Spotify and Squarespace are cracking down on alleged "hate groups" and "hate bands"

[Majestic]

Just now, mr moose said:

They are denying the platform not the ability to speak. .

Can you please respond to the entire comment. Who is paying Spotify to be moral arbiters? I sure as hell aren't, and I rekon most people just want ad-free music and not spotify deciding what is allowable speech. What legal grounds would anyone have to force Spotify to withold services (outside cuckada) to someone who has the wrong lyrics in their songs? Should any sense of politicism be banned from spotify, or just the right-leaning ones? Remove bob dylan?

 

So you're fine with silicon valley, whose services are almost part of the infrastructure these days, to decide on a whim what is viable speech or not? Just because they're private businesses? How about they simply provide a service they're payed to provide and leave their political bias out of it. Because we can extend this bruv, even if a tad extreme. How about we deny water to people who have the wrong opinions. Most water utilities these days are no longer government funded and went private. They aren't denying them water, just not providing it. Or how about electricity? 

 

Why should any company providing a utility serve as a moral busybody? It is just more overhead for them and it's absolutely orwellian to put them into that position.

[mr moose]

1 minute ago, Majestic said:

Can you please respond to the entire comment. Who is paying Spotify to be moral arbiters? I sure as hell aren't, and I rekon most people just want ad-free music and not spotify deciding what is allowable speech. What legal grounds would anyone have to force Spotify to withold services (outside cuckada) to someone who has the wrong lyrics in their songs? Should any sense of politicism be banned from spotify, or just the right-leaning ones? Remove bob dylan?

 

So you're fine with silicon valley, whose services are almost part of the infrastructure these days, to decide on a whim what is viable speech or not? Just because they're private businesses? How about they simply provide a service they're payed to provide and leave their political bias out of it. Because we can extend this bruv, even if a tad extreme. How about we deny water to people who have the wrong opinions. Most water utilities these days are no longer government funded and went private. They aren't denying them water, just not providing it. Or how about electricity? 

 

Why should any company providing a utility serve as a moral busybody? It is just more overhead for them and it's absolutely orwellian to put them into that position.

It doesn't matter who is paying them.    Not showing an ad or hosting a website does not deny free speech.  Just like a radio or tv station is under no obligation to provide air time to groups they think their customers don't want to see.    Spotify or SS don't get to decide what is considered free speech, if they won't host your website go to another company that will. If no one will host it then you have a choice to either start your own hosting service or rethink what you are trying to say and ask yourself why no one wants to be a party to your ideals. 

 

Are you going to force people to provide a platform for ideals they don't agree with or ideals that are bad for their business?  Is that not just as dictatorial as you claim SS are being?

[Majestic]

15 minutes ago, mr moose said:

It doesn't matter who is paying them.    Not showing an ad or hosting a website does not deny free speech.  Just like a radio or tv station is under no obligation to provide air time to groups they think their customers don't want to see.    Spotify or SS don't get to decide what is considered free speech, if they won't host your website go to another company that will. If no one will host it then you have a choice to either start your own hosting service or rethink what you are trying to say and ask yourself why no one wants to be a party to your ideals. 

 

Are you going to force people to provide a platform for ideals they don't agree with or ideals that are bad for their business?  Is that not just as dictatorial as you claim SS are being?

If they pick and choose who they host, that is definitely them implementing a political bias. This is such mental gymnastics to then disregard it being a censorship. The entire problem is that they are somehow held accountable for what they host, when it's not even remotely their responsibility unless someone is actually violating the national or international law on their platform. Like hosting child pornography. That is outside the bounds of laissez-faire, ofcourse. But even then, it should be under warrant pending a police investigation. Not by peer pressure.

 

No, i'm saying we should stop asking these platforms to act as moral busybodies, because if you choose to disingage from this fucking shitshow that is our current political climate, you can't even listen to your favorite music because some snowflake deemded it unsafe. Or watch a Razorfist video because he was deplatformed. Way to further generate dissidents that weren't even engaged before. This is an equivocating mess of an argument, precisely because of the subjective nature of this issue. Now it's extremists, next it's your favorite music that is slightly politically tinted. I'd like to see you equivocate it away once they hit your niche of music.

 

Spotify gets payed to host music. And before you say "but the advertisers will pull back", that's due to the same ridiculous peer pressure that gets put on them, by the same mob. This whole grandstanding is getting out of hand.

