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WordPress Bans Fascist Website Linked To Charlottesville Killer (fastcompany.com)
tedlistens writes: WordPress has said that it does not censor websites like that of self-proclaimed fascist group Vanguard America. But last night, the group's site was taken offline for violating the company's terms of service. The about-face was likely prompted by Vanguard's participation in last weekend's Unite the Right rallies in Charlottesville, Virginia, during which James Alex Fields drove his car into a crowd, killing one person and injuring 19. Fields has claimed allegiance to Vanguard America; the group denies that Fields was a member. For WordPress to drop a site, even a fascist site, is a very big deal; the same is true of GoDaddy's and Google's decision to drop their registration of neo-Nazi site the Daily Stormer (another site that GoDaddy previously said would be permitted on free speech grounds). WordPress hasn't explained the shift in its approach to the website: the company's user agreement and terms of service have not changed since Charlottesville. That policy, like that of other tech platforms, has long stood by strict neutrality and freedom of expression. That may now be changing.
Ok, suggestions for what label would be acceptable? Assholes is too broad a term.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Voltaire got it right.
These neonazi fucks are fuckers and I hope their brand of idiocy fades from the world, but we should be careful about what we do about them. While it's true that the US 1st amendment does not protect you from private companies, and it's ALSO true that it does not guarantee you the right to use someone else's printing press, at some point just a few companies control most human communication, and that may be even more dangerous than government censorship (in the US - different tradeoffs apply elsewhere). If the government censors you for political reasons, you have a chance of recourse in the courts. If internet companies do, they are judge, jury, and executioner. Something becomes qualitatively different when the vast majority of people are using just a few centralized services.
The internet started out free: if people said something you didn't want to hear, you dropped them in your local killfile - but that choice happened at the individual level, not a company or government making the choice for millions or billions of people at once. Now, the Chinese, many middle eastern countries, Russia, etc, clamping down hard on what people can say online. And we're seeing western countries going the same way, even if the mechanism at play is private instead of public.
I understand: It's really, really easy to root against neo-nazis. They are about the second more despised target out there. "Of course these companies should shut down neo-nazis! Anyway they're private and don't have to serve people they don't want". But this isn't going to stop at neo-nazis, not in this world of "micro-offenses". The net WILL be cast wider and wider. The bar of unacceptable offense will be gradually lowered, and each step is going to make the next easier. (We already ban this other kind of speech...) Eventually it's going to come for you too. In many countries, for many people, it already has.
Think carefully before leaping on bandwagons, no matter how good they feel. Yes, neo-nazis are assholes, but let's be careful of how we shove on the internet. Like terrorism: if you radically alter your way of life because assholes flew planes into a building, the terrorists have won and you have lost. Let's not let the neo-nazis win.
action and google's and godaddy's, etc. just remember your position on this when GoHillary.com or BlackLivesMatter.org is taken down because the sites allow "hate speech" to be posted.
We can fine an endless supply of "hateful" speech, even speech calling for violence on the left, too. The KKK has no monopoly on that.
Black Lives Matter protester: 'Only good white man is a dead white man'.
New Black Panther Party (NBPP), whose leaders are known for anti-Semitic and anti-white tirades. Its late chairman, Khalid Abdul Muhammad, famously remarked: “There are no good crackers, and if you find one, kill him before he changes.”
Though she opposed [a proposed Constitutional anti-gay-marriage amendment], [Clinton] said that she believed that marriage was "a sacred bond between a man and a woman" and she took "umbrage at anyone who might suggest that those of us who worry about amending the Constitution are less committed to the sanctity of marriage, or to the fundamental bedrock principle that exists between a man and a woman." [Pretty hateful words, by today's LGBTTTQQIAA... standards].
"White folks was in caves while we were building empires. We taught philosophy and astrology [sic] and mathematics before Socrates and those Greek homos ever got around to it." Al Sharpton [A gay slur, a nationalist slur, and a racist comment, all in one!]
You cannot define "hate" speech to just include white-supremacist or other speech you disagree with. Because if you do, when power shifts or something bad happens, your speech is next. We didn't go and shut down any of the sites that James Hodgkinson was active on, and if Trump and the right had tried to do so, the media would--correctly, for once--said that would be wrong and a violation of free speech rights. We didn't go and shut down the mosque where Omar Mateen's anti-gay views were stoked by his religious indoctrination. It would have been wrong.
When the KKK and Nazi's want to expose themselves and their idiotic and repugnant ideas, it's not a good idea to create martyrs-to-the-cause of any of them nor answer them with violence. That just feeds them.
Don't get me wrong, the people at the Daily Stormer are the scum of the earth. I hate them and what they stand for.
It's just that I still remember when "I disagree with what you say but I'll defend, to the death, your right to say it." was the ideal to which we aspired.
During the course of the last week, I have noticed that all kinds of people are being lumped in with Nazis, KKK and White Supremacists. For example, I don't like the idea of confederate monuments but I can understand how someone from Virginia, whose 4th great grandfather went into battle for the Confederacy might not necessarily be racist but still wants to honor his ancestor with a statue in a park.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano