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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: 4, Interesting) by Arik on Monday August 21 2017, @11:38AM (14 children)

    by Arik (4543) on Monday August 21 2017, @11:38AM (#556978) Journal
    "Show me the Christians currently abusing entire nations of women because their deity tells them to do so."

    Show me any nation of Muslims doing the same?

    No, that's not a jesting reply. While there are a number of nations where the treatment of women is far, far from what I would advocate, very few would I suspect of consciously abusing women.

    Do you think our great-grandfathers abused our great-grandmothers? I know some people think that, all of history prior to 1970 was one huge rape fest, then all of sudden we got women's lib and had to stop right? That's nonsense. People behaved differently, and for the most part that was because that was how people wanted to behave. Society was rough on rebels, but that hasn't changed, don't be fooled just because the establishment markets itself as 'rebel' in our more advanced, jaded part of the world.

    Where wahabbism is deeply rooted, yes, not only women but men, all human life, is abused. But they're an aberration, a throwback not to the prophet as they want you to believe, but to the Khawarij, a group that appeared in opposition to Ali, cousin of Mohammed, husband of Fatima, the fourth Caliph according to Sunni Islam and the first Imam of the Shi'a. They were destroyed and their doctrines roundly rejected by the Islamic world for centuries. Their current legitimacy is entirely courtesy of the U.K., British Petroleum, and American successors in interest. This is a monster of our own making. And by ignorantly attributing to them this status of somehow being genuine Islam (despite your utter lack of qualifications to decide what is and is not real Islam) you only give them power.

    "Point me to any nation that thinks it's hunky dory to execute people in spectacularly barbaric ways for the crime of being gay besides Islamic nations."

    South Sudan is a really easy hit. I'm not even sure the status of gays improved marginally with the secession from Islamic Sudan. While you could be executed as a repeat, habitual offender under their interpretation of Sharia, the more typical punishment was a bondage and discipline session with your local sheikh, who would no doubt send you away with some pointers on avoiding Mrs. Grundy's attention in the future. In Christian South Sudan, there's no longer so much discretion - or any at all, apparently. The punishment for being gay is 10 years in prison, fixed term.

    Christian Ghana won't execute you spectacularly, but they'll give you 3 years in a prison system where your chances of either dying or contracting a fatal disease are very high. Liberia (English speaking, predominantly Protestant) will similarly give you "only" 1 year in a prison system so brutal few truly survive (and fine you on top of that!.) Cameroon (40% Catholic, 30% Protestant) will give you at least 6 months, no more than 5 years, plus a stiff fine. Kenya, one of the brighter spots in sub-saharan Africa by most measures, is one of the worst here. Up to 14 years in prison. At least their prisons aren't quite as lethal. In Malawi statutory penalties include whippings, and can reach up to 14 years in prison, although in this case the government is reported to have quit enforcing the law and started moving to repeal it - only 5 years ago. Still hasn't been repealed as far as I can see though.

    Yes, those are some of the poorer Christian countries, but Muslim nations include some of the poorer nations in the world as well. The Arab states are rich from oil money? True, sort of. That money gets funneled into the state and into the official church aka the wahabbis. They are impoverished nations with wealthy upper crusts, and the wealth that flows out to that crust buys loyalty. You want to blame Islam for that? Fine, undo the last century of heavy-handed meddling by European powers that were deliberately trying to prevent the Muslim world from becoming a threat by sending them back to the dark ages first, then give them a century. That would be a fair test. What you're looking at now is as rigged as any stage-magicians trick.

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  • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday August 21 2017, @11:50AM (13 children)

    You want to blame Islam for that?

    When it's a direct result of what's preached in their mosques? Yes. Yes, I do. I don't excuse Europe or Islam for all the violence around the Crusades. I don't excuse the US for slavery or the near genocide of the American Indians. And I will not excuse Islam for how its people are acting right now.