[suicidalfranco]

Tech giant denies service to people they morally disagree with: all fines, they're monsters anyway and they're businesses so they can do whatever they want and deal with whomever they want

Baker denies making wedding cake to couples he morally disagrees with: that's illegal. Businesses shouldn't discriminate, disgusting bigots 

 

the Hypocrisy in the US baffles and amazes me sometimes, and i just realized im out of popcorn, need to get more 

 

INb4 "ho he hates gays must be some westboro baptist church cuck": I don't hate gay people, have nothing against them and they should be allowed to get married if they want to. Just pointing it out what happens when the balls is on the other court.

[rn8686]

4 minutes ago, suicidalfranco said:

Tech giant denies service to people they morally disagree with: all fines, they're monsters anyway and they're businesses so they can do whatever they want and deal with whomever they want

Baker denies making wedding to couples he morally disagrees with: that's illegal. Businesses shouldn't discriminate, disgusting bigots 

 

the Hypocrisy in the US baffles and amazes me sometimes, and i just realized im out of popcorn, need to get more 

 

INb4 "ho he hates gays must be some westboro baptist church cuck": I don't hate gay people, have nothing against them and they should be allowed to get married if they want to. Just pointing it out what happens when the balls is on the other court.

They dont care about there beliefs, it wouldnt matter if they kept it to themselves. The problem is they arent and using their platform to spread hate.

[suicidalfranco]

Just now, rn8686 said:

They dont care about there beliefs, it wouldnt matter if they kept it to themselves. The problem is they arent and using their platform to spread hate.

and yet one was taken to court and deemed illegal and the other is a "no problem bro"

[captain_to_fire]

28 minutes ago, Majestic said:

Who is paying Spotify to be moral arbiters? I sure as hell aren't, and I rekon most people just want ad-free music and not spotify deciding what is allowable speech.

Again, no one paid Spotify or Squarespace on that regard. It was a memo released by SPLC, if you read the OP.

 

29 minutes ago, Majestic said:

What legal grounds would anyone have to force Spotify to withold services (outside cuckada) to someone who has the wrong lyrics in their songs? Should any sense of politicism be banned from spotify, or just the right-leaning ones?

No one but themselves because they are a private corporation for profit. Nothing in the 1st Amendment suggests that private corporations are subject to free speech laws. It only says that no government official (not even the POTUS) can prevent anyone from saying anything about the government. Now, do I agree with this decision from Spotify and Squarespace? Definitely not but since I haven't hear the songs themselves nor do I have seen those websites shutdown, I'm taking SPLC's word with a grain of salt. 

 

11 minutes ago, Majestic said:

No, i'm saying we should stop asking these platforms to act as moral busybodies, because if you choose to disingage from this fucking shitshow that is our current political climate, you can't even listen to your favorite music because some snowflake deemded it unsafe.

It should be kept in mind that the SPLC is NOT a government agency but rather a nonprofit legal advocacy organization which by no means affiliated to any government office. This means that they can do and say whatever they want and even release memos to tech companies to ask them to either allow something or remove something. At the end of the day, it is the the decision of the private company to follow the memo or send the memo to a shredding machine.

[rn8686]

Just now, suicidalfranco said:

and yet one was taken to court and deemed illegal and the other is a "no problem bro"

But they arent spreading a political belief, only using their services. 

[mr moose]

1 minute ago, Majestic said:

If they pick and choose who they host, that is definitely them implementing a political bias. This is such mental gymnastics to then disregard it being a censorship. The entire problem is that they are somehow held accountable for what they host, when it's not even remotely their responsibility unless someone is actually violating the national or international law on their platform. Like hosting child pornography. That is outside the bounds of laissez-faire, ofcourse. But even then, it should be under warrant pending a police investigation. Not by peer pressure.

 

No, i'm saying we should stop asking these platforms to act as moral busybodies, because if you choose to disingage from this fucking shitshow that is our current political climate, you can't even listen to your favorite music because some snowflake deemded it unsafe. Or watch a Razorfist video because he was deplatformed. Way to further generate dissidents that weren't even engaged before. This is an equivocating mess of an argument, precisely because of the subjective nature of this issue. Now it's extremists, next it's your favorite music that is slightly politically tinted. I'd like to see you equivocate it away once they hit your niche of music.

 

Censorship is an authoritarian government thing,  companies technically can't censor becasue the product/information is legally available elsewhere.  As far as asking them to not discern between who they provide a platform to is hypocritical. If our intention is freedom of speech and we are asking/expecting them to forgo their right to discern what speech is presented on their platform,  then we are denying them freedom of speech in order to protect it for someone else.   Either everyone has it or no-one does.  

