[gavanwoolery]

I'm always willing to take the unpopular side, as anyone who knows me knows.

With regards to Luckey's exit from Facebook, and the controversy of his politically-oriented actions:

Persecuting someone for choosing a political candidate or supporting a political group is the exact opposite of a democracy - no matter how "abominable" that group might seem. I am not a Trump supporter, but the way people have treated his supporters sickens me. Can we agree to disagree, rather than launch a witch hunt on anyone who does not share similar views? This has manifested itself everywhere, its not even choosing sides anymore (see: Kathy Griffin).

We are so afraid of free speech it is ridiculous. I say let people speak. If people want to speak and say potentially idiotic things, let them expose their views. They are free to speak, we are free to listen or ignore. We have a huge empathy problem where anyone that holds an opposing view is inhuman.

We are afraid that free speech will incite violence, but ironically a lot more violence has come from trying to suppress free speech.

[dajomu]

The issue isn't necessarily that he supports Trump, it's that he donated money to a group that knowingly shitposts, which if anything is an attack on free speech. A quote from that group: "shitposting is powerful and meme magic is real". The founders of the same group spread white supremacist and anti-semitic memes.

Surely the problem with funding a group like that is that they are actively employing measures to reduce free speech or a balanced political discussion? In that context it's not someone who is using their free speech, but employing others to suppress it. That's the problem I have with Luckey's actions (and yes, a whole lot of other people's too).

[gavanwoolery]

Yep, in fact he supposedly supports Ron Paul, but Nimble America is definitely a more Trump-ish, alt-right-ish type of thing.

According to Luckey, they made some memes that he liked. Maybe they were not racist memes, but I do not know. Maybe Luckey did not know about some of their worse memes. Anyhow, he threw them a chunk of money. We can infer without greater evidence that Luckey is racist simply because he donated to something.

All of that said, the one and only attack on free speech is censorship. Censorship comes in many forms, including the form of shaming people. I think what the alt-right does is dumb, but at the same time, they hide in their own dark corner of the internet and I never have to interact with them so I am fine carrying about my business. Luckey donating to Nimble America had a similar lack of effect on me.

[jaredklewis]

Shaming people is censorship? I mean maybe, but then the spectrum is rather large.

When I think censorship I think people being fined, thrown in cages, or even killed for saying or writing the wrong kind of thing.

That is a very different thing than, "Shame on you! What would your mother think?"

[gavanwoolery]

I totally agree with you, bad phrasing on my part. I'm talking about the less trivial aspects of "shame" as it applies to carrying a reputation, say, in Silicon Valley - thus affecting who will hire you, who will fire you, even who will refuse to connect with you in business.

Of course, you are totally free to develop opinions about people - but at the same time laws for slander, libel, and defamation exist for a good reason. Many people made Luckey out to be Hitler, but if you met him in real life you'd probably find it hard to insist on this comparison.

[wccrawford]

I think we've reached a point in society where having your livelihood taken from you is the same as being jailed, aka "thrown in cages".

The difference, of course, is that it isn't the government doing it. It's the general population.

I'm of 2 minds about it because I don't want to support anyone that supports racism.

But I also feel that people deserve second chances. People do learn from their mistakes, and they have to be allowed to continue on afterwards or there's no point in changing.

I haven't heard of Luckey apologizing, but that isn't surprising because the media doesn't think that's good enough news to broadcast. They only publish the worst stuff, not the best. He might have done so and I'd have no idea.

[shepardrtc]

>I think we've reached a point in society where having your livelihood taken from you is the same as being jailed, aka "thrown in cages". >The difference, of course, is that it isn't the government doing it. It's the general population.

That's society saying that one's behavior is unacceptable and that it won't do business with them. I find that perfectly acceptable. Its not being forced by a single entity, but rather a general consensus is reached among everyone.

> I haven't heard of Luckey apologizing

Because he hasn't.

[psyc]

It isn't behavior anymore. It's political opinions. Usually mainstream ones. Often witch-hunt style - i.e. the victim didn't even hold the opinion attributed to them by the mob.

This isn't a good norm.

[sangnoir]

> The difference, of course, is that it isn't the government doing it. It's the general population.

Do you honestly think this socio-political pressure is new? It's now visible due to how well-connected the world is now and it resonates a bit because the victims are people HN potentially identify with.

