I've seen Patreon kicking people off their platform for political reasons, so it is not decentralized, though certainly more so than alternatives existing before Patreon.
The evolution will converge towards content creators being funded through decentralized crypto currency platforms so that the money cannot be prevented from getting to creators if someone wants to pay them.
Something more along the lines of https://lbry.io/ and similar..
Currently BTC and the like are push vs pull payment systems, so until smart contracts are widely used to enable subscription payments, this will be a blocker.
They kicked off 8chan but kept The Sarkeesian Effect so in my opinion they've got it exactly right. They keep up pretty nasty stuff in the name of free speech, but don't let you cross the line into doxing and the like.
I much prefer having sensible humans at the helm than have something purely anonymous.
There is no "getting it right" in free speech. Either you allow free speech or you don't, if you are keeping one controversial thing but kick out the other you gave up on free speech. You can't kick someone out because you think its right and claim allowing free spech.
That is a very US-centric view of free speech. In many other (developed, democratic) countries, a lot of the shit 8chan does would be viewed as incitement to violence, hate speech, and/or invasion of privacy. The absolutist conception of free speech in the US is an outlier.
It's not even a US-centric view of speech; it's just absolutist internet nonsense. The US, like other countries, has a very complex set of case laws that govern speech. Though hate speech is basically protected, incitement is illegal. Doxing in and of itself is not usually illegal, but on the Internet doxing is usually done as a part of some scheme to blackmail, threaten, or harass someone, all of which are criminal. US speech laws are less restrictive than the laws in many European countries, but to paint them as just some sort of carte-blanche is not correct.
Even in the U.S. most corporate-run platforms are fairly restrictive, many more restrictive than Patreon. Speech on commercial platforms has a completely different set of norms in the U.S. than speech in government-controlled or public spaces. This has actually caused Patreon trouble in the past, because on some axes they're less restrictive than U.S. corporate norms, which has caused friction with other companies they deal with who want them to restrict their userbase more. For example they've had trouble with Paypal over allowing not-porn-but-still-NSFW Patreons on the platform, which violates Paypal's no adult content policy. I believe they worked around that by allowing those users to stay on Patreon but restricting them to take only CC payments and not Paypal payments.
If those activities are crimes in a country, then prosecute the crime. It shouldn't be up to a random middle-man like Patreon to be judge and jury and make those (sometimes very difficult) decisions. It's akin to my grocery deciding to not sell me an apple because I'm a suspected murderer. There are better and more formalized methods to deal with violations of social norms.
If a someone shows up and orders 5 tons of ammonium nitrate in December and want's it shipped to Washington DC that's very much a reason to decline and possibly contact law enforcement even as a private citizen. Similarly, free speech has never been an invitation to say anything in any way at any time.
In some ways, US cultural norms over sex, or nudity are incredibly restrictive. To some US corps, nazi apologism is OK and a defending it a vital part of free speech. But female nipples are the worst thing ever and must be banned.
It's a very libertarian (puerile) view of free speech. The rest of us understand principles like civility, that your rights stop where mine begin, don't yell "fire!" in a crowded theater, balancing rights and responsibilities, and that hatespeech is a form of assault.
"Government" in this context is not some well-defined cohesive autocratic whole.
The liberal democratic nations have separation of powers: legislature, courts, law enforcement, civil society.
Through these institutions we attempt to develop laws, regulations, and codes of conduct, that attempt to define acceptable behaviour, rights and responsibilities, protections, and punishments.
This is all in a constant state of flux, there is no end-point, no "this is how it is, for all time and places and circumstances".
We should probably, at a minimum, be vocal about what we believe and support.
There is no right answer here, only opinions, and attempts at persuasive argument. That's all we have.
>>Through these institutions we attempt to develop laws, regulations, and codes of conduct, that attempt to define acceptable behaviour, rights and responsibilities, protections, and punishments.
This is where I disagree. I am proponent of Lockean natural or self evident rights. Government's sole purpose it is protect my individual rights that I have simply because I exist. These rights are an extension of my Self Agency or Self Ownership.
Government is not to define what is "accptable behaviour" or to define what my rights are, or what codes of conduct is to be.
Law should simply be the collective organization of the individual right to lawful defense. This common force is to only protect persons, liberty and property.
There's no point in me repeating the most hateful things that have ever been directed at me, but they certainly were hurtful and made me feel bad.
With that being said, having been the victim of assault multiple times in my life, once needing extensive hospitalization due to the injuries sustained, I can comfortably say that I don't view these two things as being remotely analogous and wholly reject the notion that speech, even speech that I find hurtful or distasteful, is assault.
Well I think this illustrates how difficult it is to come to any consensus on these kinds of issues. Even people that have had similar experiences can come to wildly different conclusions.
Edit: I'll also add that while I personally disagree with your premise that speech can be categorized as assault, I don't think that your position is necessarily unreasonable. Again, I'm not in agreement but it isn't so outrageous a view that I think well meaning and thoughtful people couldn't hold those same views. However, when you start off your argument by stating that anyone holding a contrary opinion must be puerile(I'm not very smart so I had to make sure I remembered the correct definition) it doesn't lend itself to any meaningful discussion.
"Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words can never hurt me". This old cliche is underappreciated in our day and age.
Individuals are free to choose the way they process the information and commentary they receive. When someone physically assaults you, there is no choice involved, and your life is legitimately and immediately threatened by such activity in the real, physical, and non-abstract sense.
