Is there a space for the extremes of "alt right" on Tildes?
I posted this recently during a discussion on reddit on thread locking and wanted to post it here for discussion as well.
There's no room in a decent society for those who advocate for "race realism", deny the holocaust, or believe women are all mindless whores who can't think for themselves. If that's your (general you) idea of a useful contribution, create your own sub and be as hateful as you want, but I have no obligation to provide a platform for hatred on a sub that's dedicated to, for example, gifs of puppies and kittens.
Tildes is intended to be a place for insightful, high quality discussion. Can people who advocate for topics like race realism be part of that conversation?
Note: I am not necessarily suggesting that such topics be banned from tildes, I'd just like to hear opinions on this topic.
Edit: I posted this same topic, lightly revised, on /r/theoryofreddit to see the difference in responses. It's been enlightening.
As a person who isn't white, I would leave Tildes immediately if the alt-right was given a voice here. I don't care if they can have a high quality discussion, to people like them, I am not even human. When you can't view non-white people as your equals, you can never have a high quality discussion.
As another person who isn't white, I strongly second this. There's already been some surprisingly closed minded discussions here regarding minorities. To actually officially allow them a space would make Tildes unsafe and unwelcoming.
It'll be interesting to see how this plays out. I am probably one of the few native women on this board - maybe the only one given how few women are here in general, and how few people are registered.
Any idea how to attract more woman on a site like this ? I'm not a big fan of biased gender ratio, it's more interesting when it's balanced.
I'm under the impression that most Tilde users were invited from Reddit, particularly from a small subreddit with a focus on intellectual quality > social quantity. IE we're drawing from a primarily male audience, and (aggregates) women prioritize social networks more than men.
Long story short, the bigger Tilde gets without getting toxic, it's easier to attract a non-homogenous populace, and it'll have more appeal to those that would be turned away by a sparsely populated site.
Until then, the only solution I can imagine is personally inviting women that you know would appreciate the site
I'm hoping that balance will change a bit as more people join. I'll probably try and invite women specifically if I get another round of invites. Beyond that, I have no idea.
You mean give them a space and see what happens? I'm always curious about hearing the other side, but it can be emotionally draining.
I think we can still see what happens by posting related topics. If someone is alt-right (or anything) they're still welcome to comment and be part of discussions. The conversation started with just hopefully have a more neutral (though honestly left leaning) tilt.
Oh god no, I am in no way, shape, or form advocating for a safe space for alt righters on tildes. I'm talking more about this thread in specific, and seeing where people stand with regards to discussion and advocating of the extreme topics I've listed.
Ah, that makes way more sense, especially given your responses in other parts of this thread.
Thanks for clarifying.
Well I for one am happy you are here!
As someone who is white (according to a black friend, painfully white), although I was not raised in an overtly racist home, as an adult, I still find myself having to consciously check my behaviors against those who are different than me. Is it racism? Is it just a deep-seated fear of those who are different than me, going way back to the time of cavemen? I'm not sure.
Although you may be different than me, as long as you respect me, I will respect you.
The fact that you try to check your behavior is evident enough that you aren't being racist. The fact that you are willing to respect me adds to that. The alt-right has no intention of either of those habits.
I'm a visible minority and have the same struggle. It's a shared human condition, and it's important to realize that it's a universal struggle not just the white man's burden.
As my people are fond of saying: Nobody hates brown people like brown people.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2q0T7QXETs
You're not alone, heh.
Racism is by definition not a high quality discussion. You cannot have high quality discussion when one party is not interested in hearing what the other party has to say.
I didn't know you were here! Any plans to start up some weekly fitness style threads?
Completely off topic, but I suppose I could. The ~health section is pretty barren.
Totally, but I think there's value to be had in discussing our gymrat habits.I also got @brandonsmash in here, so there's at least a few of us!
Do we extend this to all forms of bigotry?
I prefer your position of people feeling welcome than the easy position most social networks take, which seems to be if we only allow one set of bigots there will be peace. The former creates solid communities, the latter leads to a spiral of hate and puritanism.
I don't think Tildes is the place for this both sides are bad, white people are the real victims of racism view that you always come close to espousing but never openly say.
