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Cloudflare's CEO Has a Plan To Never Censor Hate Speech Again (arstechnica.com)
"Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince hated cutting off service to the infamous neo-Nazi site the Daily Stormer in August," reports Ars Technica. "And he's determined not to do it again. 'I'm almost a free-speech absolutist.' Prince said at an event at the New America Foundation last Wednesday. But in a subsequent interview with Ars, Prince argued that in the case of the Daily Stormer, the company didn't have much choice." From the report: Prince's response was to cut Daily Stormer off while laying the groundwork to make sure he'd never have to make a decision like that again. In a remarkable company-wide email sent shortly after the decision, Prince described his own actions as "arbitrary" and "dangerous." "I woke up this morning in a bad mood and decided to kick them off the Internet," Prince wrote in August. "It was a decision I could make because I'm the CEO of a major Internet infrastructure company." He argued that "it's important that what we did today not set a precedent." Prior to August, Cloudflare had consistently refused to police content published by its customers. Last week, Prince made a swing through DC to help ensure that the Daily Stormer decision does not, in fact, set a precedent. He met with officials from the Federal Communications Commission and with researchers at the libertarian Cato Institute and the left-of-center New America Foundation -- all in an effort to ensure that he'd have the political cover he needed to say no next time he came under pressure to take down controversial content.
The law is strongly on Cloudflare's side here. Internet infrastructure providers like Cloudflare have broad legal immunity for content created by their customers. But legal rights may not matter if Cloudflare comes under pressure from customers to take down content. And that's why Prince is working to cultivate a social consensus that infrastructure providers like Cloudflare should not be in the censorship business -- no matter how offensive its customers' content might be.
The law is strongly on Cloudflare's side here. Internet infrastructure providers like Cloudflare have broad legal immunity for content created by their customers. But legal rights may not matter if Cloudflare comes under pressure from customers to take down content. And that's why Prince is working to cultivate a social consensus that infrastructure providers like Cloudflare should not be in the censorship business -- no matter how offensive its customers' content might be.
Once you give into that sort of thing you will do it forever. You are now marked as someone who can be shamed into whatever they want. Enjoy the fruits of your weakness. They will do it again. You will cave again.
If it's a "good" website lots of people want to access, any private entity that stands in the way of freely accessing that site = evil.
If it's a "bad" website lots of people don't want to access, any private entity that supports freely accessing that site = evil.
Any questions?
Censorship pretty much always ends up being abused. Let the neo-nazis spew their hate, and most people will recognize them for the raving lunatics they are. But don't censor them. That road doesn't lead to anywhere good.
Yep, and what happened back then? They moved the culture until all anti fascist voices in Germany were outside the realm of 'acceptable discourse', just like pro Nazi comments are on Cloudflare. The best defense against totalitarian ideals is free speech, where all discourse is acceptable.
-The art of programming is the pursuit of absolute simplicity.
"The people I don't like are all bad and deserve to die!"
Signed
All Nazis and Weirdly Rabid 'AntiNazis' Who Never Understand How Nazi-ish They Are
once again the sjw/pc censors won. and you wonder why your country voted for trump. i'll spell it out for you: they were tired of political correctness, social justice, and all the negativity those beliefs engender (pun intended). your president leaves a lot to be desired, true, but it could have been a lot worse.
It's retard shaming.
I can't say that I agree with or support neo-nazi beliefs in any way. But I do believe in free speech. If they are so retarded, then why do you think they need to be removed from the internet? If they are so stupid that anyone can easily see it, what's the need to remove them from a place that you have to go look for them to even hear/read what they have to say? Why allow them to even try to claim some kind of victimhood?
It took 50 million deaths last time those fucks got power, this time we need to kill them all a lot sooner.
I got news for you. Marxists killed many, many more people in the 20th century than Nazis and Fascists combined!
If I can be modded down for being a troll, can I be modded up for being an orc, or a balrog?
As much as I can't stand the content, the content should be there so that people can see for themselves how bad it is.
--
It's a bird, it's a plane!
Newsflash asshole, the Russians never left power. Or were you talking about the Chinese?
I love it when there's no way of knowing whether someone's being sarcastic, ironic, or just stupid. This comment made me laugh, whatever your intentions were.
"From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."
... is not a goddam binary paradigm.
Make all that shit a utility and let the gods straighten out the fucking mess.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
It's EASY to say "that offends me, ban it!"
It's harder to say "that offends me, but I need to stand against it on its merits, not just because I have the power to ban it."
-Styopa
So long as an ISP is just a "series of tubes" (actually fibers and routers such) through which anyone can send anything, they can't well be blamed for what one person requests or sends. As soon as they start exercising any editorial control, they start opening themselves up to be held not responsible not only in the court of public opinion, but LEGALLY.
I think the right move for Cloudflare would have been to condemn what was said while pointing out that they only operate caches. The site is actually hosted by a different company. If the hosting company is known for housing Nazi propaganda and that sort of thing, perhaps say so. Name the hosting company if appropriate, but don't start getting into making editorial decisions about what can and can't flow through your pipes, unless you want to turn into a company that sells only a flowers and rainbows subset of the internet.
Some elected Democrats have said REALLY nasty things about Trump. Trump has said offensive things. Is Cloudflare going to get into deciding which of those things can be seen through their proxies? Things said by both sides could certainly be called "hate speech". I don't think Cloudflare wants to get into the business of deciding which hate speech is okay with them.
Al Sharpton talks about "offing [killing] copsâ and "crackers", is Cloudflare going to ban him? Never should have started down this road.