This has been going on for ages and is not limited to the left or right, labels have been flying for ages: n!@@&^-lover, RINO, fascist, cuckservertive, racist, and on and on.

[hyperdunc]

> We can infer without greater evidence that Luckey is racist simply because he donated to something.

No we can't. And this is the kind of lazy reasoning that has already diluted the word "racist" significantly.

[hitekker]

> We can infer without greater evidence that Luckey is racist simply because he donated to something.

Snark punctuating a hazy, misinformed comment is ironically one of the calling cards of the alt-right: incoherency of speech to provoke incoherency of thought.

[FeepingCreature]

This is of course just another version of GPL vs. BSD.

Attempt to maximize some measure of "total freedom" at the expense of some individual freedom, or just let everybody do what they want even if it harms the community?

[psyc]

Shitposting is not 'an attack on free speech'. It's speech. What you're doing is doublespeak - also not an attack on free speech, merely an attack on logic.

[angersock]

Shitposting doesn't deprive anybody else of their ability to speak. If their message is more captivating than stupid memes, it'll get through.

The fact that a lot of messages aren't is maybe worth some reflection.

[onion2k]

If their message is more captivating than stupid memes, it'll get through.

Sadly that's not true. If there are millions of stupid messages then it's very hard to see the good ones. To use HN as an analogy, some brilliant stories never make it to the front page on a busy day because /newest is just moving too fast. In that sense shitposting does deprive people of speech by making it impossible for anyone to listen.

[pavlov]

Shitposting is a DDoS on common sense. It blocks out valuable contributions and skews the discussion by establishing a fake norm.

[xorcist]

> Persecuting someone for choosing a political candidate or supporting a political group is the exact opposite of a democracy

Speaking out against atrocities and harmful political views is exactly what democracy is about.

Some people find themselves "persecuted" any time someone disagrees or they can't get media on their side. That is diluting the term and in no way reason to stop speaking out against them. (And perhaps ironically, the ones who want to silence others often see themselves as silenced.)

[gottorespond]

Persecuting someone for choosing a political candidate or supporting a political group is the exact opposite of a democracy - no matter how "abominable" that group might seem.

What you call "persecution" I call a difference of opinion. No one is saying this guy should be locked up for his views, and he clearly has the means and opportunity to continue pursuing his political and career goals.

He aligned himself with groups his employer found unsavory (shitlords, trolls, meme magicians, etc.) and lost his job. that's not persecution, that's playing with fire and getting burned.

[ClassyJacket]

So you're saying we shouldn't be free to speak freely about other people speaking freely? Free speech only applies to Luckey, but not to anyone who disagrees with him?

[hsod]

This idea that a billionaire is being persecuted because people wrote articles about a SuperPAC he started in order to manipulate public opinion is ludicrous.

Playing devil's advocate may be intellectually satisfying for you but I believe it damages the discourse by presuming a fundamental equality between the two sides, as if this is all just a game and there is no right and wrong. Your perspective here is, essentially, nihilistic. You steadfastly refuse to make a value judgement on the people you are defending.

This perspective was satirized by @dril on Twitter[0]:

> the wise man bowed his head solemnly and spoke: "theres actually zero difference between good & bad things. you imbecile. you fucking moron"

From this everything-is-neutral, there-is-no-right-and-wrong vantage point, I can see how the Trump backlash could look like anti-free-speech partisanship. But everything is not neutral. There are such things as right and wrong.

[0]: https://twitter.com/dril/status/473265809079693312?lang=en

[happyrock]

That's a clever way to disguise your opposition to free speech, just categorize perspectives as morally "wrong" versus "not-wrong", and declare that only "not-wrong" viewpoints can be heard.

[ubernostrum]

People can speak.

And I can choose not to listen to them, or to disagree with them, or to speak out against them, or to refuse to associate with them, or to refuse to support their causes, or all of the above.

The problem you seem to have is confusing "I disagree with, and thus refuse to associate with or support, and will speak out against, this person's views" for "This person is oppressed".

In a marketplace of ideas, some people are not going to be winners.

[gavanwoolery]

Good points. As mentioned, I think its totally fair (even encouraged) to debate political views.

There is a clear difference between debating political views and witch hunting though.

People are having to write public apologies for having their own views or engaging in free speech. This is NOT ok in my opinion. People are getting fired or threatened for being Trump supporters. Also not ok IMO.