People that seriously believe this boggle my fucking mind.
You and me both, and that's coming from a cis/het/white guy.
Unfortunately it's not uncommon - white people have held an elevated position for so long that many have come to see it as just the way things are. They see society as a zero-sum game where elevating others necessarily denegrates their position in society.
When one is used to privilege, equality can look a lot like persecution.
All bigots are bad. It disturbs me that people still don't understand this.
I wasn't thinking about racists, but about sexists. The point stands either way.
Who are the "other side" bigots that you're talking about that people don't understand are bad?
Not OP, and probably not really in agreement with him either (e.g. I firmly support: affirmative action, LGBTQ rights including use of non-binary pronouns, outlawing hate speech, banning hate groups, etc.)... but the "minorities can't be racist" (which is often just a thinly veiled justification for genuinely racist behavior against white people) or the "patriarchy promotes rape culture" (which is often just thinly veiled justification for misandry) crowds could be the "other side" bigots to which he is referring. And as much as I personally can't stomach those lines of reasoning, many others on the Left fully support and promote them, along with attempting to label anyone who disagrees a racist, misogynist, etc.
"Minorities can't be racist" is an argument I've never seen anyone actually make, though I've certainly seen a lot of people argue against it.
As for the second one, what do you see as wrong with "patriarchy promotes rape culture"? It's not something I've heard argued much, but it seems pretty straight forward. Society promotes men to positions of authority over women, and rape is essentially a violent expression of that. I can't really think of an argument against this, unless you mean to argue against the existence of a patriarchy or the existence of rape culture.
I, unfortunately, have, and for a human rights complaint no less. It was their defense - "I'm not racist, I'm a [different minority from person who launched the complaint] myself." For the record they weren't (at least in this case), but I still couldn't believe they used that.
Edit: clarified a bit
Also, trolls are really annoying.
Making decisions about what to ban or allow in online communities is probably the single most difficult topic in the whole field, so there isn't really a simple answer. That being said, the simple answer is "No."
As some other people have already mentioned, the announcement post talks about the paradox of tolerance, which says that in order to actually be able to have a tolerant society (or community), you can't allow intolerance. This is something I feel strongly about, and I'm never going to allow Tildes to start drifting into the kind of behavior that's become so normal on other internet platforms. We really need a place that isn't motivated entirely by growth and advertising revenue, where we can get rid of assholes without worrying about how much it's going to hurt the traffic numbers.
All that said, the really difficult part is trying to figure out exactly what constitutes going far enough to require a ban. Of course there are obvious cases, but (as I'm sure anyone with moderation experience knows) there are also a huge number of ambiguous ones that it's simply impossible to cover with any sort of objective rule. That's just the nature of dealing with humans though, and a lot of it has to be dealt with case-by-case. It's not simple, and it never will be.
Overall though, at least so far, things have mostly been pretty good. There have been a few people I've needed to ban, and I've also sent warnings to a number of others about their behavior. Some of those people have improved, some doubled-down (and got banned), and some have basically just stopped posting (and probably don't visit any more). All of these are pretty good outcomes though—the biggest thing overall is just not letting it become an accepted part of the site's culture.
Sorry, there's not really a "conclusion" here and this post felt pretty rambling. I'm not sure I really did a great job of answering the question, but hopefully it helps explain my general mindset a bit.
Couldn't agree more. TrueReddit used to be one of my favorite subs, for those not familiar it's a sub with ostensibly similar goals to tildes, promoting high quality discussion. Only, it's completely unmoderated. With half a million subscribers. Yeah. It had problems before, but it's been a wasteland since 2016.
I really like your standpoint on tolerance, Deimos. I feel like not enough people take that into consideration and sort of tumble like a house of cards when greeted with an issue of tolerance. I'm glad you're trying to walk the line between very free speech but not so free that it damages the community. I feel like any alt-position should be strongly barred from trying to push their agenda. White people and the LGBT community (quite a strange dichotomy) should certainly be allowed here but there are certainly super aggressive denominations of the two groups who are never interested in discussion. Thanks for keeping the peace man
Technically it's supposed to be believing that there are distinguishable differences between races. Personally, I would argue that the amount of interracial relationships and mixed-race children that come from them have basically eliminated any real differences that may have existed besides skin color, to the point that race (to the person filling out a demographics survey for themselves) is nothing more than what culture(s) they identify with, and to others it's just how a person appears.