It took 50 million deaths last time those fucks got power, this time we need to kill them all a lot sooner.
Let's put this in a perspective:
(This combines counts for ideologies with multiple denominations, thus putting in one bucket Mao+Stalin+Lenin+Pol Pot+Kims+Ho Chi Minh+misc African soviet-sponsored groups+etc -- without combining, China is 1st, Soviets 2nd; wars that are attributable to both secular and ideological reasons are attributed partially, with a weighted estimation so 10% religious gives only 1/10 of kill count. All of these figures are hotly contested, but ordering is pretty solid.)
Thus, Nazis are pretty evil (21M deaths is nothing we can forget), but they're boy scouts compared to some ideologies still in power (or, in case of Putin, called "our glorious past").
Thus, let's not discriminate between "kill all unbelievers, people of wrong skin color, shape of genitals, etc" ideologies and fight them either equally or based on actual harm done rather than on how reviled by those currently in power they are.
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
When private companies own and operate the internet, it seems like a very slippery slope to curbing free speech. Who is to say that Google or the like, won't be told by the shareholders to not host content because it offends their advertisers.
This seems like a very real consequence of allowing private companies to be gate keepers of the information on the internet, who can choose what content to offer without impunity.
--
"Bad boys, bad boys, what you going to do? What you going to do when they come for you?" -- Inner Circle
It was his choice to make and I hope he enjoyed it. Most of us don't stick to our values 100%.
Because I'm not an *anything* absolutist. Things like absolutism and zero tolerance are attractive because they make decision making easy in a complex world -- too easy. Sometimes you ought to be forced to wrestle with tough calls; to choose the lesser of two evils or between alternative goods when you can't have both.
And for that reason the way Daily Stormer was forced off the Internet disturbed me, even though I *despise* those people. It's the easy call: here's a problem that's attracting a lot of negative attention, so let's make it go away, and by "go away" we mean sweep it under the rug so someone else has to deal with it. Does anyone think that will make those people disappear? That it will stop others from becoming radicalized? I for one think it will work in their favor. Authoritarians love to view themselves as victims just as much as they love to be victimizers; those are two halves of the same coin for them. They adore being wronged, because in their very tiny minds that gives them permission to wrong others.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
he never had to kick them off in the first place. I'm guessing he was more concerned with his bottom line if he continued hosting them. e.g. worried he'd get boycotted.
This is not going to be a popular thing to say, well, anywhere, but the ruling party in America loves stuff like the Daily Stormer. I'd like to call them 'useful idiots' but that's making light of them. They're a mix of extremely disenfranchised people and the people who exploit them for gain. Such things have always been useful. Right now we've got a multi-trillion dollar tax cut for the 1% that got ram-roded through our house and senate and folks like the Daily Stormer helped put the folks in charge that made that happen.
Thing is, this shit will get out of hand, like it always does, and sooner or later those angry, disenfranchised people are going to turn on somebody. It'll be some harmless minority used as a scapegoat. Maybe the Jews. Maybe the Muslims. Doesn't matter. If anyone reading this has the slightest interest in stopping that, well, now's the time. Get out there and vote. And not just in the major elections. Not just in the mid-terms. In the bloody primaries. You've got to identify why these people are so damn angry and do something about it. Otherwise somebody else is gonna come along, organize them, and do horrible things. I've got 2000 years of history backing me up on that one. At least.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
It took 50 million deaths last time those fucks got power, this time we need to kill them all a lot sooner.
Let's put this in a perspective:
Where did you get these numbers from?
I think he was being informative, actually. Because the socialists are the ones with the really big death toll on their hands, and they're still given places of privilege in places like US institutions of higher education.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Actual history. The idiotic tiki-torch-carrying wannabes have nothing on socialists when it comes to death. And the socialists are getting coddled, right now, in schools around you.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
b-b-but it wasn't REAL communism!
tl;dr for anyone else reading through this
Yep, and what happened back then? They moved the culture until all anti fascist voices in Germany were outside the realm of 'acceptable discourse', just like pro Nazi comments are on Cloudflare. The best defense against totalitarian ideals is free speech, where all discourse is acceptable.
It also gives law enforcement a much easier task of keeping an eye on them.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Do your communism numbers include the great leap forward?
Often they do, but that seems unreasonable to include as the same idealogy that is in charge now. China has done a very good job of allowing enough of a market economy to not do that type of thing.
I say this not defending the current or past regimes, but just to clarify if pure command economy is where 100 million of those are coming from, because that's not really present day China.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
Please do not forget to factor in the increase of human population over the centuries.
Well said. And just look where we're heading.
Yes, this may be the pretty simple situation where obstructing/resisting good is evil, and helping evil is evil.
Granted, in the USA the concern is perhaps that people or the government might not actually be able to really determine fairly and objectively what is evil and what is good in speech. That hence one should just allow all of it.
Whereas much of Europe thinks that once you have an idea of seeing evil speech that matches well-formulated laws, fighting such evil is just as legitimate as fighting a robbery or fraud.
See a more complete and accurate list (in thousands) in recent history from Death by Government.
A few of the numbers:
- USSR: 61,911,000
- China (PRC): 35,236,000
- Germany: 20,946,000
- China (KMT): 10,075,000
"No man's life, liberty, or property are safe while the legislature is in session." -- Judge Gideon J. Tucker
that seems unreasonable to include as the same idealogy that is in charge now. China has done a very good job of allowing enough of a market economy to not do that type of thing.
