Who decides what is intelligent, well-reasoned critique?

Those in power have an incentive to categorize anything that threatens them as "hate speech" or "obscene" or "threatening to the social order".

There are two parties that decide what constitutes an intelligent, well-reasoned critique.

The first party is the owner(s) of a platform. For any owner, there is incentive to preserve power, but there is also incentive to not act as an oppressive villain.

The owner sometimes has ideals beyond power, such as cultivating free communication to build ideas for a better world.

But even the most callous, iron-fisted dictator can sniff the danger in being overly oppressive. They also sometimes recognize that unstifled communication serves as a competitive advantage.

As a consequence, free speech is less fragile than it seems. There are even whiffs of it in China itself: https://www.cecc.gov/freedom-of-expression-in-china-a-privil...

The second party that decides what constitutes an intelligent, well-reasoned critique are the viewers of and contributors to a platform.

We have pitchforks, and pitchforks have sharp ends, but they can be dulled by overuse. Furthermore, the citizen's militia grows weary when called upon too often.

And thus, when the rallying cry is sounded for the non-event of a crude slur being censored, we're eroding our own power. We're jumping the gun, which should fire only when we think an intelligent, well-reasoned critique has been suppressed.

Making a slippery slope argument is betraying a lack of understanding about the above complex dynamic.

I disagree, since I think all speech* is equally protected speech, including a crude slur. The reason for that is because it is far too easy for the powers that be to use claims of "only cleaning out the trash" to censor legitimate thoughts and expressions. Throughout history humans have proven incapable of making the right call on where to draw that line, so the only option is to draw it at all.

To refute your points: the owner of the platform has all the power in this relationship, since there are essentially zero repercussions for them over-censoring discussions. Most of the users of a platform won't know, won't care, or will accept the "just censoring the evil speech" argument. The audience itself is also not infallible, since there is a such thing as the tyranny of the majority.

*: of course, there is the point where speech itself requires harming another to create, such as child pornography or snuff films. But that is not what is at issue here or anywhere in modern discourse.

You posit a false dilemma:

* Accept suppression of intelligent dissent.

* Allow all speech, including unintelligent and hateful speech.

This is evidently false, given:

1) Intelligent, well-reasoned dissent against a platform is permitted on virtually all large platforms on the internet, and this has been the case for decades.

2) Virtually all large platforms censor unintelligent, hateful speech.

Your nightmare scenario of intelligent speech disappearing due to censorship of small-minded vulgarity simply hasn't happened.

Quite the opposite, intelligent speech does disappear when small-minded vulgarity isn't censored. See voat or 4chan or the thousands of other poorly censored, poorly moderated places on the internet. Productive, intelligent communication does not happen in public forums without censorship.

Concerning what-ifs and slippery slopes, call me when someone with a well-reasoned argument is being suppressed by a large platform. All I've ever seen is hate and misinformation being pushed down the drain, and good riddance.

Censoring kids spamming "communist bandit" isn't a problem, not in this universe.

Censoring a professor critiquing communism as a viable form of government would be a problem, but that's neither here nor there.

Meanwhile, legitimate problems in the free speech domain are draconian copyright laws, suppressing science and creativity, and espionage laws, suppressing whistleblowers such as Snowden.

If we've decided that free speech shall be our crusade, and we're in the US, our limited time and resources should be focused on these real, ongoing, and broad-reaching problems.

So-called "unintelligent" speech is still speech, and therefore should be protected. "Unintelligent" people have the same human rights as anyone else.

You're conflating censorship and moderation.

Moderation can create a productive discussion, but no automated word filter is going to fix that community if people are motivated to be hateful, troll or spam.

Besides, the subject in question is not "hateful spam" or a "hateful" meme. It's charged, opinionated political speech but you'd really have to be stretching the meaning of "hateful" to apply it here.

Of course, expanding that definition is the political strategy of some interest groups right now. But this is a great illustration of how fuzzy and easily abused that advocacy really is.