Regardless, it certainly has been co-opted as a way of trying to disguise racism, like how "anti-Zionist" is a term that used to mean being against Israel's occupation of Palestinian territory and Israelis who view Palestine as belonging to Israel (similar to the American idea of manifest destiny in the 1800s), but is increasingly being used by the alt-right when they get called out for being anti-Semitic. "Globalism" has also been co-opted by the alt-right as a dogwhistle for perceived Jewish control in world governments, with "globalists" being the Jews who supposedly want to destroy the west (basically a rebranded ZOG; for those who haven't heard of it, it stands for "Zionist Occupied Government").
Glad to read this. I would definitely spy elsewhere if intolerance was given a fertile ground around here.
I'm another one who tends to lurk more than post or comment, only doing so when I think I have some valuable to contribute. I agree with your stance.
Banning groups is problematic. Banning poor behavior is sensible.
I hope there isn't.
The alt-right, generally speaking, isn't about insightful high-quality discussion. They're about hate.
Other sites, like Voat, have tried this. Guess how many users they have now?
If you think that my position is extreme, then think about something for just a moment. When is the last time that you saw a person associated with the alt-right genuinely being helpful to someone, especially someone who is not like them? Do you want that person to feel obligated to having equal space here?
Nor am I, but I would moderate those topics with a very watchful eye, and if the bans/warnings exceeded a certain percentage, I'd can the entire thing. And I might even sanction the topic starter from future posts, as a troublemaker.
Often enough they will initially appear helpful and friendly, especially to people who might not be in a great state of mind, but ultimately that's just about recruitment. They don't offer solutions as much as they evangelize their philosophies as being potential solutions, and more often then not as ways to blame somebody else for their problems.
A lot of alt-right adjacent spaces operate in this way and it often flows from the fact that their central tenants to life are built upon two notions:
So Discussion, for them, is just another tool in the toolbox of recruiting people over to their side, it's not done in good faith because that would mean allowing themselves to be wrong or to rethink their positions, which is tantamount to 'losing'.
I don't have a problem with people arguing for more right-wing positions on social, fiscal, or political matters as long as it's done with the intent to reach a better understanding of the world and how we build it together. The alt-right is not that, it will never be that.
All quite true, but you omitted a word I used, which was quite important. genuinely.
That means that the help must be real help, and not fake, or offered with ulterior or sinister motives.
I agree.
I also agree with that, and we must be very watchful to make sure that the alt-right does not gain mindshare here under the trojan of discussing said issues.
No, there isn't. Racists aren't interested in real discussion. They don't have a logical position and so logical arguments can't sway them. They use mis-stated or blatantly false research to support their positions, they are not interested in truth. Allowing them actively pushes away other people who don't want to deal with them. Tildes was created in part to not allow these virulent ideologies to have space to grow.
It's no surprise. Fascist movements often start during times of economic uncertainty, encouraged by business interests. They find it a useful to direct the passions of young, violence-prone men towards immigrants and minorities instead of the institutions that are actually working against the interests of these young men.
The question isn't is it surprising, the question is is it morally right and the answer is a firm no.
I disagree and think it’s morally wrong to for individuals to expect their personal freedom to trump anyone else’s or the social contract necessary for maintaining a functional society. “Your liberty to swing your fist ends where my nose begin” applies equally as well to threats, harassment and hate speech IMO since it’s everyone right to have a safe living environment, free from discrimination, bigotry and fear of targeted violence being done against them for something they have no control over like the circumstances of their birth.
The very same thing could be said of your statements too. We’re both expressing opinions, after all. And while we can try to back those up as much as possible with cold hard facts, IMO there really is no truly objective “right/correct” answer here because both systems have their benefits and drawbacks. I do see your side of the argument as much as I do my own, however I just think that ultimately the benefits of a society where no one need fear being targeted for descrimination, bigotry or violence outweigh those of one of absolutist personal freedom where people have the ability to express hatred or advocate for violence towards an identifiable group.