Like, herding Falun Gong practitioners for organ harvesting? Or keeping the majority of population as a caste deprived of most rights (hukou)?
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
Granted, in the USA the concern is perhaps that people or the government might not actually be able to really determine fairly and objectively what is evil and what is good in speech. That hence one should just allow all of it.
In the US the stance (among people with at least half a brain) is that all speech is free speech, the laws apply especially for things you personally detest. It is meant to give the most hated minorities of society the chance to get their ideas out, the good bits to grow and the bad bits to be reasoned out instead of festering until the people holding those ideas snap. All governments want to remove free speech, all major corporations want to control free speech and argue it is within their right to do so (nevermind their existence is predicated on the government saying they are entities and the government doesn't have that right, yet they have somehow been granted such a right which is illegal for the government to grant.) In the short term free speech can cause a bit of chaos, in the long term free speech increases stability by a huge factor, politicians, shareholders, and bureaucrats only think in the short term and hence they mostly despise free speech and will latch on to whichever jackass has the most revolting opinion of the day to call for banning it.
Look at this incredible amount of sheer idiocy.
"The people I don't like are bad, so it doesn't matter if the people you don't like are worse!!"
How is that even an argument, you preposterous dolt?
I agree with Mr. Prince, and I respect that he's willing to risk his name and company to stand behind his beliefs.
The Anarchist's cookbook is Illegal in Australia. Possession of the book is enough to get you arrested in the UK. China's great firewall is tighter than ever. Censorship is alive and well in the modern world, and I do not see that as progress.
What happened to: "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."?
Being placed in prison/forced labor (in a konzentrationslager - sometimes in a vernichtungslager) or killed without a trial is now the same as not being allowed to spread hate on a specific platform?
(German used to differentiate from concentration camp which is a large camp or group of camps)
Repeat after me:
"Free speech encompasses the 1st Amendment, not the other way"
"Free speech encompasses the 1st Amendment, not the other way"
"Free speech encompasses the 1st Amendment, not the other way"
Bullshit numbers doesn't help making your case.
Words can be infectious to a population that isn't taught to be critical thinkers.
Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
Capitalist running dogs sure do hate free speech.
If you think your ISP, which I'm guessing is AOL, is the only type of ISP there is, turn in YOUR geek card.
The relevant law lays out four types of ISPs, network engineers split them up slightly differently, but still into four types.
17 USC Â 512(k)(1)(A) defines the general term Internet service provider:
(A)As used in subsection (a), the term "service provider" means an entity offering the transmission, routing, or providing of connections for digital online communications, between or among points specified by a user, of material of the userâ(TM)s choosing, without modification to the content of the material as sent or received.
512(a) through 512(d) lay out the four types recognized by law, each with slightly different requirements to have Safe Harbor:
A) Transitory ISPs (transit backbones and access providers)
These ISPs move data, but never store it for long periods. Note that just as your local ISP provides their customers internet access at home, the backbones provide internet access to their customers, the customers' data centers. Network engineers split access and transit into two types.
B) Caching ISPs
These operate caches and do not materially alter the nature of the content. These provide a *buffered* connection to the internet - requests coming in from the internet are sometimes satisfied by the ISP re-sending the response their customer provided earlier.
C) Hosting ISPs
Store data at the direction of the user. These provide highly reliable internet connections for customer software, with hardware also provided.
D) Search engines and indexes. Provide access to the internet not as a wire, but as a means of locating the desired internet-accessible resources. Legally an ISP, not an ISP from a network engineering perspective.
This is why we're in favor of free speech, because the world's dumbest sacks of shit like this guy think they can define the terms.
Real definition:
Nazi = political group that committed genocide in the name of race
Internet definition
"Nazi" = anyone that didn't vote for Hillary and tongue the sweat off her disgusting corrupt ass
The Constitution does not protect against consumer demand.
So that means NOTHING should?
That means there is no principle behind the law?
These are what leftists and many moderates implicitly argue. They refuse to address the reason for the law's existence: to maintain society. But it can only do so much. Society still needs to be maintained by the will of the people. So let's look at the law, understand it, and use it as inspiration to restore the will of the people.
Leftists and most moderates have abandoned liberalism completely. They have no concept of liberty at all, only authority. They have no free will to speak of. Those of us who can see this need to schism or society, we need to distance ourselves from these slave-minded people and put up firm barriers.
My karma was manually wiped by site staff https://slashdot.org/~slshdtisctrldbysjws 18 mod up, 10 mod down = bad karma
The word from the deep state surveillance system must have trickled down to the corporate level: persecuted groups are seriously contemplating violence against their authoritarian oppressors
My karma was manually wiped by site staff https://slashdot.org/~slshdtisctrldbysjws 18 mod up, 10 mod down = bad karma
Exaggeration much? There's a huge difference between not wanting people to be bankrupted by getting sick and the mass murder of millions. BTW the Nazis were socialists in the same way as North Korea is a democracy.
That's exactly what it didn't say. Maybe you should've read it after all.
That's usually what they eventually get to.
If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
How very progressive of you, you homophobic arse.
I don't disagree but I'm yet to see any of the race hatred (or white male hatred on the other side) being "reasoned out"
When I went through boot camp, it was probably even split between liberal city boys and conservative country boys. Many of them owned guns before joining, and were from families that owned firearms.
One recruit even had fired full-auto weapons before joining, but that was because his dad was a drug dealer.(1029, Oorah!)
If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
If a private org wants to censor, fine. Let them brag about it on their signup page.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
As opposed to your hate-filled world view?