It is great that we are all thinking about what we say, but speech is unequivocally not the same as physical assault, and it's farcical to suggest it should be.
If only this were in any way true. There is a such thing as mental abuse, after all. Some folks lived through this growing up. Gaslighting is just words too. Folks kill themselves due to harassment. That harassment? Yeah, it can be nothing more than daily messages and/or phone calls and/or letters. Widespread, open racist speech generally signals an environment where racist actions are well-tolerated, I'm assuming (I have no links to back it up at the time). Oh, and this mental distress from words can produce physiological symptoms. But hey, they are nothing more than words, right?
The old cliche you speak of only works in a few situations. Someone calling you names or saying mean things on the street don't really hurt you if they are isolated incidents. This is the usual context when this is used. But in a broader sense? It simply doesn't pan out. It isn't the same thing, no, but I'm not sure why that matters. A slap on the rear someone should be able to get over, a punch maybe not. I'm pretty sure both can be prosecuted as physical assult in some situations yet in others, be perfectly acceptable courses of action. Same with words, it depends on how you use them to how much damage it will do.
I used to be a Chomsky-esque defender of free speech. Believing the correct response to Holocaust denial was refuting it, not banning it.
But now we know better. How you talk changes how you think. Violent rhetoric normalizes that behavior. Refuting misbeliefs cements the falsehood. Propaganda works.
Worse, the hate speech has become a virtue signal, a tribal identifier. It's become overtly political, a bludgeon.
I now prefer to think of free speech as a form of hygiene. Sure, feel free to poop on the sidewalk, but don't expect me to accept that as permissible behavior.
I see this trend as deeply disturbing where only those official journalist are allowed to write satirical essays online and common persons are banned because they become labeled as racists, mysogenists etc. Heck even PewDiePie was kicked from youtube red because some journalists blatantly mislabeled his satire as racism.
This debate, like most, has a bell curve distribution of positions. Two tails of snowflakes on either side, throwing tantrums, yelling at each other, and the majority in the middle who are tired of their shit.
Who's right? Who's wrong? I don't care. I'm fresh out of goodwill.
My only desire is that society stop enabling the bickering. Which will continue as long as clickbaiting (selling advertisement) makes money.
Exactly. The link from thinking about doing something and actually doing it is much less if one can openly talk about doing it. Oddly enough, much like the act of pooping.
It's true in the ways that are pertinent to this discussion. Another poster equated speech with assault. I would guess most with that worldview haven't spent much time being assaulted in the physical sense.
No one is saying that words don't have significance or power. The point is that, in a very literal way, words can never hurt, physically hurt, those who hear them. The listener has time to collect their thoughts, understand the circumstances, and choose an interpretation and a reaction. We hope they will choose healthy interpretations and reactions, even if the original speaker did not.
Meanwhile, a victim of a true violent crime like a mugging, carjacking, or politically-motivated beating doesn't have time to think down the road about how badly someone's words hurt their psyche, because they're busy bleeding and dying, in the literal sense that their body may permanently cease to function, if they aren't treated within minutes or hours. They were attacked without choice or option, and their body is reacting to the physical realities thrust upon it, and all the victim can really do is try to remain optimistic about things.
Yes, it is sad when someone is bullied or otherwise made to feel bad about themselves. But it isn't anywhere near the same thing as a person who has undergone an actual assault.
The saying really is not really hard to grasp, and it's widely applicable. That's why it's a tired old cliche. :)
How far do you want to take this? Criticizing someones religion might hurt their feelings but greatly benefit the society and democracy. Does it mean that critique of a religion or religious sects should be banned or should we just prohibit the critique or those which proponents are most vocal, intolerant or justifying to literally turn to violence about their religion?
I think that one should be clear here and distinguish between slander/defamation of a person and speech that "hurts someones feelings". If I criticize the ideas that you hold and it hurts your feelings it's is not a mental abuse if you start to interpret it that way it's your fault and should seek the psychiatrist. There is a real danger that we keep redefining words: hateful speech, mental abuse. Ideas are not people, religion is not an ethnicity, your beliefs are not sacred. What is a form of mental abuse btw is indoctrinating your (or someones) children, meaning religious schools are a form of mental abuse, sending your kids to a political party camp or enforcing your particular ideology on them is a form of mental abuse etc. But somehow everyone keeps ignoring it, it's not my kids so why should I care; I regard it as deeply hurtful for society.
To clarify, I am not saying that words cannot be hurtful. I am saying that they are not equivalent to physical assault, as someone else in the thread asserted. Physical assault presents a much more immediate personal danger, and deserves to be distinguished from verbal exchange.
>Individuals are free to choose the way they process the information and commentary they receive.
Some individuals fight tooth and nail to silence this idea because they're threatened by the implication that their own choices have any role to play in their misery. Life requires a lot less effort when everything bad is somebody else's fault.
That's a very (puerile) characterization of the libertarian view of freedom of speech. It's entirely possible believe both that one should be civil to others and that a centralized body should not actively punish speech.
The problem is deciding who gets to define those concepts in edge cases. Otherwise motivated parties try to push everything they don't like into those categories. "Hate speech" is a common example.
The same problem accompanies definitions of "free speech." People may be interested in broadening the concept of free speech so that it shelters harassment, abuse, hate speech, and generally toxic behavior, and allows communities compatible with those behaviors to drive out communities incompatible with them, and effectively take over communication platforms. Some people even use "free speech" to mean creating automated twitter bots to intentionally push false news stories or reddit bots to manipulate vote totals for stories (this is admittedly an extreme view, but I have seen it expressed first hand by people who don't think it's extreme at all.)
