I've only just got back in the studio for the new calendar year, and there's already yet another online mob forming against freedom of expression, this time targeting SubStack. I agree with #ElleGriffin;
They have a policy against incitement to violence. Anyone who isn't inciting violence isn't a "Nazi" in any truly concerning sense of the word.
Focusing on the real problem (violence), rather than on the symptoms (labels and symbols), is a radical approach. One that protects authors on their platform from attempts to stretch the definition of "Nazis" for other censorship purposes.
@strypey The authors of the platform don't need to stretch definitions. They can remove whoever they want for any reason. And that's not censorship (only the government can truly censor), because it doesn't extend past the bounds of their private property; rather it's their 1A right to disassociation.
They already chose not to associate with pornography and nobody complains about that. Yet despite having clear rules, they choose to continue to associate with and profit from known white supremacists. That's their right, sure, but it unmasks their values and the rest of us are free to choose not to do business with them as a result.
This is sophistry. In the print age, only the government could censor, because printing presses were decentralised (anyone with enough money could get one), and censors had to have the power to seize your presses and confiscate printed material.
In the era of digital platforms, readerships are highly consolidated, so platforms can censor on their own behalf, and on behalf of government (eg Christchurch Call).
@strypey The reason "only the government can censor" is because the government can shut down your speech everywhere. Private actors can only set rules for their own property. Facebook "censors" you? Go to Twitter or TikTok or YouTube. The wide variety of competing services (and your freedom to self-host) that allow you to easily broadcast your speech make the maxim more true, not less.
@LouisIngenthron
> The wide variety of competing services (and your freedom to self-host) that allow you to easily broadcast your speech
Again, this is sophistry.
In the print age, you could always evade censorship by handling out handwritten samizdat pamphlets or giving speeches at philosophical salons. But you couldn't reach outside your existing networks in the way you can with publishing.
The same is true of being systematically hounded off the handful of major digital platforms.
@LouisIngenthron
Also you're ignoring my reference to the Christchurch Call and the way governments use the censorship apparatus of the major platforms as part of their means of censoring everywhere.
Why is that I wonder? Because it completely demolishes the imaginary fence you've erected between moderation and government censorship?
@strypey Lmao, that's such nonsense. You have a right to speech, not amplification, and especially not amplification with a megaphone owned by someone else. You can still hand out pamphlets or give speeches. You can even create your own website and audience.
But you don't have a free speech right to a Facebook account, and nobody is violating your rights by asking you to leave their property.
@LouisIngenthron
> But you don't have a free speech right to a Facebook account, and nobody is violating your rights by asking you to leave their property
You're moving the goalposts. We're not debating whether SubStack et al are allowed to moderate their platform. But whether it's legitimate for cancel mobs, or governments (eg via Christchurch Call) to bully or force them to moderate on their behalf. Which is clearly censorship.
@LouisIngenthron
> But public pressure (or "cancel mobs") is just more free speech.
Again with the sophistry. The fact that their right to free speech protects their attempt to suppress the speech of others doesn't change the fact that systematic suppression of free speech is censorship.
> They can choose to bow to it or not, as their own free speech
Now you're really reaching. Bowing to intense coercion is not "free speech" any more than votes cast under duress make a free and fair election.
@strypey Nobody is forcing or coercing anyone to fire their employees. Nobody is forcing or coercing anyone to silence.
They're criticizing them, and those people are (sometimes) bowing to criticism. They don't have to, and some don't!
That's the free marketplace of ideas in action.
"Free speech" doesn't mean that you don't have to face any consequences for what you choose to say. It just means you won't be imprisoned or physically harmed for them.
@LouisIngenthron
To dodge this point, you engaged in the usual sophistry of censorship apologists. Putting forward a definition of censorship so narrow that most real world censorship would not be fit it. I pointed out why that definition isn't useful.
Censorship is the suppression of speech. If the pressure to moderate a particular way is coming from civil society or government, and being applied to all platforms, it's clearly an attempt at censorship.