But yours does as well, it's simply shifting the coercion and violence from the State to the non-State group/collective and individual level instead by allowing them to express threats, harassment and hate speech. e.g. By allowing anti-(whatever identifiable group) rhetoric to propagate it coerces that group into hiding their true identity or fundamentally altering it for fear of being targeted for discrimination, bigotry or violence.
So why should the rights of an individual or non-State group/collective take precedence over the rights of those they are targeting with coercive force? Why is "the State" using coercion to prevent that seen by you as any worse than a non-State group/collective doing the exact same thing?
Implicit threats of violence and creating a climate of fear accomplished through propaganda (demonizing, spreading misinformation, etc) are just as effective as explicit threats at accomplishing coercion. Just because someone or some group doesn't explicitly state "kill all the gays" doesn't mean that their "all gays are an abomination" doesn't have exactly the same coercive effect. And not only that but history has proven time and time again that if you allow hate propaganda to, well, propagate then it inevitably leads to something more than just words because of the hatred, fear and anger it builds up in susceptible people. Just look at the anti-"Liberal/SJW" propaganda leading up to the 2011 Norway attacks or Charlottesville, or anti-black propaganda during the time of the lynchings in the South, or anti-Jewish propaganda leading up to the various diasporas or WW2, or anti-Armenian propaganda leading to the Armenian genocide... etc... etc... etc...
p.s. How is NAB doing? Growing, I hope! You deserve way more attention than you were getting for it, IMO.
Yeah I think we just have a fundamentally different opinion about freedom of expression and information... but there is nothing wrong with that and regardless, we still had a nice conversation about it. ;)
I'm glad to hear progress is being made and things are going well with NAB. And yeah, as we both know, not all attention (especially before a site is ready for it, *cough* voat *cough*), is necessarily a good thing so it's probably for the best Tildes and NAB are not focusing on promotion but instead just allowing growth to happen relatively organically.
p.s. Doesn't Cloudflare kind of clash with your site ethos a bit seeing as their stance on free speech is a bit inconsistent, to say the least (e.g. dropping support for The Daily Stormer)?
Ah yeah, that's a very good point. I was just surprised to see you didn't go with something like BitMitigate instead, given they seem more in line with your own beliefs with regards to freedom of expression.
Ok, so we can't tell someone to not scream the n-word at people in public because it's violent coercion. But we can tell someone not to punch people in the face, and that's not coercion or violence?
goldfish pls
Please don't post completely content-less comments like this. They're just noise and add nothing to the discussion.
Sorry. I have addressed him more thoughtfully elsewhere in this thread. My response here is meant to be humorous, based on the exasperation on experiencing his constant "devil's advocate" comments for the thousandth time. I hope there is some room for humor on this website, as too much seriousposting makes Jack a dull turtle.
There is room for humour, sure, but the problem with low-effort comments like your previous one, humourous or not, is eventually the noise they create drowns out the substantive comments just due to their ease of consumption and general appeal. Just look at reddit and how the vast majority of comments there are now memes and incredibly predictable jokes and how often you have to go digging for the more substantial ones. So while each individual case of low-effort humorous comments may appear relatively harmless to the site, especially to the person making it, in the aggregate they aren’t and so should be discouraged, IMO.
Their perceived interests. Too often these same politicians are selling out their constituents ASAP while continuing to feed their base lies so they can blame someone else for their problems - see the Southern Strategy and the current immigrate "debate" for examples.
An armchair politician, like yourself.
While I agree that minorities traditionally lean democrat, I've not see anything to suggest recent immigrants do. Many from Latin America are Catholic and are anti-abortion. But, for the sake of your analogy, let's pretend I do.
I'll point out that there are SEVERAL degrees of separation there: less immigrants = less democrats = less taxes = Kevin Bacon. So I think that line of thinking if pretty tenuous, but again, let's continue with the analogy.
So you're saying that as someone opposed to taxes, I should vote for someone who is anti-immigrant, and they won't sell out my interests...except that's literally what happened in the last election and the majority of the tax cuts went to the highest earners AND corporations, followed by a nice tax break for LLCs. The working man got VERY little back and the tax cuts for the working class EXPIRE whereas those for high earners do not.