Who gets to decide draw the line between the sincere desire for free speech, and extending the line to include disingenuous calls for "free speech" which are designed to shelter forms of toxic and manipulative behavior that people are just using as a tool to push their preferred ideology?
Consider the speech the US founding fathers used leading up to the American Revolutionary War. Some of that speech wouldn't be allowed under any government, including the US. Yet it is by no means immoral or wrong (at least I don't think so). This is an interesting case where the law not only isn't moral, but cannot be moral (unless we take an almost anarchist view that even libertarians would be wary of).
As to focusing on hate speech in particular, I see two major issues at play. What exactly counts as hate speech and who is protected from it. Disagreements on these lead to some people saying hate speech should because they are viewing a definition of hate speech they don't agree with.
Are there any legal precedents upholding this? Being the inciting ring-leader of a violent mob is one thing, but if someone called me a mick for spilling their Guinness, I wouldn't call that an assault
"Hate speech is speech which attacks a person or group on the basis of attributes such as race, religion, ethnic origin, sexual orientation, disability, or gender. In the law of some countries, hate speech is described as speech, gesture or conduct, writing, or display which is forbidden because it incites violence or prejudicial action against or by a protected group, or individual on the basis of their membership of the group, or because it disparages or intimidates a protected group, or individual on the basis of their membership of the group."
It times past, I'd just use LMGTFY. But now? I dunno. Maybe I've lost the will to live.
Except the entire founding of the US was based on violent "free speech" advocating the overthrow of an oppressive government. So up until fairly recently it was the norm to view speech, even violent speech, as aligning with the US Constitution.
An example of speech that is actually illegal in the U.S. -- saying "[The President] ought to be killed. It is a wonder some one has not done it already. If I had an opportunity, I would do it myself." [1]
Sending a few messages along the lines of
"Hang yourself, jump off a building, stab yourself I don't know there's a lot of ways"
and
"All you have to do is turn the generator on and you will be free and happy"
"fire" in a crowded theater when there's no fire is not the controversial scenario.
It's when you yell "fire" in a crowded theater when there is a fire, and that is outlawed.
"Hate speech" is a hecklers veto on telling the truth. On speaking truth to power. On criticizing, mocking, disagreeing, debating about ideas, people, groups, political policies, governments, special interests, religions etc.. that are off limits from scrutiny and insult.
It has no limiting principle, is not well defined, is subjective to an absurd degree, and essentially nullifies the 1st amendment.. because almost anything controversial can be labeled hate speech. As if hurt feelings or even deplorable points of view are the ultimate crimes to be legislated against.
Throughout human history, when totalitarian regimes have oppressed millions of people, there was no limit to what could have been labeled hate speech when professing views against the government.
Free exchange and debate in a free marketplace of ideas should allow anyones stupid point of view to be presented and defeated / opposed, supported, agreed with, or not.
Why people should be outlawed from hating things that they want to hate is beyond me. Professing an opinion or belief about something or someone in and of itself should not be restricted, as long as their actions or presentation of said ideas is consistent with allowing others to do the same. So bullying and intimidation and other forms of such...no.
Freedom above all else. Give me liberty or death..
Patreon is not a government body. If you host a bake sale open to everyone in your house, you can and should kick out the screaming lunatics that keep making a mess.
The screaming lunatics are free to host their own bake sale at their house.
Ok, and. Do you believe only governments are a threat to free speech?
Free Speech is a concept that every person, every company, every government should work to up hold.
While governments can and have been the source of censorship, that is not the only source.
Today free speech is under massive assault not by Government but by Society at large, society it seems have lost all respect for the concept, instead of holding the position of "I disagree with what you say but I will fight for your right to say it" people instead hold the idea "I disagree with what you say so I will boycott companies that hire you, or allow you to speak, or do anything to even tangentially associate themselves with you" and increasingly people have the position of "I disagree with you so I will punch you in the face"
This is very very scary and is direct assault on free speech.
No it isn't, it's an exercise in property rights and a reminder that most of the "internet" as we know it, including this very board, is private property.
Barring a legally binding contract or criminal activity, no one is under any obligation to protect the civil rights of those on their property. If I wanted to hold a "whites only" house party and turn away minorities at the door, I can do that. If I refuse to allow protesters to use my front lawn as a staging area, I can do that. If I own a website and someone says something I don't like, I can ban them. If someone doesn't like Patreon's policies then they are welcome to start Conservatreon.
I think the scarier prospect is people thinking that property holders should be forced to act as law enforcement within their domains, and to make determinations about civil rights. Sure it may seem rosy for free speech, but you're opening the flood gates with that one.
Free speech simply says that you can't be arrested for speaking. It doesn't say people have to listen, and forcing people to listen is only going to worsen the situation you describe.
Can an American business serve "whites only" ? Are you advocating that American businesses should have the right to restrict service based on skin color ?
No and no, I'm not advocating anything of the sort. My point is simply that property holders, at least in America, are under no obligation to enforce rights. They are under obligation to not commit crimes, and as a nation we've decided that a business refusing service on the basis of skin color is a crime.
Refusing to rebroadcast or support the opinions of someone you don't like is at present not a crime, and I sincerely hope it stays that way. Because otherwise you have to apply the same logic to other rights. And that sort of extremism leads to some crazy outcomes.