How about I let both your stupid friends and the stupid nazis both have websites, and people can choose which of you sound stupider.
If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
It would but problem with net neutrality as it is now, only ISP's can be found to be violating it. Companies like google and facebook are exempt from net neutrality so they can do what they please.
I don't think that is actually news to anyone - the only question would be why it matters? It's not as if being against Nazism means being FOR Marxism - quite the opposite.
Is not this something, the fabled Net Neutrality was supposed to prevent from ever happening?
No. And I really don't understand how people can persistently misunderstand net neutrality so badly.
Cloudflare is a CDN, not an ISP.
The point is to make ISPs agnostic to the source and destination of packets.
No, of course not. Nazi's speech is specifically exempt from any and all protections, is not it?
Oh of course I forgot, you'e an idiot, so everything is "muh freeze peach" even if it's utterly irrelevant. Go troll elsewhere.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
I think I'll reserve my right to contact companies and let them know they are doing business with hatred, and let them decide whether or not they want to work with CloudFlare. First Amendment is a double-edged sword, so I hope very much we do not lose the social pressures that keep hate speech in the far corners vs. potentially showing up in a dangerous way in some auto-personalized result for a lot of users.
Normalizing hate is always, always how genocide starts.
No it always starts with nitwits silencing others out of fear. Genocides are not perpetrated by free societies.
Freedom does not exist merely for its own sake to afford people the space to be left alone. Freedom at its core limits the power (e.g. corruption) of the state in order to protect it from ITSELF. Without freedom history is crystal clear about happens next.. what always happens when power over others is consolidated.
We are already seeing the fruits of this throughout Europe:
https://theintercept.com/2017/...
Whether it's government or some kind of mob rule social structure where Industry is forced to cede to demands or die the outcome is the same. Recall that anti-war advocates, politicians and members of the media received death threats for their (belatedly correct) positions in the lead-up to Iraq war. It is impossible to have it both ways... to seek structures which limit freedom of expression of others yet expect those structures to be wielded only in furtherance of YOUR personal beliefs and values. It's a Fanta Fanta fantasy.
people can choose which of you sound stupider.
Simple: the Nazis sound stupider.
When the fuck did being a Nazi become OK again somehow? Probably when most of the people who fought them last time died off.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
What happens when they democratically seize power and exterminate a lot of people? We'll just be fine with it because it was all following democracy and freedom of expression? Just to be clear this is not fiction, it has happened before and they want it to happen again.
We need to kill all communists too... +100 mil dead under the various attempts at a communist/socialist utopia that has always only ever made things worse.
The tipping point for us making this decision was that the team behind Daily Stormer made the claim that we were secretly supporters of their ideology.
And they were well within their rights to take action to stop someone from using their own platform against them. If I may opine, I'd say it's literally the only legitimate reason to boot someone off such a service; if you're going to slander someone, it's wise to not do so on their own platform, after all.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
This isn't a video game, we don't just care about whoever has the high score.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
It's about freedom. It's impossible for everyone to do anything they like all the time, so there has to be a balance.
Someone wants to post content on the internet. Someone else doesn't want to host said content because they find it repugnant. There is no solution that doesn't involve disappointing someone.
You could argue that not forcing someone to do something, i.e. host the content, is the lesser of two evils. You could argue that by offering a service to the public you accept certain responsibilities, such as upholding the principals of free speech.
There is no simple, consistent solution. It depends on the nature of the content, and the context in which it exists (the Daily Stormer stuff was immediately after a literal Nazi used his car to murder and injure people in broad daylight, apparently convinced that the war had started).
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
A slight correction: nobody has any obligation to him to provide an education; but, society has an obligation to itself to eradicate ignorance. The simplest means by which to do that is to educate at every opportunity. The less ignorance and apathy there is in the world, the better the world is for all of us.
Like right now: you seem to be ignorant of the above, so I've educated you despite having no obligation to you to do so. Why? Because the fewer people exist who exhibit that level of ignorance, the less frequently I am likely to encounter them, which is a net gain for everyone, including me.
When we openly educate each other, we literally all win.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
I got news for you. Marxists killed many, many more people in the 20th century than Nazis and Fascists combined!
Because it was only a twelve year Reich.
You'll have to play by the rules that you expect everyone else to play by.
If you don't want government to do evil shit, stop condoning evil shit when it's your favorite team in power.
Someone wants to post content on the internet. Someone else doesn't want to host said content because they find it repugnant. There is no solution that doesn't involve disappointing someone.
That's where you're wrong. There doesn't require a balance, rather all that's required is the host to be "treated as a dumb pipe." See how easy that is?
There are people who are quite happy to host that content, until someone with an axe to grind decides that they're going to dox, harass, and threaten that person and their family for allowing them to host it. Just remember that there are plenty of groups out there that are more then happy to try and shut you up for having the wrong view point, plenty more that are willing to lie to try and ruin you. The fact that currently this is the standard go-to tactic of the progressive left, feminists, and so on should be telling you just how much of a chilling effect their actions are having on society. Of course those same people are now getting a taste of the same rules and actions they pushed in the first place, and are being silenced. So suddenly it's a very "real problem" for them.
And before you try the "but the left/feminism/etc really isn't doing that..." yeah you can stop with the bullshit, because they are. Whether it's feminists pulling fire alarms at a MRA meeting, doxing people to get funds pulled from a male domestic abuse shelter, what's happening in the dark and dirty underside of "feminist" culture in tech(like with google, ada initiative, and so on), or what happened at Wilfred Laurier, the left has a very big pro-censorship problem. And a very big problem with identity politics if someone dares to walk off their plantation.