@LouisIngenthron
If you really think censorship is the lesser evil here, then defend it. Replying with hairsplitting sophistry about whether or not it's really censorship suggests that you're not convinced it is really defensible.
@LouisIngenthron
> All the "cancel mobs" can do is criticize and threaten to take their business elsewhere (which is their free speech right).
They can destroy someone's livelihood, eg by getting them fired from their job. Which in a capitalist society can lead to extreme suffering and even death. So this is just as bad as the threats states are capable of.
But this isn't really the point. Systematic suppression of speech is censorship, regardless of the particular style or consequences.
@strypey No, they can't. All they can do is criticize. Only the person's employer can fire them from their job, if they agree with the criticism. Again, all free speech.
That welfare here sucks doesn't make speech less free.
@LouisIngenthron
More sophistry. Which again suggests that you know the censorship you're making excuses for isn't defensible, and that you'd be fighting it just as vigorously as you're defending it, if it didn't align with your ideology.
@strypey When your argument is just repeating the word "sophistry" over and over (do you even know what that word means?) instead of actually engaging with the ideas presented, yeah, I think we are done here.
@LouisIngenthron
"Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster... for when you gaze long into the abyss. The abyss gazes also into you."
@strypey
99% of the time I would agree with you but not on the specific question of supporting or promoting Nazi ideology...
That question was decided by our parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and any other family and friends you can think of way back in 1945 after 6 years of appeasement and negotiation and another 6 years of all our war in which 85 MILLION people died...
And the answer was, Nazis and their ideology can fuck right off and we do NOT need to discuss it again!
@carl_klitscher As Umberto Eco pointed out in his essay on Ur-fascism, there's no such thing as "Nazi ideology". Like all authoritarians, the only political philosophy of fascists is 'might makes right'.
They use whatever language and policy they think large numbers of people will sympathise with. Knowing that once they set up their violent enforcement machinery, they don't have to honour any of it (remember the Night of the Long Knives).
Thus SubStack's policy against incitement to violence.
There was a 6 year long WAR over this less than a lifetime ago where the question of "Should we put up with Nazi rhetoric/ideology/philosophy in everyday life?" and the answer was then, and still is, NO.
There is nothing more to discuss.
Can we stop them from talking about it? No. But we can make it difficult for commercial entities like substack to mainstream their repulsive ideas.
Force them to run their own sites without contaminating the wider feed
@strypey
That is the whole point... You are ignoring a devastating event that gives us a definitive answer to the specific question "Should Nazis be given the right to discuss their views under the umbrella of 'Free Speech'" and the answer is "No. They can fuck right off"
Am I trying to convince you otherwise?
No, because you are clearly in the "Free Speech Uber Alles" camp but pure philosophical arguments do not trump the reality of 85 million deaths to ensure you have the right to say that.
@carl_klitscher
> but pure philosophical arguments do not trump the reality of 85 million deaths to ensure you have the right to say that
I can't find the text right now, but I remember Chomsky saying something about doing poor service to the victims of the Holocaust by adopting a major strategy of their persecutors. This is true of the Nazis, but also Stalinists and many other authoritarian regimes who suppressed speech that didn't suit them and persecuted Jews.
@strypey
Again, you can cherry pick any philosopher to support your argument and I can do the same... But the fact is that there was a literal war over this with the result that Nazi's DO NOT GET the protection of the "Free Speech" argument.
And why is that? Because there was six years of appeasement, let's discuss this rationally, "but Free Speech!" that preceded that war that FAILED when the bullets started flying.
So how about we don't repeat that and continue to tell Nazis to fuck off.
> there was six years of appeasement, let's discuss this rationally
You're ignoring whole swathes of historical context. Including the Russian Revolution, and the fact that German Marxists - with support from the Soviet Union - were determined to make Germany the next "worker's state". Ordinary Germans were nervous about this and German capitalists were terrified.
