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[smjjames]

Given how long it takes for California to do the election stuff, having it be summer and winter seems inefficient.

[hector13]

Surely that would be ridiculously expensive though, and it would also run the risk of political fatigue or whatever the phrase is that means people will eventually get sick of the constant politicking.

[McTraveller]

The whole point of the Senate though was it was to keep each state on equal footing independent of population.  We already have a House of Representatives which is based on population.

Senate having equal representation for each state is by design; it's not a flaw.

[da_nang]

What needs fixing is the Reapportionment Act.

[nenjin]

Bit o' Youtube web celeb drama.

If you're familiar with Sargon of Akkad, then you're probably aware that he just got the boot from Patreon. Apparently he was on another person's podcast or w/e, and dropped multiple N bombs and said faggot a number of times, while referring to the alt-right and the Left I suppose. (Didn't listen to it or get a transcript.)

Patreon reacted by banning his account, citing the racial epitaphs and inciting people to riot.

Now Jordan Petersen, another "interesting" figure in these times, is also leaving Patreon and creating a competitor site that "promotes and protects free speech as its core principle."

I can't wait, honestly. I really can't wait to see JP try and manage the audience he's cultivated over the last few years, and be responsible for having to make decisions about the shit they'll say on his platform. You can hate sites, advertisers and payment processors who leverage their position to enforce social beliefs, but there's also a legal element of culpability if you host a site where people who may have violent or extremist views organize together. So far JP has enjoyed all the benefits of the media he constantly slams, with Patreon, Youtube, and news outlets all funneling him views and money. He's done so while railing against them as being bad for society, programming people, yadda yadda yadda.....

Well now he gets to see what it's like to have to host all this obnoxious bullshit no one wants to be associated with but for some reason we're supposed to tolerate in the name of Free Speech. He and Alex Jones can now be good buddies.

I think in the end what drives all this is money. It's not about Free Speech. A decade ago we understood that a website was like someone's house: you were there by their grace. If you ignored their rules, you got kicked out of their house and that was right and proper. You want to say some shit? Find someone's house to say it in who agrees with you.

Now suddenly people are acting like Youtube, Patreon and all these places they get to express their views AND MAKE MONEY are some sort of public service, a public utility like the telephone. It's bullshit. It's about money. People were happy to fling poo and racial epitaphs at the very sites they profit from until suddenly they took a stand and said "No, we don't have to host your bullshit." Oh, NOW it's a free speech issue. There was nothing stopping these people from making their own independent sites long before this. But they didn't. Why? Because they want the views, the exposure and the money that these established sites already offered.

So yeah. Can't wait to see how this shakes out, and how Jordan Petersen reacts to people organizing on his website and the eventual fallout that comes from it when stupid people do something stupid and his name gets attached to it.

[smjjames]

I've heard of the name here and there, but not familiar with him other than being a major youtuber. Plus he was involved in Gamergate I think. Not that anybody really wants to start discussing that.

[nenjin]

I just find this "new" wave of political activism and how it intersects with social media and making money for running your mouth to be interesting. Mostly because a lot of it is talked about in theory while never applied in practice. JP making what essentially is going to be an alt-right funding platform should test how well their theories about "complete and total free speech" work. Also, how people will act once they think they're in a place where anything goes and they can say nothing wrong. I'd struggle to use the term "polite" to describe political discourse elsewhere on the internet, but with this the filter will, in theory, be completely removed. And I'm interested to see what that looks like and how its proponents handle it. (And by handle I mean, how long can they hand wave the worst examples while they're also profiting from the things they say. If you're knowingly making money from someone organizing violence, then you're just as culpable as they are.)

[McTraveller]

If you're knowingly making money from someone organizing violence, then you're just as culpable as they are.)

How directly does this knowledge have to be?  Just about any money-making activity in the world is known to make money from people organizing violence. I mean, are you holding farmers or grocers culpable because they sell food to people who incite violence?  Or is this fine because farmers don't know who plans the violence and who doesn't?