There is no simple, consistent solution. It depends on the nature of the content, and the context in which it exists (the Daily Stormer stuff was immediately after a literal Nazi used his car to murder and injure people in broad daylight, apparently convinced that the war had started).
Well the guy wasn't a literal nazi, he was an ethno-natioanlist which isn't the same thing(remember it's okay to be white). Reminder that the case still hasn't gone to court either. And that whole "free speech" thing still applies to them, unless it falls directly into "fighting words" aka actionable threat. Which wasn't the case. But if you want to roll that way, it would mean that you're a literal fascist, with your statist goose-stepping to stifle speech you don't like.
Om, nomnomnom...
You seem to be conflating taboo and censorship.
Hating Nazis is not a vice. The GP is correct to have that opinion, it's normal and healthy to hate things that want to murder massive segments of the population for no good reason.
(What the hell has this country come to that this even needs to be said? And the same people who are all "Let's not hate the Nazis" get really angry when you point out the frightening parallels between the rise of the current leader and several 1930s fascist leaders.)
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
the big means to censor at the moment is the "stop funding hate" campaign from a few twitterati activists who are "shaming" companies for advertising on newspapers they find objectionable (though perfectly legal and normal - mainly the Daily Mail at the moment which is a centre-right paper that also has an unhealthy (IMHO) section on celebrity gossip)..
They've managed to get paperchase and pizza hut to apologise for running adverts in these newspapers - PH for running a "free pizza" giveaway in the Sun newspaper most recently. I think they also attacked Breitbart using the same tactics a while
back.
https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/...
What is the point of comparing the relative badness of these various groups? They are still extremely bad, so what is this "perspective" adding to the discussion?
Not that I agree with the OP's desire to murder modern day Nazis, but the knowledge that other groups killed even more people doesn't really excuse or lessen any of the things they do.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
What happened to: "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."?
Stepford students. Children being taught that they need to have a safe space and be protected. Institutions of higher learning pushing only one view point, instead of challenging multiple viewpoints. Professors pushing and punishing students for having the "wrong view point" and so on as to not offend people. The big push for political correctness and not hurting feelings, microagressions and all the other associated bullshit. That disagreement is harassment. That facts are racist. Take your pick.
Remember 2 years back with that professor who told students to grow up over Halloween costumes? Then was yelled at on the quad by an insane student who screeched that "university wasn't about an intellectual space, but about 'building a home.'" Or the professor that screeched "she needs some muscle over here" to get rid of that nosy student reporter and on and on and on and on... Yeah. There's an entire generation out there who've been taught this. There's that same generation that will go out of their way to hound, harass, you and your family if you dare to step out of line. They're today's young budding fascists who believe that the state should determine what's right, and they'll use the power of the state or their group to make sure it happens.
Om, nomnomnom...
Those are Enlightenment values, which are nothing but instruments of white supremacy. The Enlightenment is on the way out, to the tremendous applause of the world community. A generation from now, Rousseau will sound like a nutcase extremist and people will wonder why he was ever taken seriously.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
What part of the world allows that? My understanding is that even in the US, once alerted to abuse a "common carrier" has to shut it down. So for example if someone reports to Cloudflare that a site they cache contains illegal images (as defined by US law) they have to take action or become liable.
The US allows this, so does Canada, so do nearly all western countries. The UK does not, but then you don't actually have protections on speech. The host is treated as a dumb pipe, but is required to remove illegal images and report them to various authorities. It's no different then a person who rents a news press and uses it to publish child porn. The device is neutral, the action is illegal, along with the production/distribution is also illegal. In both cases the "owner" is given a reasonable period of time to report it.
Om, nomnomnom...
Compare racism and extremism in the US to Europe if you don't see it. Europe has strict anti-hate speech laws. They also have much larger problems with things like nazis than the US does. You probably don't believe it, because shocker, the news media doesn't like to cover it, but seriously go over there and check it out some time. The US really doesn't have a problem with extremism comparatively. Just look at the number of "home grown terrorists" that make the news in the US vs in Europe.
Name an argument for why Net Neutrality for ISPs is good and desirable, that would not also apply to the CDNs. You can't. Therefor, the distinction you just made is without difference.
Yeah, this seems like the only kind of argument you and yours are capable of.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Your post raises a number of questions.
Why are you assuming he's a nazi?
Wouldn't your Grandpa have had too much sense to violent assault someone for no rational cause?
Why do you lack the presumed common sense of your Grandpa?
What are deets?
Why would you assume he owns SS skulls or a maga cap?
What term would you use for someone that would shoot someone purely because of the clothes they wear?
Why are you even posting on Slashdot, given that this isn't Reddit, Tumblr or your kindergarten whiteboard?
Yes, actually, you can force people to do anything. It's called power.
My karma was manually wiped by site staff https://slashdot.org/~slshdtisctrldbysjws 18 mod up, 10 mod down = bad karma
If we can force people to bake cakes, we can surely host sites that no one visits.
"I'm not an authoritarian tyrant" - every authoritarian tyrant.
No. And I really don't understand how people can persistently misunderstand net neutrality so badly.
Cloudflare is a CDN, not an ISP.
You're confused. No one "misunderstands" Net Neutrality, we just think selectively applying it only to ISPs is a bad notion and doesn't result in Net Neutrality at all, only a subset of it. If you push for Neutrality from ISPs, you should also expect it from CDNs and Content Hosts.
