A city in Canada has determined that the "A" symbol that represents "anarchy" is a hate symbol and can not be displayed on a building. While Anarchists by definition oppose government controls it tends to be the far left that advocates for these types of hate speech laws.The far left is typically a reference to anarchists, communists, and socialists and it is these groups that often advocate for censoring "hate speech."In turn we are seeing progressive and anarchists face the same censorship they advocate for.UPDATE: After making this video PJW's video was unrestricted.Support the show (http://timcast.com/donate)
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Today's main story is about an anarchist group in Canada who was ordered to remove the anarchist A symbol from their building because the city said it was a hate symbol akin to a swastika.
You know, I think it's about time I put together a playlist called Backfires, because I've probably got a dozen videos about these authoritarian policies backfiring on those who tend to advocate for them.
Because it's not just this one anarchist group.
There's more news.
LGBT creators are complaining about YouTube censorship, how their channels are being put in restricted mode, about how they're being demonetized.
Yet, for some reason, they are still advocating for these hate speech policies.
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Our first story is from the CBC.
Hamilton orders removal of Anarchy Simple, calling it hate material.
The city of Hamilton has forced a local anarchist group to remove the Circle A anarchy symbol from its headquarters, saying it is hate material similar to the swastika.
City officials say they're taking direction from Hamilton police on the issue, but police say that's not the case.
City spokesperson Marie Fitzpatrick told CBC News that on March 16th, the city started a bylaw investigation into the symbol being displayed on the woods covering the windows.
The anarchist symbol is considered hate material by the City of Hamilton and Hamilton Police Services, and as such, must be removed, Fitzpatrick said in an email.
Fitzpatrick told CBC News that the Hamilton Police Hate Crime Unit provides the city with a list of hate symbols, but Constable Jerome Stewart said police do not classify the anarchy symbol as problematic.
It does not meet the threshold of a hate crime, he said.
To the best of our knowledge, it is classified as an extreme left sign.
So I don't know where the direction came that Hamilton police have identified it as a hate crime sign, because as per our hate crime coordinator, that is not the case.
What makes this story interesting is the conflict within the government.
It seems like there are some police saying it's not a hate symbol and they don't know where this direction is coming from, But the city spokesperson is saying it is, and it must be removed.
So we have a couple potential scenarios.
Either the city has classified it, the police are wrong, and these people have to remove it, or someone within the government has decided to wield this power against those they disagree with politically, using hate speech as grounds to target those they might disagree with.
Now, there are some important clarifications.
Anarchists tend to be anti-authoritarian and anti-government.
However, the idea of what an anarchist is often gets lumped into socialists and communists because they often work together.
When we talk about Antifa, Antifa tends to be a group engaging in a black bloc protest, and it's a mix of anarchists, socialists, and communists.
Typically, when you say anarchist, you're referring to far-left activists, and the far-left is the group that- they tend to be the group that want to ban hate speech.
Anarchists can refer to people who are anarcho-capitalist, which they entirely disagree with the anarchist left.
It's very complicated, but the main point here is When you advocate for hate speech policy, it will be used against you, as I've documented before, and as I'm documenting now.
But there's more, because LGBT creators, who are being targeted by these same policies for some reason, are still advocating for these policies.
Trans YouTuber Steph Sanjati says her videos are being censored.
Sanjati is one of dozens of LGBT content creators who claim they've had their videos unjustifiably censored or demonetized.
In an interview with Youth Radio, Sanjati revealed that some 20% of her videos are put in restricted mode, a kid-friendly mode that limits their viewership solely to users who are logged in, and roughly 10% of her videos are demonetized completely, meaning she makes no ad revenue off of her content whatsoever.
Now, this isn't a reflection of Sanjati, but we can see a YouTuber, Steve Bobi, who hosts a lesbian sex ed series calling out the company directly for unjustifiably censoring
their content, saying, Hi YouTube, please define vulgar language, make it racist
and homophobic only please.
This is an instance of a creator still asking YouTube to restrict certain speech
while they are being censored for their speech, because they want to define the word vulgar.
Unfortunately for them, Google is going to determine how they define vulgar on their own, and it probably has more to do with advertisers than it does a particular individual who believes that what they're doing is not in any way vulgar.
In the interview with Youth Radio, Sanjati was asked, Is getting demonetized or restricting videos getting more common on YouTube?
To which he responded, It definitely started last year.
I think it started basically with Google, which owns YouTube.
They have a computerized algorithm that learned to identify videos that might be inappropriate, and it will flag them before they are seen by people.
Somewhere along the line, it learned that LGBT videos were inappropriate.
I don't know when that happened, or how it happened, but ultimately, it's flawed technology, and that's definitely Google's responsibility to fix that.
Google never really gave a clear explanation other than it's a self-learning algorithm and it made a mistake.
But there's been no clarification of whether or not it's been fixed, and they haven't really been very communicative with their creators on the platform.