Except one player is better for most everyone than the other. The parties are not "the same," which is a tired narrative.
To believe otherwise is to ignore reality. To advocate for the removal of the State is to advocate for Nietchze's Will to Power. All you're doing is resetting the game board for the next group.
And just to add on to this, because I imagine someone will say something like "well a tax cut is a tax cut, even if temporary"... it's actually a TAX INCREASE on the middle class.
So in your analogy, which actually occurred IRL, those who wanted less immigrants because it'd mean less democrats and so the GOP would win and then we'd get a tax cut....had their taxes raised...almost as if their interests weren't actually being represented.
https://www.factcheck.org/2017/10/tax-hike-benefit-middle-class/
Alright fair enough. I agree with that.
I agree with what you said, but I'd change it to Perceived interests. It'd be nice if folks (not you of course but in general) better understood what they wanted and what they actually got. It happens on both sides but the right seems to be the worse offended IMO.
I prefer working within the system rather than destroying it. Nothing better has been developed and it's a lot of work and blood to start over.
I'll give it a listen, but I have to say, it's difficult to take people in Top Hats seriously...
I don't think so. Many of the topics you mentioned are considered toxic and bad for a whole slew of reasons, but primarily because their core focus is on dehumanizing whoever they cast as the 'other'. How can one have a high quality discussion with someone who denies that you even matter as a person? Certainly we can discuss aspects of these positions and examine the ways in which they exist in the world but I don't think there's a way to tolerate the intolerant (hey, it's that paradox again) without dooming tildes to the same fate as reddit or 4chan.
I think it's explicitly disallowed in the docs:
Overall Goals has several bits that touch on this, but the Golden Rule section is pretty relevant
Limited Tolerance for Assholes is also a pretty relevant section, in which free speech is explicitly listed as not a core value.
Also, though it's hard to find, the first ban was for something alt-right-ish; I think it was homophobic rhetoric. There have also been bans for not participating in good faith.
I think these all cover "alt-right" issues, and if someone doesn't exhibit asshole-ish behaviour, I'd say that they're probably just on the "right" of the discussion, not the alt-right. That said, no matter how respectful, I doubt that there's ever going to be tolerance for things like explicit racism, sexism, or any ism; much milder things have already resulted in people being ejected from the site.
Not quite. The first ban was the user @Redacted for immediately going for personal attacks and abusing the comment tagging system (which was a large factor in it being disabled, if I recall). You can find that particular thread here.
It's possible that you're thinking of @Hypnotoad from this thread and how one of their submitted topics was about a discussion regarding gay marriage, originally posted with a stance against it but modified afterward to remove it.
I don't recall there being any strictly homophobia-related bans, though I could be wrong about that. I do recall there being a topic about such bans on Twitch, however.
No, he's thinking of the guy I banned early on for being transphobic in a "just asking questions" kind of way. I honestly don't even remember his username any more, and I didn't make a thread about it on Tildes. He tried to get people riled up about it on /r/tildes on reddit, but it... didn't go very well for him.
Ah, gotcha! That one must've flown under the radar for me. Thank you for the correction :)
Yes! That's what I was thinking of. Thanks, perfect. And thanks @Emerald_knight for pointing this out to me.
Thanks - I tend to skim drama stuff at best, so maybe I shouldn't talk out of my butt.
See the reply from @Deimos if you haven't already. It looks like I was off the mark as well!
I don’t know how any “high quality discussion” or “valuable discourse” can be built on the alt-right premise of the inherent and immutable inferiority of other people.
Twitter, FaceBook, and Reddit have all made that devil’s bargain; and that is in large part why I am here and not there.
It is amazing how relevant Sarte's thoughts on anti-semites are when talking about "white nationalists" or whatever new PR term bigots choose on using these days:
“Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.”
That is to say, most, if not all, members of the "alt-right" are not interested in a good faith discussion. That seems to go against what the focus of this site is.
