\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n This weekend\u2019s events in Charlottesville, VA left one person dead, 30 people injured and poured more kerosene onto the fire of national debate around hate groups and free speech.<\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n For all the decades of talk about the internet as a great uniter across geographical and ideological divides, it\u2019s just as often used as a tool to deepen divides, as many users are content to stay within their ideological echo chambers.\u00a0<\/span>There\u2019s no easy fix, of course, but when hateful rhetoric begins to manifest itself as real-world violence, a failure to take a stand moves beyond theoretical.<\/span><\/p>\n In the wake of recent events, more companies are making their stance on the issue known, whether by choice or due to the threat of public accountability or boycott. Whatever the case, it\u2019s clear that most public companies don\u2019t want to be viewed as propping up hate groups.\u00a0<\/span>On Monday, GoDaddy announced<\/a>\u00a0it was cancelling Daily Stormer\u2019s domain registration, and Google quickly followed suit, stating that the neo-Nazi news site violated its terms of service. Responding to social pushback, Zoho and SendGrid <\/a>also cut ties with the site. <\/span><\/p>\n The president\u2019s initial ineffectual response to the events that led to the killing of counter-protester Heather Heyer have resulted in the withdrawal of executives from Trump\u2019s advisory council. Earlier today, Intel CEO Brian Krzanich stepped down<\/a>, writing, \u201cI resigned because I wanted to make progress, while many in Washington seem more concerned with attacking anyone who disagrees with them.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n In the wake of all of this news, we\u2019ve reached out to a number of top sites to gauge what proactive steps they\u2019re taking to address the rising tide of online hate speech. <\/span><\/p>\n Facebook:<\/strong> A spokesperson provided the following statement. \u201cOur hearts go out to the people affected by the tragic events in Charlottesville. Facebook does not allow hate speech or praise of terrorist acts or hate crimes, and we are actively removing any posts that glorify the horrendous act committed in Charlottesville.\u201d The site has also reportedly removed<\/a> a number of pages since this weekend, featuring names like \u201cRight Wing Death Squad\u201d and \u201cWhite Nationalists United.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Kickstarter:<\/strong> A spokesperson for the company pushed back on a recent report that its policies have changed in the wake of this weekend\u2019s events. \u201cTo be clear,\u201d the spokesperson told TechCrunch, \u201cthere\u2019s been no change on our stance. Our policies have never allowed hate speech and projects that promote it are not permitted on Kickstarter.\u201d The site\u2019s guidelines specifically prohibit projects that promote \u201cOffensive material (e.g., hate speech, encouraging violence against others, etc).\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Patreon:<\/strong> While not a direct response to this weekend\u2019s events, a Patreon spokesperson pointed me to a video <\/a>posted by CEO Jack Conte<\/a> late last month that addresses the company\u2019s decision to remove certain content from its platform. The topics brush up against some of these issues, but don\u2019t really address them directly. The closest is probably Defend Europe, a right-wing, anti-immigrant group patrolling the waters around North Africa in attempt to block refugees. In the video, Conte explains that political ideology played no role in the site\u2019s decision to remove the campaign.<\/span><\/p>\n Reddit:<\/strong> A spokesperson for the site tells TechCrunch, \u201cReddit is the home of some of the most authentic conversations online. We strive to be a welcoming, open platform for all by trusting our users to maintain an environment that cultivates genuine conversation and adheres to our content policy.\u00a0<\/span>We are very clear in our site terms of service that posting content that violates our policies will get users and\/or communities banned from Reddit. We work continuously to refine our policies to ensure the integrity of the site.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n The site\u2019s guidelines acknowledge Reddit\u2019s \u201cleeway in what content is acceptable,\u201d while calling out language that is threatening or \u201cencourages or incites violence.\u201d The ToS seems less concerned with hate speech than many other prominent platforms, however. <\/span><\/p>\n Snapchat:<\/strong> According to a spokesperson, \u201cHate speech, and any group that promotes it, will never be tolerated on Snapchat.\u201d The company also directed us to its community guidelines, which separately call out \u201cTerrorism, Threats Violence and Hate Speech.\u201d The latter prohibits content that, \u201cdemeans, defames, or promotes discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, gender, disability, or veteran status.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Tumblr:<\/strong> A spokesperson for the site directed us to a statement<\/a> that mostly points users toward advocacy and empowerment groups like the NAACP and Black Girls Code. The statement doesn\u2019t really address the site\u2019s own response, however, but does address the complexities, \u201cThe Tumblr team is continually having important and tough conversations around the complexities of free speech, and we are dedicated to empowering positive and productive conversations among the communities that thrive on the platform.\u201d<\/p>\n That said, the company does address \u201cMalicious Speech\u201d in its community guidelines, attempting to get users to \u201cdismantle negative speech through argument rather than censorship.\u201d It\u2019s a nice thought, certainly, but how often are internet arguments won through carefully crafted reasoning?For direct threats of violence, Tumblr encourages users to report incidents. \u201cDon\u2019t encourage violence or hatred,\u201d the guidelines read. \u201cDon\u2019t make violent threats or statements that incite violence, including threatening or promoting terrorism. Especially don\u2019t do so on the basis of things like race, ethnic origin, religion, disability, gender, gender identity, age, veteran status, or sexual orientation.\u201d<\/p>\n Twitter:<\/strong> We received the following statement from a spokesperson. \u201cThe Twitter Rules prohibit violent threats, harassment, hateful conduct, and multiple account abuse, and we will take action on accounts violating those policies.\u201d The company also lists Hateful Conduct among its bannable offenses. That section of the terms and conditions prohibits conduct that will \u201cpromote violence against or directly attack or threaten other people on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability, or disease. We also do not allow accounts whose primary purpose is inciting harm towards others on the basis of these categories.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n Of course, Twitter has been in a fair bit of hot water in recent months regarding a perceived lack of action in the wake of perceived threats, leading one activist to stencil hate language<\/a> on the streets outside the company\u2019s Berlin headquarters. The nature of Trump\u2019s tweets that teeter on the edge of threatening nuclear war also seem to walk that line. The site has a policy of not commenting on action taken against specific accounts, though some, like the Daily Stormer, do appear to have already been taken offline<\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n YouTube:<\/strong> Earlier this month, the video site announced plans to institute stricter guidelines with regard to hate speech. \u201cWe\u2019ll soon be applying tougher treatment to videos that aren\u2019t illegal but have been flagged by users as potential violations of our policies on hate speech and violent extremism. If we find that these videos don\u2019t violate our policies but contain controversial religious or supremacist content, they will be placed in a limited state. The videos will remain on YouTube behind an interstitial, won\u2019t be recommended, won\u2019t be monetized, and won\u2019t have key features including comments, suggested videos, and likes.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \t\t\t<\/p>\n \t\t\tFeatured Image: Stephen Maturen\/Getty Images<\/small><\/p>\n Article source: http:\/\/feedproxy.google.com\/~r\/techcrunch\/social\/~3\/N08UR8BYN0I\/<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This weekend\u2019s events in Charlottesville, VA left one person dead, 30 people injured and poured more kerosene onto the fire of national debate around hate groups and free speech. For <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[10,7,14,15,6,12,11],"class_list":["post-8233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latest-update","tag-computer-news","tag-downloads","tag-microsoft-download-news","tag-networking-updates","tag-technology-update","tag-wordpress-plugin-download","tag-wordpress-theme-download"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t