. Still have APIs and can give you instances in minutes.
Hetzner and OVH also an option for the scale of infrastructure that Parler appears to require, although their “Dedicated Server” offerings (Bare Metal) often take 24-72 hours to deliver to customers.
Or one of a thousand places to rent a rack and “DIY” with hardware from a vendor like Dell, HP, Supermicro, Lenovo, ZT, ...
Plenty of examples exist of sites which have spent years or even decades online despite being unpopular or illegal, e.g. The Pirate Bay.
In all the years I’ve been using them they’ve never hit 10 minutes for my orders. Usually > 4 hours and < 6 hours though on AX and other “standard specification” boxes.
On PX where you can specify NVME and other configuration, more like 2-3 days (particularly if the order was placed on a weekend).
Good luck getting your 100Gbps+ sustained (from their actual requirements) of bandwidth in a non-extradition country to your primary audience in the USA.
Can you link to that requirements doc? I find it hard to believe that Parler required 100Gbps to run and meet a reasonable SLA. Also you can leverage multiple non-extradition jurisdictions to help offload bandwidth requirements while providing a hot spare cell.
Sure, but frequently whole netblocks we blocked because spammers or IP ranges hosting + sending content undesired by the larger community.
Peering ISPs would frequently drop routes + messages from whole data centers that would blatantly ignore spam complaints, which would force their hand to kick the offending customers off their platforms that caused harm to their other non-offending customers.
If you still want to remain in the cloud? Shell game. Contract another company to setup and run everything on the cloud side and mask the traffic. Hiding the traffic can be as simple as front end proxies into a VPN to AWS. Or even just SSL traffic. AWS or what ever cloud provider would be none the wiser unless they are actively looking inside everyone's boxes. Which I highly doubt they are.
There are thousands of colo centers out there that will take your business. Sure you have to buy the hardware up front but in the long run it'll be less expensive. The scary part would be fiber/backbone providers denying you a connection.
Ultimately, this will come down to public vs. private rights. If infrastructure, no matter how vital, is privately funded, what rights are there vs infrastructure that is publicly funded. Further complications are infrastructure that is a mix of the two.
Personally, I lean toward private infrastructure being able to set their own rules and if it’s public, then the public sets the rules. I am not sure when it gets to be a mix of the two.
The same thing that would happen in other situations. If you and I can’t come to terms, we part ways and don’t do business with each other. If one of us is affected because of that, then one of us needs to reconsider how best to remedy or work around that issue.
Investing in all the infrastructure to build a globally distributed architecture that is resilient? It's almost like we forgot that the web existed before the big cloud vendors.
Yeah, that is a great mental heuristic: the majority is always fair and right. I am sure the Jews thought that back in 1930’s Germany. And the Christians in Rome, the Kolacks in Russia, the intellectuals in Mao's China, the wealthy Cubans when Castro took over and blacks in the US before the civil rights movement.
You grant too much. The people who are making these deplatforming decisions do not represent a majority or anything close to it. Perhaps they believe they will when their cultural revolution is complete and the dust has settled, but that has yet to be seen.
The equivalence is not in the persecution but on the validity of an heuristic that that dictates you are an asshole if a powerful majority says you are.
Very few people are hand-wringing over the nonavailability of large child pornography sites and such. The problem is that not everyone has to believe you're horrible to get you booted off the internet - you just have to become sufficiently vile to a narrow, highly-polarized elite strata of society.
The NYT did not apologize for printing Tom Cotton's op-ed because it was outside of a broad Overton Window, but because it's a captured institution. A lot of tech firms face similar issues, whereby trying to hobble the speech channels of political enemies (even those with very broad support) is not only seen as acceptable but morally necessary.
Not everyone thinks they are horrible, and for the many that do they are relying on the media saying that they played a part in the Capitol riots. I haven't actually seen any data showing what was posted on Parler or what evidence was used to justify shutting them down.
Don't forget...just because everyone thinks something is good, doesn't mean that everyone isn't wrong. Hitler was Time magazine's man of the year...less than a year before he started WW2.
Exactly, it's crucial using multi-clouds because you never know when you will breach any clause of ToS. It's not so difficult to manage multiclouds with management tools as Anthos, Azure Arc, of course I would suggest independent like Openshift or CAST AI which pros would be one cluster
There is now a new risk that needs to be mitigated by the business, that of its business being taken down for any reason at all - subject to the whims of a changing culture, and possibly even outside of the laws of the land one is in.
This will hopefully make folks think through the entire supply chain including cloud and SaaS providers.
AWS was always like renting an apartment, or even, a fully furnished apartment. At some point, you want your own house and land...
I hope that there will be a new impetus to replace the above with colocated servers that are just being managed, and by services that are sold for a period of time, and hosted by the applications themselves.
k8s might hopefully be used to build a more resilient infrastructure that can take these systemic shocks.
There could be good business for a new class of sub-contractors who would have templates to automate this for their clients.
This threat is already mitigated by service contracts. AWS pretty obviously broke contract here, and will almost certain suffer legal consequences for that.
Why they thought they could get away with it is unclear, but their rebuttle to Parler's claims is pretty weak.
But critical infrastructure is built on AWS. I don't understand how any CEO of any large company would be comfortable with the risk of getting the rug pulled underneath all of its critical systems given that this is just what happened. I think the reputational damage is, or at least should, be much greater than any Parler litigation.
> I don't understand how any CEO of any large company would be comfortable with the risk of getting the rug pulled underneath all of its critical systems given that this is just what happened.
If you are trying to make a case that Amazon arbitrarily pulls the plug on customers, Parler should not be your poster child. Amazon gave them 7 weeks of advance notice that their content was in violation of their agreement. Then they only severed the agreement once criminal activities were tied to the platforms content.
CEO's aren't going to bat an eye at this any more than they are concerned that YouTube removed copyrighted content.
> Amazon gave them 7 weeks of advance notice that their content was in violation of their agreement.
Not the same thing as giving them notice of intent to terminate the contract. If Amazon said "some of your content is in violation, but let's work together to improve your moderation, you have nothing to worry about" that does not give Amazon the right to turn around and terminate them after only 24 hours notice.
Parler was in breech. Amazon could have stopped providing service at any point where Parler was knowingly hosting content that violated their contract.
The fact that they continued providing service was a curtesy, not an obligation. For most smaller/ non connected entities they'd have been dropped much much sooner, and likely without notice.
Quite the opposite. Everything Amazon did was within the terms of their contract. Amazon could have terminated the agreement sooner. Since Amazon waited until after it was abundantly clear that harmful content was being posted on Parler, its going to be quite difficult for Parler to find much sympathy in any court.
Just to play the Devil's advocate here:
Now, Amazon had given notice to Parler that they want some moderation that is automated...
What are the specs for that? What would satisfy Amazon?
Can it be delivered within that timeframe setting aside whatever else is going on?
These are real concerns for a company going forward. I guess many do not state because of the political ramifications of this particular case, but it will be discussed in board rooms.
as an example, i had a bad experience once with a HOA while living in my own home; the next home i bought, i ensured that i did not have to deal with the HOA.
> Now, Amazon had given notice to Parler that they want some moderation that is automated... What are the specs for that? What would satisfy Amazon? Can it be delivered within that timeframe setting aside whatever else is going on?
What makes you think Parler is interested in complying with the terms of the contract at all?
The only benefit of Parler over Twitter or Facebook is the fact that you can say things which will get you banned on the bigger platforms. If Parler implements moderation which will comply with Amazon's terms of service, why would anyone use Parler at all?
> These are real concerns for a company going forward. I guess many do not state because of the political ramifications of this particular case, but it will be discussed in board rooms.
Why? If you are a startup for a recipe making app, are you going to be worried about a company who got booted from a service for allowing users to discuss kidnapping, rape, and murder openly?
If I'm a business, it's a simple question. Can we operate on AWS/ Azure/ Apple's App Store/ etc and meet their terms of service. There is a huge world of business ideas that don't need to violate the fairly broad terms in Amazon's TOS.
I'm not an expert on Amazon's TOS, you can read/ interpret them same as I can. The part which I have seen and is in the lawsuit between Amazon and Parler specifically mentions harming others, so pot brownie recipes would likely not be affected.
If you run a site where illegal or even borderline legal activities are commonly discussed, it would be a good idea to talk to a lawyer.
I am trying to steer our discussion past the politics of this.
It is clear that there exists today violent content on both twitter and FB as well, but that is beside the point.
> If Parler implements moderation which will comply with Amazon's terms of service
Can you point to where in AWS TOS this is defined?
We need to agree first that this is a subjective decision on AWS part, regardless of which side of the aisle we fall on.
If we are able to agree on it, it goes back to my original point of the risk.
If you insist that it is objective, then should'nt there be an ombudsman for AWS to ensure that they are now in compliance to it? For something to be objective, there are clear rules that need to be kept on both sides.
> a service for allowing users to discuss kidnapping, rape, and murder openly?
I implore you to step out of the political lens for this argument. You don't have to search too hard to find such content on twitter and FB as well. The reason they can get away is I guess they can afford to have their own servers. This kind of environment stifles the new entrants and cannot be good.
> Can we operate on AWS/ Azure/ Apple's App Store/ etc and meet their terms of service
Honestly, I feel that the ground is not stable with these TOS and their changes, and their arbitrary interpretations.
--
You brought up Apple... so lets look at how it took the app off its store because Parler promoted violent content; it is an admission that it is watching against it. So, tomorrow, if two guys use its own messaging apps to commit a terrorist attack, should'nt Apple be liable for it?
--
Let me ask you for a minute to pretend you are right wing, and you start that recipe making app -- you will not be at peace even though current app is just fine.
This unease is what is not good for business confidence.
> We need to agree first that this is a subjective decision on AWS part, regardless of which side of the aisle we fall on.
I'm not sure what you are talking about here? We need to agree that Amazon's Terms of Service are subjective? Or are we going to start digging into the rabbit hole of definitions of words like "Harm"?
As with any legal discussion, ultimately the courts decide. But the fact that the court didn't see a need to give Parler the injunctive relief they sought says a bunch.
> I implore you to step out of the political lens for this argument.
I haven't said anything political. I said Parler is in Breech with Amazon. Obviously that's up to a judge to decide, but early signs suggest the judge doesn't favor Parler. If the judge thought Parler was likely to succeed in this case, they'd have given them the injuction they sought.
> You don't have to search too hard to find such content on twitter and FB as well.
You can certainly find threats and hate speech on Twitter and Facebook, but many many people have been banned and many posts have been blocked for such speech.
Parler was created because of the moderating people were facing on Twitter and Facebook. If Twitter and Facebook didn't block this kind of content Parler would not exist.
> Let me ask you for a minute to pretend you are right wing, and you start that recipe making app -- you will not be at peace even though current app is just fine.
Depends. Is it a recipe app that allows users to make death threats to each other? This is literally what we're talking about here, death threats, rape threats, discussing kidnapping people.
take a tech CTO, who looks at AWS TOS. Do you find any terms that provide details on the moderation needed?
There can be any number of apps and business models -- so when his company gets such a notice, what can be done?
there was also the case of a baker who disagreed to serve gay people with their wedding cakes, and amazon TOS also has rules against discrimination. This case went to courts etc but lets say this guy has his site on AWS.
In a similar vein, AWS could also dump this guy right?
So far, one looked as AWS as infrastructure just like your electric, phone or gas company - going forward, there will be a re-think here.
Basically my point is that whatever is not in your control can be taken away from you. And in these days of SaaS and Cloud computing, pretty much most of it is not in your control.
This is a huge risk, and new business models will emerge to help mitigate this risk
my friend, how will they melt away? It just was'nt imagined.
If we step back to 2018 - No BLM, no capitol riots -- no one would even imagine a AWS pulling the plug.
As a startup, it used to be a no-brainer to start on AWS first.
The advice given then was not get entired by AWS goodies that locks one to the platform, but one never thought much of using EC2
What i started arguing for was that there will be an interface on top of EC2, that would enable one to provision just as fast on Azure, Google or on bare metal.
In this case, one can still get on AWS, and if you have a problem, be able to transition to your own server as fast as you can.
this is obviously not in AWS or Google's interest, so needs to be a community driven open source effort, with the entrenched players constantly trying to break their APIs where possible.
> If we step back to 2018 - No BLM, no capitol riots -- no one would even imagine a AWS pulling the plug.
There has always been content which you cannot host on Amazon. Prior to Parler, Amazon booted Wikileaks, Amazon also doesn't host pornography, there are other carve-outs as well.
You are highly indexed on this one event, but it's not unique or particularly eye opening. 8chan suffered a similar fate for exactly the same reason as Parler.
If your business relies on hosting certain types of content, your options are greatly limited (and have been for almost from the start). This kind of speech is more toxic than pornography and it's treated as such. Business owners are capable of making this kind of distinction, or they can hire legal to help with it.
i have been twitter, FB, parler and 8chan. For some reason, never checked out gab.
have you been on all of this?
I sincerely can tell you that parler is no worse than twitter. 8chan - different story.
hence, unfair comparison - that it is hate speech (which even though 1A protects it, we can agree that there is a line that could be crossed - lets not argue about that line here)
my contention is that in parler (or a future app's case) -- it may not be hate speech, but 'speech we hate' -- since that definition is made by same entities.
I want to know if you are just following what you heard from media, or first-hand.
> This is a huge risk, and new business models will emerge to help mitigate this risk
There is always a risk when you build your business on a platform then blatantly ignore the contract you sign. Most businesses will mitigate this risk by actually reading and following the terms of contracts they enter into.
The business model you are referring to is called having a legal department. Most businesses do.
Amazon gave them 7 weeks notice that they were violating the contract.
Once Parler breeched the contract, Amazon no longer had an obligation to them. The fact that they continued operating without making significant efforts to get into compliance makes it pretty unlikely the court will be sympathetic.
>Amazon started investigating violent threats on Parler in November and reported more than 100 pieces of content over the next seven weeks, but the site never took action, according to one executive.
The concentration of your eggs into one basket is the biggest issue I see here. If your business email, SCM, DNS, CDN, storage, backups, compute, CI/CD, data warehouse/BI, desktop compute... all come from one company (e.g. AWS, MS, or GCP), then you can lose *everything* in a flick of the pen.
When you do risk assessments (e.g. SOC 2), you rank all your venders by risk, and answer "what could I do if I lost vendor X?" These are things a business is supposed to do, which is why many intentionally have more than one vendor for the same service, run hybrid cloud, etc when the answer to that question is "close my business."
Doesn't look like traffic is being routed through Russia, as the first tweet implies. They are using DDOS-Guard, which routes over Telia. In my (US) traceroute, traffic never leaves the states
I'm not sure exactly where the line should be drawn, but there seems to be a spectrum ranging from "private property" on one side and "utility" on the other. Where property owners can decide what their property is used for, and utilities are "common carriers".
In this spectrum, Twitter seems more towards private property, while AWS seems more.like a utility.
The law hasn't caught up to addressing the changes of the last decade in this respect, but I think we're about to see it happen, either legislatively or in the courts.
Even with private property those lines aren't so clear. I have a sidewalk and utility lines that run across my private property. I don't exactly have the ability tell people they cant walk on my sidewalk or cut-off those power lines even though it's my property.
Just make sure you dont use proprietary stuff (e.g Google datastore/firebase etc) and at least you have the chance to go the old fashion way(co-location, smaller hosta etc)
Even then let’s say you have 100TB or more of data. How do you get an offline backup of that? Especially if it’s only a few days warning. I guess having some offline storage backup that gets updated often should be a part of the plan
I would like to see a new class of “social libel” laws - whereby knowing telling lies as truth in a public forum were punishable. Is this a civil or criminal offense?
I helped migrate a major CPG company to AWS. Only, they changed their mind, migrating most of their data to GCP instead, as they saw Amazon as a competitor. Turns out this was an excellent decision.
A portion of your citizens were called to storm your nations capital by a President who refuses to accept the results of a democratic election. The very foundation of your democracy has been eroded. Do not pretend the people who are frightened of these actions are overreacting. Democracy is a fragile thing, and you have a portion of your population who attempted to take a hammer to it.
Don't pretend this is a narrative presented by the elite, I don't listen to your news, I don't read the opinions of your celebrities and newscasters, I watched the videos, I saw the discourse. I am not from your nation, and only have what I have seen from the people who were there and the videos they willingly uploaded to the internet, and the unedited footage of the speeches and the words of your president.
> The very foundation of your democracy has been eroded.
That would be a crappy democracy if it could be eroded by a bunch of idiots taking an unauthorized Whitehouse tour. Fortunately, absolutely nothing happened to the democracy and it proceeded on its course. What could actually erode the democracy is nation giving up on free speech. That'd be a real sign of nation in severe distress.
> I don't listen to your news
Maybe you should, then you'd know nothing happened to the democracy.
I can't believe this needs to be said, but the fact it failed doesn't mean the danger wasn't real.
Some members of the mob were actively looking to kill the people who were 2nd and 3rd in line for the presidency. Let's not pretend that there was zero danger to democracy.
> Some members of the mob were actively looking to kill the people who were 2nd and 3rd in line for the presidency. Let's not pretend that there was zero danger to democracy.
Do you realize that numerous times throughout history people have successfully killed the actual president and it didn't end democracy?
What these people did was a serious crime and it should absolutely be prosecuted to the full extent of the law, but no it was never going to destroy the country or end democracy. This is hyperbole people are using to grab and consolidate power.
Democracy is not a single person that can be killed and taken over. It's all of us acting in concert to uphold those values. It doesn't end by this person or that person being killed, it ends by all of us collectively agreeing to give up the values that make it work. That's the real threat here.
>Do you realize that numerous times throughout history people have successfully killed the actual president and it didn't end democracy?
I'm no historian, so was there ever a time the killing was instigated by a sitting politician who then was not punished? (Yes, the Senate has yet to decide, but chances are they won't vote for removal or banning from office).
Because politicians trying to have their political opponents harmed or killed is basically all one needs to have fake democracy.
> Because politicians trying to have their political opponents harmed or killed is basically all one needs to have fake democracy.
I don't follow this logic. Assume for the sake of argument that politician A attempts to have politician B killed (also not a historian, but I feel there has to be at least one instance of this happening somewhere, at some point in US history). Based on this event, we now conclude that the entire democracy is fake? How? All of the votes for all other politicians are now invalid? The electoral process (largely out of the control of any single politician) just ... goes away? How do you figure? What's the cause and effect mechanism there?
Here are some questions based entirely on the procedural process of electing a president. We don't even have to get into any potential illegal actions by Trump.
The vice president presides over the counting of electoral college votes. Tradition says this role is largely ceremonial. Trump disagrees. What would a conservative Supreme Court, with 3 justices appointed by Trump, say about this?
What were to happen if the VP was murdered by a mob while the president is arguing in bad faith that he won the election and the VP is needed to certify the true winner?
Can the president pro tempore take the place of the VP in counting votes? We would likely be back in the Supreme Court to decide. What if they say only the VP can serve this role? Would Trump and Congress be able to agree on a new VP?
If no VP is in place, would the election end up in the House? Would they have time to vote before 1/20? Who would they vote for?
If we don't have a clear president by 1/20, the line of succession passes to the speaker of the House. What happens if she was murdered too? Would the House vote on a new speaker quick enough or would the line of succession go to the 4th person, the president pro tempore of the Senate?
Would this create perverse incentives for the the president pro tempore to reject EC votes if the Supreme Court decided in his favor several steps back in this hypothetical?
There are obviously a lot of hypotheticals there, but what they are meant to show is there are a lot of ways for this to go wrong and for the next president to be in doubt. Do you see how this is bad for a healthy democracy? Would you be confident that Trump would sit idly by and wait for this situation to play out without putting his fingers on the scale, inciting more violence, or potentially something even more drastic?
Don't forget that Alexander Hamilton was fatally shot in a duel with then Vice President Aaron Burr in 1804 [0].
> Few affairs of honor actually resulted in deaths, and the nation was outraged by the killing of a man as eminent as Alexander Hamilton. Charged with murder, Burr, still vice president, returned to Washington, D.C., where he finished his term immune from prosecution.