The clear difference is when it turns from political debate ("free speech") into real-world consequence.

And some things should have consequence. If a person engaged in racial discrimination in the workplace, I would totally fire them. However, if someone supported political candidate of dubious values, its a different ballgame - maybe they support that candidate for their economic policy, who knows. The crazy thing is Luckey is not even a Trump supporter, at least according to his public apology.

[caseydurfee]

My frustration is that the right wing has been doing this to people on the left for 70 years.

It's not OK that the left has started doing it to the right, but the people I see going on about "liberal witch hunts" and "Literally Hitler" and "This is why Trump won" I didn't see having a problem back when Jonah Goldberg wrote a bestselling book about how Hillary was "Literally Hitler", or a problem when Limbaugh/Hannity/OReilly were saying that anti-war protesters were terrorist lovers.

These people didn't have a problem when entertainers who spoke out against George W Bush were blackballed. Or when people who opposed the DOMA were accused of being anti-Christian. Or all the bullshit about Vietnam vets getting spit on (it never happened, but it's still accepted as conventional wisdom that it did.) People have gotten threatened and fired from their jobs for supporting gun control - why no outrage about that? People who are pro-choice still get accused of being baby-killers. Where's the outrage about that from the frozen peach lover community?

Being accused of being a traitor to America or to Christianity for holding leftist political beliefs has been the social norm since the 1950's in this country. I wish people would quit acting like some 13 year old liberals on Tumblr started this shit.

Suggested Reading: Liberal Fascism, by Jonah Goldberg Deliver Us from Evil: Defeating Terrorism, Despotism, and Liberalism, by Sean Hannity The Crucible, by Arthur Miller Literally any post on Breitbart, ever.

[ubernostrum]

There is a clear difference between debating political views and witch hunting though.

People are having to write public apologies for having their own views or engaging in free speech

So would you see a boycott as a "witch hunt"? After all, the point is to force an organization, or its leaders, to disavow opinions or positions. Do people not have the right to collectively speak in that fashion?

Because ultimately that's what these "witch hunts" people wring their hands about boil down to: organized action by people who disagree.

What's worse is that while trying to cloak yourself in "free speech", you're really making an argument that is virulently hateful to it. The only way not to have the "witch hunts" you're so terrified of is to stifle speech. The only way not to have people pressured into public apologies is to stifle speech. You cannot have "free speech" and not have the potential for consequences in the form of large numbers of people disagreeing with or disassociating from you. What you really seem to want is a freedom of first speech -- in other words, someone who speaks first gets a special privilege of never having to deal with people disagreeing, or consequences of the general public's views of their speech. And if that is what you want, you should stop calling it "free speech" and start calling it "privileged special protection for certain speakers", since that's what it would actually be.

[gtirloni]

I think the major issue is polarization and stereotyping. You cannot have a sensible discussion without being labeled this or that. You cannot agree/disagree with anything anyone says or you'll be labeled that person's "supporter" or "hater".

[woah]

What? Are you complaining that people are speaking freely about politicians they disagree with?

[mblood]

I think he's complaining that Trump supporters like Luckey are literally Hitler to a large number of left-leaning people.

[gavanwoolery]

Yes, and the fact that we use the term "Hitler" and "Nazi" with little to no discretion. The terms are virtually meaningless now. So many people in my social circle used these words to describe Luckey, yet I do not see Luckey participating in genocide.

[ZeroGravitas]

Is it fair to reduce Hitler and the Nazis to just the mass genocides they perpetrated? You talk about the terms becoming meaningless, yet that was the the only thing they did.

For many years they were campaigning to make Germany great again, as other countries were taking advantage of them and some elements in their country were intentionally making bad deals. Plus obviously the people who weren't real Germans were a problem that needed to be dealt with. They wanted to build up the army and built strong links between large corporations and the government.

So maybe it's okay to call people who do things like that Nazis?

[Para2016]

Yea, and people who build efficient highway systems and affordable cars for the public! Those Nazi wankers! /s

[gavanwoolery]

No, they have every right to do that - that is part of free discussion. But something does not sit quite right when we see people having to issue public apologies for supporting a political group. Its not like Hilary or Sanders supporters at Facebook/Oculus where ever expected to do something like that. Thats a clear signal that one side is being persecuted for their views. Another way of putting it - we should attack political ideologies, not the individuals who carry them.

