Comment on Substack says it will not remove or demonetize Nazi content
mo_ztt@lemmy.world 9 months agoWhere out of my message did you get that I was talking like it was harmless opinions? I get it that my tone was casual and I can apologize about that. Let me take it a little more seriously, then:
Let me guess, you’re not the kind of person that the Nazis are extremely keen on putting in a gas chamber?
Because you’re talking like this is just harmless, but unpopular opinions people have. Not a group of people who by definition think they are the master race and people who are “impure” need to be genocides.
I have a decent amount of Jewish ancestry and a Jewish name. I’m not practicing or anything. My parents had a friend who had the numbers tattooed on her arm.
Part of the reason I’m so casual about literal modern Nazis is that the modern threat of extremism isn’t specific to Jewish people. Hispanic people are probably more at risk; under Trump, ICE detention centers became temporarily something that any informed person would describe as for-real concentration camps. I think if it does start to happen in a big way in the US, it will probably start with trans and Hispanic people and continue from there.
But every single one of us, Jewish or LGBT or Hispanic or just Democrat-supporting, is at risk under a second Trump presidency or whatever the next iteration after Trump is. That’s not some abstract “I know your struggle” type of statement; I literally believe that Nazi-type violence and mass incarceration of “the enemy” are on the table according to a much wider swathe of the US populace than official-Nazi supporters.
And honestly I can’t fucking stand spineless cunts like you that think we can’t draw a reasonable line between Nazis calling for the end of entire races and for one of the worst atrocities in thr history of mankind to happen again, and Naom Chomsky. Putting “wrong” in quotation marks as if thinking genocidal racists being wrong is just a matter of opinion. And you have such little regard for the people that suffer at the hand of these scumbags that you think you can play devil’s advocate as a fun little excessive for yourself.
Okay, let me ask you, then. I have Facebook friends who make posts about getting themselves amped up for civil war if “the Democrats” keep it up. I would describe that as an atrocity. Dead is dead. A Jew in a concentration camp is just as dead as a Democrat who got shot by his neighbor because they got radicalized and decided today was the day (which has already happened, it’s just on a tiny scale at this stage).
Most of the way I talk about this issue is colored by that. I do take the threat of extremism seriously, because it’s already alive and well here, and growing. I think that figuring out what to do about the form in which it’s most likely to become a horrifying reality is fairly important. If Jews wind up going into modern-day concentration camps, they won’t be the first. They’ll be an afterthought, long after Trump’s political enemies and big segments of Hispanic (and maybe arab) people have gone in. If you’re serious about the threat to Jewish people and want me to take it seriously (which is fair), can I ask you to be serious about the threat to all the rest of us?
What is your solution to the people who want to write “shoot the Democrats because they stole the election and took away your country”? People who say that every day and platforms that give them voice? My feeling on it is the same as what I said to you about Nazis. But what, according to you, should we do that will work? I am more concerned about that, as a present-day urgent issue, than about “put the Jews into gas chambers” propaganda, although that’s clearly also horrifying.
gmtom@lemmy.world 9 months ago
This might blow your mind a little bit: depilatform them. Hatespeech is hatescppech, a call to violence is a call to violence. Neither is protected by your first amendment, and both should be completely and utterly illegal.
This isn’t some difficult mystery to figure out. There’s no catch 22 or irreconcilable conflict of rights going on here. Its pretty cut and dry. Anyone whether they’re a traditional nazi, neo nazi, maga nazi does not have the right to call for peoples deaths or for violence against them.
Germany has had restriction on Nazis for a long time now. And hasn’t had issues with censoring non-nazi speech. So why can’t your country?
And also, if you allow for Nazi speech, how far do you take it? do you let them draw up plans and organise gangs to hunt down undesirables? Only intervening when the physical violence actually starts?
If you do not work to prevent atrocities, and turn a blind eye to those trying to commit them then you are in fact tacitly complicit in those atrocities.
mo_ztt@lemmy.world 9 months ago
A lot of the thinking on things like free speech by the founding fathers was that it wasn’t like a “grant” of something the government is letting you do. It’s an acknowledgement of some simple physical realities of what thinking beings are going to do whether you “let them” or not. Nazis are going to talk to other Nazis. If you come into their Nazi place saying “whoa whoa whoa you can’t say that!”, they’re not going to just suddenly go, oh, my bad, you’re right, we won’t say that anymore. You might hate that the KKK is “allowed to exist” when their whole thing is violence, torture, basically organized evil. But, the government isn’t “allowing them to exist” in the same way it might let someone have a driver’s license. It’s more just that people good or bad are going to do certain things, and the government is acknowledging the reality.