@carl_klitscher
Given that Lenin and Trotsky had already shown their authoritarian colors at this point, eg by brutally suppressing the Kronstadt uprising and the Machnovists in Ukraine, even the German left were pretty freaked out by the prospect of a Soviet-backed Marxist takeover of Germany.
In this context, a nationalist movement that (prior to the Night of the Long Knives) had a strong socialist policy program definitely seemed like the lesser of 2 evils.
@carl_klitscher
"There were almost no functioning democracies in Europe at this time and there were many military dictatorships... Almost every society was internally divided between communists and socialists and those who opposed them. Then in many countries fascism had made great strides often because of a fear of communism."
@carl_klitscher
This created the situation described in the famous poem by Martin Niemöller.
First they suppressed the Marxists-Leninists and Trotskyists, to the great relief of the rest of population. Then they used accusations of being Soviet-backed to neuter the rest of the left, especially the leaders of organised labour. When they started persecuting Jews, it was with similar accusations of supporting Marxism, which was easy, as many German Jews were aligned with the radical left.
@carl_klitscher
By this point, there was no organised force in civil society capable of resisting them, and the Night of the Knives had taken out anyone inside the Nazi Party with socialist leanings or any ability to prevent or moderate the descent into barbarism that was to come.
So in summary, WW2 happened because the German people allowed authoritarians to suspend civil liberties to protect them from authoritarians they saw as worse.
@carl_klitscher
> Given that Lenin and Trotsky had already shown their authoritarian colors at this point
I forgot to mention that Stalin was already in charge in the Soviet Union by the time the Nazi party began to gain power in Germany. Also that he'd ordered Soviet-aligned fighters to help the Republicans suppress the Spanish revolution, leading to victory for Franco's forces. As documented by Orwell in Homage to Catalonia.
So Soviet partisans were as scary at that point as Nazis are now.
@strypey
History is a wonderful thing and thanks for telling me what I already know...
My point, which you and your mate continue to refuse to acknowledge, is that in spite of all that carnage, sacrifice and suffering by people who you will have met in your lifetime, you are still prepared to support the promotion of Nazis for some bullshit "Free Speech" ideals that don't actually have any legal basis in the private sector, thereby setting a stage for it to happen again.
... is exactly what you're doing by making excuses for authoritarian practices. Which may seem fine when those in power are paying lip service to ideologies you support. But may seem less fine when they change their tune, or those in power change and inherit a machinery of suppression you helped to justify and deliver to them.
But you're clearly unable to see outside your own dogma on this. We're done here.
@carl_klitscher
> It's the private sector we're talking about... Your precious "Free Speech Uber Alles" argument does not apply to the private sector...
I've already dealt with this false dichotomy in this branch of the thread;
@carl_klitscher
Not to mention @lightweight's observation that the NZ state (and most Western govts) are effectively a subsidiary of tech corporations.
Clinging to this idea to state and corporate power are separate will be viable in the West for a bit longer. But living in China gave me some insight into what an illusion this is. They are two faces of the same coin. Institutions controlled by capitalists, and increasingly by rentiers, serving their interests regardless. As do your apologetics.
You can cling tightly to your one or two sources of your truth as much as you like however there are and will always be people who disagree with you for their own reasons but you clearly cannot let that go... You've done your research and good on you but who died and made you god?
Who are you to dictate to me what is right and wrong in this world?
How about you put some actions into place rather than regurgitating other peoples ideas?
@strypey@lightweight
You've made a statement and decided to support a private enterprise in their endeavours to maximise their monetary intake so good on you.
I've assessed your actions based on my personal beliefs and I think you are being hypocritical and very selective in your conclusions, which is surprising given the research you actually seem to invest in all this...
I still stand by my assertion that Nazis and their ilk can fuck off and moan in their own little rat holes.
@carl_klitscher
"Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster... for when you gaze long into the abyss. The abyss gazes also into you."