Can you point to a place where he specifically encouraged trespassing or violence in a way that is more egregious than the ways in which various Congresspeople encouraged violence in Kenosha or Minneapolis?
Disclaimer : I am not American, and could care less for your politics.
> Can you point to a place where he specifically encouraged trespassing or violence in a way that is more egregious than the ways in which various Congresspeople encouraged violence in Kenosha or Minneapolis?
This seems like a weird statement to me. Does it matter what other Congresspeople said or not said? I had a quick read of the speech you linked. Its clear that the whole speech is priming the crowd that their vote has been stolen, and that they need to go their and fight for their votes.
> Now, it is up to Congress to confront this egregious assault on our democracy. And after this, we’re going to walk down, and I’ll be there with you, we’re going to walk down, we’re going to walk down.
> Anyone you want, but I think right here, we’re going to walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women, and we’re probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them.
> Because you’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength and you have to be strong. We have come to demand that Congress do the right thing and only count the electors who have been lawfully slated, lawfully slated.
> I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.
This bit right here is clearly indicating that the people need to walk to the Capitol, to "confront" the egregious assault, to show strength, to "not going to be cheering so much for some of them". Granted yes, he also does state that they will be marching over "peacefully" and "patriotically" but spending paragraphs telling an audience that their votes are stolen, and they must fight those who stole their vote and then throwing in a few words about peacefully doesn't absolve you when that mob does basically what you said.
Near the end :
> And we fight. We fight like hell. And if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.
> So we’re going to, we’re going to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue. I love Pennsylvania Avenue. And we’re going to the Capitol, and we’re going to try and give.
Again, clearly indicating that they need to go to the Capitol, to "fight like hell" and ensure that Republicans vote in a certain way. I think anyone reading between the lines can clearly see how a group of people who believe this man quite a bit would get an indication that they need to walk to and into the Capitol.
Hm. I don't think I was lecturing anyone. I saw a statement that wasn't logically sound based on my thinking i.e. that what Congresspeople said matters in this discussion.
and then I read the speech, and quoted exactly what was "inciting" or could be considered such.
I do not believe anyone has claimed that a single speech inspired insurrection. I do believe lots of people believe that messages over time led citizens to believe their gun rights, free speech rights and voting rights were threatened, and that they would need to fight to keep them.
That being said, the speech itself certainly didn't help.
> they rigged an election.
> They rigged it like they’ve never rigged an election before.
> All of us here today do not want to see our election victory stolen by emboldened radical left Democrats
> You don’t concede when there’s theft involved.
> We will not take it any more
> We will not let them silence your voices.
> Although with this administration, if this happens, it could happen. You’ll see some really bad things happen. They’ll knock out Lincoln too, by the way.
> we’re going to have somebody in there that should not be in there and our country will be destroyed
> some of these guys. They’re out there fighting the House.
Guys are fighting, but it’s incredible
> Democrats attempted the most brazen and outrageous election theft. There’s never been anything like this.
> We’re probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them because you’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength, and you have to be strong.
> We have come to demand that Congress do the right thing
> Our country has been under siege for a long time
> You will have an illegitimate president, that’s what you’ll have. And we can’t let that happen.
Probably a waste of my effort, but it's quite disingenuous to claim that not saying the word "trespass" in this speech after years of messaging that the Democrats are the enemy of Trump and Trump's followers proves it wasn't yet another piece of incitement. He absolutely encouraged "fighting." So either you believe he's a complete imbecile who does not understand what happens if you get a bunch of armed citizens to believe their favorite rights will be lost if they allow a fraudulent election of a Democratic President to come to fruition, or you understand that he was intentional with his language over time.
Your description of democracy is on the nose, but that's exactly why I think it's reasonable to be concerned. One of the critical values that makes democracy work is the peaceful transition of power, and if there'd been just a bit more violence, it would be impossible to maintain even a polite fiction that this transition was peaceful.
"Survived" is just a very low bar. I'm not scared of the US becoming Mad Max - I'm scared of something like the Troubles, where democratic institutions still exist but struggle to maintain the peace against large, powerful groups who don't consider them legitimate.
>the president asked his supporters to bring violence against his political opponents
This did not happen. Trump asked his supporters to march on the capitol, and then when shit got out of hand, he asked them to go home. Anything else regarding his words is a "reading between the lines" that's going to involve a lot of loaded, partisan-biased, and worst of all unfalsifiable claims.
Every single incident on that page involves a series of "protestors" who were forcibly ejected from a series of 2016 rallies after attempting to disrupt them, and in one case, involves a "protestor" getting removed by the secret service after trying to rush the stage.
Snopes is here holding up the president saying he'd punch someone who rushed onto the stage as "encouraging violence at his rallies", which is such a willfully disingenuous attempt at poisoning the well it calls the entire article into question.
That is not the same thing, not what we're talking about here, and it is not honest to equate them. People who disrupt rallies absolutely deserve to be removed from those rallies with appropriate force.
So what you're saying is: he called for violence against someone that disagrees with him politically. And the problem is, you apparently fall into the very category of: seeking truth isn't important, believing what you want is. Because you literally just fabricated a story to support Trump that's easily disproven by the very link you're commenting about.
Had you actually watched the videos: no, every single one of those people did not attempt to rush the stage, that happened exactly once. And in that occurrence he didn't even call for violence until the NEXT DAY, when a normal Presidential candidate would've had time to gather themselves and act like an adult... No, every single one was not arrested by secret service.
He spent MONTHS telling his supporters that the election was "stolen from them" and that they need to "fight like real patriots", but again, because you support him that's not a call for violence. Nevermind the end result: the violence he called for - you just don't agree that's what he wanted. Which of course is why he refused to condemn it while it was happening, and took a full day to say anything meaningful after every one of his political allies condemned him.
>So what you're saying is: he called for violence against someone that disagrees with him politically.
This is a lie by omission. He "called for violence" against people who attempted to physically disrupt his rallies, and I would go so far as to call the "violence" that ensued in all of those cases (forcible removal from the venue) justified.
Using this standard, I could accuse anyone against the Capitol "protestors" as "calling for violence against their political opponents", except we both know that characterization omits a great deal of critical context. So it is here.
>Which of course is why he refused to condemn it while it was happening,
He literally told the people assembled there to go home.
>This is a lie by omission. He "called for violence" against people who attempted to physically disrupt his rallies, and I would go so far as to call the "violence" that ensued in all of those cases (forcible removal from the venue) justified.
You keep moving the goal posts to try to justify abhorrent behavior. First he didn't call for violence, until I provided proof he did. Then the violence was justified because "they rushed the stage" - which they didn't. Now it's OK to advocate assault because someone is peacefully protesting?
I'll be honest: it's pretty sad the lengths you're going to in order to justify actions that wouldn't be tolerated in a kindergarten classroom.
>Using this standard, I could accuse anyone against the Capitol "protestors" as "calling for violence against their political opponents", except we both know that characterization omits a great deal of critical context. So it is here.
No, you really couldn't without the same mental gymnastics you've been going through to ignore reality. The Capitol "protestors" physically assaulted badged police officers while breaking into a federal building. The protestors at Trump's rally paid for a ticket to enter a place they were lawfully allowed to be - peacefully spoke out in protest, and then left when they were told to. In the process they were assaulted.
The fact you'd try to equate the too shows a complete lack of honesty and integrity on your part.
>He literally told the people assembled there to go home.
Hours and HOURS after the damage had been done, and the police had the situation back under control, he issued a taped message telling the rioters that he loved them but they needed to go home.
At some point it's obvious you condone physical violence against people that have different political views than you do, and you should just own it. But you also should take a long, hard look at history. The founding fathers didn't agree with your point of view. The constitution doesn't agree with your point of view. The majority of Americans don't agree with your point of view. Our Democracy is founded on a peaceful transition of power, and intelligent thoughtful discourse on policy. Your violence has no place in America.
>First he didn't call for violence, until I provided proof he did. Then the violence was justified because "they rushed the stage" - which they didn't. Now it's OK to advocate assault because someone is peacefully protesting?
You are outright lying about what I said. I said that the "violence" called for in the article linked wasn't any more than kicking disruptors out of a private event with force (something justified in that case), and the exact words I used were *IN ONE CASE* regarding the stage-rushing incident. It's up thread for all to see.
The fact that you have to lie to make your point means that this conversation is over. I stand by my original point that the original march was legitimate, and that Trump told the crowd to go home. Trump DID NOT tell any of those assembled to storm the capitol, violently or otherwise, and to insist that he did is a further lie.
>You are outright lying about what I said. I said that the "violence" called for in the article linked wasn't any more than kicking disruptors out of a private event with force (something justified in that case), and the exact words I used were IN ONE CASE regarding the stage-rushing incident. It's up thread for all to see.
You edited your post after being called out, and that's now your scapegoat.
It is literally never justified for a politician to ask his supporters to physically assault a peaceful protestor. Full stop. You can squirm, gyrate, and try to justify it, but it's not OK.
> I stand by my original point that the original march was legitimate, and that Trump told the crowd to go home.
You can stand by whatever you want. Trump released a pre-recorded video that "we love you, but go home" - 6 HOURS after the Capitol was stormed. HOURS. At that point it didn't matter, reinforcements had arrived and the building was already cleared. Furthermore, telling violent insurrectionists you "love them"??? Really?
>You edited your post after being called out, and that's now your scapegoat.
Again you lie, because HN won't let you edit a post more than 2 hours old. Those words were there when the post you reply to was originally made. Stop lying.
> That is not the same thing, not what we're talking about here, and it is not honest to equate them. People who disrupt rallies absolutely deserve to be removed from those rallies with appropriate force.
But saying that punching a peaceful rally attendee is "very, very appropriate" and the kind of action "we need a little bit more of" is not.
And asking police to be more violent when handling suspects is encouraging violence ("when you see these thugs being thrown into the back of a paddy wagon, you just see them thrown in, rough, I said, please don’t be too nice.")
On Greg Gianforte, the Montana Governer who assaulted a reporter ("Any guy who can do a body-slam ... he’s my guy.")
Then he joked about shooting immigrants:
> In his remarks, he asked, “How do you stop these people?” A woman at the rally reportedly yelled “shoot them” in response. Trump then joked, “That’s only in the Panhandle, you can get away with that statement.”
Then there's the pattern of statements by trump that predict violence against the groups the attacks are aimed at:
- Trump calls Covid the "Chinese virus" and plays up its origin to stoke anti-Chinese sentiment. A random Asian family is attacked in a Texas Walmart because they're "infecting people with the coronavirus".
- Trump attacks "the Squad" (congresswomen AOC and co), they see an uptick in racist attacks and threats
- Trump says "Liberate Michigan" and criticizes the governor for her coronavirus lockdown. Months later, a group of militia members is uncovered with a conspiracy to kidnap and kill her.
- "You also had some very fine people on both sides."
- "Stand back and stand by"
etc.
He has a pattern of tacitly encouraging violence and then making halfhearted condemnations when the violence actually happens. It's why when so many people commit violence, they think Trump is asking them to.
> I can't believe this needs to be said, but the fact it failed doesn't mean the danger wasn't real.
The danger is unreal not because it failed, but because it was obviously going to fail. We're talking about a bunch of delusional LARPers. If some foreign intelligence unit tries and fails to overthrow your country's government, that's insurrection. If it's the doofus who stole the podium or the guy with face paint and a horned fur hat, not so much.
Note that the factual crimes are already plenty bad--they don't need to be exaggerated.
> Some members of the mob were actively looking to kill the people who were 2nd and 3rd in line for the presidency
There were murderers and arsonists at BLM riots as well; that doesn't impugn the legitimate protesters. Similarly, these few actual insurrectionists don't make the MAGA trespassers, rioters, even murderers into insurrectionists.
> Let's not pretend that there was zero danger to democracy.
There is a danger to our democracy in that a sitting president undermining democracy by spreading lies about election fraud. More generally, the media and tech companies are deliberately cultivating division and mistrust among the American people. These are real, credible dangers to democracy. The MAGA LARPers were not a credible threat to our democracy.
>The danger is unreal not because it failed, but because it was obviously going to fail. We're talking about a bunch of delusional LARPers. If some foreign intelligence unit tries and fails to overthrow your country's government, that's insurrection. If it's the doofus who stole the podium or the guy with face paint and a horned fur hat, not so much.
What are you basing the obviousness of the failure on? The mob was seemingly a few dozen feet away from numerous politicians with the only thigs between them being a barricaded door and seemingly less than a half dozen security people.
>There were murderers and arsonists at BLM riots as well; that doesn't impugn the legitimate protesters. Similarly, these few actual insurrectionists don't make the MAGA trespassers, rioters, even murderers into insurrectionists.
How many murders were committed by the millions of BLM protester in the dozens of cities they protested in over the months they protested? Because these thousands of people in DC were able to murder one and get multiple of their own killed? The violence rate of the two isn't comparable.
>There is a danger to our democracy in that a sitting president undermining democracy by spreading lies about election fraud. More generally, the media and tech companies are deliberately cultivating division and mistrust among the American people. These are real, credible dangers to democracy. The MAGA LARPers were not a credible threat to our democracy.
What happened on 1/6 was a direct result of those first two. This is part of the danger to democracy manifesting itself.
> We're talking about a bunch of delusional LARPers.
There were lots of LARPers. There were also some groups moving in organised fashion with less expensive and more useful equipment. There were people with bombs. There were some people ready to inflict harm on LE and luckily they didn't carry on to other people.
It was not a homogeneous group with same ideas and goals. That idea is just distracting from what happened.
puerto rican nationalists stormed the capitol and shot congressmen in 1954; leftists literally bombed the senate chamber in 1983; we somehow managed to persist without restricting civil liberties both times. have you ever even heard of these events? i would wager most of us haven't. this time though, they had a 10,000 page anti-terror bill waiting in the wings and ready to push through, a dark reminder of the patriot act and the post-9/11 expansion of the security state. and just like telecoms and media companies after 9/11, the corporations line up to kiss the ring.
Violence against the institutions isn't great, but can you honestly not see the difference between;
- 1983, goal: end war in Grenada via terror/threat, action: set bomb off at 11pm (0 deaths, 0 injuries)
- 2021, goal: keep former President in office after losing election, kill VP, kill Speaker of House, action: storm capitol (5 deaths, over 100 injuries), bonus: incited by sitting President
This 5 deaths stat is one of the most mealy mouthed details being repeated. 1 police officer was killed, 1 rioter was killed. 2 people died of health related issues (1 stroke, 1 heart attack) while standing around. 1 died in the press of the crowd when people started panicking.
2 deaths were medical issues. 1 was a sad accident. 1 was a tragedy of someone being killed in the line of duty, and 1 was a trespasser paying the price for their actions. Playing it up like 5 innocent people were murdered by violent rioters is disrespectful to the one person who actually was, and is blatant politically motivated propaganda.
> puerto rican nationalists stormed the capitol and shot congressmen in 1954;... we somehow managed to persist without restricting civil liberties both times.
Because Puerto Rico already had the Ley de la Mordaza since 1948. Also Pedro Albizu Campos had his pardoned revoked.
You're ascribing intent to my words where there is none. I have no interest in arguing my opinion here.
I am interested in reading other people's thoughtfully formed opinions. Using words like "lots of" without clarifying further seems likely to lead to people talking past each other. That's why I commented.
I agree with the sentiment that this thing was blown out of proportion. I watched the videos and the police could easily stop them by using deadly force. They decided not to and the protestors took advantage of it. There was only one woman who got shot from my understanding. I think the police should get a lot of credit here. That's the police we want to see - officers who use common sense and don't apply deadly force unless someone is in serious danger (I didn't see the xx ç video of the shooting yet). Unfortunately a lot of people including many celbreties decided to ignore that and instead focus on white privilege and if those were black people the result was different. Some people don't want peace, just wars.
With that being said, you cannot take it lightly. The FBI should take it very seriously. We all remember Timothy Mcveigh. I really hope the next few weeks will pass quietly.
> Unfortunately a lot of people including many celbreties decided to ignore that and instead focus on white privilege and if those were black people the result was different.
It also seems to me that "race" isn't the only pertinent difference with respect to the differing police response between the two riots. Even if the police simply leaned right, that would provide a non-racial explanation. Of course, we can't have a politicized police force, but that's a non-racial explanation. Similarly, BLM spent the entire summer campaigning aggressively against the police (whether or not their campaign was righteous is immaterial for this conversation) while MAGA was consistently "Back The Blue" right up until the Capitol Hill riots. Again, it's not acceptable for police to act on such biases, but it's a very different problem with a very different solution than a racial motive.
> Some people don't want peace, just wars.
Sadly, I agree. I get the distinct feeling that people want to crush their political opponents these days, and they're happy to use any post-facto reasoning to rationalize their anger, hatred, etc. It seems like we as a society no longer value peace, mercy, forgiveness, or grace; there is only vindictiveness masquerading as "justice".
> The danger is unreal not because it failed, but because it was obviously going to fail
They came very close to having members in the hands of the mob; I think you very much overestimate what was required for this to succeed. Even if the mob itself was disavowed, simply getting a presiding officer more that would be more sympathetic to the President’s interests int he circumstances (which probably would have taken at least one more removal than “Hang Mike Pence”, but may not have been impractical) would potentially have provided a sufficient pretext for a process in which the Congress would have ended up declaring Trump the winner.
But even if it was “obviously going to fail”, that doesn’t make it not-dangerous (even if the intended violence didn’t have the intended political effects, it still would have been horrific) or not-insurrection.
> If some foreign intelligence unit tries and fails to overthrow your country’s government, that’s insurrection.
No, its a (covert) invasion.
> If it’s the doofus who stole the podium or the guy with face paint and a horned fur hat, not so much.
How about if it is the retired Air Force Lt. Col. with zip ties who was directing action, including efforts at intelligence gathering on members, in the Senate chamber?
Just because the unusual outfits get disproportionate media attention doesn’t mean they were the dominant factor in the insurrection.
Essentially you're talking about roughly 33% or so of the American electorate, that's bound to get some downvotes, I wouldn't sweat it, note the good guys, upvote them where you can and stick around to stop it from sliding away even further. And yes, it is annoying. Also: typically it corrects itself in the longer run, so don't take a snapshot like this as the end state.
I've been here for almost 15 years and this is not some normal blip. It's true that the 2016 comment threads (the only corollary to this that I have seen) sucked, but they were not dominated by the toxic as this one is. It is not true that a third of the population is partaking in apologetics for violence. But it is true that more than half the community here appears to be. Thanks for your reply, though.
No one here is "partaking in apologetics for violence"; everyone is condemning the violence. Some people (myself included) are pointing out that while this event was violent and violence is never acceptable, that it alone wasn't a serious threat to our democracy, it wasn't a real insurrection, etc. The violence needs to be prosecuted, but no one needs to hang for treason.
To your point though, this forum does occasionally flirt with violence. Over the summer, some were waxing poetic about how "riots are the language of the oppressed" and arguing that burning someone's business to the ground isn't violence but rather "just property damage". Some were arguing that antifa and other violent groups were "freedom fighters" and so on. So yes, it does get pretty toxic here, but this thread isn't it.
>Over the summer, some were waxing poetic about how "riots are the language of the oppressed" and arguing that burning someone's business to the ground isn't violence but rather "just property damage".
When you put violence against property and literal murder on the same moral footing you are being an apologist for more severe violence. Property can be replaced. Businesses can have insurance. The murdered police officer and the 4 other dead people aren't coming back.
People really need to stop equating BLM with what happened on 1/6. Not all violence is created equal. 1/6 was much more egregious.
> When you put violence against property and literal murder on the same moral footing you are being an apologist for more severe violence.
Right, thankfully no one is doing that (I've seen you around other threads and straw man arguments like this one are beneath your usual high standard of discourse). Everyone here agrees that the people responsible for murdering the police officer ought to be held criminally accountable for murder but not for treason. But this was almost certainly a small number of people and its reprehensible to hold the entire mob responsible, and certainly not for treason. We don't hold every BLM protester accountable for the BLM riots and we don't hold every BLM rioter accountable for the murders that took place during the riots, and we should hold the same standard here.