This ties in quite well with research into those who advocate for free speech in defense of racism online.
https://news.ku.edu/2017/05/01/research-shows-prejudice-not-principle-often-underpins-free-speech-defense-racist
I think I am going to have to agree with the relevant XKCD here. If the best reason you have to defend what someone has said is "You shouldn't keep people from saying things," then you are conceding that there is no good way to defend the statement.
That said, speech should be as free as possible to defend unpopular but perhaps ahead of their time positions. I think the fundamental distinction is that the type of speech we should defend tells people that they are people, and that they deserve to be treated fairly. The type of speech that doesn't deserve defence is based on the fundamental premise of a group's inferiority, and is generally lobbed from one group at another.
I highly doubt any of that nonsense will be tolerated.
While I hope that you're right, remember, the same sentiment came up when Trump won the 2016 US Presidential election.
So far, that nonsense has been very much tolerated (in the real world, not on Tildes), much to my disappointment.
What a depressing, and true thought.
Generally speaking, those who advocate for the "traditional family unit" and revoking the right for women to vote or work outside the home do see women as infantile. The same spaces where users advocate for those views often also espouse the view that women will sleep around unless controlled, have the mind of a teenager, and cannot be trusted to think for themselves.
I never understood the association between the alt-right and libertarians. I suppose there's a degree of shared distrust of a centralized welfare state. But don't most libertarians desire the barring of physical violence, especially from the state? Whereas most alt-right talking heads seem perfectly fine with the idea of a state monopoly on violence as long as it's being used to further goals they deem desirable, the operations of ICE in the US being a prime example.
Who exactly among the left often suggests any of that?
I've never heard this argument. Can you explain it to me?
Who makes this argument on the left? If anything it seems to me more of an altright argument. Can you provide some examples?
I can't think of a single democrat who thinks their own ideals are utopian - hell most of them think there's plenty of impracticality, it's just the reality of what needs to be done to protect the most people.
I doubt you were "simply" promoting liberty if people were calling you racist. That needs specific examples and context.
TBH I think it generally happens because reddit has become so polarized. Your comments there seem harsher than your comments here, if that makes sense. It's almost like I'm speaking to two different people.
I don't think you're racist for what it's worth, but you do hold some views that coincide with people who are racist. Generally the people who yell about "free speech" when they want to promote genocide of other races have no interest in actual free speech though, and just want a platform from which to spew their hatred.
I think there is an unspoken difference in how people consider "free speech" as a concept:
At a guess, it probably derives from libertarian opposition to desegregation and the Civil Rights act of 1964.
Fondly enough, this seems to be a trajectory shared by younger Anarcho Communists. Eventually they lose their idealist sparks and move to supporting Socialism or Social Democracy.
When those on the left are already calling you a racist simply for advocating greater freedom it makes this recruitment approach even more effective.
In my experience the issue tends to be that many libertarians oppose political moves aimed at limiting potential damage towards minorities because the execution of such moves often implies a degree of restriction. The argument then essentially devolves into two sides talking past each other, with the libertarians accusing the left of coercing them into things and taking away their freedom and the left accusing them of allowing harm to come to other people in the name of adhering to an ideal of liberty.
As someone who used to subscribe to their ideology, there's libertarians and there's libertarians. A solid portion are your good faith types, who genuinely abhor the violence and coercion that underpins modern states. But there's also the darker, authoritarian undercurrent that wants democratic government out of the way so that the forces of capital can take its place, allowing wealthy individuals to carve out their own privately run fiefdoms. It can be difficult to tell who's who, since obviously nobody's going to be out promoting modern serfdom, but the second variety are easy allies of the alt-right, since both ideologies rely on the end of mass democracy.
Aren't the latter basically just living ancap memes?
What do you mean by that?
Both (well, the alt right used to be all conservatives before the split) have been strong pillars of the Republican party since the 60's and the civil rights movement. Many prominant Republicans champion both libertarian and alt-right/conservative ideas in tandom, partnering lower tax cuts and an anti-state motholodgy alongside socially conservative views. It's very similar to how liberals and socialists are often associated with each other, partnering their rhetoric and supporting each other's respective goals.