 

Although I have argued that if you have evidence to show that certain speech is dangerous and will lead to physical harm then that should be stopped, but that is another debate.

 

 

[LAwLz]

No matter which side you are on, Google, Spotify, Squarespace and other websites which choose to block people from their services based on political views are in fact choosing a side.

 

Personally, I think it's idiotic.

So we are no longer allowed to make songs with political motives unless they conform with whatever political view that's the most acceptable these days? I know a lot of bands which have fantastic songs with political motives. God Save the Queen by Sex Pistols is one example of it. Ebba Grön has plenty of songs about it as well.

 

I think artists should be allowed to express themselves without the fear of being censored (by governments or by what's essentially monopolies). If not then we have essentially gone back to the dark ages where we are burning books, and I shouldn't have to give people a history lesson on why that's a horrible idea.

 

 

Edit:

9 minutes ago, mr moose said:

Censorship is an authoritarian government thing,  companies technically can't censor becasue the product/information is legally available elsewhere.  As far as asking them to not discern between who they provide a platform to is hypocritical. If our intention is freedom of speech and we are asking/expecting them to forgo their right to discern what speech is presented on their platform,  then we are denying them freedom of speech in order to protect it for someone else.   Either everyone has it or no-one does.

Companies can certainly censor. Some companies are big enough "gatekeepers" to content that they have more power than some governments. If Google wanted to censor something then I am sure they could be more successful in doing so than let's say the US government.

You could argue that the product/information is available elsewhere but that's really contrived logic and argument. That's like saying child porn isn't being censored/banned because you can get access to it. Just because there are ways to get something doesn't mean it isn't being censored.

 

As for "denying freedom of speech in order to protect others", that's a very complicated issue because how do you define what is "attacking" and "protecting"?

Should we censor Islamic messages? No matter how you twist and turn things, at the end of the day a lot of terrorist attacks (maybe even the majority these days) are committed in the name of Islam. You could argue that "they are interpreting the messages of the Quran wrong", but then can't the same be said for any far-right ideology?

What is the difference between censoring far-right messages and censoring Islamic messages? Can it even be done in an objective way which does not involve personal biases?

If Islam is OK, then should anti-homosexual religions be allowed to spread their messages too?

[suicidalfranco]

Just now, rn8686 said:

But they arent spreading a political belief, only using their services. 

Just like the baker, guess who lost his business though

[rn8686]

Just now, suicidalfranco said:

Just like the baker, guess who lost his business though

Were the gays spreading liberal politics? No, not relevant. 

[suicidalfranco]

Just now, rn8686 said:

Were the gays spreading liberal politics? No, not relevant. 

Did the baker have the right to chose who to gives his service to? based on this thread and the one on google, yes. And yet the court said it was illegal for them to do so, funny right?

[captain_to_fire]

15 minutes ago, suicidalfranco said:

Tech giant denies service to people they morally disagree with: all fines, they're monsters anyway and they're businesses so they can do whatever they want and deal with whomever they want

Baker denies making wedding cake to couples he morally disagrees with: that's illegal. Businesses shouldn't discriminate, disgusting bigots

As much as I agree to this, I think the only solution I can find is to find another provider or hosting site but to have your music removed from something as big as Spotify and iTunes is a huge blow to personal income. But then again, I'm withholding judgement since I haven't heard those songs nor have I read an "Alt-Right, Neo-Nazi" website. 

 

1 minute ago, suicidalfranco said:

Did the baker have the right to chose who to gives his service to? based on this thread and the one on google, yes. And yet the court said it was illegal for them to do so, funny right?

I think for that one, unless the gay couple live in a remote area with only one baker, they probably should have gone to other pastry shops. But then again, the gay couple have the right to write a terrible review on Yelp and dissuade people from coming. So yeah that's free speech in action. Bigoted baker has the right to discriminate the gay couple but the gay couple has the right to tell everyone that their bakery shop is owned by terrible bigots.

 

Any member of this forum is free to believe that a FX-9590 is better than an i7-6700K but that won't make it true.

12 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

Personally, I think it's idiotic.

So we are no longer allowed to make songs with political motives unless they conform with whatever political view that's the most acceptable these days? I know a lot of bands which have fantastic songs with political motives. God Save the Queen by Sex Pistols is one example of it. Ebba Grön has plenty of songs about it as well.

Indeed. But then again, they are private corporations and the US government has no say which is allowed and which isn't since the SPLC is a non-government organization and is not subject to the 1st amendment.