Elsewhere you remarked that 1 murder constitutes a larger proportion than the BLM murders, but of course you can't extrapolate anything from a sample of 1.
> People really need to stop equating BLM with what happened on 1/6. Not all violence is created equal. 1/6 was much more egregious.
They aren't the same, but they're not so different that we can justify glorifying violence for one and exaggerating it for the other.
FWIW, I personally think the Capitol Hill riots were worse in the sense that they were incited by a sitting President and that the security was concerningly inadequate. The President should be held responsible for insurrection, there should be accountability among the police as well (although I don't know enough to venture into details about what kind or degree of accountability), but the rank and file rioters are only guilty of rioting, trespassing, etc (those who assaulted need to be held accountable for assault, those who murdered for murder, those who planted bombs for planting bombs, etc). But this isn't "a coup" nor were the rioters "traitors". They were misled into believing their candidate lost the election and they were angry, but I can't imagine they seriously expected to break into the capitol and forcibly reinstate Trump (apart perhaps for the mentally ill).
So yes, the Capitol Hill riots were worse, but not so much that the BLM rioters (including those who assaulted people or killed people) deserve to escape justice nor that the media should be forgiven for their incitement and later apologetics of the violence. Nor does it merit exaggerating the violence on Capitol Hill.
You seemed to do that further up this thread. When confronted with questions about the violence on 1/6 you responded with references to the violence perpetuated by BLM protesters. However I can't find a single instance of collective violence at the BLM protests that comes close to a mob beating a police officer to death like happened in DC.
As far as I have seen, there were no murders committed by BLM protesters as part of any protests, riots, or whatever you want to call them. Even in this post you are still referring to "BLM murders". In a previous comment a few posts up I directly asked you how many murders occurred at these BLM protests and you didn't respond. Is that because you know that the person to person violence that occurred at these events was routinely instigated by the police, other right leaning people, or people using deadly force in response to looting?
And like I said previously, we are already comparing millions of people protesting over months in cities around the country to thousands of people in one city protesting on one day. There were vastly more opportunities for violence at the BLM protests and yet the only person to person violence seen appears to be in response or initiated by people on the other side.
I appreciate the complement and agree with most of the second half of your post, but it isn't just the origins or motivations for these two groups that differentiate them. One was much quicker to instigate violence against people.
> You seemed to do that further up this thread. When confronted with questions about the violence on 1/6 you responded with references to the violence perpetuated by BLM protesters.
Correct, I was comparing the violence in general. This is different than your original claim that I was comparing BLM property damage to the Capitol Hill murder.
> As far as I have seen, there were no murders committed by BLM protesters as part of any protests, riots, or whatever you want to call them. Even in this post you are still referring to "BLM murders".
I'm thinking of incidents like Michael Forest Reinoehl (Antifa). He murdered a right-wing activist and was very explicit that he did it because he believed the right-wing was a threat to Black lives. In any case, we're not going to learn much by looking at the outlier instances of violence; in both cases there are much more uniform trends of lesser degrees of violence spanning from trespassing to property damage to assault. All I'm asking (indeed, all anyone is asking) is that we hold BLM rioters to the same standard as MAGA rioters, BLM assailants to the same standard as MAGA assailants, etc.
> protests, riots, or whatever you want to call them
To be quite clear, I'm distinguishing between the protesters (and protests) who are by definition peaceful and rioters (and riots) who are by definition violent.
> And like I said previously, we are already comparing millions of people protesting over months in cities around the country to thousands of people in one city protesting on one day. There were vastly more opportunities for violence at the BLM protests and yet the only person to person violence seen appears to be in response or initiated by people on the other side.
The murder is an outlier, you can't conclude on the basis of this single event that the broader group is uniformly more dangerous. I don't know what value there is in even trying to compare how dangerous either group is; what's important is that we're holding violence to the same standard and not glorifying some violence and condemning others on political grounds.
> One was much quicker to instigate violence against people.
What? How do you get there? There were tons of assaults recorded on camera during the BLM protests going back to probably 2014 including many unprovoked assaults. In ~2016 one guy went on a killing spree, explicitly targeting white police officers (and as I recall, WaPo or someone released a sympathetic portrait article rationalizing the mass murder). I don't have tremendous sympathy for MAGA folks, but there's half a decade of clips of people getting the shit beat out of them for wearing a MAGA hat in the wrong place, virtually none of which featured prominently in the media.
Again, this isn't about which group is more violent, it's about consistency. Even if MAGA folks are more violent, it doesn't justify us completely letting BLM violence off scot free. If you (universal) failed to condemn years of BLM violence, you have very little credibility to demand justice for an afternoon of MAGA violence.
>Correct, I was comparing the violence in general. This is different than your original claim that I was comparing BLM property damage to the Capitol Hill murder.
I guess I simply don't like the "in general" part as it inherently equates the two. Like I said, I believe there is a fundamental difference between violence against property and violence against people and categorizing them all as "violence" sets up a false equivalency.
>I'm thinking of incidents like Michael Forest Reinoehl (Antifa). He murdered a right-wing activist and was very explicit that he did it because he believed the right-wing was a threat to Black lives. In any case, we're not going to learn much by looking at the outlier instances of violence; in both cases there are much more uniform trends of lesser degrees of violence spanning from trespassing to property damage to assault. All I'm asking (indeed, all anyone is asking) is that we hold BLM rioters to the same standard as MAGA rioters, BLM assailants to the same standard as MAGA assailants, etc.
That was a violent confrontation that happened because armed alt-right counter protesters showed up to the BLM protests to start some shit. We have no clear picture of how the confrontation started, in part because Reinoehl was also killed by police under suspicious circumstances. The same type of confrontation happened with Kyle Rittenhouse except it was people on opposite sides that ended up dead. If we are going to blame BLM for Reinoehl than it only seems fair to start a tally of extreme right violence that includes Rittenhouse and runs through the riots in DC. That extreme right violence would have a much higher body count.
>The murder is an outlier, you can't conclude on the basis of this single event that the broader group is uniformly more dangerous. I don't know what value there is in even trying to compare how dangerous either group is; what's important is that we're holding violence to the same standard and not glorifying some violence and condemning others on political grounds.
I am not just basing it on the single murder. I am basing it on the video I have seen of how people behaved at the scene. I have not seen that type of mob violence at an BLM protest. That Reinoehl example was a single person getting in a confrontation. That is fundamentally different than the type of collective behavior seen here[1]. The former is an individual that is acting independently of the crowd. The latter is numerous members of the crowd joining together to take a cop to the ground and beat him. I am much more comfortable drawing large scale conclusions about the group based off the second example.
>What? How do you get there? There were tons of assaults recorded on camera during the BLM protests going back to probably 2014 including many unprovoked assaults. In ~2016 one guy went on a killing spree, explicitly targeting white police officers (and as I recall, WaPo or someone released a sympathetic portrait article rationalizing the mass murder). I don't have tremendous sympathy for MAGA folks, but there's half a decade of clips of people getting the shit beat out of them for wearing a MAGA hat in the wrong place, virtually none of which featured prominently in the media.
Once again you are expanding the scope of of what we are considering as BLM violence to basically any extreme left violence and once again I think the violence from the extreme right exceeds violence from the extreme left for basically any time period you want to choose.
>Again, this isn't about which group is more violent, it's about consistency. Even if MAGA folks are more violent, it doesn't justify us completely letting BLM violence off scot free. If you (universal) failed to condemn years of BLM violence, you have very little credibility to demand justice for an afternoon of MAGA violence.
I can't argue against that on principle. However there are numerous parts of this that have lacked consistency. This starts with the preparation for the various protests and how the people in the capital were allowed to leave the scene while numerous peaceful BLM protests ended with police kettling and mass arresting protestors. It also includes how people on the right respond specifically to the violence directed at police. Could you imagine the outrage in right wing circles if the protesters in Portland mobbed police, literally beat one with an American flag like in that previously linked video, and beat another to death with a fire extinguisher? If we are going to ask for consistency, lets be consistent in asking for it.
Yes, you are right it is worth than before. But this is a phenomenon that I correlate with the rise of Trump and hopefully it will sink away again as well.
I think you should read this blog (popular on HN), he explains it in a historical context better than I could. Basically this type of thing happened a lot in ancient democracies and even then it often seemed silly and harmless, until it wasn't.
In 1983 a group of people actually did bomb the Senate, which seems much more severe than just a bunch of rednecks roaming the halls and yelling stuff. Democracy endured just fine.
I mean, you are correct that they did not bomb the capitol building. BUT, to make a distinction between protesters in Washington and were arrested for entering the building unlawfully, and protesters from the same group who distributed bombs around seems...disingenuous. You can certainly make that distinction, but it doesn't seem like a useful one. A large group of protestors supporting Trump came to washington. Some broke into the capitol, others did other stuff. Many are under arrest for weapons violations and have been charged. That isn't "fake"
First:
Perhaps you'd be willing to agree that this was an explicit attempt at a soft coup: The explicit goal was to disrupt congressional proceedings as part of a plan to overturn election results.
Second:
As others have observed, we got extremely lucky that the rioters didn't actually come in contact with any congress-people or the vice president. What do you think would have happened if, say the crowd has come in contact with AOC, for example? What would have happened if enough Dems were killed or incapacitated to change the balance of votes on certifying the election? The hundred-odd house republicans certainly made a big point of not changing their certification votes after the riots.
Third:
When someone fires a gun at your head and the bullet misses, will you make excuses on behalf of the shooter? After all, if they were /really/ a killer, they wouldn't have missed, right? The bullet missed, you continued on your day, nothing should be done...
>The explicit goal was to disrupt congressional proceedings as part of a plan to overturn election results.
And then what? Once the mob was cleared out, they would have resumed. There's a chasm between disrupting proceedings and actually taking over a country. The latter also almost always involved having control of the military by the way.
They were a few feet away from having the entirety of this nations legislative branch at their mercy (which they made clear they didn’t have much of) and the Vice President. People downplaying this aren’t just doing a dangerous thing, they clearly have ulterior motives.
If Donald Trump wasn't a pathetic coward, then the US was somewhere between 1 and 15 minutes away from a civil war on January 6.
It might've been a short civil war, but if Trump had gone out and marched with the protesters like they thought he would and told them to stay in the Capitol building, you would've immediately created a situation where government business is suspended and the commander in chief is at direct odds with the military's constitutional obligations.
There was, and has been, a soft coup ongoing since that day, since the president at the time refused to issue any direction to the military and situation only started to be resolved when Pence took defacto command of the executive without invoking the 25th amendment. That process has been ongoing since then.
The plan is to continue creating escalating chaos, and grasp whatever advantage is available in the aftermath while people who care about things like laws and constitutions throw their hands on the air and declare their shock and dismay. This is how autocrats work. Actually responding effectively and shutting this shit down is how you keep a constitutional government from sliding directly into an autocracy. Hemming and hawing about did he or didn't he mean to be smart enough to circumvent the constitution, while the situation continues to escalate, is how you end up in, say, Pinochet's Chile.
Remember Trump is already commander in chief, so has power 'by default.' He just needs to create a situation where that status quo remains, either by creating a situation whereby the right people are willing to disregard the election results /or/ the constitution directly.
Actually, to continue, this is hacker news! So let's use an appropriate software analogy. Think of it as fuzzing the interface of constitutional democracy. You can throw chaos at it until you find an exploit.
It certainly looks much different from what we would historically label coup attempt. Usually a coup has to at least be theoretically possible. It also would seem to require some level coordination. I have yet to see evidence of that. I really do believe that some of the protestors might have been there to peacefully protest, not overthrow the American government. Ymmv
> That would be a crappy democracy if it could be eroded by a bunch of idiots taking an unauthorized Whitehouse tour.
A crappy tour of Congress during a key transition of power, where they intended to kill the VP and whoever had displeased them. After action reports are indicating that they got within 60s and 90 feet of the VP, and we're not even done hearing the story of that day.
Coup attempts are always humorous until they actually work. Do not mistake us getting lucky this time with the narrative that nothing could have happened.
Interesting though from a friend of mine who teaches US Constitution: if number two and three (Pence and Pelosi) were killed, the full and complete power lays in number one - the President. By the time consitutional lawyers and politicans were to be done arguying it otherwise thru regular channles - we would have a full blown Monarchy installed in this country, and completely lawfully should I add. I think majority of people have absolutely no idea how close we got to overturning US political system. And I dont believe Trump or his family were not on it, but it will take years to get to the bottom of it.
The president cannot install a full blown monarchy under the powers vested by him in the constitution. Neither can congress.
The issue though is in the case where Trump is installed in a second term after members of congress are kidnapped, extorted, or even executed, then the question of what is and is not constitutional becomes moot. The application of force in the political process has a tendency to degrade all guard rails, leaving behind nothing but “largest army diplomacy”, or mob in this case.
To whit: “stop quoting laws to those of us with swords”.
This is awful, and I can't imagine the thought process that leads to this kind of rationalization. MANY members of the crowd are known to have been armed. Five people are dead. Congress had to be evacuated. Had an escape route not existed (many nations don't have cold war fortifications in their legislative buildings!) we could very easily have been looking at a hostage situation.
This is how real governments fall, in the real world. And even failed coups are often repeated successfully. The Beer Hall Putch was about the same size, equally unsuccessful, and yet...
We've have many instances of armed protestors / rioters over the past year. Many where figures of authority were targeted. Where the people burning thing in the hallway of the Portland Mayors house, just being nice or was their goal to burn it down? Were the individuals inciting riots with ACAB and other slogans, followed by aggressive assaults of police and small businesses just innocent aggrevators or was their intention to "burn it all down" as they proclaimed over and over.
This issue isn't that this is a dispicable situation, it's that the media is treating it as if it's a bunch of fringe right wing people (and lumping all trump voters in the list) when the same far left extremists were and are still using teh same tactics. Lives have been threatened for the past nine months plus.. and yet that was ok because it fell in line with what one group wanted?
It's all insanity on both sides and until people own up to it on the left as well, the country will keep being pushed further. The demonization of anyone not toeing the line of the extreme left these days is CREATING the thing they fear.
How many lives were lost last year, innocent lives? How many injuries? All due to the same actions and tactics.
Congress was sacked while the legislators were in session with the VP. BLM burned down a Wendy's. You really don't see why people would react differently to those events?
You really don't see that dozens of deaths, 7+ Billion in damage, the attempts to overthrow elected officials as well as security institutions such as police departments in the same light? You're selectively choosing a wendy's to try and draw away from the same exact actions.
Guillotines have been present at multiple protests the past year. Breaking of windows of federal, state, and public buildings. Large amounts of citizens storming these same places while staffed. Assaults, shootings, fire bombings, all happened the past year.
How is that different? If your response is because x or y felt a specific way.. Then you get it, it's the same reason these dumb asses did what they did. All of them were wrong and you should admonish all of them equally.
What attempts were there with respect to BLM to violently overthrow elected officials (because violently is the word here, zip ties, firearms, nooses and gallows)?
Setting fire to a police station, though unacceptable, vandalizing a mayor's residence, unacceptable is not remotely the same thing as "trying to overthrow elected officials".
Sure, and it's fucking stupid they didn't have appropriate security given the nature of the day. The insurrection didn't start on that day. If the label is being applied, it started when police were assaulted, innocents were maimed and murdered, mass scale breakdowns of security and control were in play, and collectives attempted things as extraneous as declaring parts of the United States an Autonomous zone, a clear act of aggression/sedition.
Fucking stupid? It seems at this point to be quite likely deliberate. Multiple requests for aid were refused, or ignored. The security at the Capitol was half the size as it was when a group of army veterans marched for disabled vets rights a few years ago.
That's not fucking stupid, that's an entirely deliberate and reasoned choice.
That is the million dollar question. Why were there so few police present? (so far I've read that Congress didn't want the optics of armed guards). Why weren't more barricades up? There are a dozen plus failures here, throughout many offices.
Conspiracy theorists would say it was less security to allow for chaos, which in turn gives further justification to pushing legislation / controls that take away freedoms.
All of us will say that it's horrible and just like the rioters, looters, murderers and general agents of chaos of the past year, they made a deliberate and reasoned choice to be a part of the chaos.
What I don't like is that statement that all protestors were part of the incident. Just as all of the BLM protesters weren't a part of the riots, evidence shows the same is true for those that rallied.
The bottom line is based on votes, the U.S. is clearly split on perspectives and each side sees things in a near opposite viewpoint.
> What I don't like is that statement that all protestors were part of the incident. Just as all of the BLM protesters weren't a part of the riots, evidence shows the same is true for those that rallied.
Certainly. If you protested and didn't breach the perimeter, you were doing exactly what BLM protestors were doing. Disclaimer: I say this as an objective statement on the action, and not a commentary on the relative merits of either movement.
You breached the perimeter, and entered the Capitol? Now we're somewhere else.
Some explanation, in a coup the countries security forces pull back to allow the protesters into the main government buildings so they can deal with the current officials.
The security forces then get rid of the protesters and the new set of officials move in.
Just a note, some of those charged with arson/destruction of property/other violence which were originally thought to be BLM protesters have actually been far-right extremists looking to incite the race-war. This isn't just some conspiracy theory what-if, these are actual charges against real people who seem to be right-wing domestic terrorists according to the federal justice system.
A good chunk of those "BLM" protesters actually charged usually aren't necessarily leftists, but often are just anarchists who seem to be taking advantage of the chaos. Hard to be both a radical leftist who wants to have an overbearing regulatory state trying to take away your freedoms and also be an anarchist, those are usually two entirely separate viewpoints.
If you mention the Beer Hall Putsch, let's consider how Weimar Republic actually had fallen. Read about the Reichstag Fire and the Reichstag Fire Decree. It started with a stupid and pointless act of violence - a communist (Marinus van der Lubbe) setting a fire in the Reichstag. But that fire didn't kill Weimar. That has been used by the Nazis to claim the communists are preparing a violent coup (which they in theory might not mind - violent revolution was the part of the Communist theory - but in practice hadn't been preparing any) and prosecute Communist leadership. It wasn't a violent putsch - despite considerable support and frequently using violence as tactics, they never felt strong enough to just take over the government by a violent strike. Instead, they combined occasional violence with massive propaganda, scaring the public about possible communist uprising, and presenting themselves as guardians of order, and slow takeover of government institutions, while suppressing their opposition (especially communists) under the mantle of preserving law and order. That's one of the reasons why they got handed considerable power without having to seize it violently - and were in position to pass such decrees as Reichstag Fire decree and the Enabling Act - that ended the Weimar Republic.
The point was more that the Beer Hall Putch failed, but was "forgiven" in the interests of "unity". Hitler and most of the conspirators were pardoned. The Nazi party ended up being emboldened instead of shunned or prosecuted. And the next time they were smarter about things.
This kind of rhetoric minimizing the attack at the capitol seems very much of a piece with the way the Bavarian establishment treated Nazism in the 20's to my eyes.
> What could actually erode the democracy is nation giving up on free speech.
Can you expand on this, concretely?
Most democracies in existence - including thr US itself! - emerged from jurisdictions that did not have strong protections on free speech. I would also bet that most current democracies do not have US-strength protections on free speech, either. (Is the UK a democracy? Is Germany? Is Spain?)
The 14th amendment, section 3, penalizes providing "aid or comfort" to an insurrection. This can include just supporting the insurrection by speech (which is what they executed Tokyo Rose for, for providing aid or comfort to a foreign enemy.) Most specifically, just continuing to propagate the "election was stolen" meme would qualify.
3 years ago a bunch of women with pink pussy hats stormed the Capitol and no one cared.
Don’t pretend people thought the democracy was going to end that day.
It is true that people are easily duped. The problem is that without democracy it is even easier, especially when media giants have similar interests and push the same narrative.