Only Content creators should be absolved of Neutrality.
That, or get ready for Anti-trust action that breaks up the many content host monopolies out there. You think Microsoft was bad in the 90s ? Youtube, Twitter, Facebook are just as bad now, if not worse (at least Windows, as bad as it was, was content agnostic).
"Not to mention all the idiots who use words like boxen."
Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04, @06:49PM
Let's put this in a perspective:
Citation needed? Can you provide a source for these numbers, otherwise I'll have to declare them a guess, even if they are right.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
How do you figure? No, really: how are you counting this? From what are you making this claim?
When people start talking about deaths related to communism they're usually referring to Mao's Great Leap Forward. And that... was done under the auspices of communism anyway, so okay. That's thirty million. World War 2 was seventy million. You've got a lot of ground to cover here, and I'm wondering how you're going to do it.
Right, so you agree with me. Being a "dumb pipe" doesn't absolve the pipe owner of all responsibility.
It does and it doesn't. I'm not agreeing with you, rather you're partially correct. You also conflate speech with illegal images which makes no sense, especially in the US which has broad speech protections, unlike the UK where you're actively restricting speech.
Incredible how this simple statement that we both actually agree on triggered one of your snowflake buddies to mod my comment as "troll".
Snowflake buddies? You might want to think on that. Maybe you've just managed to piss so many people off with regressive stances that people believe that your views are terrible. And believe it: Compared to people in north america, your views especially on speech are regressive. This is reflected in UK law itself, where what's permissible is clearly stated. Doesn't work like that here, which is whatever isn't stated is permissible.
Om, nomnomnom...
Solution: you can enjoy "broad legal immunity" as long as you don't remove content based on your own beliefs; as soon as you start removing contents based on your own belief, you are taking responsibility for what is going through your platform, and hence you can and should be held responsible for everything that goes through.
Doesn't mean that you have to give them a venue, nor does that mean you have to do business with them.
And this is the level of discourse at Slashdot now.
is to take your money elsewhere. Make Cloudflare the CDN of racists and use a different CDN that isn't friendly to Nazis. We got Cloudflare bundled with our subscription to something else and refused to use it. It's a huge bone of contention with our provider that they basically sneaked it in and we're not going to sign up with them if Cloudflare is a part of it.
No it is not and they are not, Boris.
Not only am I Jewish, but I am an ardent supporter of free speech. Freedom of speech and the press does not only apply when politically correct or even convenient. It applies to almost all circumstances, the "fire in the crowded movie theater" clause notwithstanding. If a KKK group wants to spread all kinds of falsehoods and lies, then that is their right. By banning speech that you simply do not like, you simply pour gasoline on their fire. You give them cause celeb and a point to rally on. So long as a group is not directly advocating violence (I do not mean implicitly because anyone can make an argument for implicit), let them spout off while the educated world laughs at their lunacy. I loath these groups as much as anyone, but gagging them will not make them go away. If you think they will up and disappear simply but trying to take away their soap box, you are sorely wrong.
In America you have the right to hate whomever you so choose, and so long as you aren't making a direct threat, you can blame anyone for your woes. I want to know all sides and all points of view on issues so I can be better educated on how to combat the falsehoods. Sometimes a simple background search on the person espousing his or her views offers up an explanation as to why they can be completely disregarded. Sending a hate group underground by denying them their rights to freedom of speech and freedom of press, makes them all the more dangerous and difficult to monitor. Not only that, but we become hypocritical.
Is the US constitution really that narrow on speech? As in things like photographs can't be considered protected speech?
In any case, even pure mouth-noises are included. Speaking state secrets to unauthorized persons is a crime. If your server has such data on it and you are notified, you are obliged to remove it or face legal consequences, are you not?
As for snowflakes, you just prove my point. People whose feelz are hurt by views they don't like, trying to stop people upsetting them. To be fair to you, at least you post a counter argument and don't just try to censor.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Here is an example of what you speak of. Not that it will matter.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
A couple of dictators who borrowed Marx's writing for his populist rhetoric killed those people. I really wish people could get their facts straight on that one. Hell, people still call China communist today and it's not even pending anymore.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
It's called self preservation. You have a natural obligation to do what's best for yourself and society has the same. A society that fails to live up to that obligation soon fails, as we're beginning to see over the past few decades.
It's a slow process, but it's happening. We put ourselves in a position where we believed we could stop teaching out kids common sense, so we stopped; now, we have people dying while taking selfies and walking int traffic while texting instead of looking where they're going. When those of us who know better eventually die of natural causes or fall victim to this idiocy, there will be nobody left to protect the special snowflakes and the decline will accelerate at an alarming rate.
This, my friend, is the part the skipped over in Idiocracy.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
Personally, I don't think the application of force and the brutal abuses of power to gain and maintain power are the sole province of any part of the political spectrum. History has shown that, no matter what ethnicity, culture or political inclinations, people with too much power can find ways to justify their prejudices and excuses to commit atrocities. The best way we have managed to come up with for avoiding those abuses is two-fold : First, freedom of speech (includes freedom of the press) and second, inclusive democracy. A well functioning democracy seeks to implement polices that are for the benefit of all and freedom of speech helps insure that when polices are abusive or unjust, that those in power can be called on it. As distasteful as the rhetoric of the far right is, as flatly unacceptable as their proposed solutions are, they still serve democracy by speaking up. Think of them as societies warrant canary. As long as even the extremists from either end of the spectrum can find a place to speak, we know that free speech still exists.
