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posted by takyon on Monday August 21 2017, @12:20AM   Printer-friendly
from the internet-hate-cycle dept.

Propublica: Despite Disavowals, Leading Tech Companies Help Extremist Sites Monetize Hate

Most tech companies have policies against working with hate websites. Yet a ProPublica survey found that PayPal, Stripe, Newsmax and others help keep more than half of the most-visited extremist sites in business.

Very interesting:

Because of its "extreme hostility toward Muslims," the website Jihadwatch.org is considered an active hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League. The views of the site's director, Robert Spencer, on Islam led the British Home Office to ban him from entering the country in 2013.

But either not their job, or they just didn't know:

Traditionally, tech companies have justified such relationships by contending that it's not their role to censor the Internet or to discourage legitimate political expression. Also, their management wasn't necessarily aware that they were doing business with hate sites because tech services tend to be automated and based on algorithms tied to demographics.

ProPublica goes on to say:

The sites that we identified from the ADL and SPLC lists vehemently denied that they are hate sites.

"It is not hateful, racist or extremist to oppose jihad terror," said Spencer, the director of Jihad Watch. He added that the true extremism was displayed by groups that seek to censor the Internet and that by asking questions about the tech platforms on his site, we were "aiding and abetting a quintessentially fascist enterprise."

Business is business. IG Farben said much the same when it had exclusive contracts with the (then current) German government.

See also: After Backing Alt-Right in Charlottesville, A.C.L.U. Wrestles With Its Role

Fighting Neo-Nazis and the Future of Free Expression

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has weighed in on the recent controversy surrounding Charlottesville and the effective removal of certain sites from the internet for expressing vile views. This entire incident and our response has an enormous implication on the future of internet freedoms as we know them.

In the wake of Charlottesville, both GoDaddy and Google have refused to manage the domain registration for the Daily Stormer, a neo-Nazi website that, in the words of the Southern Poverty Law Center, is "dedicated to spreading anti-Semitism, neo-Nazism, and white nationalism." Subsequently Cloudflare, whose service was used to protect the site from denial-of-service attacks, has also dropped them as a customer, with a telling quote from Cloudflare's CEO: "Literally, I woke up in a bad mood and decided someone shouldn't be allowed on the Internet. No one should have that power."

The Electronic Frontier Foundation agrees. Even for free speech advocates, this situation is deeply fraught with emotional, logistical, and legal twists and turns. All fair-minded people must stand against the hateful violence and aggression that seems to be growing across our country. But we must also recognize that on the Internet, any tactic used now to silence neo-Nazis will soon be used against others, including people whose opinions we agree with. Those on the left face calls to characterize the Black Lives Matter movement as a hate group. In the Civil Rights Era cases that formed the basis of today's protections of freedom of speech, the NAACP's voice was the one attacked.

Protecting free speech is not something we do because we agree with all of the speech that gets protected. We do it because we believe that no one—not the government and not private commercial enterprises—should decide who gets to speak and who doesn't.

It's notable that in GoDaddy and Google's eagerness to swiftly distance themselves from American neo-Nazis, no process was followed. Policies give guidance as to what we might expect, and an opportunity to see justice is done. We should think carefully before throwing them away.

It might seem unlikely now that Internet companies would turn against sites supporting racial justice or other controversial issues. But if there is a single reason why so many individuals and companies are acting together now to unite against neo-Nazis, it is because a future that seemed unlikely a few years ago—where white nationalists and Nazis have significant power and influence in our society—now seems possible. We would be making a mistake if we assumed that these sorts of censorship decisions would never turn against causes we love.

Part of the work for all of us now is to push back against such dangerous decisions with our own voices and actions. Another part of our work must be to seek to shore up the weakest parts of the Internet's infrastructure so it cannot be easily toppled if matters take a turn for the (even) worse. These actions are not in opposition; they are to the same ends.

We can—and we must—do both.

We're at a very fortunate point in history where most of society is still reasonably just, but people forget how rapidly change can come. Rosa Parks chose to not yield her seat in the United States just 62 years ago. Legally enforced racial segregation ended only 53 years ago. Living at a time with overt segregation feels like a time centuries past. However, many living today were still alive when it was the status quo. And things going in the opposite direction just as rapidly is entirely possible as well. Actions and policies should not be guided by the here and now, but by the justness of said policy. In other words policy should be decided based not on who it effects, but on the justness of the said policy. Is it more just to live in a world where people have the right to say things that others may find distasteful, or where people can be effectively removed from society by the [transitory] powers that be? We should answer these questions in a period of just times, not when we desperately need them resolved to restore justness.

As the EFF's statement reminds us, if certain groups are successful organizations such as Black Lives Matter may end up being characterized as a hate group. Radical left organizations such as Antifa have already been declared a domestic terrorism group by at least one state. And this is just on a government level. Nestle, Bayer, BMW, General Electric, Coca Cola (rebranded just for Nazi Germany as Fanta), Standard Oil (now Exxon/Chevron/BP ), IBM, Random House Publishing, and many more are some companies that cooperated and collaborated with the Nazis. To think that the supercompanies of today somehow would never possibly consider going down the wrong path is simply naive. And in a world where just a handful of companies now have a practical monopoly on information access - that's something that I think should give people pause before jumping to silence even the most vile of speech.