I'm still experiencing demonetization on videos that discuss sexuality.
Well, they're not wrong.
YouTube's algorithm is total garbage, and I don't know how it works, most people don't know how it works, and it tends to screw up.
A lot.
My past couple videos, YouTube has suggested children's nursery rhymes against a video about gang violence and murder, and sexual assault.
Yes, I made two videos that were very serious, and YouTube thought, for some reason, that it was a children's nursery video.
So, yeah, the system is broken.
But I don't think it's a surprise to anyone that issues of sexuality are going to be deemed vulgar, not suitable for all advertisers, and will be put in restricted mode.
These are policies that tend to be advocated for by the far left.
It's not the right who's calling for this kind of censorship.
While certainly some of them are, it tends to be the far left who wants this stuff.
But now let's move into the asymmetrical nature, the power dynamic, because Paul Joseph Watson's video where he was criticizing This Is America by Childish Gambino was put in restricted mode.
He tweeted, So YouTube is allowing a video that depicts people being
massacred and shot in the head to be seen by children, no age restriction,
while censoring a video by me which contains nothing but political commentary.
Sound like an interesting story?
He also tweeted, I love how the original video, which literally shows people
being gunned down in cold blood, is considered advertiser friendly by Google,
while me talking about gun crimes to Zyx cannot even be allowed, never mind monetized.
In Paul's video, he talks about the racial disparity in crime statistics.
And I think that's why his video was placed in restricted mode.
But I do think it's still important to point out that Childish Gambino's video depicts people being massacred with a fully automatic rifle with blood splatter all over the walls, it opens with a man being shot in the back of the head with a bag over his head, and this video is fully monetized, advertiser-friendly, no age restrictions, and LGBT videos are restricted, are demonetized.
There is an absolute disparity between those who have power and are famous, and those who are not.
Because even some of these creators who complain have hundreds of thousands of subscribers.
They do have weight behind them.
But a video like This is America, which is ridiculously popular, garnering over 125 million views in about a week, It's not going to be touched by YouTube because it's got cultural momentum.
And let's go back in time about one year.
ProPublica story.
Facebook's secret censorship rules protect white men from hate speech but not black children.
A trove of internal documents sheds light on the algorithms that Facebook censors use to determine between hate speech and legitimate political expression.
This story from last year talks about how based on how Facebook determines what is hate speech, white men are considered a protected class.
This is really important when you consider the people who are advocating for hate speech policies tend to be very critical of the idea of white men, white
privilege, male privilege, and white male privilege.
But here, because of their own advocacy for these policies, Facebook is now protecting white men.
And yesterday, Facebook published their enforcement numbers for the first time,
in which they say, for hate speech, our technology still doesn't work that well, and so it
needs to be checked by our review teams.
We removed 2.5 million pieces of hate speech in quarter one, 2018.
38% of which was flagged by our technology.
So let's go over the few problems we've seen.
Those advocating for hate speech policy are also being impacted by it, and at least some of them are still pushing the same policies even after they're censored.
We're also seeing political discussions being centered simply because Well, Paul Joseph Watson's video might have been censored because of this, but he talks about the racial disparity in crime statistics.
If we want to have an honest conversation to solve our problems, we can't ban videos because we don't like the facts that are presented in them.
By all means, dispute videos that you might think are racist or factually inaccurate, but when you censor them, you don't prove anyone wrong.
And to quote Tyrion Lannister, or more accurately, George R.R.
Martin, I wish this would be a lesson to those who constantly advocate for hate speech policies.
That, if you do, the government will come for you.
world that you fear what he might say. I wish this would be a lesson to those who
constantly advocate for hate speech policies that if you do the government
will come for you. It's not those in power that are going to face the brunt
of these policies.
If your complaint is that Donald Trump is a fascist and that white privilege is bad, then don't give power to the white privileged president to use against you.
It's just simple logic.
Otherwise, it could be your anarchist bookshop, it could be your anarchist headquarters, or it could be your LGBT videos that get censored on YouTube or shut down by local government.
Lastly, I want to say to anybody who disagrees with anarchists, to anybody who is mocking or laughing at those who are advocating these policies for being censored, now is the time to defend their free speech too.
I think it is absolutely ridiculous for a local government to tell a headquarters to remove a symbol from their store.
Let them have their symbol.
If they want to identify that way, let them do that.
If it's hateful, whatever.
If someone wants to make a video about their sexuality and talk about LGBT issues, they shouldn't be restricted or demonetized if the standard is that Childish Gambino can blow someone's brains out in the first 20 seconds of his video to 125 million viewers.
Let's maintain some standards and let's realize that political conversations are nuanced and sometimes people get offended.
But let me know what you think in the comments below.
How do you feel about the policy?
It's technically backfiring on the political faction that tends to advocate for these policies.
How do you feel about that?
Again, we'll keep the conversation going in the comments.