I need a wheelchair van for my son. Help me get the word out. https://www.gofundme.com/wheelchair-van-for-jj
It took 50 million deaths last time those fucks got power, this time we need to kill them all a lot sooner.
Let's put this in a perspective:
communism: 180M
christianity: 100M
islam: 75M
national socialism: 21M
Leopold II (no ideology): 10M
I wonder where you got your data.
Return the bells of Balangiga.
If this Cloudflare CEO really means what he says, then he needs to stop blocking Tor exit nodes, making us solve recaptchas (at best) and blocking us completely (at worst). Seriously, stop even noting someone is using a known Tor exit node and treat the traffic like you would anything else!
Actual history.
Please don't dodge the question.
Where did you get the numbers from?
I want to believe, but I must see proof.
Society doesn't have an obligation to do a damn thing. You're projecting your values on to others.
I agree with this.
You ever notice how the biggest fucking idiots on Planet Earth always run in with drive by insults but never actually make a point or provide evidence of anything? It's like they know how fucking stupid they are, but their ego doesn't let them admit it to themselves so they just call people names and pat themselves on the back.
I also agree with this.
I don't disagree but I'm yet to see any of the race hatred (or white male hatred on the other side) being "reasoned out"
Have you heard of the civil rights movement? It was responsible for tearing down huge bulwarks of racism. You should look into it sometime.
If this Cloudflare CEO really means what he says, then he needs to stop blocking Tor exit nodes, making us solve recaptchas (at best) and blocking us completely (at worst). Seriously, stop even noting someone is using a known Tor exit node and treat the traffic like you would anything else!
This is probably because they're commonly used as relays for DDOS attacks. I commonly use a privacy VPN and have this issue, but as someone who deals with hosting some high volume sites I understand.
While it may be commendable and satisfying to shut down a website just because it's a filthy hive of neo-nazis, I'm sure it sent their legal team to DEFCON 1, as it could put their status as a common carrier at risk. So unfortunately any company that doesn't want to risk falling on their sword in the name of denying neo-nazis a platform can't afford to do so.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
I got news for you. Marxists killed many, many more people in the 20th century than Nazis and Fascists combined!
Because it was only a twelve year Reich.
Because a lot of people died, including lots from Marxist regions, to keep it that short.
Well the guy wasn't a literal nazi, he was an ethno-natioanlist which isn't the same thing(remember it's okay to be white).
Not exactly the same thing but they have much in common, especially in the case of white nationalism (as the car attacker was). White nationalism is at the core of nazism: Not all white nationalists are nazis, but all nazis are white nationalists. And ethno-nationalism is inherently racist and therefore wrong.
It's okay to be white, but it's absolutely not okay to want to establish a white ethno-state. Also expressing pride of one's whiteness is a dick move (see: history).
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
I'm the good guy here and everyone that disagrees with me needs to be silenced. - every authoritarian tyrant.
Better?
Here's the thing: If Net Neutrality becomes dead and ISPs are not only turning everything into walled gardens, but also tracking and logging everything, things like Tor are going to be the last bastions of any sort of online privacy. Penalizing people for using Tor just makes Cloudflare or anyone else party to whatever bullshit the ISPs want to impose on us.
I am "over there" and you shouldn't believe everything you read.
Yes I am. Did MLK and the KKK have lively debates about the merits of segregation then? If so you might want to change your history books.
The whole internet is a sea of unreasonableness. Do you want me to post people "reasoning out" things on Twitter?
I'm not a communist you pea brained fuckwit. When I go to the doctor the only thing I have to worry about is getting better, not whether I can afford it as well. That's not communism you negative IQ bellend.
I grant its a difficult line to draw. And I certainly favor erroring on the side of speech, not censorship. But, as you pointed out, Nazi hate speech is pretty far over on the scale.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
I got news for you. Marxists killed many, many more people in the 20th century than Nazis and Fascists combined!
Including many Jews, as well as persecuting them and seizing their property/belongings.
If it's a "private" internet entity, it can decide who it wants to deal with. Only in cases where there is insufficient competition is that going to cause any problems. Whether a website or a private entity is good or evil or bad is a somewhat subjective judgment call, and will have the effect that the people making the judgments give it. Things have been working satisfactorily on this basis for a long, long time.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Given enough competition among private entities, there's a simple, consistent, workable solution. If you run a web service, have your own terms of service and exclude who you want (as long as that doesn't run afoul of nondiscrimination law). If you need a web service and you're running a racial hatred site, shop around. There's probably someone who doesn't care.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
I don't think that's true in the US. When you have agreed not to divulge state secrets, doing so is a felony. Once they've been divulged, an individual or private entity can further divulge them. This was tested in the courts way back with the Pentagon Papers, the decision taking into advantage freedom of the press.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
My father took part in a large organized extremely volent anti-Nazi demonstration that didn't even get permits. I'm proud of him.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
That's a utilitarian argument on its surface, but a theological one when dig deeper because you're implicitly assuming that having a society in which problems are solved by the many, rather than the few, or that they're solved at all, is a Good with a capital G. In some theologies that shall remain nameless, a lack of problem solving is held up as Good, on the grounds that only in the heavens is there perfection and the terrestrial realm is by its nature sinful; to attempt to perfect things down here would be playing God. That's one general example. There are other many specific others. The point is, you've made a value judgement and then concluded that freedom of speech is a means to that end.