I mean the Republican line during the Obama years appeared to be "government doesn't work" while also sabotaging government at every turn, so from that perspective one could argue they were libertarian. But I think current developments pretty resolutely show they never argued against government but rather against government that wasn't under their control
When gay people in safe spaces don't know that homophobia exists, when trans people in safe spaces don't know trans people get brutally assaulted and murdered, when non-whites in safe spaces aren't aware of racism, then and only then can we call safe spaces "Echo Chambers".
That's fine, you keep taking on bad faith opponents in good faith, uphold "the right to bully is more important than the right not to be bullied" version of freespeech, and get annihilated by the Alt-Right each and every time.
I've been wondering something similar, especially given the large scale "social experiment"/exercise in white fragility that I pulled recently over on Reddit. Obviously someone running around the room screaming "n*gger" is not participating in good faith; they're just looking to get some kind of reaction. It's possible that they're also racist, but much of the time they're merely yelling the worst word they know because they don't know how else to get someone to respond to them. But how much space should someone who genuinely believes those things be given?
One thing that I would really like to see is a wiki or something similar debunking or explaining away most of the racist myths that are commonly seen. Something that address racial IQ, crime statistics, and some of the other typical talking points all in one place would be nice to have to so that I could point to something when people try to bring these up.
Since apparently everyone is in agreement that no they shouldn’t be allowed, my question is who decides what is “right” and what is “alt right”? Who decides what is objective conversation about races and cultures and what is racism? Etc
I’m personally against deciding what is and isn’t acceptable speech. Ban harassment, ban threats, but don’t ban speech you disagree with.
You don't. We're not setting things in stone, because there is no way to universally define in advance what is and isn't acceptable for every case. But one of Tilde's biggest rules is "don't be an asshole", and espousing views that are intentionally nasty towards other users is pretty likely to run afoul of that, which is where personally I would draw the line.
It's also worth keeping in mind that Tildes is based in Canada, and some speech that is legal in the US is illegal there. For example, I believe openly supporting nazis is not allowed. /u/Deimos has to ban it, or else he wouldn't be complying with his host country's laws.
That's good to know, I wasn't aware this was a Canadian site! I'm Canadian, and familiar with how our version of "freedom of expression" works. It's a very different principle than the US Freedom of Speech principle.
I used to advocate in favor of having such spaces, under the reasoning that it's better to have space to engage in discussion to allow the arena of ideas to work. But now I think that "spaces" tend towards echo chambers that ultimately spread, reinforce, and amplify disinformation. The topics worth discussing - like empirical outcomes of specific policies - don't need an "alt right" space, and an "alt right" space provides a vague umbrella to shelter repugnant, nonconstructive echoing.
I also used to think of free speech as some sort of amazing ideal that I should not only value but try to foster, and it's something that I discussed with one of my colleagues when I was teaching writing. For some reason I (hypothetically--I never faced this issue) thought it would be a good idea for me to allow a student to write racist things if that's what they wanted, and that it was just my job to teach them how to write and argue logically: that in doing so, they would see the error of their perspective, or I would see the error in mine.
I have no idea what the hell I was thinking back then. I really, really hope that no one overheard me, especially the black woman who ran the department. She is awesome, and I would be so embarrassed to learn that she had heard the conversation. I definitely value that democratic governments allow people to speak freely without legal repercussions, but some arguments are just completely worthless and do not deserve tolerance at all. I'm glad to hear that Tildes, in general, agrees.
The ideal is appealing. The John Stuart Mills arguments sound compelling. The only counterargument that I've found compelling is that there are certain assumptions in the "arena of ideas" that don't always hold up.
Life looked so much neater from a dogmatic lens.
The alt-reich already have a safe space where they can be their own true goose-stepping selves. It's called Stormfront. They should stay there, and donate to keep the place running, so that the rest of us don't have to deal with their bullshit. If they leak into the rest of society, we should pay them in their own coin and meet their intolerance with our own.
Voat tried that. It's basically 100% white supremacists now.
It seems like a lot of people in this thread are interpreting your question as a rhetorical one or a matter of interpreting Tildes' policy docs, but there's a concrete answer for this already: there is at least one alt-righter on Tildes and he's already caused a few dust-ups with behavior that borders on flaming.