Without commenting on anything else, I don't think there's anything in the gp comment that implies smsm42 is American. (Actually, I read into the explicit "American society" that they are not American)
No hypotheticals - this one actually happened, and the resulting undemocratic government was seen as legitimate and retained power. (To be clear, democracy once lost can be regained, but it was unambiguously lost.)
In your assessment, are the attributes (a significant number of the plausibly impactful ones, not just one or two insignificant ones that happen to match) of that event highly similar to the event at the US Capitol in 2021?
These are serious white supremacists. Simmons summarized the party's platform when he stated: North Carolina is a WHITE MAN'S STATE and WHITE MEN will rule it, and they will crush the party of Negro domination beneath a majority so overwhelming that no other party will ever dare to attempt to establish negro rule here. They form organizations called the "White Government Union" and such.
There is a trumped-up issue of black men raping white women: Many newspapers published pictures and stories implying that African-American men were sexually attacking white women in the city. A suffragist said in a speech that, of all the threats farm wives face, there was none greater than "the black rapist", due to the failure of white men to protect them. She advocated that white men should resort to vigilante justice ... "if it needs lynching to protect woman's dearest possession from the ravening human beasts – then I say lynch, a thousand times a week if necessary."
Then, In response to Felton's speech and the danger it imposed upon black men, 32-year-old Alexander Manly wrote an editorial, refuting it and asserting that white women have consensual sex with black men. And: Within 48 hours, white supremacists, aided by newspapers across the South, used Manly's words – though reprinting incendiary distortions of them – as a championing catalyst for their cause. Waddell, and other orators, began inciting white citizens with sexualized images of black men, insinuating black men's uncontrollable lust for white women, running newspaper stories and delivering speeches of "black beasts" who threatened to deflower white women.
On deplatforming: Prior to this editorial, The Daily Record had been considered "a very creditable colored paper" throughout the state, that had attracted subscriptions and advertising from blacks and whites alike. However, after the editorial, white advertisers withdrew their support from the paper, crippling its income. His landlord, M. J. Heyer, then evicted him. For his own safety, Manly was forced to relocate his press in the middle of the night. ... He had planned to move to Love and Charity Hall (aka Ruth Hall), on South Seventh Street, but it declined to take him as a tenant because his presence would have greatly increased the building's insurance rate.
Then there's a rally of 300 "Red Shirts", with Waddell giving a speech ending thus: We will never surrender to a ragged raffle of Negroes, even if we have to choke the Cape Fear River with carcasses. A few days later, there's an event with 8000 attendees, with several speakers: Waddell followed by accusing blacks of "insolence", "arrogance", which he claimed was overshadowed only by their "criminality" [etc....] Once again, he concluded his speech assuring them that white men would banish blacks, and their traitorous white allies, even if they had to fill the Cape Fear River with enough black dead bodies to block its passage to the sea.
Followed by violence: Waddell's speech so inspired the crowd that the Red Shirts left the convention and started terrorizing black citizens and their white allies, in the eastern part of the state, right away. They destroyed property, ambushed citizens with weapon fire, and kidnapped people from their homes and whipped them at night, with the goal of terrorizing them to the point where Republican sympathizers would be too afraid to vote, or even register to do so.
On November 1, 1898, Dowling led a parade of 1,000 men, mounted on horses, for ten miles, through the black neighborhoods ... The next day, Dowling led a "White Man's Rally". Every "able-bodied" white man was armed. Escorted by Chief Marshal Roger Moore, a parade of men began downtown, again marched through black neighborhoods – firing into black homes and a black school on Campbell Square – and ended at Hilton Park where a 1,000 people greeted them with a picnic and free barbecue.
Leading up to the election, these gatherings became daily occurrences; the white newspapers announced the time and place of meetings. Free food and liquor were provided for the vigilantes...
Eventually: The day before the election, Waddell excited a large crowd at Thalian Hall when he told them: "You are Anglo-Saxons. You are armed and prepared and you will do your duty ... Go to the polls tomorrow, and if you find the negro out voting, tell him to leave the polls and if he refuses, kill him, shoot him down in his tracks. We shall win tomorrow if we have to do it with guns."
To the election: Most blacks and many Republicans did not vote in the November 8 election ... as Red Shirts had blocked every road leading in and out of the city, and drove potential black voters away with gunfire.
The governor came by to try to calm things down. However, when his train arrived, Red Shirts swarmed his train car and tried to lynch him.
When the day was over, Democrats won 6,000 votes, overall, which was sizable given that the Fusion Party won 5,000 votes just two years prior. Likely due to the intimidation tactics plus fraud (cited article "M. F. Dowling Swears To it" says he, in a deposition, confessed to: stuffing the election board with Democrat party members, improperly erasing hundreds of Republicans from the registration lists, instructing election officers "how to deposit Republican ballots so they could be replaced", and more).
They publish a "White Declaration of Independence", part of which demanded for Manly and his press to leave the city. Manly had already shut his press down and left town when he was alerted, by a white friend, that the Red Shirts were going to lynch him that night. ...
Waddell's "Committee of Twenty-Five" summoned the Committee of Colored Citizens (CCC), a group of 32 prominent black citizens, to the courthouse at 6:00 pm. They told the CCC of their ultimatum, instructing them to direct the rest of the city's black citizens to fall in line. When the black men asked to reason with them, and pleaded that they could not control what Manly did, or what any other black person would do, Waddell responded that the "time had passed for words."
They give a member of the CCC a deadline for a written response to deliver in person. He put it in Waddell's mailbox.
When Waddell and the Committee did not receive a response by 7:30 a.m. on November 10 (it is unclear when Waddell checked his mailbox), about 45 minutes later, he gathered about 500 white businessmen and veterans to the Wilmington's armory. After heavily arming themselves with rifles and the Gatling gun, Waddell then led the group to the two-story publishing office of The Daily Record. They broke into Manly's building, vandalized the premises, doused the wood floors with kerosene, set the building on fire, and gutted the remains. At the same time, black newspapers all over the state were also being destroyed. ...
Following the fire, the mob of white vigilantes swelled to about 2,000 men. A rumor circulated that some blacks had fired on a small group of white men a mile away from the printing office. White men then went into black Wilmington neighborhoods, destroying black businesses and property and assaulting black inhabitants ...
The governor calls in the Wilmington Light Infantry and the federal Naval Reserves, taking them into Brooklyn to quell the "riot". They intimidated both black and white crowds with rapid-fire weapons, shooting and killing several black men. ...
As the violence spread, Waddell led a group to the Republican Mayor, Silas P. Wright. Waddell forced Wright, the board of aldermen, and the police chief to resign at gunpoint. The mob installed a new city council that elected Waddell to take over as mayor by 4 p.m. that day.
Waddell later wrote an article for Collier's Weekly, denying everything bad (to hilarity). We wrecked the [newspaper] house. I believe that the fire which occurred was purely accidental; it certainly was unintentional on our part ..., Since this trouble many negroes have come to me and said they are glad I have taken charge ... , There was no intimidation used in the establishment of the present city government. The old government had become satisfied of their inefficiency and utterly helpless imbecility, and believed if they did not resign they would be run out of town ... , etc.
The success of the coup: Subsequent to Waddell's usurping power, he and his team were re-elected in March 1899 to city offices. Waddell would hold the mayorship until 1905. Four of those involved became Governor of the state, one became a senator, etc.
Also: Although individuals of both races pointed to Democrat-backed violence as the driver behind the incident, the national narrative largely cast black men as aggressors, legitimizing the coup as a direct result of black aggression. For example, The Atlanta Constitution justified the violence as a rational defense of white honor, and a necessary response against the "criminal element of the blacks", furthering stereotypes of black violence. DARVO, always DARVO.
There's a lot of interesting stuff in there. Now, I've only given a brief glance at a couple of secondary sources, and since it seems there is an alternate narrative, it would be responsible to do further research before taking it 100% seriously. Still, assuming it's true... One takeaway: fake news riling up a mob into violence is not new. (With a population of 25,000, it's likely there was at least one real case of a black man attempting to rape a white woman, but it seems some newspapers blew it way out of proportion.) Another takeaway: there were many explicit calls to violence—"lynching", creating "dead bodies"—and many occasions of actual violence, which escalated from one to the next.
This is a very easy exercise: instead of cowering while letting other people take risks in his name, President Trump walks over to the Capitol. With him at the head of the column, many more people storm the building (the Capitol police likely don't put up a fight because nobody told them to fight the President), they occupy the building and take representatives hostage. At this point in time there is no longer a democracy in the US. What happens after that is anybody's guess; by my lights, probably the military leaders don't the President, their troops mostly follow their orders, they retake the Capitol, restore power to Congress, and install Pence as President, followed by democracy being restored not long after by a quick 25th amendment or impeachment and removal. But it would be plausible that some number of the military's leaders choose to back the President instead, or that an insufficient number of the troops follow their orders, resulting in either a successful coup or a protracted civil war.
The only thing that saved us from this was Trump's cowardice.
This is a legitimately good description of an arguably plausible (but still plausible!) scenario. But I must note that democracy is not lost in this scenario...unless you'd like to explain:
> At this point in time there is no longer a democracy in the US.
If we were to attach a debugger and step through the code, what state (variables and their values) would represent a valid scenario of democracy no longer existing in the United States? Or I suppose we could just look at the implementation of IsDemocracy(), assuming the designer of this shitty simulation is reasonably organized.
> The only thing that saved us from this was Trump's cowardice.
Well, that and other things that you haven't considered.
I don't say these things because I think these morons are righteous, or Trump is a good president, or because I think this event is insignificant, but the opposite: I think this scenario is extremely significant - so significant that I suggest we discuss it with the same rigorous precision that is usually reserved only for discussing topics like computer programming. I think a decent argument could be made that the welfare of the country inside of which we write computer code should command at least as much respect during conversations (even if begrudged) as we enthusiastically heap upon coding arguments.
But of course, this is just my opinion. And to be fair, if shit really does ever hit the fan, most everyone in this forum is well off enough to get the hell out of dodge to some other country that hasn't gone down the drain, where we can start the process all over again.
It looks like you've been using this site primarily for political battle. That's not what HN is for, and it destroys what it is for, so we ban accounts that do it (regardless of their politics). Please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stop doing this.
> All: I know this is a little late, but those of you posting ideological flamewar comments to this thread are breaking the site guidelines. We're trying to avoid hellfire here, and we're banning accounts that feed it. Please don't feed it.
> HN is not for all types of discussion. It is specifically for curious conversation. Here's a test you can apply: curiosity is equally open to what's true, false, or interesting about anything. If your position is that your side is right about everything while the opposing side is wrong about everything, you have left the spectrum of curiosity gratification and are functioning in the spectrum of political battle. Those do not overlap.
My ongoing issue, the "axe I grind", the "dead horse I beat" (refer to my history), is this very thing: the constant and obvious degradation of the quality of discourse on HN when it comes to Culture War topics. Most specifically: the homogeneous culture of refusal to even consider what is actually true. Not only is there little interest in what is true, but the very notion seems to be considered highly inappropriate for discussion, and anyone who dares mention it is considered an immoral heretic.
This trait has been sweeping through Western culture for years, if not decades - like a virus of the mind. HN was an outlier for quite some time, but as you know the infection has spread to here, and is flourishing.
From my perspective, there are at least two noteworthy issues in play:
1. The orderliness of HN forums.
2. The orderliness of the USA, and in turn the entire planet.
I imagine you may be less concerned about #2 than I am, but I happen to subscribe to the theory that "with great power, comes great responsibility". What if there was an approach that could plausibly "solve" (to a worthwhile degree) #1, and possibly also contribute to the solving of #2?
And if no one does anything different, where is the world going to be 5, 10, 20 years from now? Where would the world be today if it wasn't for the actions of a few key individuals at key points in history?
I don't see how it helps the orderliness of the planet to post in a disorderly way to HN. It's not so hard to stick to the site guidelines if you choose to.
I don't want to ban you but we really need you to post more thoughtfully (or put it this way: only post when you're able to post thoughtfully) and err on the side of respecting others.
> I don't see how it helps the orderliness of the planet to post in a disorderly way to HN.
I think it is plausible that if rational, computer programming types could regain the ability to discuss culture war topics at a level of discourse that has some regard for what is actually true (as opposed to mistaking one's ideological/heuristic opinion for fact, and losing one's temper when someone dares to ask "is that true?"), perhaps:
a) you wouldn't have to pass out so many warnings
b) we here at HN could perhaps bring some rationality to these issues, and perhaps come up with some solutions
c) if (b) succeeds, perhaps other communities could learn too
> It's not so hard to stick to the site guidelines if you choose to.
I assume it is this one that you believe I have violated: "Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity."
Am I "pushing an ideology" when I ask someone if their ideological and rarely factual (but stated factually) comment is actually true? To me, engaging in "political or ideological battle" is pushing(!) an opposing political/ideological idea. I may at times point out an opposing idea, but I do not do it on ideological grounds, I do it on epistemological grounds.
> I don't want to ban you but we really need you to post more thoughtfully (or put it this way: only post when you're able to post thoughtfully) and err on the side of respecting others.
Dang, have you read any of the conversations I have been involved in, have you read the comments of the people whom I have engaged in discussion with? I simply cannot wrap my head around how it is I who should be posting more "thoughtfully", or need to "respect others". Go read for yourself! Compare what I say to others, and compare what they say to me. Compare the quality of the content of other's posts to what I say in response. Peruse the historic voting on my comments (90%+ of my comments get precisely "-1" - isn't that a coincidence!), versus the thoughtfulness/respectfulness of the comments.
On culture war topics, this place has become not much better than what you'd find in /r/politics.
Where is the thoughtfulness? Where is the concern for, or curiosity about, what is true?
If you have actually perused my history, and this is your take on the relative behavior here, that I, the one who is exerting effort to discuss these topics in an evidence-based manner, am the one you shall pick out of the crowd to be given a warning, then I will be absolutely shocked.
> Aside: Asking for a hypothetical that doesn’t involve hypotheticals seems… off.
Comments like this on a computer programming forum, where one would expect logic (and an understanding of the importance of dependencies) to prevail, also seems "off".
I wonder, what might explain this apparent paradox, and the substantial quantities of it that can be found right here on HN? Does academia have any prior knowledge and study into this general phenomenon? Which domain would we search within to find answers to questions like this?
Enough democratic members of congress are killed that the election doesn’t become certified. The remaining members elect a new republican speaker of the house. The constitution declares that if no winner to the Presidential election is declared the speaker of the house becomes President on Jan 20th. The speaker of the house doesn’t have to be a member of congress so the remaining republicans could have voted Trump speaker, keeping him in office another 4 years.
That has a pretty healthy dose of speculation in it, but provided this is consistent with the entirety of formal procedures, it's not bad.
Except this part:
> And that is how democracy dies in America.
Where does that part come in? Assuming your scenario did transpire, is there something in the procedures where elections are no longer held on a go forward basis? It seems unlikely to me, but I'm no expert on the matter - so, I ask you.
This is an obviously impossible burden to load on someone, and I think you know that. If democracy is legitimately lost in America, it will happen via a series of events that we today cannot conceive of.
It is more useful to think events like the Capitol incident as causing long-lasting damage to democracy, and there is a non-negligible possibility that societal schisms will widen, as opposed to heal. What that will look like in the future is anybody's guess.
> t is more useful to think events like the Capitol incident as causing long-lasting damage to democracy, and there is a non-negligible possibility that societal schisms will widen, as opposed to heal. What that will look like in the future is anybody's guess.
What are you willing to give up politically to heal societal schisms?
I wonder if one of the big issues is that lately control of government is so flip floppy that no one gives up anything because they figure they'll have control soon enough. From the mid 30s to late 70s, Democrats had full control of congress for all but 4 years. The national Republican party had to change A LOT in that time to be relevant. Since HW Bush the longest period has been I dunno, 4 years? 6 years?
How about that one side stops peddling conspiracy theories and following every idiot that promises them what they want to hear in terms of gun rights, abortion and immigration.
Compromise = fact based middle ground between reasonable people. When one side consistently treats politics like winner-takes-all and lies out of their asses to get to power and to stay in power then the burden to compromise would be on them.
So the answer is, you want to win rather than heal political schisms. Which is a perfectly fine answer! But that's the approach the other side has taken also, and well here we are.
Politics isn't about rationality or facts or what one side thinks is "reasonable." Nobody approaches the Israel/Palestine conflict by asking "well who has the more rational argument here?" That would be silly. Politics is about power, and appeasing (or not) different factions.
Politics is all about facts and rationality, if it isn't then it will quickly cause your country of choice to slide down into the gutter of irrelevance. The essence of politics in democratic countries is people trying to self-govern with some kind of optimum outcome for the largest number of people involved.
And the Israel/Palestine conflict would improve lots if people started using facts rather than 'might makes right'.
Politics is only about power in some parts of the world, in other parts of the world people are actually trying to get along with each other.
The parts of the world you’re talking about are mostly ethnostates, tied together by deep cultural, linguistic, and historical bonds. Those things create the basic framework from which people can have rational, fact-based discussions.
The US doesn’t have that. My wife says we’re a “credo country” but it’s not clear to me we share much in the way of credo anymore either. Senator Ed Markey says the constitution, the closest thing we have to a social contract, is “racist, sexist, and homophobic.” What does someone in Kansas have in common with Ed Markey? A superficial consumer and television culture? What binds them together when they disagree intensely on policy?
Where I live is not exactly a country tied together in that way. And yet, we have plenty of immigrants, first and second generation in politics. We also have the backlash against that, roughly equivalent to the position the Republican party in the USA takes.
But that doesn't mean that the USA needs to have a fact-free Republican party, it could easily change if it really wanted to, at the expense of not being in power for a couple of decades. It's the difference between John McCain and Donald Trump, the one a principled politician who believed lots of things that I would not subscribe to but who was fundamentally a decent human being. Trump is not a decent human being, never was and never will be and his legacy has the power to utterly divide and destroy the United States.
Coalition governments are a lot safer in that that respect because they take away the insane power of the small fraction that decides who is king in the USA. There also is a real problem with the president having as much power as they do.
I see the USA - as one of the oldest democracies - as deeply flawed, with a thin critical path to fixing itself. If it doesn't then one day maybe sooner, maybe later, it will fall apart in either two or maybe even three countries (2x coastal, mid). That will cause a lot of grief so better to avoid that fate, which will require some major overhauling of the constitution and some power removed from the states.
Time will tell, for all my friends alive in the USA right now I sincerely hope that this can be postponed long enough that the country can first heal from the last attempt at splitting it.
> But that doesn't mean that the USA needs to have a fact-free Republican party, it could easily change if it really wanted to, at the expense of not being in power for a couple of decades.
If Democrats held power for a couple of decades, the country would be unrecognizable. Take, for example, the issue of religion. Americans are the most religious developed country by far—comparable to Iran. This drives Democrats crazy, and through the period during which they controlled the Supreme Court based on FDR’s appointments, they turned America into one of the most secular countries in the world in terms of the law. European countries far less religious than the US have far more public accommodation for things like religious instruction in schools. Imagine going into Poland or Hungary and declaring that Christianity has to be removed from schools, like in France. It doesn’t matter what you think of these policies. What do you think the societal reaction would be to that?
Or take abortion. Most of Europe’s abortion laws (in most countries, prohibiting abortions after 10-14 weeks absent some exigent circumstance) would be unconstitutional in the US under Roe. (Even Sweden’s 18 week limit would be unconstitutional.) Imagine, again, going into Poland and telling them that they have to have the same abortion laws as the Netherlands. (Even France is too conservative for this hypothetical.) Again, forget what you think of the policy. How would that play out as a matter of social and political dynamics?
> It's the difference between John McCain and Donald Trump, the one a principled politician who believed lots of things that I would not subscribe to but who was fundamentally a decent human being. Trump is not a decent human being, never was and never will be and his legacy has the power to utterly divide and destroy the United States.
I agree that McCain was a decent person and Trump is a very bad person. But apart from that, McCain wasn’t selling what Americans actually wanted. The Republican base is socially conservative, economically moderate, and wants the party to push back in cultural change. (Again, let’s keep in mind that America is conservative like Poland, not liberal like France.) McCain didn’t fight for any of those things. Trump, for all of his faults, was willing to do that. It’s unfortunate that he’s such a bad, undisciplined person, but there is a reason he got the second highest vote total of any President in history.