You have quite an expansive definition of slur!

It's an insult to every anti-racist, anti-bigotry campaign in history to say that any political party should get to hide behind this kind of crybaby b.s. -- much less a party that operates concentration camps. Or are they, too, "people simply trying to keep the room clean" in your book?

First, you need to re-read what I wrote. I didn't call it a slur. I called it a hateful meme.

It's precisely that, because it is driven by hate -- you will understand this if you talk to people who deeply hate communism, such as in my experience Czech people who suffered under it -- and it's a meme, something repeated for social reasons, not to cultivate understanding.

If you can understand what's driving the kids to spam "communist bandits", you will see its ugliness. If you can't, then it's like a curse word in a foreign language: of course you don't mind. It remains, however, a foul little turd to all the people who do understand the context and the language, and who have adequate taste and intellect to prefer higher minded discourse.

To directly address your mischaracterization, this is not crybaby-ism; it's taste and the desire for substance. Nobody is crying about kids posting the hateful meme "communist bandits." I have no affinity for communism myself. I would take equal disgust in kids spamming "capitalist pigs". It's just dumb and ugly.

Give me a thesis with supporting evidence and citations. Meanwhile, delete (indeed, censor!) all the childish and simpleminded spam, so I don't have to be immersed in stupidity and hate when endeavoring to broaden my understanding.

You seem to not mind wading through filth, but most highly verbal adults share my preferences. We leave forums when the filth piles up, and the "discourse" that remains after we're gone reflects this reality.

And now we get to you. Some of us try to be bigger than calling each other crybabies, and calling their positions bullshit. What you wrote violates Hacker News rules. I'm not going to report you, because despite your unflattering model of me, I can pluck out a fly that lands in my whiskey glass without crying about it. This thread should be dead enough that you should be safe, but I'll regret my decision if you go on to attack other people.

I instead hope whatever is broken inside you gets healed, so that you can more effectively tackle what I agree is a problem: a government that forces citizens to literally watch their backs after they voice their mind is influencing countries and companies abroad. Right now, with your hostility, you're just poisoning the well.

Thanks for the well-wishes.

I'm a bit confused here:

"YouTube filtering slurs and hateful memes"

"I didn't call it a slur."

"And thus, when the rallying cry is sounded for the non-event of a crude slur being censored..."

Are you calling it a slur or not?

Also, good catch -- above I mistyped "crybaby" when I meant "crybully". I can't stand watching an totalitarian party like the CCP hide its crimes behind this language of anti-bigotry, all this "slurs and hateful memes" business to silence criticism. The oppressor gets to play a victim role, and it all feels topsy-turvy.

Of course, if this ploy backfires and forces the CCP's critics to hone their arguments to the level of discourse you and I both love on HN (and which you seem to think is within reach for YouTube), that's great, everyone wins.

And you're right, "b.s." was a too harsh and probably violates the guidelines. Retracted.

"what I agree is a problem: a government that forces citizens to literally watch their backs after they voice their mind is influencing countries and companies abroad"

It's hard for me not to be hateful and angry about it, as you've recognized. It's hard to know what people can do when no employee at any multinational company, in any jurisdiction, is free to speak out publicly without fear of retaliation. I sympathize with people going around posting this phrase, even if it's low effort and stinks a little of regional prejudice and of less democratic times in Taiwan's history.

I'm curious, what do you think are the best tactics counteract the CCP clout? What could those YouTube posters be doing instead?

It's not a slur. Some slurs are also filtered, and I'm suggesting we ignore this petty and generally positive censorship.

A more effective approach for anti-CCP activists would be to spam a short, compelling sentence regarding one of CCP's questionable activities, followed by, "Read more here: <multilingual article with citations>".

If that lucid and informative spam got taken down, I'd also be up in arms. I myself invested time in online activism regarding Hong Kong. "Communist bandits", however, is worse than useless. Censor/filter away the low effort and unproductive stupidity, not the substantiative information.