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posted by janrinok on Friday August 30 2019, @06:33PM   Printer-friendly
from the right-to-speak-but-not-to-be-heard dept.

[Seconding-Ed note: This story is likely to be contentious. In the interests of helping set the tone, I would like to start off by quoting H.L. Mencken:

The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.

Further, this quote which has appeared in various phrasings and attributions:

I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.

To mind's eye, I must be willing to accept against my own words and actions any that I would wish to see imposed upon another. --martyb]

YouTube Restores Far-Right Channels After Appeal

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

The channels of two prominent far-right YouTubers have been re-instated after the video-sharing site said it made a mistake in removing them. Initially, YouTube gave no reason for changing its decision and just said it had made a "wrong call". Later, it said that while many people found the channels "deeply offensive", they had not broken its rules. The decision came days after YouTube's chief executive said YouTube had to be open to hosting "controversial" ideas.

YouTube removed several channels and accounts this week, claiming they had broken its hate speech policies. Among them was a channel run by white nationalist Martin Sellner and an anonymous British YouTuber known as The Iconoclast. Mr Sellner was reportedly in contact with the man who allegedly carried out the Christchurch mosque shootings in March this year that killed 51 people. Austrian police are investigating his links to the attack. He denies any involvement in the shooting.

Both men protested about the closure of their YouTube channels on social media. They shared information sent to them from YouTube, which said they had "repeatedly" broken its guidelines. On Thursday, YouTube reversed its decision and reinstated the two channels. Several other far-right channels that YouTube banned this week remain unavailable.

An explanation for the change of heart came on Friday. Farshad Shadloo, YouTube's global product policy communications lead, said that after a "thorough review" it had decided that the channels had not broken its rules. "We realise that many may find the viewpoints expressed in these channels deeply offensive," he said. Mr Shadloo added that YouTube had recently updated the way it handled "hateful content".

Earlier this week YouTube boss Susan Wojcicki wrote in a letter to video-makers that YouTube must remain an "open platform". She said the desire to welcome all kinds of views had to be balanced against a "responsibility to protect the community".

"A commitment to openness is not easy. It sometimes means leaving up content that is outside the mainstream, controversial or even offensive," she said. "Hearing a broad range of perspectives ultimately makes us a stronger and more informed society," she claimed.

'I am Talking Directly to You': US Attorney Delivers Powerful Rebuke to White Nationalists

ABC News:

The U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Ohio on Thursday announced new federal charges against a self-avowed white nationalist accused of threatening to commit an attack on a local Jewish community center. James Reardon, who attended the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, was arrested last week after authorities said he posted the threat on Instagram. U.S. Attorney Justin Herdman said Reardon has now been charged with one count of making threats as authorities continue their investigation into Reardon and whether he my have any accomplices.

Of course, not so much that, but what Herdman said after that.

"I am talking directly to you," Herdman said at a news conference announcing the charges. "The Constitution protects your right to speak, your right to think, and your right to believe. If you want to waste the blessings of liberty by going down a path of hatred and failed ideologies, that is your choice."

Herdman continued, evoking the sacrifices made by U.S. service members in World War II against Nazism, as well as those who marched for civil rights throughout U.S. history.

"Thousands and thousands of young Americans already voted with their lives to ensure that this same message of intolerance, death, and destruction would not prevail - you can count their ballots by visiting any American cemetery in North Africa, Italy, France, or Belgium and tallying the white headstones," Herdman said. "You can also recite the many names of civil rights advocates who bled and died in opposing supporters of those same ideologies of hatred. Their voices may be distant, but they can still be heard."

"The Constitution may give you a voice, but it doesn't guarantee you a receptive audience," Herdman added.


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  • (Score: 1, Troll) by jmorris on Friday August 30 2019, @11:44PM (13 children)

    by jmorris (4844) on Friday August 30 2019, @11:44PM (#887980)

    Love that projection. And notice how you can read all sort of vile shit into utterly unobjectional text. Yet the Allah Ackbar types scream "Death to the infidel! Behead those who insult Islam! Death to America!" and you guys just say they are misunderstood, that Islam is a religion of peace, etc. And you don't expect anyone to notice the inconsistency. You expected us to stay asleep. You guessed wrong.