> Coalition governments are a lot safer in that that respect because they take away the insane power of the small fraction that decides who is king in the USA. There also is a real problem with the president having as much power as they do.
I agree Presidential systems are bad and encourage cults of personality.
> I see the USA - as one of the oldest democracies - as deeply flawed, with a thin critical path to fixing itself. If it doesn't then one day maybe sooner, maybe later, it will fall apart in either two or maybe even three countries (2x coastal, mid). That will cause a lot of grief so better to avoid that fate, which will require some major overhauling of the constitution and some power removed from the states. Time will tell, for all my friends alive in the USA right now I sincerely hope that this can be postponed long enough that the country can first heal from the last attempt at splitting it.
People say they don’t want the US to split, but nobody actually wants to do anything to prevent that. To circle back to my example, imagine your country is half Poland and half France and each side ends up governing about half the time. How would that turn out? Democrats don’t moderate themselves (on social and religious issues—the party self moderates on economic issues to keep its coalition together) because they’re convinced that they’re just one or two elections away from “demographic destiny.” And even if that’s true, France governing Poland by a permanent 53-47 margin isn’t going to lead to a happy unified country.
> If Democrats held power for a couple of decades, the country would be unrecognizable. Take, for example, the issue of religion. Americans are the most religious developed country by far—comparable to Iran. This drives Democrats crazy, and through the period during which they controlled the Supreme Court based on FDR’s appointments, they turned America into one of the most secular countries in the world in terms of the law. European countries far less religious than the US have far more public accommodation for things like religious instruction in schools. Imagine going into Poland or Hungary and declaring that Christianity has to be removed from schools, like in France. It doesn’t matter what you think of these policies. What do you think the societal reaction would be to that?
This isn't factual. Italy for example is more religious than the US. Germany, France and the UK are comparable to the US (each have ~25-28% nonreligious, compared to 25% in the US). Poland, to use your example, is 85% Christian and 8% nonreligious. Hungary is 20% nonreligious, and close to 75% Christian (60% Catholic).
The comparatively religious countries are approximately as secular. The US isn't unique here.
Also, it's worth noting that the constitutions of Poland and Hungary establish national religions. The Polish constitution specifically protects religious education in public schools, and the Hungarian constitution defines life to begin at conception.
The US on the other hand doesn't have that. The establishment clause doesn't have those carve outs. And as to your claim that the FDR court made the US particularly secular, I don't see that. Public funding for religious education had already been well established to be unconstitutional (with the majority of states having banned it explicitly in the 1800s). It's difficult to tell how common religious education in the style of McCollum was during the early 20th century, but I can't find anything to suggest that it was the norm in public schools.
> If Democrats held power for a couple of decades, the country would be unrecognizable.
You haven't described what, in particular, Democrats would do. What anti-religion policy do you suggest democrats would do if they held power for several decades (and, presuming that democrats were able to hold power for several decades, would this be any different than other similarly secular nations?)
The best example I can think of requires conflating Abortion policy as anti-religion policy, which it isn't, in the same way that legalizing gay marriage isn't anti-religious.
Americans are far more ardent practitioners of religion: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/05/01/with-high-l.... In terms of people who pray daily, the US is over 50%, comparable to Bangladesh (a country where the dominant religion requires praying five times a day!). Germany is around 10%. Even Poland is only at 30%. Think of the laws in Poland. Abortion is mostly illegal. Same sex marriage is illegal. How would Poles react if the European Court of Human Rights overturned abortion laws in Poland?
As to what Democrats would do—we already have examples. FDR-appointed Supreme Courts interpreted the Establishment Clause to create a “wall of separation” prohibiting, for example, things like optional religious instruction in public schools, or public support of religious schools. These things are quite common in Europe.
Abortion is another example. While European countries left abortion to voters (with comparably religious countries like Poland still prohibiting it) the Supreme Court created a constitutional abortion right so broad it rendered illegal many limits and compromises voters even in liberal counties like France have embraced. Voters in France only recently liberalized waiting periods, and those are still required in Germany. In the US, those have been unconstitutional for decades.
Going forward, I would expect major changes to include extremely divisive measures such as mass amnesty (which Biden just stated will be a top priority). Also entrenchment of public unions, and federal bailouts of blue state public pension funds.
On the legal side, I’d expect a war on religious exemptions. Countries like Germany have moved slowly on areas like adoption by same-sex couples. In the US, meanwhile, there is a movement to push out religious-affiliated adoption agencies that cannot, consistent with their faith, place children with same-sex couples. In another example, Democratic activist organizations are pushing the Department of Education to pull accreditation of religious schools that teach traditional views of marriage. By contrast in many European countries, religious schools are eligible to receive tax dollars from school vouchers.
I’d also expect another major battleground to be the discrimination laws. Liberals deem “race blind” approaches like those taken in France to be “racist.” In 2014, to liberal Justices voted to overturn a Michigan law that prohibited schools from giving preferences to certain students based on race. These sorts of preferences are unpopular with the public (including with racial minorities) but championed by progressive educators. I’d expect the Supreme Court’s existing standards on discrimination, which embody traditional “race blind” approaches, to be a target if Democrats ever won a Supreme Court majority.
No, that graph shows that Americans are far more Protestant. Weekly church attendance by Christians in Poland and the US are both 41% (actually another source shows ~55% attendance in Poland), given that Poland has comparatively more Christians, weekly attendance overall is higher too. Catholicism places a greater emphasis on weekly mass as compared to the informal daily prayer more common in protestant, and specifically in US Evangelical, Christianity. I'll admit that Hungary is less, their church attendance is lower.
> As to what Democrats would do—we already have examples. FDR-appointed Supreme Courts interpreted the Establishment Clause to create a “wall of separation” prohibiting, for example, things like optional religious instruction in public schools, or public support of religious schools. These things are quite common in Europe.
I made a major edit to my prior comment, which I'll summarize here: the two nations you cite have constitutional callouts for state sponsorship of religion and state religious education. So this comparison isn't apt. The constitutional axioms in the US and Poland or Hungary are totally different. They aren't secular nations, and the things you describe aren't common in secular nations in Europe.
And there was understanding that the establishment clause banned state support of public schools in the 19th century. McCollumn wasn't a particular leftward shift, it was an enshrinement of longstanding practice.
> Abortion is another example.
What changes would you expect to Abortion policy? I'd expect to see things continue roughly in line with Roe. Again, your contention was changes. I'm asking about changes.
> mass amnesty
Polling suggests that between 80 and 90% of Americans support a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants in the US. This number has been relatively consistent over the past 10 years. Search "over a period of time" on this page: https://news.gallup.com/poll/1660/immigration.aspx (there's, admittedly, weird effects based on the specific question, but the gist is clear).
> Also entrenchment of public unions
I've seen very limited (and only very particularly targeted) support of public unions from the left. Consider that police unions are not particularly loved at the moment.
> Liberals deem “race blind” approaches like those taken in France to be “racist.”
Only contextually. I'd expect, for example, that a race blind application process in France would be less (or, at least, differently) racially biased than a race blind application process in the US.
> Countries like Germany have moved slowly on areas like adoption by same-sex couples.
This seems to be a matter of it being perfectly legal (with some issues around surrogacy), but bias/conservative sentiment among bureaucrats in charge of administering the process that leads to it being slow. Still bad, but it doesn't appear to prevent a gay couple from adopting. And of course, France and the UK are already well ahead of us.
The crux of this line of argumentation (and your general lines of argumentation when we have similar discussions) seem to be that we should take Poland and Hungary, and other ex-soviet nations as examples of how the US should legislate. I don't get that. Do you think there's anyone in the US, Republican or Democrat, who thinks "yes, our jurisprudence and social norms should be modeled on two ex-Soviet states one of which is so unstable that it had its constitution rewritten a decade ago, and the other had a constitutional crisis in 2015 and has been called a "failed" democracy as a result?"
I don't understand why you keep pointing to those nations as good examples of anything. Like, when you describe things this way, my takeaway is "the us would continue to be socially moderate among western european nations, and more liberal than eastern european ones". That's, well, yes. And sure, there's some particular cases where the US is exceptional: guns (I note you didn't mention these), abortion, church taxes. But so what?
> No, that graph shows that Americans are far more Protestant.
Weekly church attendance in the U.S. is far higher than in Western Europe: https://www.pewforum.org/2018/06/13/how-religious-commitment.... The U.S. is at 36%. (That ranges from 21% in Vermont to 53% in Utah.) According to Pew, Germany is at 10%. France is at 12%. The U.S. is much closer to Turkey or Iran in religiosity by that measure than to Western Europe.
> They aren't secular nations, and the things you describe aren't common in secular nations in Europe.
The U.S. isn't a "secular nation" either. The "Establishment Clause" prohibits Congress from establishing a national church, just like Article 137 of the Weimar Constitution in Germany (which is still in effect). At the time the Establishment Clause was written, and for decades after, a number of states, like Massachusetts, had established state churches! Public schools in the U.S. were invented to teach religion, and did so for 150 years until FDR-appointed Justices enshrined a "wall of separation" notion into the constitution.
To use the school example, the enforced secularism in the US is comparable to France, and to the left of the UK, Spain, Germany, or Italy. But the US is vastly more religious than any of those countries. There is a major impedance mismatch between our society and our laws, that was created by the Supreme Court. (57% of Americans still oppose that Supreme Court decision banning school prayer, all of these decades later.)
> And there was understanding that the establishment clause banned state support of public schools in the 19th century. McCollumn wasn't a particular leftward shift, it was an enshrinement of longstanding practice.
McCollum was a dramatic departure. Justice Story made clear in 1830 that the constitution was not understood to prohibit non-preferential government support of religion: https://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/amendI_re.... What happens in say Germany, where Muslim children can get Islamic instruction in schools, and Catholic children can get Catholic instruction in schools, is squarely within what is allowable under an original understanding of the Establishment Clause.
> Abortion is another example.
What changes would you expect to Abortion policy? I'd expect to see things continue roughly in line with Roe.
Roe is already a significant departure from American and European public opinion (under 30% of people in the U.S. support generally legal abortion in the second trimester and beyond, which is mandatory under Roe, most people support various restrictions and waiting periods which are impermissible under Roe). I would anticipate further efforts to strike down popular restrictions such as parental consent rules, which are not atypical in Europe.
> I've seen very limited (and only very particularly targeted) support of public unions from the left. Consider that police unions are not particularly loved at the moment.
Biden, thanks to Jill Biden, is hugely supportive of teachers unions. Democrats have advocated for shutting down charter schools, which are broadly popular.
> The crux of this line of argumentation (and your general lines of argumentation when we have similar discussions) seem to be that we should take Poland and Hungary, and other ex-soviet nations as examples of how the US should legislate. I don't get that.
No, you miss the point entirely. I'm not talking about how the U.S. should or should not legislate. I'm talking about how Democrats have and want to legislate in the U.S., by comparison to European countries that have similarly high levels of religiosity to the U.S. This isn't a discussion of policy, but of the polarized political dynamics in the U.S. My point is that, particularly due to the Supreme Court taking various decisions on social issues away from the electorate, the laws in the U.S. with respect to churches, abortion, etc., are much further to the left compared to other highly religious countries.
The point is to try and understand how that is driving political polarization in the U.S. Hence the hypothetical about what if we applied French-style secularism to a country as religious as Poland. How would we expect Poles to react? And does that give us any insight into the current situation in the US?
> Weekly church attendance in the U.S. is far higher than in Western Europe
Yes, but we were talking about western Europe, like Poland and Hungary.
> The U.S. isn't a "secular nation" either. The "Establishment Clause" prohibits Congress from establishing a national church, just like Article 137 of the Weimar Constitution in Germany
Yes, but we were talking about Poland and Hungary, not Germany. Poland and Hungary's constitutions establish national religious law. I would consider Germany to be secular, like the US, as opposed to Poland or Hungary, which are not.
> Justice Story made clear in 1830 that the constitution was not understood to prohibit non-preferential government support of religion
However, throughout the later 1800s, a majority of states (and nearly the nation as a whole) passed Blaine amendments, banning the use of public funds for private religious schools. Now this might have been driven in part by anti-catholic sentiment, but no, I don't think you can claim that the court adopting an interpretation that most states already had adopted was a "dramatic departure". Perhaps legally, but not in terms of popular support/understanding.
> particularly due to the Supreme Court taking various decisions on social issues away from the electorate, the laws in the U.S. with respect to churches, abortion, etc.
Right, and this is unambiguously a good thing. Laws shouldn't be based on religious ethics.
> And does that give us any insight into the current situation in the US?
Honestly, I don't see how it does. Trump's brand of populism isn't particularly religious. His appeal to the religious right wasn't much beyond "I'll appoint conservative judges". It's much more nationalist than religious (and I'll grant you that those two things are often intertwined, but that seems to be more because conservatives are often the ones stoking nationalist sentiment, and also they're usually more religious, I don't think religion necessitates nationalism).
> I’m trying to figure out if anyone actually want to heal societal schisms? And the measure of that is what folks are willing to compromise on?
...you reply:
> How about that one side stops peddling conspiracy theories and following every idiot that promises them what they want to hear in terms of gun rights, abortion and immigration.
...which involves no compromise on your part.
> Compromise = fact based middle ground between reasonable people.
> When one side consistently treats politics like winner-takes-all and lies out of their asses to get to power and to stay in power then the burden to compromise would be on them.
Perhaps, if this was an accurate description of reality.
But for the sake of discussion, let's say that this characterization is indeed correct - if you could influence Democratic party strategy, and behavior of their followers, would your recommendation be to stick with the same general approach of the last decade, including generous deployment of misleading rhetoric like:
> How about that one side stops peddling conspiracy theories and following every idiot that promises them what they want to hear in terms of gun rights, abortion and immigration.
(Which also may run afoul of your "[fact based] middle ground between [reasonable people]" statement above.)
I don't agree. Healing societal schisms is about reestablishing a vision of politics where you argue by saying "here's why this is the best policy" or "here's why this is the most ethical policy", rather than "my movement is very strong and you'd better not get in our way". Making compromises is an important part of effective governance, but it won't by itself heal anything.
What do you think we should compromise on? (Asking because curious, and from the long thread that followed this it seemed like you'd actually have an opinion).
I think compromising on immigration would have the biggest effect on defusing tensions.
I think Biden is doing an admirable job keeping a lid on the reprisal/deprogramming talk. The media should follow his lead. Obama's administration fought a bunch of gratuitious fights, like suing nuns. I anticipate Biden will keep people on a tighter leash, just as a longtime legislator who is going to be thinking harder about the fights he wants to pick.
They smeared feces, stole laptops, broke windows, killed a police officer and got one of their own killed. People with bullhorns directed their fellows to the next target.
It was an insurrection attempt by incompetents and LARPers, but absolutely an insurrection attempt.
It was idiot rioters just like we had over the summer. Not some well planned out attempt to actually overthrow the govt. It was a disrespectful day and they did accomplish that.
At least these rioters showed up at the right place. Breaking into the capital was beyond dumb, but it makes a lot more sense than breaking into a Gucci store.
People marched into the capitol with handguns, zip ties, and an intent to award the presidency to the loser. I'm not waiting for someone to actually succeed before I declare them insurrectionists, and I don't know why you want to minimize the threats made against Congress, which did not stop that day: https://lawandcrime.com/u-s-capitol-siege/no-bail-for-qanon-...
How would they have done that? Nobody would listen to a bunch of hooligans pronouncing orders from the House rostrum. In a coup, someone like a general is waiting to hear the signal to throw in with the coup leaders, providing actual institutional power to the usurpers.
There was no institutional power behind these people -- do you think some general at Andrews was waiting for the phone call to signal his support for the guy in the viking hat?
This was an act of vandalism, and maybe burglary or "home" invasion robbery.
Attempted murder is still a felony, even if's a very dumb attempt. The same is true for coups.
> In a coup, someone like a general is waiting to hear the signal to throw in with the coup leaders, providing actual institutional power to the usurpers.
The Q folks think this is exactly what the military is going to do.
The line I responded to was about "awarding the contest to the loser," that means transferring institutional power. Not just killing people on TV.
In order for a coup to be successful, institutions need to endorse the new order or have their heads replaced with loyalists. Capturing the symbolic seat of power, or even killing elected representatives doesn't accomplish that. In this scenario there would've needed to be a body of bureaucrats and officers in every branch and every agency who would see the house leader lynched on TV and then said, yes I'm ready to do the bidding of the usurping administration.
This would be hundreds of people, if not thousands, in the highest ranking civilian positions who would all have to endorse or be arrested. Then because this is a federalist system, local governments would all have had to endorse the new system or be replaced. Also, the judiciary. Also, all branches of the military.
Unless you believe we were on the precipice of this happening, it wasn't a coup, and if you do think we were anywhere close to seeing this happen, you're insane and wrong. It was at best a bumbling terrorist attack. More accurately IMO, it was mob violence resulting from an epic failure of crowd control.
There were a number of different, complementary means envisioned, the simplest of which was reflected in the chant “Hang Mike Pence”, which existed because the pro-coup political intelligentsia had proposed that the Vice President could and should simply refuse to open the certificates from selected states, denying the Democrats a majority of counted EVs, or alternatively could choose unilateral to accept “alternate” slates of electors from some of those states, an approach Mike Pence rejected. Removing Pence would result in a different presiding officer who might be more amenable to the plan.
And, sure, that still seems like a pretty dumb plan, but an insurrection doesn't stop being an coup attempt because the plan is stupid.
> In a coup, someone like a general is waiting to hear the signal to throw in with the coup leaders.
You’re thinking of a coup in favor of a faction that doesn't already hold the cheif executives office. An auto-coup, which is what was intended, usually involves some mechanism to provide a pretext to either extend power beyond it's lawful limits or extend it beyond it's legal term, not to seize it from the current holder. The only person you need to ready to do anything is the existing executive, who just needs to accept the offered pretext to retain power. Which Trump already announced his support for this theory and his anger at Pence for refusing it, which was a major contributor to the insurrection.
They should be punished to the full extent of the law.
In the meantime, people who continuously talk about insurrection seem to be living in a fantasy land. Just as you say, without the military the "insurrection" means nothing.
Not lost on me that the government these people are claiming needs to be overthrown violently because it's tyrannical is treating them with kid gloves compared to most governments. And frankly the relatives of those that stepped over the line and will go to prison should be really happy they live in the US and not another country where people get punished because of mere association. Because that's totally a thing in other countries. But not here.
Kill enough congress members so the election can’t be certified. Elect Trump speaker of the house (speaker doesn’t need to be a member of congress). Since the election wasn’t certified, the constitution declares the speaker (now Trump) becomes President on the 20th.
I don't know how you can be so confident that there wasn't a general who would have thrown in if he had a chance. Given the statistics, there must be at least a few high-ranking generals who believe Trump's claims that he won the election.
Their intent to intimidate the lawmakers into leaving Trump in power. Trump absolutely wanted them to do so, and was very strategic in staying just on one side of the line.
They didn't need a general waiting in the wings, they just needed the President who was already sitting in the WhiteHouse.
Like every single riot over the past year? How do you justify the destruction, assaults, murders, deaths, and overall chaos there? Hold these assholes accountable 100%.. but let's also stop pretending people who want to hold the left accountable as well aren't crazy.. and maybe see it as just as damning.
I don't see anyone defending the other rioters. I certainly wasn't in the message you are responding to.
No one is pretending that the crazies on the left don't need to be accountable. There are those, of course, who believe that. But you are arguing against a point that hasn't been made--and most definitely one I did not make.
I'll say it myself, just to be clear: Anyone who riots (or foments an insurrection) needs to be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law after a fair trial.
I apologize that it appears I targeted you, you're correct you didn't state that and i'm not intentionally addressing you as an individual. My response is by and large to the media and the large population of people espousing that view (including in this thread). In response I'm addressing the same, not you directly so I don't mean to direct ill will or harm, i'm simply trying to project a perspective that is frustrating and often times ignored or belittled.