@strypey
Correct. So knowing what the risks are lets you determine a mitigation strategy.
And mine is, as you have observed, to limit my criticism of your support of substack to:
the fallacy of them claiming a "Free Speech" defence when they are not legally obligated to honour that.
specifically platforming Nazis for which there is a) ample evidence that they just don't give a shit and cannot be reasoned with and b) lost a war in which the rest of the world said NO to their ideas.
@carl_klitscher
Look, we agree far more than we disagree here ('we' includes SubStack). We agree (I hope) that freedom of expression, in general, is a key principle of any form of democracy. We agree that fascists are dangerous and need to be kept far away from any levers of power.
Where we disagree is whether suppressing the speech of "Nazis" is a good tactic for protecting democracy from authoritarians taking power. This is a point on which reasonable people can have different opinions.
@carl_klitscher
> I personally won't be reading you on Substack for "reasons" but that doesn't negate the value
Fair enough, and thanks for the feedback.
I'm planning to eventually follow @richdecibels and @pluralistic's examples and publish the same long form writing on multiple platforms, including right here in the 'verse. I'm hoping the changes wrought by the EU DMA will enable POSSE software that publishes to a server in the verse and other platforms with one click.
Should Nazis be given the right to discuss their views under the umbrella of 'Free Speech'
Yes, that's how "free speech" works. You can choose to read it, disagree with it, and call the author an idiot with arguments on why he is an idiot. That's how free speech works effectively. Censoring authors because you disagree with them is incredibly short-sighted, and only "works" for so long as people you agree with are in power, which never lasts forever.
@tyil@strypey
Oh dear! Another one who has learned nothing from history!!
Europe is full of graveyards that stand as a testament to the people who fought and died to ensure that Nazism did NOT become the de-facto standard of the world we live in.
After all that suffering and all those deaths is it really that hard for you admit that there is actually nothing more of merit to debate about Nazism?
Like I said, how about we don't let history repeat and we continue to tell Nazis to fuck off.
I could say the same to you. Your approach to "fighting fascism" is by employing fascism. No-one is allowed to speak unless they agree with your viewpoints and opinions. You're exactly the kind of person who would've supported Hitler during Nazi Germany.
Just because the popular (media-produced) narrative is in your favour right this moment, you don't stop and think about the implications of your ideology, you just want to pretend you're on higher moral ground because everyone you associate with agrees with you.
You can talk about the suffering and death all you want, but you're just trying to distract us from seeing you have no arguments. Your only means of deflecting is by referring to horrible events that happened a while ago, events you have next to no knowledge of, other than some factoids that literally everyone in Europe already knows. The shock value isn't doing its job nearly as well as you had hoped it would.
If you don't want history to repeat, as you say, perhaps learn more about how Hitler was able to garner so much support, and what kind of people supported him. Then learn how to avoid that exact situation.
@tyil@strypey
He garnered support by talking to people and telling them about his Nazi ideals... after a few years of this bullshit about how it was everyone elses fault and Germany should reclaim their rightful place he got about 35% of the population to vote him into power at which point he started really going to town!
And people let him. The rest, as they say, is history.
And my argument still remains that there was a WORLD WAR over it... and philosophical arguments did not save them.
He garnered support by talking to people and telling them about his Nazi ideals...
Wow, and the majority of people were just like "heck yeah, that sounds awesome!"? That sounds so unbelievable.
Just imagine walking up to people for a few years saying "yes hi I would like to exterminate the jews, vote for me!" gets you 35% of the population's vote. I think I should go into politics if its this easy. Wonder if there were any particular reasons why this rhetoric was so appealing. Or perhaps if the rhetoric was different.> there was a WORLD WAR over it
Yes yes, you've been repeating this in literally every post in this thread, as if nobody knew there was a world war over it. Like I said in the previous post, the shock value of this factoid isn't as big as you would like it to be.
