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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
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.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Saturday August 31 2019, @12:09AM (15 children)
May Athena smite the Romans (and Christians) with bolts of fire! But you are thinking of the Library, not the School, although they were associated. And I still have my doctorate, which only means I am competent to teach. You, historically ignorant AC, on the other hand, lose.
And, interestingly, Egypt has built a modern version of the Library of Alexandria [ Bibliotheca Alexandrina ( مكتبة الإسكندرية )] [wikipedia.org]in Alexandria, much of it digital!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 31 2019, @12:14AM (12 children)
Your school got shut down by the Board of Education for giving out fake PhD's and because it was a diploma mill.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Saturday August 31 2019, @12:29AM (11 children)
Say, why don't you double down, AC, and really display your lack of knowledge and education? There were no "Boards of Education", or Regents, or Chancellors in 284BCE, the School was run by the scholars themselves, as a professional association based on mutual recognition of competence. The "Board of Education" is something invented in Texas circa 1982CE, to prevent education from taking place.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday August 31 2019, @12:53AM
This thread may actually be your finest moment on SN, ari :) More like this please. I about wet myself laughing over the "PhD in epistemology" thing.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 31 2019, @01:16AM (1 child)
Say, why don't you double down, Aris-tuchus, and really display your lack of knowledge and education? You know you're really not old enough to have been educated by the Regents, or Chancellors in 284BCE of the Alexandria School. It's obvious you're self-educated. Really, it shows. :-)
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Saturday August 31 2019, @02:15AM
Rather pathetic that you think you could differentiate an autodidact from a graduate of the School of Alexandria. I was born in 310BCE, [wikipedia.org] and as I said, there were no Boards or Regents, or even Chancellors. The Chancellor is the King's representative on Campus, and the first one was imposed upon Oxford in 1201 [wikipedia.org], free scholars such as Alexandria was need no such fetters. So, do you actually know what epistemology is, and why it is relevant to this thread?
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday August 31 2019, @08:11PM
So, by your own admission, you have no education from any accredited institutions. /me takes Aristarchus' phud degree and wipes arse with it.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Monday September 02 2019, @02:05AM (6 children)
Never mind your degree, or boards of education, or any of that shit.
What I really want to know is... where did you get your time machine??
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Monday September 02 2019, @07:03AM (5 children)
No time machine, I just keep failing to die. Kind of a pain, since I am not getting any younger. But, it does give me perspective that few have, and I have an obligation to share that, more or less. And, you are correct. Runaway is an idiot, so he does not recognize that things like "accreditation" are only necessary when higher education starts to be perceived as a consumer good, and not what it actually is, the path to liberty for human beings. The School of Alexandria needs no certification that its own reputation does not give it, much like Oxford and the University of Paris do not really need any santion. They do not have to worry about who knocks, they are the Unversities that knock. And our poor Runaway, salt of the earth and truck-driving man that he is, has no clue about what those who are more educated than him know. And so, we are constantly bombarded with Runaway ignorance, which, sort of, is a good thing. Quick, Runaway!!! What is that average air-speed velocity of an unladen swallow? (I only ask, because once I asked this of a class, and they to my surprise, gave me an answer. God forbid the speed of an unladen swallow [style.org] be something to escape the grasp of science>).
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Monday September 02 2019, @01:54PM (4 children)
The truck-driving man may be ignorant by the standards of your lauded self, but if all the truck-driving men go on strike at once, what will you eat?
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Monday September 02 2019, @05:03PM (3 children)
There were no "trucks" in Alexandria, circa 280 BCE. Mostly Dhows. We would get food from the non-white farmers down the road.
More recently I had the opportunity to participate in an academic strike at an American University. The Teamsters showed up and walked our picket line. No one even thought of trying to cross, while they were there, and I thought, "How nice that these gentlemen are on our side!" Runaway strikes me as renegade scab driver.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Monday September 02 2019, @08:19PM (2 children)
Speaking from the experience of a friend, the union says "Go walk that picket line if you want to keep working" -- so they do. It's actually required; it's not optional. Kinda like union dues, except extracted as time.
Dhows, eh? you were far-travelled indeed!
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Tuesday September 03 2019, @01:45AM (1 child)
Or, Solidarity forever! Or as they used to say in Poland, Solidarność [jisc.ac.uk]!
Alexandria, which is you are an American you would not know, is on the Nile Delta. Lanteen rig sails.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Tuesday September 03 2019, @02:37AM
Are you telling me you, yourself, are evidence that the ancient Egyptians were Greeks?
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 31 2019, @03:36PM (1 child)
Athena smited your goat-smelly Greek asses when she allowed the western Euros to burn your porn library to the ground.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 02 2019, @07:09AM
And you sheep-smelly Goth asses who think you are superior to those of us with goats? Not the mention the cattle and pig smelly Arkansas invaders of the Ozarks! Gitche Manitou disapproves of your lifestyle, especially of your four-wheel-drive vehicles. You are all going to the "Rolling Coal" very special hell.