For example, in the US the 2nd amendment is, under the law, of equal importance as the 1st. So should I, as a gun owner, demand that I should be allowed to carry my firearm anywhere, on anyone's property; and claim that for them to deny me that right is a violation of my 2nd amendment rights? I'm pro-gun and even to me that sounds crazy, as it would to many pro-gunners who are usually big on personal property rights. There's a reason Full30.com exists.
Or how about the right to freedom of assembly (also part of the first amendment)? Should I be forced to allow protesters to use my property, as disallowing them violates their first amendment rights?
>> as it would to many pro-gunners who are usually big on personal property rights.
You do know there are many gun owners that advocate for passing laws that make signs stating a property is "gun free" to be unenforceable as a matter of law right?
And view "gun free" government buildings to be unconstitutional
I've heard of opposition to those signs for businesses and public areas, with an argument that carrying a gun in public is a civil right. I've never heard of any serious opposition for forcing guns on personal property, like homes. I'm sure some wingnuts are out there on the ultra-libertarian fringe, but I've yet to meet one in real life.
For my part I see the signs as useful. If I see a "gun free" sign on a business that just tells me to spend my money elsewhere if possible.
> So should I, as a gun owner, demand that I should be allowed to carry my firearm anywhere, on anyone's property; and claim that for them to deny me that right is a violation of my 2nd amendment rights? I'm pro-gun and even to me that sounds crazy, as it would to many pro-gunners who are usually big on personal property rights.
There are many, many gun owners who argue exactly that. That "gun free zones" are anti-Constitutional, be those zones publicly owned, or privately owned.
It isn't. However those arguments are against PUBLIC gun free zones, with an extension to businesses; and there is a debate to be had there that will probably need a supreme court case to decide. However I've yet to hear anyone say that you should be allowed to carry a gun into someone else's home against their will. In fact most gun owners would say you'd be well within your rights to shoot an armed intruder on your property.
It's directly analogous to my previous example. It is illegal for businesses to deny service on the basis of skin color. It isn't, however, illegal for a private residence to do so.
Sigh... Such a predictable response I should have address this in my original comment
Sure the Right of association, and I suppose property rights give them the legal ability to this.
However most of these platform publicly and loudly proclaim themselves as "Free Speech Platform", open to all points of view, open to all. Even in the public responses to the outcry over the bannings on Patreon their first statement was "See support free speech but...."
Once they add the but, they show themselves to not be supporters of free speech, instead they show themselves to be supporters of limited speech as defined by theit terms of that is acceptable speech.
Saying "We Support limited acceptable speech" however does not make for a good sound bite.
Claiming to support free speech while imposing speech codes, rules and terms is Fraud IMO.
So if platforms want to censor, want to limit speech fine, they need to stop claiming they support free speech when they do not. To do otherwise should be considered fraud
Most of these platform get to be very very large to the point of more or less monopolistic due to their claims of supporting free speech, then once they are the market dominate force they bait and switch their users and become a limited speech platform. That is a classic old as time form of fraud.
>>I think the scarier prospect is people thinking that property holders should be forced to act as law enforcement within their domains, and to make determinations about civil rights.
I am not even sure what that means or the point you are attempting to convey here, Nothing I stated indicated that property holders should be forced to act as law enforcement.....
>>Free speech simply says that you can't be arrested for speaking.
No, that is not what "free speech simply says" Free Speech is a ethical axiom. Even wikipedia does not have such a limited view of the concept, the first line in the Wikipedia entry on Freedom of Speech is "Freedom of speech is the right to articulate one's opinions and ideas without fear of government retaliation or censorship, or societal sanction" See the "or societal sanction" part.
Well fine, sue them for false advertising. Or if that's untenable than let's get a law passed that says if a business claims, as part of its marketing, to support a right then they have a legal obligation to civilly enforce said right at their place(s) of business. I'd be on board with that.
As for the rest, it would appear I'm thinking more from an (American) legal perspective and the implications of various measures that might be taken, whereas you're thinking from a more philosophical perspective. If you have a way to prevent "societal sanction" without violating other rights in the process then I suggest you find a way to get nominated for a Nobel.
It's all well and good to state that everyone should listen to everyone else and that not to do so is a violation of free speech. I'm just not sure how that goes beyond theory. Even in the most benign case, that of time, people have to sleep. Am I violating someone's right to free speech if I refuse to listen on account of exhaustion? Would my old college dormitory's "quiet hours" be considered "societal sanction"?
>As for the rest, it would appear I'm thinking more from an (American) legal perspective and the implications of various measures that might be taken,
No you are seeing me state that is a violation of Freedom of Speech and jump the erroneous conclusion that I desire some kind of law, or legal penalty for that violation. I do not.
I merely want to people recognize that it is infact a violation of the concept and stop defending companies when they violate the concept or at least stop saying that is "not a free speech violation" when it clearly is.
If you support the censorious actions have the balls to call them censorious and stand by them.
> Am I violating someone's right to free speech if I refuse to listen on account of exhaustion? Would my old college dormitory's "quiet hours" be considered "societal sanction"?
Aside from the fact this is strawman lets address it anyone
Inaction on your personal part of not listening would not violating the other persons right to express themselves.
You showing up where the person is speaking with a bull horn to suppress their speech is, setting fire to a building to shut down speech is, blocking the entrances to building where speech is taking place is, boycotting advertisers is, calling employers and getting people fired is.
See all of the examples I give are POSITIVE actions people use to SUPPRESS the speech of others.
