[curtisblaine]

> Is someone making a positive contribution to the service, for example by posting well-liked content and engaging in meaningful conversations?

Yep, because these are easily verifiable parameters that don't depend in any way on the ethical beliefs and political alignment of whoever rates users.

[staticassertion]

"Does this user have a racial slur in their username?" would knock out like a really good chunk of the problem, tbh. Or like "Is the user saying they are a nazi" would cover a lot too. Pretty basic stuff would go a long way.

[daxorid]

> "Is the user saying they are a nazi"

This would only be a fair standard if also applied to Communists. In terms of sheer historical body count, there is no rival.

And then, if you did draw ideological lines in the sand, who sets that line? Whom does it emcompass? Does it apply to religions? Do we exclude Christians and Muslims? Do we exclude anybody who ever said anything nice about Genghis Khan or the Achaemenid Immortals?

Establishing standards of tolerance is one thing, but defining where the lines are can be difficult, and possibly embroil anyone.

[croon]

> This would only be a fair standard if also applied to Communists. In terms of sheer historical body count, there is no rival.

Depending on how I was born, nazis want to get rid of me.

Who exactly are these "communists" wanting to get rid of? And how can I spot those people?

A lot of people has died in the name of Christianity. Would you call Christianity violent in terms of ideals?

I don't disagree that communist regimes have killed innumerable people, and even if I disagree with communism and think it's a terrible idea, there is literally nothing in the tenets against groups of people or violence.

[daxorid]

Advance apologies for getting a little off-topic, but compelled to reply in this case.

I'm...not even sure how to respond to this historical misunderstanding, other than Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_killings_under_Communist_...

> there is literally nothing in the tenets against groups of people or violence

Depending on the particular regime and which groups they designate as the bourgeoisie: Scientists, Farmers, Journalists, Factory Managers, Christians, Jews, Petty Criminals, Tartars, Kurds, Ukrainians, Germans, Poles, Estonians, Kulaks, Teachers(who taught the wrong thing), Capitalists, etc.

The wonderful thing about Communism is that if the Eye of Sauron falls upon your arbitrary group and designated as bourgeoisie, you will be (enslaved|tortured|killed).

At least with national socialism you have a chance to get out.

[croon]

> I'm...not even sure how to respond to this historical misunderstanding, other than Wikipedia:

> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_killings_under_Communist_....

So you didn't actually even read my post. This is what I wrote:

> I don't disagree that communist regimes have killed innumerable people

And then you continue:

> Depending on the particular regime and which groups they designate as the bourgeoisie: Scientists, Farmers, Journalists, Factory Managers, Christians, Jews, Petty Criminals, Tartars, Kurds, Ukrainians, Germans, Poles, Estonians, Kulaks, Teachers(who taught the wrong thing), Capitalists, etc.

This was exactly my point.

> At least with national socialism you have a chance to get out.

Not if you're born the wrong way.

And I'm curious as to why you didn't comment on Christianity, and how you view killing in the name of Christ/God.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_and_violence#War

Is Christianity then the same as Communism in terms of violence?

[daxorid]

As it's XGiving, I lack time to respond in full, but again, compelled to reply to this:

>> At least with national socialism you have a chance to get out. > Not if you're born the wrong way.

This is demonstrably untrue. A good historical example would be the Madagascar Plan, in which Germany was willing to fund the relocation of their "undesirables", but was prevented from doing so by the Allies:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madagascar_Plan

Prior to even this, Nazi Germany absolutely did give their "undesirables" ample opportunity to flee, which led to a major humanitarian crisis (about which the Allies did nothing):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89vian_Conference

The larger point here is that: yes, National Socialism is a certain grade of evil, but as an ideology that offers the chance for their targeted groups to get out, it is significantly and substantially less evil than an ideology that kills/tortures/enslaves ON SIGHT and not only offers no chance of escape, but actively prevents it, as is the case of nearly every implementation of Communism the world has seen thus far.

So, if you are a member of a targeted group, if given a choice between two evils:

1. An evil which hates you but at least gives you the chance to make a life somewhere else.

and

2. An evil which prevents you from leaving and shoots, starves, or enslaves you on sight.

I don't think there is any objective argument to me made that option 1 is somehow worse. Option 2 is objectively more evil.

Perhaps after USXGiving I will have more time to respond to your other points. Cheers!

[curtisblaine]

Wait: the one who wants to silence speech is you.

We are just saying that, if you want to silence people in the name of past mass killings, you have to silence a lot of people. Nazis, communist / socialists, probably even Christians and Muslims, yes.

Wouldn't be better to just not try to silence anyone? :)

[curtisblaine]

I, for one, am a bourgeois and happy to be. I'd be in deep shit if any communist or socialist inspired group hypothetically took power in my country.

[creaghpatr]

>Who exactly are these "communists" wanting to get rid of?

It's this kind of ignorance that will drive Twitter into irrelevance, once they eliminate all opposing points of view. It will exist as a community but not as a source of information.

[hanbura]

Those people wouldn't vanish from Twitter, they would just choose a slightly more subtle username.

[curtisblaine]

Correct. They would use more cryptic slurs which would be used in context and would be not easily differentiable from common words.

You can't just silence hate speech with censorship. More generally, you can't silence ideas. If you try, you normally end up in a worse situation.