    The Muslims have their "profession of faith", you say it and you are a Muslim, stray and you are an apostate and they have a duty to slay you.

    The "White Nationalists" have something similar, the infamous "14 words." You hear that and you just know it is gonna be totally metal, ya know stuff about blood and iron, Hitler, skulls or some similar really dank shit. Not so much in reality. "We must secure the existence of our people and a future for White children." Yup, that was it, hope you were ready because didn't spoiler that hate speech. Replace the word White with any other word and it is utterly uncontroversial. Challenge time. Call out another word one could put into that sentence that would be objectionable.

    So prove me wrong. Double dog dare ya haters.

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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday August 31 2019, @12:50AM (10 children)

    by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Saturday August 31 2019, @12:50AM (#888000) Journal

    Ooooh, oooh, I know this one, pick me!

    For a start, define "white." About a century ago, no one who was "white" would have considered polacks, guineas, krauts, or paddies--pardon me, Poles, Italians, Germans, or Irish--"white." It's odd how that changed suddenly. Lord knows what they'd have thought about the Russians.

    Second: what does it mean to "secure the existence" of "our people?" I'm white and I don't feel at all threatened by other ethnic groups. In fact, having grown up in NYC and lived there the first 27 years of my life, I find majority-white areas and settings somewhat unsettling. There's a constant sense of "man, someone's been putting in serious overtime at the cracker factory..." in them. East Asian people look "normal" to me, having come from Flushing in the boro of Queens.

    Third: Why do you think everyone opposed to white nationalism is fine and dandy with Islam? I'm sure as hell not. The Abrahamic religions are probably the worst ideas the human race has ever come up with, and their disappearance would do wonders for a planetwide enlightenment. Notice, though, that my problem is with the religions, not the followers. I feel the same about Judaism and Christianity as I do Islam and for the same reason. I would love to see them disappear, but not the people who follow them, for the same reason a doctor fights infectious disease, not the victims of same.

    Fourth: White folks *already won* here in the US. As has been pointed out at least once upthread, this nation was founded on genocide and slavery of other non-white groups. We are not an oppressed minority. We are not alienated in ways ranging from simple cultural anomie to permanent underclass status (see: Indian reservations, for example). At no point from the founding of the nation to the present have white people en masse (again, see the above about non-WASPs...) been untermenschen.

    Why do you even try this? Do you think anyone besides the people who are already loonie-bird insane are going to be convinced by your glassy-eyed drooling whining bullshit?

    --
    I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
    • (Score: 0, Troll) by jmorris on Saturday August 31 2019, @01:33AM (6 children)

      by jmorris (4844) on Saturday August 31 2019, @01:33AM (#888024)

      You are kinda making my point, in that you steadfastly refuse to accept the challenge. The rest are the ravings of a dead ender.

      It is remarkable, I do it all the time, ask a direct question that by the accepted dogma would be a simple pitch right over the plate... but nobody ever takes a swing.

      Examine your premises people, most of them are questionable. So question them, then join us on the Dark Side. No we do not have cookies, only more uncomfortable Truths that will only mad you disillusioned and sad. But if you pretty illusions can be destroyed with the Truth, they should be destroyed. Only when we have a critical mass of people seeing clearly will it become possible to find an answer.

      • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday August 31 2019, @01:40AM (5 children)

        by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Saturday August 31 2019, @01:40AM (#888029) Journal

        You didn't even read that, did you? Ye gods, if you actually think you're some kind of stalwart defender of truth and justice, you are far beyond my reach to save any longer. How sad. You could have been so many things, and you became *this...*

        Get a clue. You're not cool. You're not edgy. You're not new. You're not an original thinker. You're also not correct, not historically or genetically or culturally. And, I notice, you can't actually rebut any of the points I made or answer any of my questions. All you have is the weirdly r-type sounding "dead ender."

        Do you really think the only purpose of human existence is to fuck and breed? How pathetic.