As to your college dorm "quit hours", this likely would not be a free speech violation either provided the dorms where not promoted or advertised a public space where people free to express themselves and that the hours where clearly known , established and enforced uniformly. How if there were not published quite hours, and tue night there was a vegan rally that was allowed to occur, but then on wed night there was gun rights rally that was shut down because of "quite hours" then yes I would consider that to be free speech violation.
It seems like you're claiming the success of Patreon is due to its support of the concept of "Free Speech", and by not allowing certain groups to use their website as a platform to spread their message (for example, hate speech), they're in violation of their founding principles.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it up to them who they want to do business with? What is the obligation this non-governmental entity has to act as host?
In a sense, wouldn't forcing Patreon to be open to all (again including groups with a message of hate and inciting violence) be a violation of their rights?
"No you are seeing me state that is a violation of Freedom of Speech and jump the erroneous conclusion that I desire some kind of law, or legal penalty for that violation. I do not."
" forcing people to listen is only going to worsen the situation you describe."
Personally I don't think these companies should be legally forced to support freedom of discourse on their platforms by the government.
I think that consumers should force the companies to support free speech, and they should punish companies that support censorship by boycotting those companies into bankruptcy.
The world is a better place when it is free from censorship. Censorship is still bad, even if it is legal and done by private parties. Censorship supporting people and companies should be bankrupted by the market.
I love censorship! Without moderation once a site gets big enough it devolves into the least common denominator - spam, shit posts, abuse, and trolling. See YouTube comments for one example.
This site itself is highly censored (in the form of rules and moderation) so you aren't even upholding your own ideals by commenting here.
Not sure what you mean by highly censored, I've seen plenty of unpopular opinions on HN and people that were expressing them were never banned, in fact those users were fairly rude without being personal.
Not allowing personal attacks on HN is not just a common courtesy, it protects it users from defamation, falsehoods about their life and kidnapping of topics; those are all reasons that are perfectly compatible with freedom of speech. Detaching a tread is not censoring, I never seen it happen because of uncomfortable opinions but when it becomes hugely off topic it's clearly a valid thing to do.
I'm not the one censoring people on Hacker News, and I don't have the ability to unilaterally boycott a site and have it matter.
That's not how boycotts work.
If I were able to convince millions of people to my side, THEN I would start doing the boycott stuff.
That is the only way to have boycotts work. You have to get millions of people to be on your side and everyone has to do it all at once.
But if I had a magic wand that I could wave that would make this happen, then I'd absolutely do so.
It'd be like if I criticized a dictator and you responded by saying "well, if you hate our Supreme leader so much, then why don't you form a revolutionary movement and see how THAT works for you".
no one is saying you can't say things, they are just saying you can't say things in certain places. there have ALWAYS been regulations, both legal and market, on what you can say on tv, radio, in newspapers. 50 years ago you could write your pro-nazi holocaust denying op ed but it isnt a violation of free speech when the new york times refused to publish it.
now we have large mainstream internet communities like reddit that also put justifiable limits on what can be said. no one is saying you cant start a racist irc channel or bbs board, they are saying that horrible things shouldn't be said on a massive platform that millions of people see
> 50 years ago you could write your pro-nazi holocaust denying op ed but it isnt a violation of free speech when the new york times refused to publish it.
The New York times also never publicly advertised themselves as a "Free Speech Platform" that was "open to all persons and views"
>they are saying that horrible things shouldn't be said on a massive platform that millions of people see
Well one, it is clear you yourself are not a supporter of Freedom of Speech.
Two, so do you believe that a massive platform with millions of people should be forced to sensor speech you find to be "horrible"
One of the things I always question when people start classify speech as "horrible" is who subjective it is. For example I think it is "horrible" that the christian region is given prominent placement in society. I believe the views of the Christian Region to be "horrible" and I consider indoctrinating children into said religion to be abuse. Would you support a massive platform banning all references to Christianity? And if they did would support them calling themselves "Supporters of Free Speech" while doing so?
//and before the Christians get all butt hurt, I oppose any and all organized religions, I think they are all bullshit. Christianity however is the most popular religion in America so I use it to highlight my point
if you think that calling racism or nazism horrible is "subjective" then you clearly have no solid principles and this conversation is over
i think you're wrong about christianity, and we can debate whether or not advocacy of it should be allowed on a public platform. i think comparing it to nazism, targeted harassment, child porn/revenge porn, and hate speech (really the only things banned on reddit for example) is delusional
Mostly, society at large has - finally! - lost all respect for the screeching lunatics who try to incite violence and destroy democracy, and we're starting to kick them out of places.
Maybe Free Speech wouldn't be under such an assault if people weren't saying that you have to allow everything, including harassment and doxxing, to not be "assaulting free speech".
Not to mention that doxxing and harassment are not free speech in the first place.
The issue is that those rules are enforced energetically and stringently against dissidents, but are often not enforced or enforced in a lax way for orthodox activists.
E.g. Anita Sarkeesian publicly calling one of her online political opponents a shithead and garbage human from the stage at a conference. He was sitting in the audience quietly. Result: he (not she) gets barred from returning on the grounds that his presence was somehow threatening, while her open vicious insults are passed over.
E.g. Zoe Quinn's crash override network had a chat log leaked where they were organizing harassment and doxing. No consequence.
Double standards everywhere.
This is why they like super vague terms like harassment and hate speech. If the term has huge flexibility, the people with power have huge arbitrary power to apply it.
I'm sorry, but your examples are quite out of context. Read the story about Sarkeesian's thing. Those people were there specifically for harassment. I cannot be upset at her for calling him out, and I cannot be upset that he was banned.
