[fighterpilot]

You're trying to draw analogies between modern technology and the old town square. You should stop doing that because instant distribution to a billion people isn't the same thing as a speech to a thousand.

I provided examples of speech in the old town square leading to pathological outcomes, but we are in a very different regime now and analogizing too much isn't helpful.

[notchFilter54]

So who should decide what moderation policies we have for the public? The general populace, who as you say would elect literally Hitler, or the government itself of which Hitler was once a part and used these very moderation mechanisms to suppress the Jews? The tyranny of a minority of special moderators like perhaps a nominally communist censor committee may have? We allow Naziist speech to exist precisely because we don't want the government or the tyranny of the majority or minority choosing what political speech is allowed, such as outlawing speech that doesn't promote Naziism.

>You're trying to draw analogies between modern technology and the old town square.

No I'm trying to find out how you want to apply moderation strategies to "reduce the likelihood" (my apologies if I misquoted your deleted comment) of democratic election of those who some censors decide have the wrong political views or speech.

>You should stop doing that because instant distribution to a billion people isn't the same thing as a speech to a thousand.

Are you also one of those that thinks the first amendment doesn't apply to the internet because the founders never imagined something that distributes so much faster than the printing press could exist? I know this is a straw man but I can't help but think this is where this is leading.

>And your argument is that if the venues hosting Hitler's speeches had Reddit's moderation policies then Hitler would not have been elected?

The fact that you didn't answer this question (well you did, but you deleted it) really is an damning answer of itself.

[fighterpilot]

> So who should decide what moderation policies we have for the public?

There's three possibilities:

(1) No moderation at all, beyond what's illegal.

(2) Private voluntary self-regulation.

(3) Government censorship.

In my opinion, (2) is the lesser evil, which isn't to say that it doesn't have its own pitfalls. (1) is infeasible due to the 8chan experience, and our understanding of social contagion and human tribalism. (3) has a much bigger slippery slope risk.

> The fact that you didn't answer this question

I deleted my answer because these analogies are too tenuous. You're trying to compare modern social media with how information spread 90 years ago. How can I map "Reddit's moderation policies" onto 1920s beer halls and Der Sturmer and newspapers? You can't do it. We're in a new regime and we need to reason about this new regime from first principles.

[notchFilter54]

We're in agreement, although I might add (2) is essentially the same as the censorship policy in the Weimar Republic under which Hitler was elected, where public censorship was nominally and constitutionally illegal [1] (except in narrow circumstances, such as anti-Semetic expression) and any censorship essentially relegated to private and/or voluntary regulation

> How can I map "Reddit's moderation policies" onto 1920s beer halls and Der Sturmer and newspapers?

The same way the first amendment is applied to both beer halls and the internet. There's not a single rule in Reddit's content policy that cannot be applied to a beer hall [0]. If you fail to find a way to apply these rules you're either not putting in any effort or you're a lot dumber than you sound (methinks the former).

Given that what you advocate for is virtually identical to that under the Weimar Republic, I assert your chosen policies would have little to no effect on the election of Hitler.

[0] https://www.redditinc.com/policies/content-policy

[1] Ritzheimer, Kara L (2016). 'Trash,' Censorship, and National Identity in Early Twentieth-Century Germany. Cambridge University Press.

[fighterpilot]

I know that the Weimar Republic had anti-semitic censorship laws. I made almost the same argument that you are making just 2 months ago:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27865484

"My understanding is that pre-Nazi Germany had hate speech laws, and it didn't seem to work there?"

I abandoned my views on this question for a few reasons:

- The Weimar Republic laws either weren't effective at preventing distribution or they weren't actually enforced. The continued circulation of Der Sturmer is evidence of this. The judiciary was known to be heavily biased in favor of the far-right, where less than 10% of far-right political killers were convicted and the majority of far-left political killers were convicted.

- Online censorship is far less likely to create martyrs than the visual/emotional imagery of imprisoning people.

- Online censorship is far more effective at preventing distribution.

- Failing to censor online leads to automatic mass-distribution due to the consolidation of eyeballs in a small number of venues. Failing to censor offline does not. There is less scale to be had offline.

- Online censorship that we're talking about is private and voluntary. It is not in the same category as government censorship as far as downside risk is concerned.

> Given that what you advocate for is virtually identical

It is not "virtually identical". As I've said, the context is extremely different. You can't draw an analogy as much as you keep trying.

[notchFilter54]

>I know that the Weimar Republic had censorship laws. I made almost the same argument that you are making just 2 months ago:

What? The anti-semetic expressions crime thing is a fact, not an argument (I am against censorship laws!). I was honestly completely knocked cold fthat you came to the conclusion I was making your argument. The takeaway isn't that hate speech laws work, it's that they don't. I'm pro hate speech and anti-censorship. I don't like it, but I'm pro allowing it. I'm making your counter argument. In fact you seem to be listing many of the reasons why hate speech laws don't prevent Naziism.

>I abandoned my views on this question for a few reasons:

I'm surprised you chose not to learn from your responses and realize the folly of restricting "hate speech." It doesn't seem you abandoned anything, it seems you double downed.

>It is not "virtually identical". As I've said, the context is extremely different. You can't draw an analogy as much as you keep trying.

You can bury your head in the sand if you like, but no matter how hard as you keep trying to think they aren't virtually identical, they still will be. What you advocate is extremely similar and you are oblivious and disconnected to the reality of the similarity between our current censorship laws and those of the Weimar Republic. I'm not drawing an analogy, I'm saying you are literally advocating for the policy of the Weimar Republic under which Hitler was elected, with only the slightest of differences (their laws were ever so slightly more restricted due to some spottily enforced hate speech laws). The Weimar's Republic policy was literally free speech, sans some poorly enforced hate speech laws, plus private and/or voluntary censorship, which is your option (2). In fact your precise option (2) was free speech + private/voluntary regulation, but you admitted that Weimar's hate speech laws were essentially useless.

The internet is just another media of communication. That's it. You said yourself hitler reached over half of voters with his speech. That's probably a greater voter penetration than even what reddit reaches. You make some arguments why hate speech laws weren't very effective at the speeches but then you think they will be even more effective at something with even lower voter distribution than these speeches that you say went to more than half of voters.

>Having said that, it's true that for some people no amount of reasoning or persuasion will work

Some people are their own soothsayer. Have fun in your censored future insulated from reality and the opinion of others, left to the discretion of whatever "private" entity believes is allowed truths.

[fighterpilot]

  "I was honestly completely knocked cold fthat you came to the conclusion I was making your argument. The takeaway isn't that hate speech laws work, it's that they don't."

You've misunderstood. I was previously arguing that they don't work, not that they do work. Read the old post of mine that I linked.

  "What you advocate is extremely similar and you are oblivious and disconnected to the reality of the similarity between our current censorship laws and those of the Weimar Republic."

I outlined the reasons why these are different situations which you haven't addressed in your reply.