Or how about this because it's probably a better example: would you hold a restaurant culpable if it made money off people who met there to plan violence?  Even if they knew about it? Are you saying the waitstaff is culpable if they don't report it to the authorities?

I believe that these situations are exactly why the Founding Fathers put in the freedom of speech clauses - specifically to prevent the government from being able to lock people up or form a citizen-policed-state where everyone rats on their neighbors for an off-the-cuff remark.

[bloop_bleep]

I think in the end what drives all this is money. It's not about Free Speech. A decade ago we understood that a website was like someone's house: you were there by their grace. If you ignored their rules, you got kicked out of their house and that was right and proper. You want to say some shit? Find someone's house to say it in who agrees with you.

Yeah. Thing is, a decade ago is not today. Today the Internet is the source for EVERYBODY’s information. How many people do you know that regularly read a newspaper? And even if you do know some, realize that the content of the newspaper has changed drastically as well to adapt to the fact that the majority of the views they get are on the Internet. Given the enormous place the Internet has in our lives, I think it indeed should be regarded as a utility — which means those companies that command large amounts of Internet traffic (Google, YouTube, Facebook) or are essential to Internet operation (ISPs) should be utility companies, or at least heavily regulated.

[Il Palazzo]

The completely free speech angle is not just a right (or alt-right) thing. Back in the day Chomsky was doing arguing for the exact same thing as Peterson (as far as I can tell), on similar grounds, with similar backlash.

And I'm with bloop_bleep in that I'm not sure we can treat the bloated social media outlets and the associated infrastructure as just another business anymore. They've become akin to state-sponsored media tubes in that you don't really have a choice. If you want to be heard, you go on Youtube or Facebook or twitter. If you want to get paid for your social media presence, you go to Patreon (maybe to a lesser extent of exclusivity, but you're still shooting yourself in the foot by going elsewhere).
The rules by which they play affect the entire zeitgeist that emerges on the internet.

While I don't think a free for all wild west of speech is the way to go, I'm not sure wholesale banning of anything that fits some crude and arbitrary rules set up by in a board meeting of one company or another is the way to go either.
Like with Sargon there. He smells faintly of alt-right, and has opinions - to my mind - of rather questionable merit. But in that conversation with the Ns, he was bashing some nazi (more to the right than he, I guess) commenters in their own language. At least that's what I took away from it. Was it inappropriate? Sure. Was he expressing or promoting racist opinions? Don't think so. But he called somebody the N word, as is probably a dick anyway, so let's let him rot.

[EnigmaticHat]

-snip-

This sort of thing already happened with Reddit.  Every couple years Reddit does a cull of the half dozen most hateful subreddits.  Last time that happened a couple people decided they were going to make their own Reddit, with blackjack and hookers free speech.  Called Voat.

Fast forward like a year and they've had to ban a couple of whatever they call subreddits, because they were illegal in the country hosting servers.  Which is Switzerland.  I believe child pornography was involved.

For extra irony, since Voat still has downvoting its still subject to the Reddit hivemind effect.  Since the whole idea of Reddit is basically democratic censorship... well democratic curation I suppose, but that's the same thing in the end.

[nenjin]

If you're knowingly making money from someone organizing violence, then you're just as culpable as they are.)

How directly does this knowledge have to be?  Just about any money-making activity in the world is known to make money from people organizing violence. I mean, are you holding farmers or grocers culpable because they sell food to people who incite violence?  Or is this fine because farmers don't know who plans the violence and who doesn't?

Or how about this because it's probably a better example: would you hold a restaurant culpable if it made money off people who met there to plan violence?  Even if they knew about it? Are you saying the waitstaff is culpable if they don't report it to the authorities?

I believe that these situations are exactly why the Founding Fathers put in the freedom of speech clauses - specifically to prevent the government from being able to lock people up or form a citizen-policed-state where everyone rats on their neighbors for an off-the-cuff remark.

