And I continue to argue that, where hate speech thrives unchecked, hate crimes will follow. The echo chamber reinforces until one angry person who was already less stable than the others will crack.
That remains why there is an argument to try and curtail hate speech in some manner. It doesn’t not remain just speech.
And if we must discuss what the government should do, I would prefer another thread. But I will reveal the main thing I want: hate speech includes threatening minorities for being minorities. Unless the threat has a credible action, this has been found not to be illegal. I think that should change.
And it is my belief that this would restrict quite a few Nazis.
Parler once banned all pornography but in recent months revised its terms of service to permit essentially anything that’s legal, making its policy close to Twitter’s, if slightly more permissive. Twitter, however, also has automated systems that prevent excessively rapid posting, as well as other spammy behavior, and employs human moderators to enforce its policies.
Parler, by contrast, outsources moderation to volunteers who judge potentially objectionable content after it has been flagged by other users. Its systems and policies have given wide latitude for images of adult nudity and sexual behavior, a Washington Post review in recent weeks found.
I mean, it seems a little like these journalists found an excuse to view porn at work, but the article as a whole raises some interesting points about free speech, social platforms and the limitations of fighting algorithms with human moderation.
And there’s also this, which makes the Trumpists’ shouts about repealing 230 hilarious:
Citron said it’s unlikely that Parler would face any legal ramifications for hosting images of naked adults in apparently consensual encounters, even if some of those links lead to sites that may offer prostitution. Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a 1996 federal law undergirding much of the modern Internet economy, offers broad immunity for content uploaded by third parties onto social platforms.
The problem for Parler would not be that porn exists on the platform, but that:
The pornography threatens to intrude on users not seeking sexual material and has the potential to complicate hopes the site may have to expand advertising, which is now limited. Experts on the impact of pornography say major companies typically avoid having their sales pitches appear alongside controversial imagery.
I would consider photos of trump much more offensive than naked humans. If advertisers are wary of “controversial imagery”, I would hope White Supremacists and Outright Lies would give at least some of them pause…
Hey, if it helps cripple sites like Parler… Viva La Pron!
I’m going to bet that Parler’s hoped for advertisers are less Ford and IBM and Disney than outfits selling gold bars, second tier publishing houses, and other RW media outlets.
Those folks may be totally at home with RW ideas, but still pretty squeamish about pictures of crotches. After all, they’re also trying to sell to the Moral (panic) Majority crowd.
To me, Trump and what he has done to this country and the world is more obscene than any legal pornography. I’d draw the line at child pornography or any other form where a crime was committed (rape, etc.)