As for the other one, you're gonna have to provide proof.
Not that it's worth wading too far into this, but there is no good reason to believe those people were there specifically for harassment.
For one, if they were there to harass, you would expect them to have done some harassing. I have seen no examples of that. The only possible thing that could be construed as harassing behaviour was them being there in the first place - and I don't think that's a very high bar to set for harassment.
I mean, you can watch the videos[0] of the event yourself. None of it looked particularly harassing to me, until Sarkeesian started attacking the audience.
Not sure what exactly you're referring to when you say 'the story' but the articles I've seen don't seem to paint the same picture ([1] for example).
[0] First video I found, shows the whole talk. The point in question comes about 2:30 into the video.
"Not that it's worth wading too far into this, but there is no good reason to believe those people were there specifically for harassment."
Yes, their is. Their behavior, both at the event and their prior behavior online towards her both suggest that is the entire reason for them being there.
>> Read the story about Sarkeesian's thing. Those people were there specifically for harassment.
Maybe you need to read unbiased news because they were not, nor did they do anything that could even remotely considered harassment. Attending a talk of your political opposite is not harassment
Though I do think they went WAY over board on the reaction to being called "Garbage Human" but I understand why as they are correct if the roles where reversed the SJW reaction would have been FAR FAR more dramatic...
It is very much not a lie. They sat in the first three rows, and they were all pointing cameras at her. Hell, some of those people even went on youtube after to brag about what they did.
That's technically true, but the Patreon CEO has claimed that they're committed to free speech, which is false if they're going to kick out screaming lunatics who are protected under the definition of free speech. If so they shouldn't get credit for it.
Even though it's not a governing body, consumers and content creators both might still value free speech in any kind of marketplace/middleman regardless.
Government is a sufficient but not necessary condition for upholding free speech.
But Twitter has stayed relevant by allowing a screaming lunatic become President. In multiple countries. The platforms don't know what the fuck they are doing imho.
The 1st Amendment is only an acknowledgment that the government can't infringe on a natural right that pre-existed. If a company wants to proclaim an open platform but selectively enforce speech restrictions, then in a sense it is diminishing natural rights.
If it's an online platform dedicated to bake sales, then it's fine to limit it to that. But things like Youtube aren't -- they are a dominant platform and it's at least immoral or an affront to Enlightenment ideals to selectively limit from speech they disagree with based on political views.
thats the nature of the free market - if you don't like patreon, start your own more nazi-friendly site and see how it goes (hint: poorly). the state is unique in that it has a monopoly on regulating speech - a state should have very very little power in regulating what can be said, because you can't avoid the state. you can always find an internet community that will allow you to say something truly vile.
If we reduce free speech to a binary yes/no, then almost no where has free speech because everywhere has limits on what it will allow. They might have as free of speech as legally possible. They may even allow some illegal content (stuff that is technically illegal but three letter agencies won't spend time hunting you down for hosting). But if we have it as a binary option, then no where has free speech.
Also, to somewhat contradict what I just said, most places don't even have 'as allowed to the maximum extent of the law' free speech. A really good test, would a website support nude non-pornographic images that aren't illegal (at least by federal US statute) but which most everyone will assume are illegal at first glance? I'm willing to bet they won't.
You can find a happy medium, allowing all but the most egregious things. Human judgement isn't perfect, but it's good enough, because ban-worthy content is relatively rare. Freedom of speech is like personal liberty: Do what you want without harming others.
Want to talk politics from a moderate, conservative, liberal, socialist, or libertarian perspective? Sure. But advocating violent revolution is something different.
There's a lot of room between a totalitarian Ministry of Thought and enabling actively harmful extremism.
even the most insane libertarian couldn't defend that position. by your definition doxing, targeted harassment and child pornagraphy is "free speech"
free speech means everyone can participate in a marketplace of ideas, where competing perspectives challenge each other to expose the truth. i don't think you could defend targeted harassment and advocacy of violence by that measure.
Free speech doesn't mean without consequence, you said nasty things people don't agree, they can choose to not offer you service, just like how restaurants do, and it is entirely within their freedom of speech.
That's not the point... the point is, these platforms get large & controlling, and become the only game in town (by their nature, network effects and all), and people will get sick of playing the game.
Decentralized uncensorable platforms will take their place, funded by currency that cannot by blocked.
I don't think Patreon or any similar company would take the inevitable PR blows to satisfy a few free speech purists, and those few lack the numbers to support an ungoverned alternative. It's unfortunate that digital infrastructure that relies on a critical mass often has to come to fruition in the form of a business.
"People have indeed falsely shouted "Fire!" in crowded public venues and caused panics on numerous occasions, such as at the Royal Surrey Gardens Music Hall of London in 1856, a theater in New York's Harlem neighborhood in 1884,[1] and in the Italian Hall disaster of 1913, which left 73 dead. In the Shiloh Baptist Church disaster of 1902, over 100 people died when "fight" was misheard as "fire" in a crowded church causing a panic and stampede."
The classic example of shouting "Fire!" is in fact not a matter of free speech at all. It's an intentional attempt at physical harm, which falls entirely outside the realm of free of speech.
It's identical conceptually to walking up to someone and blasting an airhorn in their ear. That too is an act of physical violence, not free speech, and you're responsible for the consequences (such as hearing damage) just as with the act of shouting "Fire!".