I would actually put some other things in this list, sex work and drugs among them. For pretty much exactly the same reasons. I think as a matter of the fundamentals of law, they should be sort of in a “can’t be illegal” list, because it’s so weird and invasive to people’s liberty to even try.
The US had robust protections on speech by the KKK and the American Nazi party, before during and after World War 2. In Germany, before and after the war, it’s legal for the government to allow and forbid particular political parties, as they currently do with the Nazis. Fair enough. Which country was it that actually had a holocaust again? Why didn’t the Nazis do it in the US, where they had such robust protections on their ability to speak and organize?
So you can punish speech advocating for violence. It’s a tricky thing, because people will just speak in code, which is now happening all over the place. (I see that on Facebook – people will say, I can’t really say what I want to have happen, but we all know what the answer is. Things like that.) But yes, if someone says we have to kill the Jews, I think that should be illegal, whether or not they’re a Nazi. Talking to an associate to plan a robbery is illegal, publishing a newsletter planning a new holocaust is illegal. Saying the holocaust is a lie, I think should be legal. Saying Hitler was right, I think should be legal. That’s where I would draw the line.
It sounds – tell me if I’m wrong – like you think that I just don’t care about hate speech, or I don’t see why it might be a problem, or it’s not worth worrying about. Absolutely it’s a problem. On all this urgency you’re expressing, I 100% agree with you. I am saying that banning it makes that problem worse. Basically, my opposition to banning hate speech is because I don’t want it to “win.” The original internet (like Usenet era), the one I talked about way up there in my original comment, didn’t have anywhere near the level of embittered extremism that we see now. I think that’s because everyone was on the same network. Someone could go on and say “Hitler was right” and people pile on to tell that person why they were wrong. But you could say whatever you wanted. It’s like people who go to college and get less racist because they’re thrown into this big multicultural situation. There will still be racist people, yes. But things will be much worse, and people will be a lot less honest with you about their racist views, if the instant some person says something racist the college administation tells them they’re not welcome on campus anymore and they have to find a new society to be a part of that isn’t so multicultural. They get isolated and fester and find like-minded people to fester with. Which is what’s happening now on the internet.
I am sorry for talking so long; this is just important to me. The one last thing I’ll say – one main reason I’m so concerned about this is that I have a feeling that it won’t stop at Nazis; that as soon as Nazis are deplatformed they’ll start coming for the Joe Rogans and the Dave Chappelles on Substack, someone who is far from calling from a holocaust, but just has said something that someone decided isn’t allowed. Literal Nazis tend to call for genuine crimes, and tend to not attract as many followers as the kill-the-Democrats-oho-I-didn’t-mean-it-literally-wink crowd, so they’re easier to deal with. My main concerns are, please don’t try to censor the non-Nazis, and please what the fuck do we do about the new brand of extremists. I can’t literally agree with you that we should deplatform all my Facebook friends who call for violence in coded ways. I won’t claim to know what’s the right thing to do about this new type of propaganda but that doesn’t seem like the answer.
gmtom@lemmy.world 9 months ago
That is incredibly flawed reasoning you can use to justify literally anything. People have a tendency to murder each other, should we just acknowledge thats the reality and not bother trying to stop it?
This is not a good faith argument. Nazis weren’t outlawed in Germany until after the holocaust and you know that. They were able to come to power BECAUSE they enjoyed protections at the time. and US Nazis had a lot of influence in the US. Jews in the US were subject to much the same treatment as they were in pre-war Europe. American Nazis were effective in minimising US contributions to the war before Pearl Harbour. And thats not even to mention groups like the KKK and the Jim Crow era that came about because of them.