I watched my friends businesses burn last summer, as well as many other businesses near my home. The common response was "
"we're doing this because we have this right, we're frustrated at the system that did X or Y". None of my friends caused any real or perceived in-equality towards anyone, none of them are racist, all of them as well as I, support the right for individuals to love and marry whomever they want. They were by and large allies, yet someone arbitrarily determined that because their business was there, Insurance would cover and they could loot and burn it. They decided that when they responded in public days later, that they were white males and even if they weren't bad, it was retribution for whatever grievance someone held. Anyone that doesn't believe that those actions, that persisted for months, weren't abhorent and just as destructive to democracy and our country, then you're not being honest with yourselves.
The point is, the media is choosing to doom and gloom this situation when I would argue half of America has had this same perspective for a year. I'm not arguing the merits of either sides grievances, though I think both have many valid points.
That part was responding to the GP claim that they stayed between the velvet ropes and left when they were asked. They did none of those things. As far as insurrection, even someone as dim a bulb as Elizabeth from Knoxville thought it was “a revolution.” That is the very definition of insurrection.
Stealing a laptop from a federal government facility while attempting to overturn an election's results and possibly assassinate elected officials, is an "insurrection".
Except nobody "attempted to overturn" anything and assassinate anybody. How would they even do it - would the buffalo guy strike them with his horns and then declare himself The Supreme Ruler?
Probably more like stab them with the spear he was carrying, or probably some of the people who were carrying guns, or potentially the noose hanging outside. Gaddafi wasn't shot with a gun. He still seemed to die when a crowd of people who hated him got a hold of him. A cop was beaten to death in front of the Capitol. You don't need a gun to commit violence.
And that's what the point of this was. Terrorism to push more of Congress to not certify the election.
Yeah I imagine the headline in the New York Times next morning - "Horned Viking Guy stabs 435 members of Congress with a spear and crowns himself King of the United States. All Hail our new King!".
> or probably some of the people who were carrying guns, or potentially the noose hanging outside
Or you just inventing this whole thing out of thin cloth. Because the only shooting was done by very much armed - with handguns and riles - Capitol Police, who we see aplenty on the videos, and who used these guns to shoot a women that didn't pose any threat. Now this needs justification so we hear tall tales about stabbing Congressmen with a spear (good thing he didn't have a fully semiautomatic longbow!)
> A cop was beaten to death in front of the Capitol.
He wasn't "beaten to death". He was hit with on the head once (presumably, it's still not known what exactly happened, and AFAIK no medical documents had been published), returned on his own to the headquarters, and then later developed a blood clot and suffered a stroke (presumedly due to the injury), which ultimately lead to his death. This is still despicable - nobody should attack cops, and the person who did it should be prosecuted for it, but it's not likely whoever struck him even intended that outcome. Even less sense makes to pretend like the people that were at Capitol intended to tear everybody they meet apart and stab them with spears. Surely, some of them clashed with the police - which has been routine circumstance at "mostly peaceful" protests the whole year, most unfortunately - but making it into some kind of SEAL Team 6 aiming at assassinating the Congressmen is pure baloney. It is just fascinating what nonsense people are ready to believe in when their partisan views demand it.
> Terrorism to push more of Congress to not certify the election.
The word you looking for is "protest". If you work for the media, then "mostly peaceful protest". That happened many times in US history - including occupying government buildings in the process. In Wisconsin, State Capitol was occupied for 17 days in 2011. And yes, they did it to change the actions of legislators. Nobody called it "terrorism" or "insurrection" - because it wasn't, neither then not now.
Well, I imagine he wouldn't have stabbed 435 of them as over one hundred were doing exactly what he wanted -- not certifying the election. And you're right, murdering a few members of Congress isn't likely to just completely overturn the government. It'll certainly continue to destabilize things though, I don't think I'll have to try and explain why murdering members of Congress while they move to certify an election would be destabilizing to political processes but maybe I will judging by how this conversation is going.
I'm also not inventing the whole thing out of thin cloth. People were arrested with caches of firearms near the Capitol. There is video evidence of gallows being constructed out front. You're ignoring reality to suggest these things never happened. These aren't fake reports, these are some of the few indictments which have so far been unsealed. I don't watch cable news, I don't get all my news from blogs. I read court documents. I read actual statistics. Go read the real, raw data.
As for the cop, it seems like you'd also argue car accidents don't kill people its the internal hemorrhaging that happens from completely unknown causes. Clearly the people beating the cop didn't intend to cause him harm, that's just how they say hello! You seriously think the protesters beating him with metal pipes didn't intend to cause him harm and potentially kill him? Do you go around being friendly and start hitting people in the head with metal pipes?
Given that they killed one police officer, and injured dozens more, I think it is safe to say that they had the means to kill people if they came to a position to do so.
Which is why Capitol Police Officer Michael Fanone, who was pinned to the ground by the crowd, had to beg for his life to the crowd where members were shouting, "Kill him with his own gun". Seems pretty clear intent to me.
We're taking about a mob attempting to topple the actual seat of government by an incursion onto the floor of Congress. What does that have to do with Target?
> We're taking about a mob attempting to topple the actual seat of government by an incursion onto the floor of Congress
They weren't trying to “topple the seat of government” in a destructive, undirected manner, they were trying to redirect the process being executed there of officially determining the winner of the Presidential election to their preferred outcome, and to retaliate against opponents (including the Vice President) who failed to play the role the mob and the President they saw themselves serving preferred they should in that process.
Was is it? Did George Floyd have a lethal amount of fentanyl in his system at time of death? Did the medical examiner not mention any damage to Floyd’s neck? Did the video show Floyd asking to be put on ground after resisting getting in the vehicle like the police asked? Did Keith Ellison do everything he could to keep the video of the arrest from coming out? Was Breanna Taylor‘s name on the warrant at her active address? And despite it being authorized to be a no-knock rate, did the police announce themselves? Did CNN use the literal chevron “fiery but mostly peaceful protests“?
“Well documented” is a very misleading way to describe this summer’s violent unrest.
Did the velvet ropes extend all the way into the senate chamber? Or up the steps where that cop led the rioters? Your comment is so stupid I almost can’t believe I’m responding to it, but I fear that if you don’t get any refutation you’ll continue to believe the nonsense you wrote down.
So this is a reference to a popular meme/photo in a certain section of the building if its over your head. Its not a literal claim that they at all times stayed within roped areas. Can take it down a notch.
A poor execution does not make it less seditious. The goal was to undermine or intimidate a democratic process entwined with the leadership of our nation. I would argue that's pretty clearly insurrection.
No, because that “storming” only happened in your imagination. The protests were hundreds of feet away and the violence started when the police tried to clear the public park for Trump to have a photo op. If you look at the footage from the journalists who were assaulted, there was nothing like a risk to the White House perimeter:
No, he's right. The secret service took Trump to his bunker. What you're describing happened the day after the attempt to breach the White House and it was to prevent another attempt.
No, he’s still deliberately misrepresenting events to draw a false equivalence. The White House was never “stormed” – the Secret Service made the decision to move him into the bunker when some protesters went around temporary barriers in the park space by the Treasury Department but at no point did the protests come closer than the gates to the White House complex. Neither the White House nor the Treasury security perimeters were breached at any point:
For people who aren’t familiar with the area, this area is normally open and there are often protests. I bike or walk through regularly and you’ll almost always see someone at the fence with a sign about something.
This is in sharp contrast to the coup attempt where the insurgents quickly blew through areas which are never open to the public – think about how many of the videos have alarms ringing in the background.
Note also that I’m not faulting the Secret Service – it’s not hard to imagine someone trying to breach the gate and it’s their job to protect the President. My objection is entirely due to presenting these as equivalents.
Whoever made decision to move him into the bunker doesn’t change the fact that the protesters did not go past the gates or otherwise do anything which was unusual from decades of protests – which happen all of the time in DC. You are clearly desperate to portray a false equivalence but that simply doesn’t fit the facts.
So what about rioters burning the entrance and exit to Ted Wheelers home in Portland (which he wasn't even present at)?
Would you agree the actions there were also attempts at murder and destruction of property of a duly elected official?
To act like the past year has had nothing in comparison to insanity .. is well insane. Theses Capital idiots are just that Idiots and they'll see time in court. What's not clear is why all of a sudden people that were supportive of aggravated protest to prove a point all of a sudden are surprised when the other side used the same tactics.
I mean aside from exaggerating, yes riots did happen in portland.
My point was to point out the absurdity of comparing a riot after months of gassings of protestors and innocent civilians and all that happened was some property damage, versus where the police treated the rioters with kid gloves and they still beat a cop to death
I was referring to the specific claim being made in the comment I replied to, and in particular the attempt to present an attempt to use violence to prevent an important government function as no more significant than a street protest. The attack on the Congress was trying to prevent recognizing the legitimate winner of an election, not just drawing attention to a cause in a public place.
From that you could easily draw the conclusion that I don’t approve of any use of violence or threats of violence against elected officials but I don’t expect you to since you’re pretty obviously more interested in playing whataboutism games.
Call this an insurrection and lambast the crazies for attempting to do whatever it is they were doing, but equally admonish the same that has been transpiring for months. This is no greater a risk or threat than the ongoing actions we've been subjected to for months.
It's all chaos and it's chaos that will be used as a means to reign in more control on freedoms and rights.
> This is no greater a risk or threat than the ongoing actions we've been subjected to for months.
When did non-right-wing protesters invade a seat of government? When did they brandish guns while threatening political violence against politicians? When did they reject the results of an election? When did they invade a legislature trying to prevent normal government activities?
More importantly, compare the reactions: when that idiot in Portland started a fire in the street, did they get widespread support? Did pundits and politicians praise them? They faced rejection from local up to national officials: Biden condemned non-peaceful protests but Trump & his allies incited them.
It is obvious you're choosing to selectively argue. The riots made attempts at government, people stormed buildings in Seattle, many others. The bottom line is, you are choosing to argue one side is horrible the other is just. I am arguing that both sides have been horrible. Until you can acknowledge that the same actions have been occurring for a year it's not worth engaging further.
Should you feel the need to argue against something I actually said, you’re welcome to read the thread more carefully. You’ll learn that I do not approve of violence but also do not approve of people conflating different levels of bad activity in service of a misleading “both sides” narrative.
Can’t have a poor execution without an attempt. There’s no credible evidence that there was any plan to do more than protest outside. Crowds can change, of course, but that never happened.
They also had guns, but I notice you glossed right over that.
Also what do you think the guy brought zip ties for? There had never been an airplane hijacked by some guy with a box cutter until it actually happened.
First Rudy with his trial by combat nonsense and then Trump with his "we're going to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue and we're going to the Capitol and we're going to try and give -".
> First Rudy with his trial by combat nonsense and then Trump with his "we're going to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue and we're going to the Capitol and we're going to try and give -".
I encourage you to look up these quotes so you can appreciate them in context rather than repeating garbage lines from left wing cable news.
For example, if you watch Rudy’s speech or read the transcript you’ll be enlightened to realize he’s talking about putting his and Trump’s reputations up against Biden’s.
You might think the notion of either have a reputation worth wagering is silly, but to interpret it as a suggestion to viewers to commit violence is beyond disingenuous. If we’re going to eliminate all flowery speech and metaphor we might as well stop talking altogether.
Yes, read the transcript. Don't watch the video which clearly shows the true anger and sentiment behind the speech.
It's not what you say, it's how you say it.
"Hey guys, there's a fire", said in a dull sarcastic tone is not the same as screaming it at the top of your lungs with a frightened look on your face.
But yes, encourage people to read the transcript and not watch the video with their own eyes.
Doesn't it feel like the fact that it is debatable and not at all clear-cut mean that we should err on the side of free speech.
And if we imagined the government doing such a thing and taking it to the Supreme Court, can you really imagine them coming to the conclusion that it was incitement to violence - having them consider all the legal precedent also.
Companies can do what they like. People can say what they like.
Is it good for society. I don't think so. And does the tech world stand for free speech - it can no longer be said. But students of history will clearly see the precedent that is developing although we are certainly breaking new ground.
> Yes, read the transcript. Don't watch the video which clearly shows the true anger and sentiment behind the speech.
I suggested watching the video as a primary option with reading the transcript as the fallback.
> It's not what you say, it's how you say it.
No it’s what you say. Because how you say it is so open to interpretation that anything could be construed as anything.
Twitter’s final ban of Trump’s account said that him suggesting he’s not attending the inauguration was an invitation for violence. That’s ridiculous.
> "Hey guys, there's a fire", said in a dull sarcastic tone is not the same as screaming it at the top of your lungs with a frightened look on your face.
You’re describing how the majority of the media covers anything about Trump. Just because they’re screaming and jumping up and down does not mean they’re correct.
> But yes, encourage people to read the transcript and not watch the video with their own eyes.
Again, your Trump rage is literally blinding you from seeing that I suggested people watch the video.
> The very foundation of your democracy has been eroded.
Anyone who has studied American history knows that there's been a fairly recent revisionist movement to convince everyone that our republic is actually a democracy. The truth is that this country has always been a republic. The founders of our government hated tyrannical democracy.
Hamilton: "It has been observed by an honorable gentleman, that a pure democracy, if it were practicable, would be the most perfect government. Experience has proved, that no position in politics is more false than this. The ancient democracies, in which the people themselves deliberated, never possessed one feature of good government. Their very character was tyranny; their figure deformity."
John Adams: "Democracy, will soon degenerate into an anarchy, such an anarchy that every man will do what is right in his own eyes, and no man's life or property or reputation or liberty will be secure and every one of these will soon mold itself into a system of subordination of all the moral virtues, and intellectual abilities, all the powers of wealth, beauty, wit, and science, to the wanton pleasures, the capricious will, and the execrable cruelty of one or a very few."
Adams again: "Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There is never a democracy that did not commit suicide."
Ben Rush: "A simple democracy is the devil's own government."
Madison: "Where a majority are united by a common sentiment, and have an opportunity, the rights of the minor party become insecure."
Madison again: "Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths."
I could go on and on.
The point I'm trying to make here is that the left has fully endorsed this. Trump lost because turnout was high -- because the left shoehorned executive actions through elections commissions and governors under the guise of COVID. They increased turnout by mailing everyone a ballot. The left fired up their base and increased turnout by promising direct checks into voters bank accounts. They increased turnout by promising free healthcare. The left wants to double down and provide citizenship to 11 million illegal aliens, forever increasing their voter base. And finally, most brazenly, they want to abolish the electoral college to ensure that their coastal majorities can never be overridden.
So no, democracy isn't dying in the US. We're more democratic than we've ever been, and there's no sign of it stopping.
I am sorry to have to be the one to say this but you are making a pointless semantic argument. Nobody is saying the USA is not a republic, it's a democratic republic.
This must be some kind of political talking point because I have heard it over and over for years, but it does nothing to convince anyone of your arguments and you would be better served to argue based on policy or ideology rather than this semantic distinction which is not even correct to begin with.
For what it's worth I don't disagree with your substantive points.
I agree with this analysis (and I support the Democrats in all those things you mentioned).
What happened was not just increased talk of our government being a democracy - it was also that our republican form of government, over the course of the years, actually made itself a democracy, step by step, from the Twelfth Amendment to the Seventeenth Amendment to the various judicial rulings of the 1960s that recognized the "one person, one vote" standard, among many other steps.
The difficulty with the "We're not a democracy, we're a republic" argument is the same difficulty with monarchists today who have to deal with the fact that their beloved legitimate rulers abdicated or otherwise ceded power legitimately. We certainly were not a democracy in 1789, given the number of people disenfranchised, but we chose to become one, which is an entirely intra-vires thing for a republican government to do.
Don't be flippant - both sides of the political spectrum work together under the facade of opposing sides. Now Trump just pulled a pied piper and led these people into the capital with which both sides will now try to use this manufactured situation to consolidate power.
How is it that everyone here is all about game theory except when it matters ? And yes, America is in distress.
Your first paragraph and second paragraph cannot both be true at the same time. Trump never called for people to storm the capitol. He did, however, show a disasterous level of negligence that arguably was criminal by not taking steps to prevent it, since it was obviously being planned.
If I’m wrong, I will happily retract my claim if you can provide a quote telling his supporters to storm the capitol, not march to the capitol and remain peaceful, which is what I believe he did say. (And, my understanding is the violence was already underway at this point.) Given your claim to be basing your opinion entirely on his own words and not media narratives finding evidence to prove your claim should be trivial.
> Trump never called for people to storm the capitol.
Did he do so literally and overtly, no.
Was his call to march to the Capitol and give courage to members allied with his cause and prevent a failure of courage taken that way, and intended to be? Certainly, quite a number of the people who engaged in the riot claimed to do so at his direction, and “will no one rid me of this troublesome priest” style direction from leaders is not exactly a novel concept.
The claim was that he called on people to storm the capitol. Doing so with coded language where his audience would understand his true meaning while he could maintain superficial deniability if the uprising failed would still be such a call.
There is a difference between saying it was a call, and saying you believe it was a call. There is evidence to the contrary, so we at best cannot be sure without some kind of due process. People are free to believe what they want, of course.
If someone is going to claim they are not trumpeting a narrative and are making fact based claims, and not opinions based on their interpretation of words and events, then I will hold them to that standard.
At some point you have to start reading the intended rather than literal meaning. Otherwise "it would be shame if your shop burned down" is just a friendly warning for the future, not an extortion. There's a lot of grey area which can be interpreted in context of what people usually do, where their interest lies and what they don't immediately speak out against.
As usual, Simpsons already did it, and claiming there's no relation there is like claiming the tattoo really says "the Bart, the" in German.
Never said there is no relation. I’m saying that claiming there certainly was, in this case, is a stretch because there is counter evidence.
Of course, people will disbelieve it, and soon enough, someone like me pointing out the obvious problems with such claims will just be called an insurrectionist sympathizer and be arrested under the new terror laws. So eventually people like the OP can stop worrying their claims will be questioned.
> There is a difference between saying it was a call, and saying you believe it was a call.
No, there isn’t. Like, literally, the utterance “X is true” cannot mean anything other than “I believe that X is true and believe that belief to be justified”. All statements are statements of belief, and all fact claims are based on interpretation of events (and the utterance of words are, themselves, events.)
Such pedantry emerging from what I can’t imagine to be anything other than a strong desire to deliberately misunderstand me means it’s not worth further engagement. Good luck.
I don't think so. Sure they'll be down a couple of weeks but most likely back up soon if I were betting money. It shows that "if you build your site to a specific platform" that you might be fucking yourself over. However if you stick to OSS core software you'll be okay. Yeah yeah I know some sites can't afford to be down for a couple weeks but I'm willing to bet vast majority of businesses would be ok. I'm sure parler will be back soon with all the hate and putridness that it always had.
Oh please. If it weren't tech, then it'd be the ISPs, telcoms, etc. And don't forget the ridiculous platform power of the banking, financial, and payments industry. This would have gone down similarly on bare metal in a colo because... Trump and Co rolled out SESTA and FOSTA, along with several other content provider protections that make content like Parlor a liability for deeper platforms. Don't for a second think that they were kicked off because the companies somehow objected to providing the service. They only object to taking liability for providing services to an unmoderated communication platform.
Parler says they will return by by February. There is too much financial opportunity for large niche ideologies. They will miss the inauguration drama as the deplatformers intended. I wonder what alternative stack Parler will use.
Seeing the people storm the capital and decide that Trump actually won, trying to force him to retain his office sealed the deal for me. I'm now against the second amendment. Not the school shootings, not the movie theaters; I've shot and handled many guns, but seeing this total disconnect from reality shows me that Americans cannot responsibly handle the option to elect somebody, accept the results either way, let alone carry a firearm.
The whole notion of it takes just one good gun owner is total garbage. This is the law and order crowd, this is the crowd of "Just one good guy with a gun". Total garbage.