    --
    My rights don't end where your fear begins.
    • (Score: 2) by Arik on Monday August 21 2017, @12:17PM (3 children)

      by Arik (4543) on Monday August 21 2017, @12:17PM (#556990) Journal
      "When it's a direct result of what's preached in their mosques?"

      In wahabbi mosques, sure.

      Will you destroy all Christians because one sect decides to emulate the crusades?

      --
      If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
      • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday August 21 2017, @01:06PM (2 children)

        Did I say anything about destroying anyone? The only ones who need destroyed are the ones actively looking to perpetrate violence upon the west. Keeping the rest the hell out of western civilization would be plenty otherwise. When they're ready to act civilized and join us in the 21st century, welcome aboard.

        No, it's not just the wahabbis. Not by a long shot.

        --
        My rights don't end where your fear begins.
        • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday August 21 2017, @03:36PM (1 child)

          by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 21 2017, @03:36PM (#557066) Journal

          The only ones who need destroyed are the ones actively looking to perpetrate violence upon the west...
          When they're ready to act civilized and join us in the 21st century, welcome aboard.

          If you care only about west, I wonder what do you know about the east?

          I mean, look [wikipedia.org], Iran was a democracy before the Brits and CiA (in the name of the precious West) decided to intervene.

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          • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday August 21 2017, @11:38PM

            As much as I need to. The primary thing I know about the east is this: it is not my problem. There are plenty of massive national powers over there quite as capable anyone in the west of dealing their region of the world as they see fit.

            --
            My rights don't end where your fear begins.
    • (Score: 4, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Monday August 21 2017, @12:58PM (8 children)

      by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 21 2017, @12:58PM (#556999) Journal

      Arik is making some very good points. I remind you of Operation Ajax. Iran was a modern democracy, until the CIA staged it's coup, and put a spineless puppet in charge of things. Without Western support, the House of Saud wouldn't be running things in Mecca, either.

      Without the Wahabbis inciting hatred throughout Islam, Islam would be much more palatable than it currently is.

      The destruction of the old Ottoman Empire wasn't all that great a thing, after all. The Ottoman kept their sects under control, and the tribes mostly in check. Note, however, that the Ottoman remained silent during Turkey's genocide of Assyrians. The Ottoman wasn't all peaches and cream, but it was at least somewhat better than we have today.

      • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday August 21 2017, @01:07PM (7 children)

        I expected better of you than conflating what was with what is. You don't let a rabid dog in your house just because it used to be a cute puppy.

        --
        My rights don't end where your fear begins.
        • (Score: 3, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Monday August 21 2017, @01:14PM

          by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 21 2017, @01:14PM (#557012) Journal

          Of course you don't let the rabid dog in. But the concentration of rabid dogs is greatest in the vicinity of Mecca, where EVERYONE is oppressed by a corrupt and ruthless "government". The disease spreads from there. I don't find any part of Islam "attractive", but the poison spreads from Saudi Arabia.

          If the House of Saud were to be overthrown (by almost anyone other than the Wahabbis) the poison wouldn't be so virulent.

          And, the House of Saud stands because the west funds them. That is certainly not the first or only instance of the western world backing the wrong damned dictators.

        • (Score: 3, Informative) by Arik on Tuesday August 22 2017, @12:35AM (5 children)

          by Arik (4543) on Tuesday August 22 2017, @12:35AM (#557315) Journal
          Dogs are probably not the best simile to choose for muslims.

          But regardless, you have a population that's mostly fine, decent folks and then you have a smaller population that are just evil to the core.

          Then you have an outside power come into the mix which takes those with rabies and sets them up in the highest spot in their world. It hands them Mecca and Medina, without concern for the people that are placed under them. It hands them oil, money, advanced weapons. It protects them and nurtures them. And they prosper. They spread their word, they convert, they start murdering and taking control of more and more of that world.

          Who is at fault here? The outside power? The 'rabid' people they prop up in power? Or the common decent folk that are being killed by them?