The interesting point to think about is not restrictions on telling lies to incite panic & possible injury...
but rather, restrictions on telling the truth, such as outlawing shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theater when there's actually a fire.
This is what defining "right think" means, where you have to confine your discourse to what is socially acceptable, whether or not what you're saying is true.
This is the real problem, and vague corporate or government policies outlawing "hate speech" are vague, subjective, Orwellian, and don't event attempt to assess truthiness or falsiness.. they appeal to hurt feelings. Which are always and forever in the eye of the beholder. A hecklers veto to ideas one disagrees with.
It's beyond scary that so many smart people here and around the country & world are perfectly fine to go down this road...
This has nothing to do with free speech, which is protection from government prosecution only (and even then it's tempered by certain situations like threatening attacks against others).
Private organizations or communities can do whatever they want. It's frustrating to constantly see the same argument as if everyone must be allowed on every platform - that's simply not the case.
This question applies to every organization in the history of the world. It's logically impossible to design any kind of social system that can't be ruined by people.
I don't think AI really solves the problem. The question "What happens when sensible humans are no longer at the helm?" really means "What happens when people with different priorities are at the helm?" It's totally possible for a sane being, artificial or not, to take over Patreon and prioritize profit, or enforce their own values, or even shut down the site.
The core problem is that you're interacting with entities you can't control. It's almost tautological; if you can't control them, by definition they can do things you don't like.
I've only read the first Culture book, but I'm pretty sure the Idirans didn't feel like the Culture AIs were "sensible".
An AI would need to live a human life in a human body in order to understand what "benevolence to humans" means, and such an experience would make it functionally equivalent to a human with a cloud prosthesis.
I see how empathy can help, but I disagree its required.
We could choose to be benevolent to octupi in a number of ways. We know killing them is bad from their perspective. We know that some like making homes and all like eating certain eating food and we know many other things. We could get very far by acting in accordance with their apparent desires and simply not exploiting them or their environment.
There's no way to understand anything you can't map on to your embodied experience of the world.
You can only even perceive their apparent desires to the extent you can map them onto your own experiences.
You could offer them language for controlling you, and they could learn to use it according to their desires, through trial and error, but without shared bodily experience you cant understand those desires.
And them being able to control you doesn't solve the benevolence problem. Because benevolence is understanding without ceding control. For you to be benevolent you need to actually understand them, which requires shared experience.
This is why I think consent is a much better basis for social coordination than benevolence.
In the case of AIs it is somewhat moot, because the first general/hard AIs will be clones of humans in humanoid bodies.
I mean, probably, right? It's impossible to know. We can only be benevolent by our own standards. For example, the entire premise of the Matrix was AIs treating humans as benevolently as possible (in their minds) without inconveniencing themselves.
Actually I think the matrix example perfectly fits into the op dog example.
The machines invented the matrix because humans would riot if the simulation was too perfect or too shitty, so instead it was made perfectly normal. The machines didn't care either way, they just wanted to prevent more random "wakeup" events that were caused when the world was unrealistic.
So we can't know what is good for a dog other than what they tell us. Dog is biting us or whining, we're probably doing the right thing. Sure, you can throw in a bit of human empathy to account for the fact that we cuddle and pet our dogs, but we still know what they like based on what they're telling us.
Unless you want to take into account their reaction. An upset dog will growl and bite. A happy dog has certain behaviors. It is not robust communication, but it does exist.
In the beginning perhaps humans used dogs in an exploitative way, but many of the relationships now are mutual. Most dogs owners I know treat their dog as if it were "man's best friend", and they generally seem to reciprocate. The machines in the matrix wanted us for our value as a resource not for companionship and they certainly didn't respect us.
I think exploitation and benevolence are opposed if not mutually exclusive.
Sarkeesian uses Mortal Kombat as example of a game that 'promotes violence against women' (despite being known and marketed as a brutal fighting game) so one would have to wonder if she is such a noble venture to support..
The Sarkeesian Effect is a (terrible) documentary that is critical of her, but anyway, do you have a link to her criticism of MK? To my knowledge her beef was with the sexualization of the female combatants.
I am not a fan of Sarkeesian by any means (to be honest, I just try and avoid that entire part of the internet, on both sides), but there's a difference between "noble venture" and "inciting violence or other harmful behavior".
Sorry, but "we don't need evidence, our imagination is enough" is not anywhere near "very reasonable".
The free speech is not necessary for the speech you agree with. It is for the speech, you don't agree with. Just because Patreon guys are fans of Antifa does not mean, they should bring their ideology to the business.
Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately depending on your viewpoint, it won't matter for much longer. Once Patreon demonstrates the viability of the business, which I think it pretty much has, making a clone won't be that difficult. There's not a lot of technical moat here. (Having to deal with real money means it's certainly more than the HN-mythical "I could do that in a weekend!", but, still, it's definitely in the range of "hobby programmer in under a year with enough dedication" to get a fully functional site up and running to start.)
Speaking as a decently-large Patreon user and one that has advocated for it to the point of probably sounding almost like a shill on HN despite not being connected to them other than as customer... I don't use Patreon to use Patreon qua Patreon, nor do I do use any of their site discovery mechanisms to discover anyone. YMMV. I support the artists. If and when the artists I follow move around, I will follow them; I've already got a couple of recurring Paypal payments for people who work that way.
Ultimately Patreon's political preferences won't matter for much. It may superficially resemble the debate about Facebook/Google news filtering algorithms, but the situation is actually entirely different and the question isn't all that relevant in the long term. I think the fact that we're not talking about "free" here helps a lot.