@strypey She and the heads have been butchering the words democracy and decentralization. The software is centralized in the hands of a small core set of owners, who in turn decide policy amongst themselves. And she does not support democratic decision-making. The main joy she expresses in her article was about how she gets to control everything top-down and only lets people that pony up money to participate.
She’s as into democracy as any third rate small business owner is.
@jotaemei
> The software is centralized in the hands of a small core set of owners, who in turn decide policy amongst themselves
She didn't say the software is decentralised, she said the moderation is decentralised. Which it is, compared to the DataFarms they're being pressured to ape the centralised moderation of.
@jotaemei
> she does not support democratic decision-making. The main joy she expresses in her article was about how she gets to control everything top-down
... just like most fediverse servers. Yet we're happy to claim that the verse democratises social media.
@strypey Mastodon servers are substantially democratic in the sense that its meant by proponents in a way that Substack is not.
Can you spin up your own Substack server? Can you fork the software?
@strypey Of course I know she didn’t make that claim about the software. That’s the point. She omitted that crucial point while making the unsupportable claim that Substack is not a platform but that each writer is its own platform. Her claims can only pass by as long as they’re not interrogated about to what degree they’re actually true on the merits.
@jotaemei
> the unsupportable claim that Substack is not a platform but that each writer is its own platform
As she and others have said, the only way to find any particular kind of content on SubStack is to look for it. Just like the web in general. So SubStack is a platform in the same sense that a search engine is a platform.
Now if there are algorithms that show you stuff you didn't explicitly look for, like on the DataFarms, that's a different story.
I chose SubStack as a host precisely because they defend the universal human right to freedom of expression. In the face of increasingly entitled online censorship mobs from both the left and the right.
@zebratale
> There has been much written about the substack nazi issue that contains significantly more context than this black and white statement
There's only so much you can say in a single sentence. But I find Chomsky's statement to be a pretty good guiding star on the issue. He's written much more on the subject but I'm struggling to find it right now.
@strypey when we live in echo chambers free discourse has no devil's advocate, no attenuation, which I think is a foundation principle of free speech. As has been written about elsewhere, substack is not taking a stand for free speech; "We don’t allow porn or sexually exploitative content on Substack". So nazis are acceptable, sex workers are not. That's more than a little fucked up.
@zebratale
> substack is not taking a stand for free speech
I've only just learned about the anti-porn policy, so I need to look into that. But given some of the laws passed in the US recently regarding sexual content online, they may be doing the minimum to keep themselves on the right side of the law.
@zebratale
But I reject the implied argument that having a moderation policy is mutually incompatible with a principled defence of freedom of expression online. It's a matter of degrees.
Eg people can try to use free speech as a cover for libel but a platform would be unwise to host it once a court has ruled on it. Similarly with incitement to violence. A free speech absolutist might defend the right to do that as "speech", but one can disagree and still be a defender of free speech.
@strypey why apologise for a tech company which like many successful tech companies is just socialising costs while privatising profits. I have no real objection to anyone setting up a website and spewing their sad offensive opinions and there are no doubt providers that will accommodate those websites, also for money. Substack are simply happy to take the money while doing as little as possible to mitigate the social costs, because that would affect their profit. This is not about free speech.
@zebratale
> Substack are simply happy to take the money while doing as little as possible to mitigate the social costs, because that would affect their profit.
I can't speak to SubStack's motives. Although I've heard Hamish McKenzie interviewed on a social enterprise podcast I follow and I get the impression he's genuine.
> This is not about free speech
Whether or not it is for them, it is for me. What I said here applies to you to;
@zebratale
"The people who want Substack to do more won’t be satisfied... And the people who supported Substack will be annoyed that Substack was “pressured” into removing these accounts."
What Mike Masnick seems to miss is that this is true no matter what SubStack do. In my experience of cancel mobs, they get less satisfied and more entitled the more people capitulate to them. While the rest of us watch and facepalm as they do.
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