[mr moose]

16 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

No matter which side you are on, Google, Spotify, Squarespace and other websites which choose to block people from their services based on political views are in fact choosing a side.

 

Personally, I think it's idiotic.

So we are no longer allowed to make songs with political motives unless they conform with whatever political view that's the most acceptable these days? I know a lot of bands which have fantastic songs with political motives. God Save the Queen by Sex Pistols is one example of it. Ebba Grön has plenty of songs about it as well.

 

I think artists should be allowed to express themselves without the fear of being censored (by governments or by what's essentially monopolies). If not then we have essentially gone back to the dark ages where we are burning books, and I shouldn't have to give people a history lesson on why that's a horrible idea.

 

 

Edit:

Companies can certainly censor. Some companies are big enough "gatekeepers" to content that they have more power than some governments. If Google wanted to censor something then I am sure they could be more successful in doing so than let's say the US government.

 

As for "denying freedom of speech in order to protect others", that's a very complicated issue because how do you define what is "attacking" and "protecting"?

Should we censor Islamic messages? No matter how you twist and turn things, at the end of the day a lot of terrorist attacks (maybe even the majority these days) are committed in the name of Islam. You could argue that "they are interpreting the messages of the Quran wrong", but then can't the same be said for any far-right ideology?

What is the difference between censoring far-right messages and censoring Islamic messages? Can it even be done in an objective way which does not involve personal biases?

If Islam is OK, then should anti-homosexual religions be allowed to spread their messages too?

simply telling one company that they must allow everything on their service (even if they disagree with it or it costs them sales) is dictatorship and that is preventing them from their own rights to express (or not to express) certain viewpoints. 

 

No ones, freedom of speech is taken away when google decide to de-list or deny domain services.  No ones freedom of speech is taken away if spotify decide not to play their song.  

 

Now I am a fairly ugly man, I could take photos of myself and send them to every modeling magazine on the planet,  is it censorship if they refuse to publish them?  is it denying my right to free speech if they send them back saying "no thanks".    Of course it's not, this is no different.  

[suicidalfranco]

1 minute ago, hey_yo_ said:

I think for that one, unless the gay couple live in a remote area with only one baker, they probably should have gone to other pastry shops. But then again, the gay couple have the right to write a terrible review on Yelp and dissuade people from coming. So yeah that's free speech in action. Bigoted baker has the right to discriminate the gay couple but the gay couple has the right to tell everyone that their bakery shop is owned by terrible bigots.

and that would be fine, if the baker lost his business because nobody wants to go to someone who doesn't want to make a cake for a gay couple, okay, so be it, you reap what you sow. But that's not what happened, and the court had to step in, that's the hypocrisy between these two cases

[captain_to_fire]

And let's be real at the moment, are people really serious of cancelling their Spotify or Apple Music subscriptions or stop having their websites hosted by Squarespace just because a few songs and websites from alleged white supremacists* got removed? I don't think so. This is like when the Canadian immigration website crashed on November 2016 because DJT won but the rate of American emigration to Canada never changed. 

 

----------------------------------------------------------------

 

12 minutes ago, suicidalfranco said:

and that would be fine, if the baker lost his business because nobody wants to go to someone who doesn't want to make a cake for a gay couple, okay, so be it, you reap what you sow. But that's not what happened, and the court had to step in, that's the hypocrisy between these two cases

Well I didn't know that the court got involved. I never really paid attention to that one.

Edited August 17, 2017 by hey_yo_

[rn8686]

8 minutes ago, suicidalfranco said:

Did the baker have the right to chose who to gives his service to? based on this thread and the one on google, yes. And yet the court said it was illegal for them to do so, funny right?

No, the business should not discriminate based on their customers personal beliefs. The problem is that the Nazis arent keeping it personal and using that platform to spread them unlike the homosexuals buying a cake. 

[suicidalfranco]

3 minutes ago, hey_yo_ said:

And let's be real at the moment, are people really serious of cancelling their Spotify or Apple Music subscriptions or stop having their websites hosted by Squarespace just because a few songs and websites from alleged white supremacists* got removed? I don't think so. This is like when the Canadian immigration website crashed on November 2016 because DJT won but the rate of American emigration to Canada never changed. 

----------------------------------------------------------------

 

Well I didn't know that the court got involved. I never really paid attention to that one.

it did and was deemed as illegal. That's my problem with this cases

[suicidalfranco]

1 minute ago, rn8686 said:

No, the business should not discriminate based on their customers personal beliefs. The problem is that the Nazis aren't keeping it personal and using that platform to spread them unlike the homosexuals buying a cake. 

buying a cake to share it a gathering of people sounds the same to me as nazi renting a space on Spotify to share their music to other ill-minded groups.