Those are all reasonably slippery slope examples. But in the case of these funding websites, I think the argument is much much easier to make. People come to you, want you to give them space for a platform, so both you and they can make money. That is a far cry from a grocery store, or a restaurant where mobsters meet and plan, because you are providing the infrastructure and the means of profit for their beliefs and activities.

Put another way, if mobsters brought someone to your restaurant and murdered them, and you knew about it and did not report it to the police....that makes you an accomplice. And that's before you ever receive a dime for it. If you're also making money on top of it....the case is not hard to make.

Put yet another way: plenty of places got nailed for providing material support to terrorist organizations post 9/11. If someone comes to your platform, makes a call for violence and asks for money to support themselves, and you the website the vehicle that gets them that money......you're culpable.

For extra irony, since Voat still has downvoting its still subject to the Reddit hivemind effect.  Since the whole idea of Reddit is basically democratic censorship... well democratic curation I suppose, but that's the same thing in the end.

That's what I assume this will amount to. JP will have to exercise the exact same oversight as the businesses he criticizes, except he will spin what he has to do as different than what every other business on the internet ends up having to do: protect their ass and their bottomline.

And I still reject the idea that any one website functions as a public service or *the* news outlet. That's not how the internet works. You get a variety of opinions, facts and viewpoints and you synthesize your understanding from the various sources. That's how a responsible person approaches information on the internet. The idea that since someone might just use one website for all their information means that we have to treat the entire internet as a public utility with free speech protections across the board is ludicrous....and comes from a place of intellectual laziness. The fact that some people don't go further than Youtube to seek knowledge doesn't mean we should treat Youtube like a public forum where they have to enforce free speech laws. It's a business, and businesses get to decide what they do and don't stand by or for, to the degree the law requires.

[McTraveller]

Right, but the culpability in those examples comes from participating or not reporting a physical crime (in the restaurant-hit case).

For just situations of people talking about stuff... even in situations where people are paying you for a forum to talk about "unsavory" things - I think there should be no culpability.

I'd rather let people plan violence and then have to take action when said actions are being conducted instead of try to come up with some convoluted scheme that allows "allowable" use of speech platforms that will end up causing more harm than good.

[Il Palazzo]

And I still reject the idea that any one website functions as a public service or *the* news outlet. That's not how the internet works. You get a variety of opinions, facts and viewpoints and you synthesize your understanding from the various sources. That's how a responsible person approaches information on the internet. The idea that since someone might just use one website for all their information means that we have to treat the entire internet as a public utility with free speech protections across the board is ludicrous....and comes from a place of intellectual laziness. The fact that some people don't go further than Youtube to seek knowledge doesn't mean we should treat Youtube like a public forum where they have to enforce free speech laws. It's a business, and businesses get to decide what they do and don't stand by or for, to the degree the law requires.

But it doesn't matter how you want to treat it, if the majority of people treats it like a public forum. That's the realities we're living with, so what good does it do to pontificate how it should be actually done?

[nenjin]

And I still reject the idea that any one website functions as a public service or *the* news outlet. That's not how the internet works. You get a variety of opinions, facts and viewpoints and you synthesize your understanding from the various sources. That's how a responsible person approaches information on the internet. The idea that since someone might just use one website for all their information means that we have to treat the entire internet as a public utility with free speech protections across the board is ludicrous....and comes from a place of intellectual laziness. The fact that some people don't go further than Youtube to seek knowledge doesn't mean we should treat Youtube like a public forum where they have to enforce free speech laws. It's a business, and businesses get to decide what they do and don't stand by or for, to the degree the law requires.

But it doesn't matter how you want to treat it, if the majority of people treats it like a public forum. That's the realities we're living with, so what good does it do to pontificate how it should be actually done?

Did I just eat crazy pills, or did just you tell me there's no point to pontificating in the fucking Ameripol thread? Jesus Christ.