So from a strictly policy standpoint the answer appears to be "yes": Deimos was aware of his behavior and didn't ban him, although it's entirely possible that some other measures were taken—that's between Deimos and the user in question. But that said, he hasn't posted in over a week, so perhaps even if he's not forbidden by policy, he's left on his own volition.
I'm not sure if you're talking about someone different than who I'm thinking of, but "alt-right" isn't just another word for "right" or "Trump supporter".
I'm very curious about the distinction you draw between "Trump supporter" and "alt-righter."
Interesting use of past tense.
I get that a lot of people who don't really support Trump still voted for Trump, but at this point the Venn diagram of alt-righters and Trump supporters is a circle.
They're just on very different levels. There are plenty of people out there that legitimately seem to support him based on "he's shaking up the system" or "he's a businessman" without also being willing to grab a tiki torch and go marching. You can argue there are some aspects of willful blindness there, but I don't think that's justification to lump everyone equally into "alt-right".
The biggest problem with excluding a group is that you create a safe space for people who hate that group.
If you ran a knitting forum and had a 'no Jews' rule, it would take all of ten minutes before someone started talking about how much they hated Jews. The two other people who felt similarly would chime in. Then a person who was there for knitting would disagree, say they had no problem with Jews, would fine themselves accused of being a Jew, and shut their mouths for fear of being banned. You now have a forum about knitting and Jew hatred.
https://tildes.net/~tech/3sa/far_right_freaks_out_because_twitter_is_filtering_their_hate
At the moment we're ok, dissident voices are confident and most people are maintaining the 'hate the sin, not the sinner' stance. But there are already comments like:
No.
No.
Not specifically related to this topic, but I thought this previous discussion might be interesting:
How far does the paradox of tolerance extend? Is it acceptable to allow advocacy in favor of freedom of speech when your belief is that freedom of speech leads to a lack of freedom?
Edit: If my memory is correct, I believe a similar post to this one spawn it.
Maintaining the right of free speech entails actively excluding those who would destroy meaning. This would seem like a simple restatement of the paradox of tolerance, but it also implies concomitant responsibilities to elevate objectively verifiable truth and protect others' right to speak.
Speech becomes meaningless and defamatory when it's reduced to a barrage of half- or untruths, calumnies, libels and slanders.
I wouldn't ban someone for saying "I don't like x people because I had y experience with an x person", but would be hollering and screaming if someone decided to bring the whole farrago of "race realist" or "alt-right" or any other suite of propaganda to the discussion.
Trying to bring meaning into a conversation with someone who has rejected meaning in favor of an ideological stance, is a waste of effort. They can manufacture falsehood faster than any well-intentioned group can marshal reliable evidence, and thereby overwhelm the voices of those who would dispute them.
Ok, "race realism" is a new one for me. What is it? Is it just generic racism with a fancy name or is it something more specific?
It's generic racism dressed up to sound "scientific".
I had to look it up because I didn't know what it was either. https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=race%20realism
Shit. The racists have brigaded the voting on the definitions.
Normally I would say anyone should have a voice but looking at Voat and a good bit of comments and subs on Reddit it can go really bad when you let the hate mongers loose. So honestly I'd prefer the alt-right not to have a presence here. From my experience they really don't bring any useful discussion to the table but instead more often than not hate, trolling bullshit, and propagandized nonsense. Also this is coming from a centrist white dude. The only people I'm inherently prejudicial towards are white supremacists/neo nazi/nationalist/authoritarian sycophants and the like. I'm not a big SJW supporter either but at least most of time their hearts are in the right place. So let's keep the bigots and shit stirrers out the best we can. Still within reason all the same. We shouldn't be too overzealous because that in of itself is a slippery slope. How to go about this in the best way? That I cannot answer.
Damn, I'm impressed with the community here. I was fully expecting to open this thread and see posts along the lines of 'we should see what they have to say, at least.'
Seeing that people are hands down against having the alt-right here is kind of heart-warming. I think most new online communities allow groups like the alt-right on for the sake of either having more people in the community, a belief that the community can change alt-right members, or just because the community has a big enough ego to think they could withstand having the alt-right around.
So to see Tildes not having any of it is kind of heartwarming, and just shows that this community may go far.