 

Difference is: one is a nazi therefore bad, the other is a gay couple therefore good. One is wrong thinking, the other is victim of wrong thinking.

[captain_to_fire]

Just now, Tibbles said:

So they remove things deemed too hateful but still allow degenerate music such as ganster rap "muh dikk fukin bitches" type of things?

Pretty much. 

[Drak3]

6 minutes ago, Tibbles said:

So they remove things deemed too hateful but still allow degenerate music such as ganster rap "muh dikk fukin bitches" type of things?

3 minutes ago, hey_yo_ said:

Pretty much. 

 

But that's "black culture" and must be preserved. Doesn't matter how racist or sexist it is. It's protected. After all, only white people can be racist, sexist, and dangerous in the US.

[mr moose]

19 minutes ago, rn8686 said:

No, the business should not discriminate based on their customers personal beliefs. The problem is that the Nazis arent keeping it personal and using that platform to spread them unlike the homosexuals buying a cake. 

I have issues with that too.  Quite often you see business losing discrimination cases becasue they refused to serve a particular customer.  It's a bloody hard one to draw the line on.  If I owned a business and someone came in with a tee shirt that was highly offensive to me and my customers, I would want to ask them to leave (it would be costing me customers).   If they came in plain dressed, I would not have a problem serving them.  I guess somewhere in there there is a line,  if serving a customer means endorsing a message you don't agree with then you should no be obligated to server them.  But not serving them solely becasue they are black, gay, Asian or even white.  that is discrimination.

[LAwLz]

42 minutes ago, mr moose said:

simply telling one company that they must allow everything on their service (even if they disagree with it or it costs them sales) is dictatorship and that is preventing them from their own rights to express (or not to express) certain viewpoints. 

Well the problem is that at some point you are no longer just a mere company. This is why we have monopoly laws. You could argue that anti-monopoly laws are also dictatorship because they for example deny companies the freedom to use put competitors at a disadvantage but at the end of the day it is (or at least suppose to) benefit the people. We would be worse off without that kind of "dictatorship".

 

This is not about a company not being allowed to express their viewpoint though. It is about them censoring others from expressing their viewpoints.

"We don't agree with this" and "you are not allowed to say this" are two very different things.

 

 

42 minutes ago, mr moose said:

No ones, freedom of speech is taken away when google decide to de-list or deny domain services.  No ones freedom of speech is taken away if spotify decide not to play their song.  

I don't think it is as simple as that.

If Google decided to remove all websites, images, videos etc, that are related to Islam I am fairly sure there would be an outraged, and plenty of people saying they are denying Muslims their freedom of speech, and I think there would be several valid points made.

While you can say that if there is even one way of expressing something then it is not taking anyone's freedom of speech away, I don't think it's a logically sound argument.

Again, there are ways of obtaining child porn but I don't think anyone would say it isn't being actively censored by companies and governments.

 

Don't get me wrong, I think Spotify, Google, and other companies can choose to censor whatever they want. It is their platforms after all. But I think it is an incredibly stupid thing to do, and it certainly is a form of censorship.

Censorship is not just something the government does. There is nothing in the definition of censorship which specifies that only the government can censor something, and all other forms of suppressing things is some some sort of "pseudo-censorship".

 

42 minutes ago, mr moose said:

Now I am a fairly ugly man, I could take photos of myself and send them to every modeling magazine on the planet,  is it censorship if they refuse to publish them?  is it denying my right to free speech if they send them back saying "no thanks".    Of course it's not, this is no different.  

I agree, that's not censorship.

But that's not quite what is happening. What is happening is more in line with Wal-Mart refusing to sell things to veterinarians, or taxi companies/Uber refusing to drive people who wear makeup, or other things like that.

 

 

5 minutes ago, mr moose said:

But not serving them solely becasue they are black, gay, Asian or even white.  that is discrimination.

But where do you draw the line?

At the end of the day, being religious is just as much a choice as which side you lean politically.

Would it be discrimination to refuse to sell something to a Muslim? If not, then why would it not be discrimination to refuse to sell something to a far-right person?

I think it all boils down to whomever has the moral high ground, but that's purely subjective and therefore I don't think there should be laws based on it. That just creates an echo-chamber which is a very serious threat against democracy.

[TidaLWaveZ]

I wonder if any of the artists/songs blacklisted will be from non white supremacists, I doubt any of N.W.A.'s songs are going anywhere.