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  • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday August 21 2017, @04:54AM (6 children)

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 21 2017, @04:54AM (#556885) Journal

    Note the use of the word currently there, history shows what happens to people when they ignore the stuff being spouted by organisations they don't agree with/like/think are unimportant (e.g. NSDAP..)
    There's a hell of a lot of truth in the idiom 'Give them an inch and they'll take a mile.'

    Slippery slope argument much?
    Maybe such an argument would be justified with white supremacists and christian fundamentalists, Charlloteville shows that at least some individuals inside those groups tend to be homicidal.
    But I'm yet to see someone killed by ADL or SPLC, as I'm yet to see someone killed by Breitbart or Fox.

    If it is so, I'm just curious: why the vehemence of your post?

    Out of curiosity, why does the poster's 'vehemence' seem to bother you into asking that question?

    Since when "curiosity" (as in "I'm just curious") is equivalent with "bother"?

    --
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
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  • (Score: 2) by Scrutinizer on Monday August 21 2017, @02:28PM (5 children)

    by Scrutinizer (6534) on Monday August 21 2017, @02:28PM (#557037)

    But I'm yet to see someone killed by ADL or SPLC, as I'm yet to see someone killed by Breitbart or Fox.

    Try LaVoy Finicum [youtube.com], a murdered man [youtube.com] directly associated with the Bundy ranching family from Nevada [oathkeepers.org], which the SPLC crows are [energizing] volatile extremists who are increasingly targeting law enforcement officers [splcenter.org]. (One of the twisted claims is that the Miller murderers were at the Bundy's ranch to support them - without mentioning that the Millers were kicked out ("asked to leave [reviewjournal.com]") by the Bundy family.)

    Would I have any responsibility in your death if I were to spoof my caller ID to use your home's information, then call emergency services and say I've killed one person and am holding other hostage, resulting in SWAT making a surprise appearance in the middle of the night and shooting you dead by mistake? Would I share any responsibility in the trampling deaths of people in the theater I was in when I untruthfully yelled "FIRE!"?

    • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday August 21 2017, @03:06PM (4 children)

      by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 21 2017, @03:06PM (#557057) Journal

      Sorry, I read faster than a reader can speak, so I don't do YouTube other that for DIY stuff... (and nyan cat a notable exception ... grin).
      Thus I'm trying LaVoy Finicum [wikipedia.org] and beat me if I'm seeing any relation with SPLC.

      Would I have any responsibility in your death if I were to spoof my caller ID to use your home's information, then call emergency services and say I've killed one person and am holding other hostage, resulting in SWAT making a surprise appearance in the middle of the night and shooting you dead by mistake?

      Sorry, I can't relate with your reality; in my reality this is highly hypothetical or fiction level.
      My home phone is "private number" (does not appear on the called phone) and Australia doesn't deal with kidnapping by sending on pseudo-military force upfront.

      Here are two of the most recent stand-off incidents around:
      * five hour stand-off with police at a Melbourne home. Man armed with a small handgun [news.com.au]
      * two hours stand-off, man believed to be armed with edged weapon. Police called the Metro Fire Brigade for assistance [heraldsun.com.au]

      --
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
      • (Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday August 21 2017, @04:13PM

        by tangomargarine (667) on Monday August 21 2017, @04:13PM (#557082)

        Sorry, I can't relate with your reality; in my reality this is highly hypothetical or fiction level.

        Good for you, I guess, but it does happen [wikipedia.org] in the U.S. I'm not sure if people have actually gotten killed yet, but people have definitely gotten shot.

        --
        "Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 21 2017, @04:38PM (2 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 21 2017, @04:38PM (#557097)

        Thus I'm trying LaVoy Finicum [wikipedia.org] and beat me if I'm seeing any relation with SPLC.

        LaVoy Finicum is dead. He was shot while stopped enroute to visit a county sheriff in the company of one of Cliven Bundy's sons (as also mentioned in your wikipedia link), as they were working together at the Malheur facility takeover/protest/etc. SPLC has many words to say about those darn Bundys (as mentioned in my SPLC link), and that's your association with SPLC and LaVoy Finicum: one of those crazy-dangerous extremists out there!! (/s)

        • (Score: 3, Informative) by c0lo on Monday August 21 2017, @05:19PM (1 child)

          by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 21 2017, @05:19PM (#557118) Journal

          Right, now I get it. You are saying SPLC is bullshitting** about the dangers a crazy-dangerous extremist person who is dead poses to law enforcement.
          And this in response to my "I'm yet to see someone killed by ADL or SPLC". How's this related?

          ** On the same line, I heard about the situation in Sweden and I heard about Bowling Green Massacre...

          --
          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 21 2017, @11:05PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 21 2017, @11:05PM (#557267)

            *heavy sigh*

            It's related because, as mentioned previously [soylentnews.org], LaVoy Finicum was murdered after being tarred by the SPLC as an extremist who "increasingly targets law enforcement".

            It's not my fault if you refuse to look at presented evidence and prefer ignorance. (Granted, I also admit to being annoyed at data in video form that is little more than a face regurgitating a news article, but that is not the case with the linked videos concerning LaVoy's murder. It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words, and in said videos, there are a lot of very informative pictures.)

            "He was unarmed" holds very little value by itself to me, but lying about that information is of great interest. In relation to that, here's a shorter video that presents very compelling evidence that US law enforcement lied about the gun they said was found on LaVoy's body [youtube.com]. You may not be a gun person Down Under, but coming from a person who has carried a pistol in the past, the case made in this eight minute video based on a law enforcement-produced photograph is weighty.