This is exactly the problem I have with Liberals. Its almost as if you only care about your own plausible deniability. “I didnt know he was planning on murdering Jews, all he did was say Hitler was right and shouldnt have been stopped (which is perfectly acceptable) I couldnt have known he would kill all those Jews, so my conscience is clean for putting in no effort to stop them”
Like seriously, if there was a prominent Nazi in your community saying shit like that. And someone you know personally came to you, saying they were scared the Nazi is going to hurt them, what would you do? Give them a nice long lecture on how the founding fathers wanted people to be able to be Nazis so they just have to deal with it? If then the next day, that Nazi killed them after you did nothing, would it weigh on your conscience at all? Or would your enlightened take of free speech keep it clean and let you hold your head high?
You can say this all you want, but if you dont take action and just turn a blind eye to it, then it does not matter in the slightest what you think. If you’re walking down the street and you see someone being beaten and you think to yourself “wow, violently beating someone is a problem” then carry on walking, are you any different than someone that enjoys seeing it?
Literally completely the opposite of reality. and you can clearly see that with places that allow these shitheads to congregate. Do you think twitter has become a place of enlightenment and de-radicalisation since Musk took over and went on his freedom of speech circle jerk? or do you think its gotten worse? Or how about 4Chan? Is that a bastion of mulitculturalism and understanding because they allow nazis? Because the PAINFULLY obvious reality is: If you allow nazis to communicate, find each other, spread their ideas and radicalise people who arent nazis, then OF FUCKING COURSE you just end up with more Nazis, that are better organised and have like minded people that can vindicate them, back them up and make them feel like theyre in the right. Like its such an obvious outcome that im struggling to believe you dont get and are acting in good faith. Like you talk about universities making people less racist, then say how bad it would be if the expelled Nazis, WHICH IS WHAT THEY CURRENTLY DO, and it WHY they are places that make people less racist, because theres no Nazis there to influence them and groom them to be massive racists.
I mean 1. thats a classic slippery slope fallacy, and 2. If they came for Rogan it would be for his misinformation, rather than hatespeech, which is a whole different kettle of fish.
mo_ztt@lemmy.world 9 months ago
I had a long day, so I don’t have time to do much more than some quick responses:
Humans naturally tend to talk to one another and communicate. Any amount of obstacles you try to put between them, they’ll find ways around unless you put way more effort in than is reasonable or safe into stopping them. With some rare exceptions, you should just let them communicate. It’s better. I don’t feel the same way about murder.
The US has strong protections for abhorrent-to-the-majority political speech. It’s one of its notably unique features, and was virtually un-heard-of in other governments as of the early 20th century. Once the Nazis were in the majority in Germany, of course their speech was going to be protected, but I’m saying that their rights as a minority party, before they came into power, weren’t formally protected by law in Germany in the same way they were in the US. There was no German ACLU making sure that they couldn’t get in trouble for having rallies. And yet, somehow, they made it work and took control in Germany. And yet, somehow, in the US where they were allowed to have rallies and publish newspapers and etc before during and after the German Nazis lost the war, they were never able to take over. That leads me to think that them having a platform or not isn’t as critical a factor in their spread as it sounds like you’re saying it is.
My family was Jewish, earlier than pre-war, in Europe. It depended on your specific part of Europe, by as a general rule, this isn’t even close to accurate. That’s why we came to the US. This is a pretty good high level summary.
I hate Nazis. I’m not saying all this because I want Naziism to grow in the US. I’m saying it because I consider Nazi speech so abhorrent that giving it a good airing will turn people against it more than it will attract people to it. I don’t think people are as simple-minded as “I saw Nazi stuff” -> “am Nazi now”. I have a hard time believing your summary of how it works on college campuses if you don’t kick out the Nazis. Who are some examples of students who’ve been kicked out of their colleges because they were Nazis? Thus protecting the rest of them? I just have trouble believing that it happens the way you’re describing.
I’ll say this – the one person I know who comes to mind offhand who’s interacted with a real IRL neo-Nazi, it was in Germany, not in the US.
On 4chan, you kind of have a point. 4chan has specific features (primarily anonymity) that are attractive to Nazis and encourage their spread. Twitter has full-throated support for Nazis built into it from the founder. I think those factors are important too, not just the failure to kick out Nazis. I do think there’s a good case to be made there to contrast different ways of designing networks so that they won’t form breeding grounds for Nazis. My personal belief is that something like “Substack with Nazis” would be very, very different from 4chan and modern Twitter. My evidence? Substack today is Substack with Nazis, and it’s very very different from 4chan and modern Twitter.