          Your answer seems to be the last of the three, which is quite puzzling, as that's the one I would NOT blame, personally.
          --
          If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
          • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday August 22 2017, @01:21AM (4 children)

            by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Tuesday August 22 2017, @01:21AM (#557335) Homepage Journal

            But regardless, you have a population that's mostly fine, decent folks...

            No, you do not. You have a population that are five centuries behind the west in terms of civilization. You have a population that the majority of which condone if not actively support the actions of the violent radicals. They may be fine, decent folks by middle-eastern standards but they are nothing of the sort by western standards.

            --
            My rights don't end where your fear begins.
            • (Score: 1) by Arik on Tuesday August 22 2017, @01:43AM (3 children)

              by Arik (4543) on Tuesday August 22 2017, @01:43AM (#557341) Journal
              Spoken like a true bigot. You diss over a billion people, most of whom you've never met and know nothing about, based on what? A biased picture you've picked up from biased media perhaps?
              --
              If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
              • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday August 22 2017, @01:58AM (2 children)

                by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Tuesday August 22 2017, @01:58AM (#557348) Homepage Journal

                I am not currently and never in the future will be biased against anyone for something they were born as and cannot change. Religion cannot be counted among those traits though. Even if it were, I am not and never will be ashamed of thinking less of people who follow a religion that so widely preaches violence against me and mine. All human beings should be biased in favor of their own survival. Those who are not deserve to be removed from the gene pool for uncommon stupidity.

                --
                My rights don't end where your fear begins.
                • (Score: 2) by Arik on Tuesday August 22 2017, @04:35AM (1 child)

                  by Arik (4543) on Tuesday August 22 2017, @04:35AM (#557383) Journal
                  "Religion cannot be counted among those traits though."

                  Not in our western liberal tradition, no, but in most of the world, it is exactly that. In our advanced tradition, religion is about belief, about faith, about ethics and theology. We look at a religion and ask first can we believe it, can it be true? But this is a new way of looking at things, far from universal even in the west, and unheard of in many Muslim areas. The older conception really doesn't place much weight on theology. Instead it's a form of communitarianism, with religions simply being the way that the different communities define themselves as distinct from each other.

                  In this view religion is not so much about belief and much more about belonging. People are assigned a religion at birth, the religion of their family, this is their identity and they are pretty well stuck with it. Any options to change come with massive drawbacks (without even considering the possibility of violent reprisal!)

                  If you're born in a village in Pakistan in a Muslim family you're quite stuck being Muslim. You might be a very good Muslim or a very bad Muslim, you might be very pious or a notorious sinner, but you're still a Muslim in the eyes of everyone around you and you can probably count on that never changing. And this identity isn't some minor thing you can take or leave, it's a key to your place in life and your ability to do virtually anything. Who can you eat with, who can you go to when you need help, who can you marry? The answer is Muslims, those are 'your people' and you can share food freely (obviously dining with non-Muslims is to be avoided, due to the suspicion the food would not be halal.) Sharing food is the foundation of so much of our social interaction, it may seem a small thing but think about it. People eat with you because you are a Muslim. You somehow become not a Muslim. Now forget about the apostasy issue entirely, just think about the food alone. Now these people, the community you were born into, the people who made your life possible, the people you could rely on for help - they don't want to eat with you. They're certainly no longer willing to entertain, or send, marriage proposals either. Everything social in your life just went away. And you're not alone. A lone individual in a country made up of large communities that look out for each other, you have no one to look out for you. It's not sustainable.

                  A person born and raised in that environment is not even likely to be a Muslim in the sense that we think of it, as someone that heard the message of this preacher or that preacher and become convinced of the rightness and truth of that message and therefore embraces it and joins. A great many that I have known personally are only 'Muslim' in the same sense that an atheist Jew is still considered a Jew, even if he keeps none of the mitzvot, even if he never goes to synagogue, scoffs at religion openly, insults the rabbis etc etc it doesn't matter - they'll still call him a Jew to his dying day - *and so will the anti-semites*.

                  Being Jewish, in that sense, is indeed something one is born with and can't take off, and for many people, being Muslim is the same. 
                  --
                  If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?