        --
        I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
        • (Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 31 2019, @03:39AM (4 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 31 2019, @03:39AM (#888088)

          His challenge was:

          "We must secure the existence of our people and a future for White children."
          Call out another word one could put into that sentence that would be objectionable.

          Easy answer. "Caucasian."

          • (Score: 2) by jmorris on Saturday August 31 2019, @04:55AM (1 child)

            by jmorris (4844) on Saturday August 31 2019, @04:55AM (#888102)

            Well played, Anon.

            • (Score: 1, Offtopic) by aristarchus on Saturday August 31 2019, @07:08AM

              by aristarchus (2645) on Saturday August 31 2019, @07:08AM (#888139) Journal

              But jmorris is not white, he is a "morris", a fucking Celt, of inferior intellect, but amazing dancing skills in the Morris Dance! Or, he is just poser in Louisiana, who has nothing going for him other than at least he is not Black, or Vietnamese, or Cajun. Fuching Anglo Louisianaians~! I recommend a movie, it is called Belisaire the Cajun [wikipedia.org], and it explains what assholes people like jmorris can be in their own "homeland".

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 31 2019, @06:20AM (1 child)

            by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 31 2019, @06:20AM (#888125)

            Germanic also works.

            • (Score: 2) by jmorris on Saturday August 31 2019, @06:25AM

              by jmorris (4844) on Saturday August 31 2019, @06:25AM (#888126)

              Yeah, saying that makes ya liberally Hitler. But it should be utterly uncontroversial as well. That is how messed up our current world is.

    • (Score: 4, Informative) by Sally_G on Saturday August 31 2019, @05:33AM (2 children)

      by Sally_G (8170) on Saturday August 31 2019, @05:33AM (#888115)

      The Abrahamic religions are probably the worst ideas the human race has ever come up with

      You've not forgotten that the Aztec pyramids hosted human sacrifices to the sun god? They would be easy to forget if they sacrificed a virgin or two at the solstices and equinoxes. But, that wasn't the case. Hundreds, even thousands, of victims in a single day, day after day.

      Hate on Abraham, but remember that there are worse ideas.

      • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 31 2019, @07:22AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 31 2019, @07:22AM (#888145)

        Hate on Abraham, but remember that there are worse ideas.

        And SallyG is one of those worse ideas!

        You know, the saddle on the sex partner may not be tending to mutual satisfaction, especially when the partner is an actual horse. Just saying.

      • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday August 31 2019, @11:08PM

        by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Saturday August 31 2019, @11:08PM (#888336) Journal

        None of the Aztec gods damned unbelievers to spend eternity in torment. I'd definitely say the Central American religions were maladaptive and outright evil, but in terms of dogma they were, quite literally, *infinitely* less evil than the Abrahamic religions. There is a difference. And if you think the Abrahamic faiths didn't have mass human sacrifice...well, you need to open a history book. They called it by different names, like Crusade or "manifest destiny" or the Inquisition(s), that's all.

        --
        I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 31 2019, @02:09AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 31 2019, @02:09AM (#888047)

    and you guys just say they are misunderstood, that Islam is a religion of peace

    Wow, which guys say that, and how numerous are they? Cite your sources.

    • (Score: 5, Interesting) by jmorris on Saturday August 31 2019, @02:45AM

      by jmorris (4844) on Saturday August 31 2019, @02:45AM (#888066)

      Pretty much the entire mainstream political spectrum, from The Squad to President George W. Bush. Google is your friend if you want thousands of citations about the "Religion of Peace" nonsense. Google will still service those requests. And pretty much the same unanimity of opinion exists in the mainstream about any white person who says the word "Nationalist" is a "White Nationalist" and thus is a Nazi, regardless of what they actually say. Which is why I'm challenging the premise.

      And note well, like our resident lunatic above, you too refused to answer what is supposed to be a simple question. Instead you invent a new question, one that does have a self evident answer, which I quickly supply only to shut down this second attempt a Distract, Disinfo, Disqualify, Deflect, Deescalate operation. I lave learned well to predict when this pattern will appear, I state openly that it will in fact appear and yet it still always happens. The original post might get a half dozen replies, but none will touch the question asked. It would require CrimeThink to even fully parse. Dare to commit CrimeThink.