I might have been downvoted for my views, but I note that Parler's preliminary injunction has been dismissed — of course the judge understands contract law and Amazon's AUP much better than the HN downvoters.
I have no doubt in my mind that the violence would have been much worse had Trump won, and while I am happy we bid the bullet, I can’t help wondering how tech and media would have responded.
That is the most depressing part for me - how easily American society is scared into giving up their freedom ideals. Turns out they don't have to be threatened with overwhelming force. They don't need to be threatened with death, starvation or torture. They don't need to be threatened by economic ruin or untold suffering. No, the richest and most safe civilization ever existed on the face of the planet is ready to give up on freedom because of TV picture and a bunch of talking heads on TV and Twitter that told them there was an "insurrection" (nothing of the sort happened of course) and it's time to panic now - and poof, all noble ideals fly out of the window. It doesn't take nukes, it doesn't take Russians or Chinese, it doesn't take death and destruction - it takes Facebook, Twitter and CNN. I am still dumbfounded about how easy it was.
> a bunch of talking heads on TV and Twitter that told them there was an "insurrection" (nothing of the sort happened of course)
It didn't succeed, and in retrospect, it didn't look very effective. Many (but by no means all) of the participants were clowns.
However, it was absolutely an attempt. People died in an attempt to storm a seat of government and install a different regime. People were chanting "hang Mike Pence", constructed an actual gallows, and then went looking for him. And they did this, let's reiterate, in an attempt to overturn the election. The people trying to track him down had specific objectives in mind (however realistic or otherwise they may have been) and they weren't "giving him a bouquet of flowers and a hearty thank you for performing his entirely ceremonial role in the election process".
We can argue about how incompetent the insurrection was (clearly, very), and how close it came to achieving any of its objectives (still quite unclear). And we can certainly argue about whether a single failed insurrection attempt justifies the response; I think a very valid case can be made for the "no" argument. But words have meaning, and the word "insurrection" means precisely this.
How can anybody believe such nonsense? Sorry, but simply taking over the capitol doesn't automatically make you the ruler of a new regime. It's not a video game were you get made king when you conquer the target zone.
Because the intelligentsia aligned with the “retain power for Trump at all costs” faction represetned in the insurrection announced various mechanisms by which that ccould be done (which may be Constitutionally dubious, but that’s irrelevant here), because the President openly endorsed those theories, and because the actions the members of the mob openly stated they wanted to take were consistent with enabling those routes to be taken by removing actors who were impeding them, notably the VP.
To believe it was an attempt doesn't mean that you must believe it was likely to succeed, only that there is sufficient reason to believe that that's what the actors involved wanted to have happen. And there's plenty of reason to believe that they did want to impose a different leadership than the actual election winner, and that they had specific reason to believe that attacking the capitol when they did would present a means to achieve that objective.
> Sorry, but simply taking over the capitol doesn’t automatically make you the ruler of a new regime.
Nor was that the plan, but the escape of the VP and members caused the plan to fail.
Attempt at what? Takeover of the power in the US? B-u-l-l-s-h-i-t.
> People were chanting "hang Mike Pence",
People chant a lot of shit. People were chanting "hang Trump" for four years, nobody ever called it an insurrection. Before that, they were chanting against Obama, Bush, Clinton, etc. Nobody ever has been hanged. Pretending not to understand the difference between chanting slogans and actually hanging somebody is silly.
> And they did this, let's reiterate, in an attempt to overturn the election.
There's no possible way of overturning any election this way. It's like I point a finger at you and say "bang!" and you'd claim I tried to murder you with a gun. It is literally impossible to change result of the election by jumping on a desk in a Congress. It was an act of protest, that went out of the way and grew violent, but it is no more insurrection than pointing a finger is gun violence. Let's not mimic an idiot school principal that calls the police on a elementary schooler that shows the other kid a finger gun and complain about "gun violence". There were no attempt to overthrow anything because it's not possible to overthrow anything this way.
> But words have meaning, and the word "insurrection" means precisely this.
Nope, the word "insurrection" means armed violent action in order to overtake the government, and this is no more insurrection than finger gun is a mass shooting.
> the word "insurrection" means armed violent action in order to overtake the government
The mob I see here is clearly armed with liberated riot shields, flag poles, sticks and billy clubs, and pepper spray / bear spray, and they are attempting to forcibly push their way into the congress building via mass mob shoving.
https://youtu.be/cJOgGsC0G9U?t=748 (30 minutes, probably NSFW) timestamp links to a coup attempt participant deploying bear spray against the police.
I would call that an armed violent action, if unorganized. Could they have overtaken the government (congress)? Maybe with a bit more time, weapons, violence or energy, yes.
> It is literally impossible to change result of the election by jumping on a desk in a Congress.
And if the coup attempt participants had managed to take 20 or more congresspeople hostage and beaten them with sticks until they passed a law that made Trump's term in office infinitely long? Sure, it wouldn't pass the sniff test or the Supreme Court, but it would be an attempt to overthrow the functioning of government.
You can't say it "wasn't an attempt" because they didn't succeed. I can say it was an attempt because a mob broke into the congress building, with some of the members intent on forcibly stopping the election results from being accepted (as has been seen in other arrested individuals and those who had zip tie cuffs).
Well, /someone/ had an explicit plan for using a delay of the congressional certification to overturn the results:
'Giuliani tells Tuberville that McConnell wants to narrow the objections to just three states and explains that the Trump team wants to object to 10. “So if you could object to every state and, along with a congressman, get a hearing for every state, I know we would delay you a lot, but it would give us the opportunity to get the legislators who are very, very close to pulling their vote, particularly after what McConnell did today.”'
It's not a huge leap to imagine a deadlock on certification leading to Trump declaring he'd just hold on to the presidency. That's basically been the whole game plan for months.
Constitutionally he can’t do that though, since it requires his term to end at noon on January 20th. If there was a deadlock on certification Trump would still leave office, and we’d probably have an emergency constitutional convention to pass a amendment to fix this bug.
You think Trump cares about the constitution? He cares about Trump. We just saw over a hundred Republican congressmen vote against the results of a fair election in favor of Trump for Trump's sake. The constitution is a rhetorical tool at best for these people.
> Pretending not to understand the difference between chanting slogans and actually hanging somebody is silly.
Most people who chant performative calls for violence don't normally, build a gallows and then go looking for the target. But sure, no doubt they had no intention of using violence, other than, you know, against all the police officers who were seriously injured or killed.
But fine, let the record show that it's remotely possible they were merely trying to overthrow a government by the threat of violence against Congress and the VP, and not actual violence.
> There's no possible way of overturning any election this way [...] It is literally impossible to change result of the election by jumping on a desk in a Congress.
The people involved were acting on the belief that Congress has the power to change the result of the election, and they were trying to force Congress to use that power. That's also why they were after Mike Pence.
And were they wrong? As a matter of strict constitutional interpretation, I think so, but as practical matter, there's no particular reason to think it couldn't work. They wanted to get a resolution out of Congress announcing that Congress had counted the electoral votes and Trump had won (or failing that, some sort of resolution purporting to delay the inauguration, re-run the election, etc.) How the nation would have responded to that I couldn't say. I don't think it would have worked, but who knows?
In any case, yes, this is one of the ways you can overturn an election. It's happened before; no doubt it will again. It didn't happen this time, but it's absurd to pretend it wasn't an attempt, however inept it may have been.
The previous poster isn’t “scared”. They have observed the what happens when people feel free of the consequences of their speech. Making this out as if it were about fear rather than direct issues doesn’t help.
Can there be a free speech social platform that isn’t a cesspool? If so, how? Is it inevitable that a free platform will be used to recruit, radicalize, and organize for violence? Or is there a way to prevent that?
Ignore these questions and you let them fester.
> “insurrection”
Here’s a definition from Merriam-Webster: “an act or instance of revolting against civil authority or an established government”. Seems to fit what happened at the Capitol pretty well, doesn’t it?
Hang on: so because they failed at killing elected officials, there's nothing to worry about? You can tell us for certain that had one of the officers not lead them away from Pence he would've been safe? Based on...?
Should we let the Michigan militia that was going to murder the governor off, since they just talked about it but didn't actually do it... Because they were caught.
Based on his politics - he tacitly supports the politics of those, so he turns a blind eye, like many in the tech community and on here (a significant minority.) It's sad, but not surprising given the population of this site.
Anybody who supports democracy should be against everything that Trump has said and done as well as the riots and those who support it. Those are the most direct attacks on our way of life since the civil war. But they won't because Trump does what they like - it's bad faith, and always has been. It's not about free speech and never has been. Just more projection and attacks from the typical actors.
A couple things:
1) Shouting “Fire!” in a crowded theater isn’t protected speech, so why should explicit calls to violence be?
2) The government hasn’t silenced anyone. The 1st amendment doesn’t oblige anyone else to broadcast hate speech or plots to subvert a democratic election process.
> how easily American society is scared into giving up their freedom ideals.
This has always been the great lie behind the American concept of "freedom". At some point, one group's freedom starts to impinge on on another group's freedon, and you have to decide who gets the freedom and who doesnt. Unrestricted freedom for everybody is a fallacy that sounds good on campaign posters but ends up with somebody's freedom being ignored.
Do you think the freedom to say whatever you want on Twitter is more important? Or is a private companies' freedom to define how their platforms are used more important?
Private companies’ freedom to define how their platforms are used should depend on the “private company” growing out of its niche and becoming what’s basically a public utility, a railroad owning one of the very few means of information delivery. Then, I think, different regulations should apply. I don’t know how this is going to be implemented in real life though. We clearly see that Twitter and FAANG have power to shut down such attempts and even more so after entering a mutually beneficial symbiosis with certain political groups. It’s hard to see where this is going.
I completely agree with you. But the point I was trying to make wasn't what the limits on freedom should be, just that people need to accept that there will be limits on freedom and agree on what those limits should be ahead of time, rather than pretending freedom is a thing that can be unlimited and then after we get into a situation where it can't be, trying to roll back freedoms we thought we had.
Let's say there were people who support violently overthrowing US government (I personally don't think there were many at Capitol on Jan 6, but I am willing to entertain your point and even go much further than that). In fact, we know such people existed, long before today, but let's say there are more of them. How that changes anything? There always were hundreds of millions of people who would like nothing better than US government to fall. There were many governments actually falling, including as a result of violent - or non-violent - revolutions. Most of us who are out of elementary school probably could remember several examples they witnessed (hopefully not in person, but at least via the news). Somehow it didn't cause people to say "well, if that could happen, probably free speech is stupid, we just need to let our betters on Facebook/Twitter rule us now, people are clearly too stupid to handle free speech".
To be clear, I am not claiming those violent people are right or not supporting them. I am just surprised that existence of such people - which shouldn't be any news for anyone - suddenly makes somebody to give up on such core ideals as free speech, and not as a result of some civilization-shattering catastrophic event with millions of deaths but as a result of a TV picture.
Please consider how immersed in the QAnon belief system the whole thing is. The scary thing is how large amounts of people are apparently willing to attack democracy (broadly against their own interests) on the impetus of completely baseless hogwash.
Society apparently has little defense against this sort of viral, distributed cult and people are scrambling. I'm pretty sure that ad-hoc ostracism effected by large social media companies isn't the best approach, but the cost of not doing anything is terrible.
> The scary thing is how large amounts of people are apparently willing to attack democracy
You mean, like set up an autonomous zone in a center of the city and kick the police out? Burn down a federal court? Destroy the police station? Take over capitol building and occupy it for several weeks? Attack an elected official's family at their own home because you don't like their policies?
Yeah, that happened, but not sure how immersed in QAnon belief system (whatever it is) that was. All I know the democracy survived all that.
Grievances about racial inequality are a lot more grounded in reality than QAnon and there was no attempt to disrupt elections, so no, very different situation.
But there it is.. Grievances. You think the Qanon Idiots don't have their grievances on the election? What the see as forced changes to their rights and beliefs? Feeling ostracized everywhere they go because of their beliefs that may be counter to yours?
Neither side sees themselves as terrorist, they see themselves as freedom fighters. Both groups are idiots and damaging the country. If you support either, you're adding fuel to the fire. Big Tech stepping in and shutting a group off the internet may see correct today, but all political tides wane and a new wave comes in, how sure are you that it will be the wave you want and not one where you're the dangerous one we have to silence?
It's not the same thing (a lot less oppression of others involved in that) and critically it's not the same grouping of people; it's like how Congress has extremely low approval rates but people often support their specific incumbent.
Successful in what? Stealing Pelosi's podium? Yes, she'd have to order a new one. And a new laptop. And probably fix some windows That's terrible, but what "population of people" do you mean here, beyond folks that need to clean up that shit (and who have my wholehearted compassion, it must have sucked)?
Successful in killing/hold hostage those elected officials they deemed against their cause. This could have ended so much worse than it did.
For example, what do you think would've happened if AOC or one of the other congresswomen maligned by Trump ended up in front of these maniacs? Do you think they would have stopped at stealing podiums/laptops?
What would have happened if any of the riots this past year escalated to violence because of heavy handed actions of the "left". In fact, we know what happened, death and destruction.
Why is this not viewed in the same way? It's a complete attack on our country and government, but was somehow sanctioned?
Because people rioting over centuries of racial abuse and systematic racially motivated murder at the hands of policeman is not the same thing as storming your nations capitol because you don't like the results of a free and fair election
Oh so lets scream ACAB, remove our police, allow crime to grow and that will fix things? How many of the protests / riots were started in response to a police shooting and then months later it is clearer that the use of force was justified?
I was 100% onboard with reformation of policing, increasing training, and the likes. When rioters attacked small business, used strong arm tactics to establish autonomous zones in us Cities, burned down police stations, attacked innocent bystanders.. etc.. you lost my empathy.
I'm 100% for equality, I'm 100% for people loving whome ever they want. You have my support. But when the demonization of anyone that doesn't 100% toe the line becomes standard you lose me and a large portion of America.
Both sides are going crazy and until both sides acknowledge that, it's only going to get worse. Media and big tech taking these actions will escalate not de-escalate.
While I don't doubt many leftists were violent in those BLM protests, many of them were not leftists. Many were anarchists, which its hard to be both at the same time. Also, some who were actually charged by the federal DoJ were members of right-wing groups trying to ignite the race war. These aren't conspiracy theories, these are looking at the actual people charged with committing violence during these protests.
I think they're scared because people like the ones who stormed the capitol, would happily kill any of them without a second thought. The attackers were completely under the influence of their propaganda.
The depressing thing is that while you may share some beliefs with that side of the political spectrum, these are not the kind of people who will be reasonable when they come for 'nonbelievers' in the night. That shifts the terrain considerably as far as the security situation is concerned. Even if I agree with some of the tenets of their politics.
Frankly that goes for the extremists on the other side of the political spectrum as well. These extremists have just shown tendencies that are way too dangerous.
I'm surprised such a condescending comment is still visible. Parler didn't go dark because your outgroup "abandoned their ideals", it went dark because a bunch of for-profit companies don't want to do business with them, because doing so would lead to a loss in revenue. Sucks for them, but not a free speech issue.
I watched the ProPublica streams and while it indeed came across as a Wallmart insurrection compared to say the fall of the Ceausescu regime in Romania it would have been vastly different outcome if the crowd actually managed to get their hands on Pence or any senior house/senate member.
The US is 94/230 for countries with highest intentional murders per capita.[0] St. Louis and Baltimore rank 9 and 11 as highest murders per capita by cities across the entire world.[1] US ranks 14/116 with the highest rapes per capita.[2]
There are plenty of governments and societies safer than the US with regards to personal safety.
> Tell me you criterion of safety and your example, let's see if I need to be corrected.
You are aware you're the one who made the argument that the US is the "most safe civilization ever existed on the face of the planet", and you are not specifying what the criteria you used to evaluate that?
> No, the richest and most safe civilization ever existed on the face of the planet is ready to give up on freedom because of TV picture and a bunch of talking heads on TV and Twitter that told them there was an "insurrection" (nothing of the sort happened of course)
This is completely off-base and devalues the rest of your comment.
The capitol was stormed which delayed the process for the peaceful transfer of power, and people on here are still OK with it because of their politics. This is wrong. Do not accept this response. We will not accept it.
Anybody who doesn't view this as a direct attack on our way of life is just wrong - they don't want to believe, because your politics.
> No, the richest and most safe civilization ever existed on the face of the planet is ready to give up on freedom because of TV picture and a bunch of talking heads on TV and Twitter that told them there was an "insurrection" (nothing of the sort happened of course) and it's time to panic now
I must say, it's reassuring to read someone else saying this. This whole ordeal is perhaps the largest tempest in a teapot in history, and it's shocking to me how many people are buying it.
The ability for politically motivated coordinated propaganda to control the zeitgeist in the modern world is, however, quite horrifying.
Sorry, but that wasn't all that easily, and there are still plenty of people for whom the coin hasn't dropped. Ideals are easy to keep when they aren't being challenged. Then, when they are being challenged and suddenly all those absolute positions don't look so comfortable anymore what are you going to do?
People wouldn't mind risking terrorism, childporn and ordinary crime. But what if the price of free speech absolutism was democracy itself?
what you miss in your whole comment, and what the parent should have mentioned is unprecedented interconnectedness. That's the core problem, not freedom of expression.
We don't know how to deal with such a fully connected social network, but we jumped right into it and are dealing with the fallout.
Should we place limits on global megaphones? I think so. But how to do it in the most utilitarian way? I dunno.
People are witnessing a serious threat to their country and calling for a commensurate response. Framing it as "a bunch of talking heads on TV" vs. "giving up their freedom" merely shows your bias.
An alternate take on current events is that Americans are correctly updating on new evidence around right to amplification, in a direction you don't personally prefer.
I don't object to free speech because I'm scared and I want the government and the media to protect me from the scary people I see on TV. I object to freedom of speech because it doesn't still seem like an ideal to me in the first place. Don't attack a straw man.
What is the argument that free speech is an ideal? That it promotes a more vibrant discourse? That it permits political positions that the powerful dislike to be communicated? That we can drive out bad speech with more speech? That the court of public opinion decides well? That it ensures everyone can participate in matters of public debate?
Has it done so? Again, I'm not talking about the insurrection at all, so let's set aside the debate over whether your comments about it are factual. Look at the last several decades. Do you think that the social norm - the ideal - of freedom of speech has improved our society? Can you concretely describe an example?
I believe in the right to freedom of speech as a limitation on government power. I don't want the government throwing anyone in prison for what they said. I don't believe in it as an ideal, as an aspiration for either individual communities or our society as a whole.
Or, bluntly: Do you believe HN would be a better community without downvotes and moderation?
I'd like to thank the folks who downvoted this comment to the point of invisibility for making my point for me more eloquently than I ever could. This community is a better place because it does not treat free speech as an ideal and people don't have to see ideas they disagree with. :)
It's less about the absolute goodness of free speech but rather, a problem of the moderator model that you speak of, that the Constitution is explicitly addressing. There are many forms of speech that are unlawful - child pornography, defamation, violation of copyrights, imminent threats, intentional infliction of emotional distress, etc. They're not generally controversial, but they affect and intrude upon the rights of others in clear-cut ways, or have been defined by the courts in a way that there can be such a determination. But if you want some sort of broader, categorical and preemptive prohibition coming from the state you run into the problem we have with policing generally - that even well-intentioned authorities frequently create enormous unforeseen damage down the line, and we just had the president essentially spend a huge amount of time openly trying to coerce private companies into carrying his fringe message with quasi-legal proclamations and in some cases, actually using state coercion in the form of denying fair competition over contracts. HN is a private platform, if you get kicked off here there's very little real consequence. The government makes the stakes instantly higher because without enforcement the laws are more or less just words on paper but the criminal justice system's inequities are well known and well documented enough that merely having state moderation can actually push things in a worse direction real quick. See: the PHilippines for example.