I and most hard-core libertarians make a different value judgement, specifically that freedom of speech is an end onto itself. The more Randian types will stop there. More theologically-oriented types will go further and claim that that end is derived from God's plan for the universe.
But that's a theological debate. Time was, we all bought into that same broad theology, taught it to our children, and lived it, so there was no debate that personal freedom, religious freedom, and free speech were good. Most people generally still believe that, but they've been shamed by certain elements of society into being less vocal about it. And many of those same elements have a hearty disdain for anything that claims a mandate from God. So to the extent that they believe in freedom of speech, they do so out of purely utilitarian grounds, which leaves them open to carving out exceptions and limits on utilitarian grounds. Don't get me wrong: those utilitarian arguments are real, but here's the thing: if you believe God gave man a mind and a voice and the faculty of rational thought and the command to be fruitful and multiply, you're going to prioritize freedom over utility. And if you don't, then you won't, because by carving down on freedom, you're just balancing the numbers, you aren't making a deal with the devil.
Hating Nazis is not a vice. The GP is correct to have that opinion, it's normal and healthy to hate things that want to murder massive segments of the population for no good reason.
Such well trained Pavlovian dogs will salivate on command, even when there is no real meat to be had. Thus the definition of nazi can and will be reinterpreted to fit the situation as desired, to justify pretty much anything.
Actual history. The idiotic tiki-torch-carrying wannabes have nothing on socialists when it comes to death. And the socialists are getting coddled, right now, in schools around you.
I couldn't find any source to confirm your "Cristianity: 100M" claim. Where did you get it from?
If you genuinely think that we are afraid of the Nazis, then I have a nasty shock for you. We never have been, and never will be : not even when Nazism and Fascism are just a smeared memory and the windscreen. Fascism is an infection, a weeping open boil on the side of humanity, and you treat infection, to be rid of it, becuase infection isn't something you regard as your equal, let alone something to be afraid of.
Is the US constitution really that narrow on speech? As in things like photographs can't be considered protected speech?
No photographs can be protected speech. The very narrow limits on speech are: "Fighting words" aka imminent threat. And "child pornography" which falls under the DOST test. A picture of your kids splashing in the bath isn't CP. A picture of your kids splashing in that bath, and being sent to a person requesting it can make it CP however.
In any case, even pure mouth-noises are included. Speaking state secrets to unauthorized persons is a crime. If your server has such data on it and you are notified, you are obliged to remove it or face legal consequences, are you not?
Depends on whether or not it's falls under whistle blower laws, it may or may not. Anything else is treasonable actions, different laws apply.
As for snowflakes, you just prove my point. People whose feelz are hurt by views they don't like, trying to stop people upsetting them. To be fair to you, at least you post a counter argument and don't just try to censor.
Or, they find your views so distasteful that they're pulling your soapbox out from under you. This is akin to the hecklers veto, something you support. I'm failing to see why you're having a problem when the same rules and conduct is being applied against you. Oh right, you suddenly don't like it when it's being applied against you...
Om, nomnomnom...
Social media is already filled with this. Wrong someone and they'll dig up all your info, post it publicly, harass your employer, then all their 1000 "friends" will dog pile on top.
True, which is why I use pseudonymous names everywhere. It's funny how much of a push there was to "use real names everywhere!" over the old belief that using real names everywhere is just a bad idea.
Om, nomnomnom...
Okay, so it's paraphrased. Point stands.
Yes, those things are all part of your personal self preservation. The needs of a civilized society differ greatly from the needs of an individual human, though; one of those needs is education; ergo openly educating others is a required activity for the functioning of a civilized society; ergo, to preserve itself, a civilized society must openly educate its population.
Or, put another way, do you want there to be fewer ignorant people in the world, or more? A civilized society can only survive with so many of them so, in order to preserve itself, society must eliminate them. Since we've set up our current society in such a way that they're no longer eliminated effectively by natural means, we must now immunize against them.
Put yet another way, did you not just attempt to educate me? You did. You provided information I already knew, as you missed my point and thought I needed that lesson, but you did just attempt to educate me. Are you really sure you disagree with what I'm saying? If so, why did you do that? Just some food for thought.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
Because the socialists are the ones with the really big death toll on their hands, and they're still given places of privilege in places like US institutions of higher education.
Just because some socialists have committed atrocities doesn't mean that socialism ought to be correlated with atrocities. Every first world nation, including the U.S., is a socialist country. That's just modern economics. Stalin wasn't a socialist ideologue. He appropriated these ideas in order to steal power from Trotsky, the actual socialist ideologue. The Chinese totalitarianism from Mao to the present day may utilize extreme socialist economic ideas, but that has nothing to do with the human rights abuses. The human rights abuses of these two countries are better explained by the history and culture of the two countries than an economic model. For instance, look at the Tzars and feudalism in Russia, or Confucianism in China.
Maybe the original point about the Chinese and Russians could be argued even if your silly equivocation regarding socialism is ignored, but I would still argue that Mao is not in power and neither is Stalin. I personally wouldn't want to live in either country, and I think they both could make vast improvements when it comes to human rights, but they're not comparable to Nazis. One of the core tenets of Nazi fascism was to exterminate or subjugate non-German races. That's why people have such a reflexive hatred for Nazism. It's irrelevant that Stalin caused more deaths. If there was some modern Stalinist cult, people would find it just as abhorrent (although that would be weird, as Stalin didn't really have a core ideology other than to retain power). People hate Nazism because it's an ideology of hatred. Everyone hates Stalin the historical figure, but there's no modern Stalinism that academics goo over as you imply.
"From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."