[coldpie]

> No, they have every right to do that - that is part of free discussion. But something does not sit quite right when we see people having to issue public apologies for supporting a political group. Its not like Hilary or Sanders supporters at Facebook/Oculus where ever expected to do something like that.

Mmm, surely you think there's a line somewhere, right? Hypothetically, if a business owner used their profits to fund people committing genocide in Africa, you would find that objectionable, boycott that business, and demand an apology, yes? If so, then you draw the line at least at supporting genocide.

Others draw the line elsewhere. Supporting the Republican party in 2017 means supporting minority disenfranchisement, supporting open racism against and profiling of people of Hispanic and Middle Eastern descent, supporting poor health outcomes for people who aren't wealthy, supporting the undermining of our democracy through a blatant disregard for reality, and a list of other atrocities of varying magnitudes depending on who you ask. The same cannot be said for Democrats.

I think it's reasonable for many people to draw their lines at that point, and demand an apology from business leaders who support Republicans. I also think it's reasonable for you to draw your line elsewhere, and to debate in favor of your line. But I think it's crazy to claim that there is no line that a person may cross that should expel them from our modern society.

[zorpner]

No, they have every right to do that - that is part of free discussion. But something does not sit quite right...

I just deleted a lengthy post rebutting you, because I realized that quoting this is all I need. You profess to support free speech, but you do not. That's all there is.

[throwanem]

Is it? I'm not seeing how it's anti-free-speech to find concerning the deployment of intimidation and blackballing tactics to suppress political expression.

[panzer_wyrm]

No. But getting them fired for their political beliefs/personal life is disagreeable to me.

[BCNative]

I walked by a "free-speech" rally the last time I visited your country. It was mostly a bunch of poor people who seemed in serious need of doctors, tailors, and dentists, yelling at "antifa" protestors and telling them to shut-up.

This word, I do not think it means what you think it means.

[NTripleOne]

Ah, last one I saw was just a bunch of memelords yelling "normies get out".

[jackmott]

>Can we agree to disagree

Nope, sorry. This isn't a witch hunt on people who do not share my views. It is a witch hunt on a man unfit to hold the office, with detestable views, not just ones I don't share.

I don't know why people can't see that Trump is an entirely different situation than the usual "damn my party lost".

I will die, never knowing. Oh well.

[CMay]

Trump is not afraid of saying controversial things or making statements which do not mirror the currently understood facts. That much is known. There is probably a legal definition for what would make the president unfit to serve and it likely does not apply to Trump.

Nobody expects the president to be a genius military strategist, a certified priest, a renowned scientist, a master economist or whatever else. What people do expect is that he seeks out those he trusts most to offer opinions, data and interpretations of data to allow him to make informed decisions he deems best for the country.

To some extent, I think many of his whimsical views are irrelevant and are simply highlighted by media for profitability while others are perhaps overinflated relative to their original form. His actions are all that really matter and the media is covering him so studiously that if he does something truly horrid then it's unlikely to squeak by.

Having said that, there is a very serious danger that the media may have cried wolf too many times and the public may not pay as much attention if they have to cry wolf for real. They've overinflated and misrepresented many issues in every attempt to depopularize or delegitimize Trump, that they may have destroyed some of their potential as an alarm bell service.

A couple years ago if you were to put out a truly fair unbiased survey across the country which asked about the border wall or immigration from that list of countries without trying to force racial or religious interpretations, the results might be surprising in retrospect. After these things became super-topics thrust into the light of the campaign, the media machine went into full swing to convince people that everything about them was horrible.

Many people didn't even know they should have strong opinions about these and if Obama had done them (perhaps more smoothly), it might have just been another day. The trend out there is not to properly inform people on topics, but to instill anger. To some degree, Trump won on that emotional vote by using the same tactics.

What people have felt is that the government was not representing them and a candidate appeared that showed every indication of fighting an uphill battle where both parties and the media were against him. Saying a few unpopular things was not considered enough to be damning, especially when the media had thrown a lot of its credibility out by passing a certain threshold for bias which may have hurt their influence on shaping public opinion.

Now, part of what is keeping all of the controversy alive is that many people feel that Trump is being judged as guilty until proven innocent while at the same time there is parallel information (both fake news and legitimate) that offers reasonable doubt.