> Sorry, but "we don't need evidence, our imagination is enough" is not anywhere near "very reasonable".
The video literally shows clips of behavior. The common theme of the video is “manifest observable behavior”. The video explains how actions, not speech, are what broke the terms of service. I really recommend you watch it. (Odd use of quotation marks – you directly quoted me, but completely made up what Patreon said.)
> Just because the Patreon guys are fans of Antifa […]
If they were such fans, I'm not sure they'd have removed IGD.
I see you are new to the game of presenting video clips out of context and manipulating the audience.
> The common theme of the video is “manifest observable behavior”. The video explains how actions, not speech, are what broke the terms of service. I really recommend you watch it. (Odd use of quotation marks – you directly quoted me, but completely made up what Patreon said.)
> I see you are new to the game of presenting video clips out of context and manipulating the audience.
Yeah, right. Lauren Southern, complaining about being removed: "I was in no way a part of Defend Europe. I was merely an observer".
Lauren Southern, ON Defend Europe: "Go go go, get in front of them! You need to get in front, come around, block them and they'll have to stop", "And if the politicians won't stop them, then we will!"
Yeah. "Observer".
But tell us all about how our "context" is wrong, and Lauren was maligned.
I watched that response video. Basically, what he's saying is "these actions that endanger people in the immediate sense are justified". That standard is asking Patreon to make a political judgment. The creators in question were seen endangering others in their work. Period.
I hadn't heard of her, or defend Europe, or this controversy, or anything. Watched the Patreon explanation video, which seemed pretty damn convincing, objective, and evidence-based to me.
Until crypto currency can be regularly used to buy everyday essentials like food and housing, I don't see this being a reasonable way to pay creators.
And currently, Patreon can only stop you from using their platform; they can not stop you from being paid. I can see an argument eventually being able to be formed behind "people effectively only use Patreon, so not being on it is a death knell" (like YouTube), but it's nowhere near that point yet.
Bitcoin round trip fees are too high, cash to BTC back to cash probably averages 10-15%, plus the volatility risk. Patreon is not cheap, probably averaging 8-10%, but it is cheaper and obviously much more convenient.
10-15%!? Even coinbase with it's high fees is %3 + $0.50 round trip, which is pretty much equivalent to paypal. I would also think a crypto solution would probably take barely anything in management fees, unlike kickstarter and patreon. If your smart about it, you can use limit orders on something like GDAX and make it %0-%0.5.
Despite all of that, I don't think you need crypto for this. Patreon dropping people out of distaste is giving money to competitors who don't care. What would stop that is credit card companies refusing processing to these companies.
And not very likely to get significantly cheaper than Patreon. Bitcoins etc still require a backbone of infrastructure to process payments through mining. Those people still need to be paid, and the computational overhead with bitcoins/alternatives is billions of times higher than raw financial transactions. The cost will never go to zero.
Even if it was as low as patreon dollars would be superior for 99% of people. When you need dinner on the table, dollars getting direct deposited into your account > worrying about bitcoin prices and selling coins. The only people who have any reason to switch are those who are producing content that is seen as intolerable, people trying to avoid taxes or the law, and people making moral stands.
>The evolution will converge towards content creators being funded through decentralized crypto currency platforms so that the money cannot be prevented from getting to creators if someone wants to pay them.
The pressure will always be to the biggest platforms, and those are conventional ones. Creators will be easier to discover on the bigger platform- if you already support someone on patreon, you can find similar creators, incentivizing creators to join patreon. Bigger platforms also have economies of scale and head starts on making beautiful, convenient interfaces.
The pressure towards established platforms will always be greater than the pressure towards permissive, decentralized platforms. Patreon just has to not fuck up too bad and they will still have the monetary advantage on 99% of creators (well... unless they kick off all of the camgirls).
A more interesting question is whether Patreon would ever switch to bitcoin. They could take a much bigger percentage. They could leverage their size to provide more stable prices, or even just force creators to accept bitcoin's volatility. The platform would still be central and moderated, and if someone managed to create a decentralized alternative with good bitcoin pricing, Patreon would be able to outprice them. There would be basically no path towards a decentralized alternative at that point.
The risk/reward is still too low for Patreon, I think. As is, a patron decides how much money the creator gets and is basically blind to how much they pay unless they check their statements. Neither party would really see an advantage to switching to bitcoin, since Patreon and the creators would still get the same amount of money, and the Patrons mostly aren't aware of the potential extra 30 cents. They're also very unlikely to care.
Can we get a list of which sites Patreon has kicked off their platform? The only one I've seen mentioned so far is 8chan, which was posting kiddie porn and SWATting people. If that's the line, I'm 100% okay with it.
> The evolution will converge towards content creators being funded through decentralized crypto currency platforms so that the money cannot be prevented from getting to creators if someone wants to pay them.
http://steemit.com is an example of precisely this. Will check out lbry.io.
I'd love to write on Patreon. But there's no option for payouts via Bitcoin. Patrons could pay via credit/debit cards, and Patreon could payout in Bitcoin via Stripe. But they've specifically blocked Stripe's Bitcoin option. To "fight against fraud", whatever that means.
The evolution will converge towards content creators being funded through decentralized crypto currency platforms so that the money cannot be prevented from getting to creators if someone wants to pay them.
Something more along the lines of https://lbry.io/ and similar..
Currently BTC and the like are push vs pull payment systems, so until smart contracts are widely used to enable subscription payments, this will be a blocker.