Private platform moderation is in a sense the ideal solution if platforms are actually willing to do it. The Constitution protects their first amendment rights too, and that is the right to decide who can and can't use your platform. The tradeoff is that the state for the most part can't force you to carry messages you don't want to carry, in exchange the state also can't easily force you to act as their auxiliary in enforcing only content that the state likes. It's not really a matter of speech in itself in a philosophical sense but rather, appropriate ways to actually prevent things like violent insurrections or lynchings or agitprop being spread in a world where outside of the few and already prohibited forms there's some room for interpretation, and also, some room for bad faith from either side. It's less about how much free speech has quantifiably benefitted our society - which one can certainly make an argument for - but rather, the consequence of giving reins to a moderator that has the power to literally deny one's liberty and ruin someone's life in an officially sanctioned and prolonged fashion when there's no guarantee that the moderator would be able or willing to act in a way that isn't arbitrary but still effective. Every other platform is built on the basis of consent - as in one joins it at their will and one gets removed from it at the will of the moderators. The law works through coercion. The stakes are quite different.
And speech itself is only the most immediate manifestation of bigger problems in society anyway. The underlying sentiments don't go away, they just become clandestine and fester. It's not something punitive punishment can readily solve. Prohibition didn't work here, the war on drugs is an abject failure, the myriads of exclusionary laws congress passed from the 1880s to the 1940s both failed to actually stop people of different ethnic backgrounds from having relationships and at the same time contributed to a particularly cruel handling of refugees that added to the holocaust death tolls. In more authoritarian countries, China's porn ban, which is actively enforced with sites being taken down constantly, does almost nothing to actually prevent access (nor did it bring the moral salubriousness that it was supposed to bring). Internal passports didn't stop people from seeking work elsewhere and becoming second class citizens. Our own immigration system becomes more disastrous in every possible way as soon as we decided to actively enforce it. The DMCA and CFAA, both with punitive criminal and civil liabilities, have failed to stop piracy or computer intrusion (especially since that part of the CFAA was a response to a pre-WWW Matthew Broderick movie) but did encourage a lot of companies that sell ineffective solutions backed with FUD and hamper effective open disclosure and penetration testing for quite some time. The underlying incentives haven't changed. Banning the symptoms is easy and possibly even politically expedient but represents a bandaid over a gashing bleeding wound. Good speech can make bad speech irrelevant in some cases but it's neither reliable nor address the underlying problems. There's a far right nationalist movement in Germany again. Mere censorship can only go so far.
Unless you can come up with a way to, without resorting to mass coercion, create a system that can fairly act as this moderator and be accepted as fair across the board, it's almost certainly worse, not better, to allow active state interference.The deplatforming case is actually about exercising one (comapny)'s free speech rights, AWS can't violate the 1st amendment rights of Parler. And if they can't find some sketchier but less takedown-happy bulletproof-ish server overseas to host their shit, it's their own fault, they're not entitled for official promotion of their viewpoints. Allowing government regulation of speech will allow that.
> No, the richest and most safe civilization ever existed on the face of the planet is ready to give up on freedom because of TV picture and a bunch of talking heads on TV and Twitter that told them there was an "insurrection"
Is it the richest and safest?
What would you call the event that happened that day?
I don’t feel like I’ve given up any freedom ideals. My notion of freedom extends equally to Amazon and Google and Twitter, not just their customers.
I feel the opposite from you: I’m amazed that losing one election has been enough to make so-called conservatives start talking about using the government to seize private companies and force them to provide service to everyone whether they want to or not.
It’s quite flippant of you to assert that people who are interpreting a set of facts contrary to your own interpretation, are doing so because they were “told” to by CNN.
There’s plenty of evidence out there for people to make the case that the label of “insurrection” is appropriate. For some reason right wingers (not asserting this is you, I don’t know your affiliation) seem to have an obsession with “sheeple” and can’t comprehend how someone can have a contrary opinion, other than it being due to pure propaganda.
You fundamentally blow off the concept of symbolism, or the fact that the attempt itself matters, not just its success.
You make light of a violent mob chanting "hang Pence" as they march toward him, and yes, in light of "not being able to overthrow the government", you fail to convince me some would not have tried to capture or kill politicians.
In short, you are waving your hand and claiming persecution as if Truth, Justice and the American Way has been defeated because Trump is off Twitter.
This is possibly the most perfect response I've ever read on HN...hits the nail ON the head. People need to clear their heads, forget politics for a second, and put some more thought into this.
I'm literally dumbstruck as to how so many intelligent people aren't able to comprehend the importance of the bigger picture here. And if you try to have a rational & zoomed-out conversation, they insist on zooming-in on small-picture partisan details which exist on a foundation of misrepresented/skewed/artificially framed information.
I wouldn't stress over it one way or the other. This has been going on for many years, if not hundreds or thousands of years in human history. One group of people has always tried to take control over another group of people, by propaganda or force as necessary. Simply pick any history book and read about difficult times.
Being depressed or in despair actually makes it easier for the propaganda to work.
Seek out the truth, as the saying goes, the truth is out there.
One thing about people in tech are that they are aware of patterns. Certain patterns seems to work and certain patterns don't seem to work. Ask why certain patterns are pushed by central authorities and mainstream popular media and certain patterns are suppressed.
The difficult thing here for a lot of Americans is that they believe even as an article of faith that "things are different here". So it's tough to see evidence that maybe that isn't as true as you had thought.
I was listening to NPR yesterday and they had some former general (or someone) talking about how the capitol riots are similar to Iraq. They compared the IEDs at the capitol to the IEDs that NATO troops faced in Iraq and how various right-wing groups could be considered "insurgents" not unlike the insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Of course, we might expect NPR and other media outlets to be sensationalist. Blah blah blah about the digital media environment and its market incentives. But otherwise intelligent people parrot this sort of thing as well, calling them terrorists and insurrectionists (and yeah, I'm sure some technical argument can be made for these things, just like critics of the BLM riots made technical arguments for why those rioters were terrorists, but questionable technicalities don't merit responses in proportion to bonafide terrorism or insurrection).
There's a lot of stuff to actually criticize here: a violent riot incited by the POTUS over false pretenses, directed at the capitol, leaving several dead. It's already bad, but we can't seem to content ourselves with reality, we have to go further. We have to compare a bunch of MAGA rioters with actual insurgents.
Man, I really don't like this sort of race-to-the-bottom-ism, where whatever reprehensible thing the other side does becomes permission for our side to lower our own moral bar ("Why are you criticizing us?! Can't you see that what they're doing is worse?!"--never mind that I'm criticizing 'them' as well, and in proportion). At some point we have to come up from our outrage binger and realize that we can't just steamroll half the country; we have to figure out how to get along (and if you find yourself about to type, "get along with literal Nazis?!", you've missed the point).
1) The American conception of free-speech absolutism is unique and an extreme point compared to the rest of the world. For example, Germany forbids Nazi symbols and India forbids speech that may rile up religious/communal violence and Britain has stronger libel laws than in the US. These are codified in the laws of these countries. Even in the US, there has always been a tension between the absolutist wording of the First Amendment, the law as interpreted by federal and state courts, and ground-reality enforcement. It's hard to argue against some restrictions on free speech - most everyone agrees you shouldn't be able to say "fire" in a crowded theater. And practically-speaking, the speech of leftists and Black civil rights agitators has been policed, literally. We've been able to forget the "paradox of tolerance" since we haven't been in a "post-truth" society until recently (for a sizable segment of the population anyway.) But now, we're having to deal with that issue. The questions have lurked beneath the surface.
2) The conception of individual rights is an Enlightenment idea. There are other ways to base a society - for example, starting from justice as the primary concern instead of rights, or starting from proper conduct according to some religious authority. Of course, we in America are heavily biased toward the Enlightenment approach to founding a political order. In a multi-valent world, we are having to confront these other political philosophies. So, I'd urge you to look at the "rights" discourse from other angles from the one that's "authorized" by the founders. In a way, little holds together America except the repeated affirmation that we are Americans and that we believe in the sacred principles of the Constitution. This, of course, makes it hard to question these fundamentals.
So, in summary, I'm trying to note that American free-speech values exist in a continuum and are historically contingent. They aren't fixed, and we might move to alternate interpretations and approaches over time.
And suppose there even were an insurrection. Strike that - suppose there was a war. We have 20th century behind us. It's not something that happened before history was invented by Herodotus. There are still people alive who have seen shit by their own eyes that would make average twitterati literally wet their pants on the spot just to think about it - and emerged through it without their ideals shattered. We still have Mein Kampf and Communist Manifesto sold on Amazon - and nobody is scared of it. Nobody abandons free speech because actual Gulags and actual Nazis actually, not metaphorically, happened. But now somehow people come out and say "maybe free speech isn't that good an idea. I know about Hitler. I know about Stalin. I know about Pol Pot, Osama bin Laden and Radio Of Thousand Hills. None of it have ever shaken me, I knew freedom of speech is important. But now, that's different!" What is going on, seriously? How does it make any sense? Are we being targeted by CIA for one of those mind control experiments again?
On the other hand, I'm amazed by how easily people are handwaving away what was a hairs breath from the murder and kidnapping of multiple elected officials, not to mention constitutional crisis/breakdown.
> TV and Twitter that told them there was an "insurrection"
It meets the definition though. There seems to be a lack of willingness to acknowledge an attempted coup as a coup, or a failed insurrection as an insurrection. And I get why. It's terrifying to acknowledge that. It's uncomfortable to realize how close we came to really bad things (and admittedly, hard to quantify how close we came. Trying to figure out what would have happened if Pence rejected the results, or if he was killed on the 6th is difficult. Many things could have happened).
> it doesn't take Russians or Chinese
Erm, Russians are 100% implicated in stoking civil unrest and conspiracies that built towards the events of the 6th. The Chinese may be, but I don't know. The problem is that people refuse to acknowledge that and take the threat seriously, which is how we got here.
I tend to call a failed murder attempted murder. I think the distinction is important due to the difference in outcomes. One someone is dead the other does not result in death.
I think insurrection and coups are similar. One you have a toppled government the other you do not.
Things aren't that bad. I really small number of people did something stupid. The country is divided and has some healing to do but it's not over yet.
Right, and attempted murder is still the same sort of thing as murder, just without the success. Claiming that a failed insurrection was "nothing of the sort happening" is wrong. It absolutely was something of the sort.
> Things aren't that bad
I didn't say they were. I said we were very close to them being very bad. There's a big difference.
Which elected officials were a hairs breath from being murdered, exactly?
Seems like mostly just Mike Pence. Who was apparently (if you believe the angry mobs chants) going to be hung by the same people that elected him. Not exactly what I normally think of when I hear "coup" or "violent insurrection".
And at the same time, how different is that from people on the other end of the spectrum erecting a guillotine outside of Jeff Bezos' house?
The Vice President of the United States was at risk of being murdered by a mob at the capitol, a mob that failed to recognize a free and fair election, a mob encouraged by the sitting president by a host of lies.
And that doesn't have a tinge of "coup" to you?
Can you explain your logic, and how often you hang on /pol/?
1. I don't actually believe the VP was at much risk at all of being murdered, just like I don't believe Jeff Bezos was at much risk of being decapitated. This is probably the weakest part of my stance, as obviously I do not psychically know the intentions of the rioters at the capitol – maybe they really did have murder in their hearts. But my gut tells me that none of the people there actually would've hung Mike Pence if they'd gotten their hands on him. I certainly don't believe they would've done so to anyone else.
2. Murder does not a coup make. A coup requires an attempt to seize the levers of power. Usually by the military. AFAICT, there was no evidence of either military support or any plan to actually seize any power. If murdering politicians is a coup, does that mean the assassination of JFK was an attempted coup?
3. I don't disagree that Trump was galvanizing his base with lies.
> going to be hung by the same people that elected him. Not exactly what I normally think of when I hear "coup" or "violent insurrection".
Right, because he violated the trumpian cult of personality. How is that not scarier: murder someone unless he violated his oath to the constitution in order to keep an authoritarian leaning election-losing person in power.
Killing government officials to result in a transfer of power. It's a sudden, violent, illegal seizure of government power. That's a coup.
Why is this "insurrection" vs "hooliganism" distinction important to the larger point about free speech? Is there some rule that AWS can/should kick people off its service for one but not the other?
It seems like you just disagree with the majority opinion, and are describing the people who hold it as "giving up on their ideals" because they don't share yours.
> Nobody was going to kidnap and murder anyone. And there wasn't constitutional breakdown - nothing broke down.
This is contrary to what some of the people who were in the capitol claimed in advance, and their recorded actions, and their equipment. Seeking out particular officials (Pence and Pelosi), having previously made threats to harm them, with equipment to do so. What about that makes you so certain that no one was going to be killed? So certain that you're willing to reject it outright without even considering the evidence? That rings much more of preconceptions than objective analysis of the evidence.
> but nobody tried to change the constitutional government of the US
The intent of the people who attacked the capitol was to prevent constitutionally mandated transfer of power.
> Pelosi's desk, or steals Pelosi's podium, and now he's the king of the USA and we are all his loyal subjects? There's literally no imaginable way one could perform an actual coup - i.e. take the power into one's own hands
That's not what anyone is suggesting. This wasn't a coup to make baked alaska president, but to keep Trump in power. That's still a coup though. And I think centering your objection to "coup" on that makes it pretty transparent that your argument isn't particularly strong. So yes, stop talking nonsense and get on the same page as everyone else, participate in the discussion others are having, or bow out, but playing semantic games doesn't make you look good, and isn't interesting.
> You mean like being shown a picture of the horned guy in the Capitol, as opposed to actual war
No, but then you knew that already. I'd encourage you to read up on the HN guielines, because you're currently breaking them. And on that I'll disengage, because it's clear you aren't interested in a good faith discussion.
This should give pause to every companies using only the cloud, especially from single cloud company. It is single point of failure and it's under someone else's control.
Are they comfortable giving that kind of power to another company? Maybe a competitor?
We can't answer questions we don't see, and the only reliable way to get a message to us is hn@ycombinator.com. This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. I only saw this one randomly.
Pilfer got it right. I've turned the penalty off now.
Looks like it triggered the flamewar detector. This usually happens if a post has more comments than votes, and the post did not reach the minimum threshold (40 points).
Thank God Jeff Bezos is protecting us from these vile terrorists.
We need to take down Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile. The insurrectionists were customers and bafflingly, these companies don't moderate their texts or phone calls whatsoever.
I'm just going to come out and say it. Isn't everyone a bit more nervous about the precedent set by amazon after the parler deplatform. Regardless of how horrible the things were said there, aren't there companies out there kind of wondering if AWS is a risk now?
I call bollocks on this. Everyone whose business goes against the terms of service of the major three cloud providers (in the case of Parler, serving as a platform for calls to violence and sedition, which are criminal offenses) still has the freedom to go to any of the literally hundreds of "bullet-proof hosting" providers, to rent rack space and a fiber uplink somewhere and to place one's own bare metal hardware there.
The only thing Parler lost is the convenience that cloud providers offer, but there's no constitutional right to convenience.
I completely agree with this - why is freedom of speech even coming up? You couldn't say this stuff in real life on a street corner, why should it be protected online?
The wider context of the debate is the thing, IMO. Prior to the Internet, exchange of opinions used to be locally restricted - now with the Internet, we have a couple of clashes.
The most obvious is that the US model of "free speech" is almost absolute, whereas European societies believe that some forms of speech (esp. calls to violence, Holocaust denial, Nazi imagery) should be banned to protect society and its minorities from the worst. I'm German, given the history of what my ancestors did I'm firmly on the latter camp.
The second one, related to that, is that social networks are, for about the first time in human history, truly global, and it's not in the clear at all who should / could claim legal authority over what happens there. When a person denies the Holocaust, Twitter can ban them, they can refuse to do anything or they can place a German-wide ban (per the NetzDG law). On the other side, when a German woman posts a photo of herself topless on Facebook, that is perfectly fine by German law but risks heavy fines for Facebook in the US, so Facebook errs on deleting stuff.
And the third and final clash is STBX President Trump: should a private company have the power to take away the capability of a sitting US president to communicate efficiently with his citizens? Should a President (or any other political figure) be allowed to "govern by Tweet" in the first place? Is a call for violence, even for genocide (Iran's Khamenei comes to mind), acceptable simply because its caller is a government leader?
>I completely agree with this - why is freedom of speech even coming up? You couldn't say this stuff in real life on a street corner, why should it be protected online?
Because the platform was not 100% about violence.
Do you think it would be impossible to find threats of violence on twitter? How many twitter accounts say "kill trump" as their name? https://twitter.com/kill_trump_rn
Finding examples of threats of violence is not difficult regardless of platform.
If deplatforming only requires finding say 100 cases of inciting violence. Which is all Amazon ever found. Then to silence your political opponents requires nothing more than getting on their platform together to threaten violence. Your political opponents become silenced and must find a new platform. Rinse repeat.
Yeah I think the difference is that twitter will take action against people who issue credible threats. Parler explicitly did not, in the name of "free speech".
Here's how I might open a debate with right-leaning people about freedom of speech.
If you sell a product, but make false claims about that product, then you are committing fraud. You have harmed someone (financially) with your speech, and contract laws rightly overrule freedom of speech here. So, if you believe in contract law, which is essential for free markets, then you must believe in limitations on speech... the question then is simply where to draw the line.
Your example is an interesting one, because I think it just shows there are consequences for certain types of speech, but that speech is still very much possible.
Kind of like how I can park without feeding the meter, and the "consequences" are just tickets. At no point can my license be revoked if I always pay all the tickets.
So getting back to your analogy, if I use speech to make false claims about a product I will get a hefty fine, but there is nothing physically stopping me from doing exactly the same thing tomorrow.
The speech isn't actually prohibited or "denied" anymore than me parking illegal is, there are just consequences if I choose to do it.
There are principled exceptions to freedom of speech that are generally easy to identify and agree upon. I think there may be reasonable concerns about Parler's willingness or ability to police illegal speech online, but the stated reason for deplatforming is a farce.
They reference things like the capitol riot, but if I recall correctly the actual storming of the capitol was planned (to the extent that it was a planned affair) one FaceBook. There's lots of things shared on FaceBook and Twitter that are bad (and even illegal) but they don't get the boot from their service providers - and Twitter is an Amazon customer as well!
And the fact that Twitter is a big Amazon customer should not be ignored. It could be that Amazon's motivation was primarily political, but protecting the interests of one of their largest customers should not be ignored.
But regardless, the real key here is that Amazon blatantly violated their contract. No company bets their business on a hosting service that does not provide protection against spontaneous cancellation of service.
Even if Amazon wins the lawsuit, the message to all to all of their customers will be "we can turn you off at any time and for any reason". Expect to see a lot of migrations to other providers if that happens.
It should only be fraud if you make false claims on the contract. False claims outside any contract shouldn't be considered fraud.
And yes, there can be limitations on freedom (including freedom of speech), but the burden of proof falls on the side arguing for the limitations. And the reason for limiting formal freedom (e.g. freedom to lie on a contract) should always be to increase "freedom" in practice (all the practical and legal arrangements that contract law makes possible).
I don't think there's a good reason for insurrectionist speech to be (legally) banned, because I don't think there's a good reason for any political speech to be banned, as horrible as it may be (nazism, keynesian economics, etc), because all political speech is ultimately violent speech. And banning one strand of political speech is morally the same thing as banning any other.
> And banning one strand of political speech is morally the same thing as banning any other.
Is this really tenable? I agree that all politics is ultimately backed by force, but that doesn't make all politic speech one and the same. A night-watchman state is hardly comparable to the CCP, for example.
Ah, the evergreen "I don't believe any of this, but hopefully you do so you'll do what I want" argument.
The correct response is tit-for-tat: always refuse to abide by principles your enemies refuse to accept even if you privately think those principles are worthwhile.
I'm sorry, but I don't really understand what you mean.
The strategy of this style of engagement is to take something someone already believes and connect it to something they don't believe in. This way you meet them where they are and lead into a discussion.
Leftists have never explicitly stated that truth is an absolute defense against charges of hate speech. Raw data, like race and crime statistics, that contradict their narrative are often deemed hate speech by them too.
Maybe someone here can talk me down from this new position. But the evidence seems pretty overwhelming to me right now.