There was a time when news and scientific papers were trusted by default, but trust has been sacrificed for agendas and personal or corporate gain. It was never a good thing that they were trusted by default, but it was good that they were less opinion oriented. Now the burden has been placed back on the individual to do their own research, but many do not have the time or are not equipped to do research and the internet offers many counter-productive shortcuts.

I'm not a particularly politically invested person and I completely opt-out of the process. No voting, no donating, no activism, etc. It is however good to see that more people have gained interest in that process, despite how juvenile it may seem on both sides.

I don't know if any of that satisfies your curiosity, but I apologize for it being lengthy. It's easy to give in to the doomsaying that's popular right now, but I don't think Trump even measures on the chart of things to worry about over the next 100-200 years. Technically I guess that's also considered doomsaying. :) Doomed if we do, doomed if we don't.

[TokenDiversity]

As a भारतीय I'm amused by the whole Trump thing- it looks to me that anything Trump touches, media immediately takes the opposite side. Amused because we were rules by a political dynasty for 50 years and when pro-development govt. took over, they faced similar resistance. So much so that when the govt wants to abolish Triple talaq, the media is pro-triple-talaq. For those who don't know what it is- it's a practise where a muslim man only has to say talaq thrice to irrevokably divorce his wife.

I don't know Trump much but the parallels are amazing. I know our media is bought and paid for by vested interests but such a thing in the US would be unimaginable for me. And then again, your media all saw proofs of WMD in Iraq.

[wapz]

> And then again, your media all saw proofs of WMD in Iraq

I'm an American and maybe completely out of the loop but I never saw any news report that WMD was discovered in Iraq. I'm guessing it may have been circulated online but the news I watched never reported it from my memory.

[intoverflow2]

Maybe it was downplayed in America but it was a massive part of the UK participating in the war and eventually went on to be a big scandal after David Kelly's death https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hutton_Inquiry

[chatmasta]

The nytimes famously spread the idea of WMDs in Iraq.

[unityByFreedom]

What? It was the Bush administration who acted on intelligence that they later admitted was "the best they had" but inaccurate. Condoleezza Rice spoke many times about this in the aftermath.

Laying WMDs in Iraq at the feet of the media, as if they could influence our military's action, is ridiculous.

[chatmasta]

The media played a pivotal role in garnering enough public opinion to support the move. The administration needed the appearance of public support for the invasion, especially since international support was lacking. Of course the military can do whatever they want, as they have throughout history. But history also shows that invasions are usually preceded by public relations campaigns to convince the public it's a good idea.

[unityByFreedom]

Oh my God. Now we are back-in-time blaming the media for US foreign relations? You've got to be trolling me.

What did "the media" have to gain from the US going to war in Iraq? Any media campaign to convince the public would have been led by the government. All the actionable intel came from government, not the media. "The media" isn't some mass entity working together. They're one step above the general public in the knowledge chain, beneath government. Government can influence the media as much as it can influence the public.

[wapz]

I just googled WMDs Iraq and NYT and was surprised to see an article in 2014 about 'confirming' WMDs in Iraq [1]. I never read this story before and don't know how widespread it was (I'm not a huge news junky but generally watch news several times/week and read online occasionally).

There was a study published in 2005 showing that a huge majority of americans (and australians/germans) did not believe WMDs were found in Iraq[2]. I do wonder how the numbers changed after the 2014 article by the NYT.

[1]https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/10/14/world/middlee...

[2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_and_weapons_of_mass_destr...

[juki]

Do notice that the article doesn't claim they found any evidence of active development or use WMDs, which is what the USA claimed as a justification for the invasion. All they found were abandoned chemical weapons from the 80s. Everyone already knew that Iraq used chemical weapons back then, so the only new discovery was that the remaining weapons had just been abandoned instead of properly destroyed.

[Jordrok]

There is a certain amount of knee-jerk reaction and each situation should ideally be judged on its own individual merits, but this is also Trump we're talking about. It's been a pretty accurate heuristic so far to say that any idea that comes out of his head is more likely to be a bad one than a good one.

[maxerickson]

There is a robust amount of media that pretty much cheers everything Trump does (Fox News, a bunch of online news operations).

CNN has a bunch of people they pay to come say how great Trump is. That sounds sarcastic, but they really do have several paid commentators that will work backwards and find anything to justify anything.