Spotify, SoundCloud and other platforms have pulled the song, but its spread underscores the challenges tech platforms face in removing content that violate their policies.
Spotify, SoundCloud and other tech platforms have worked to remove a new song from Ye that praises Adolf Hitler, but the song and its video have continued to proliferate online including across X, where it has racked up millions of views.
On various mainstream and alternative tech platforms this week, Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, has been able to share his latest song, titled “Heil Hitler,” along with its companion title, “WW3,” which similarly glorifies Hitler, the architect of the Holocaust.
While some platforms have taken steps to attempt to pull down the song, others have seemingly let it spread freely.
Your belief that I don’t understand these ideas or haven’t encountered them is incorrect. In fact I used to prioritize those ideas myself, and encouraged others to do the same.
I don’t even really disagree with most of that, I’m not talking (at all) about clamping down on free expression in a general sense. I’m saying that a free society must not equally allow every possible expression, and that anything invoking and glorifying Nazism in specific is beyond the pale and must be stopped, including violently when necessary. My point of view is not extreme, nor is it authoritarian (by my measure). There are thriving democratic nations who do exactly this right now, Germany being the example I have in mind (though I do acknowledge their special history with regard to that precise topic).
I’m also saying you seem far more interested in splitting hairs and discussing theory than solving problems. And that works fantastically for the right-wing folks who only care about winning. They don’t argue ideology in good faith, they instead exploit the willingness of others to do so (like you’re insisting on here) because it drags them into unproductive conversations and creates feuds (like we’re doing here).
I’m not advocating for anything I’d call authoritarian, but that word means something different to everyone. I am saying tolerance must have its limits, or the spread of intolerance over time is guaranteed. I’m really uninterested in going further with you. You are not bringing me anything new or that I find valuable. You are bringing me points I have considered, largely accepted, and in narrow cases, have chosen to reject. I didn’t say I’ve never gone into a scholarly direction on this stuff. I said I am uninterested in doing so here. My original comment about paradox of intolerance is something that person needed to hear. I never had any intention to be rigorous with my telling, and I stand by everything I said regardless.
I can tell that you feel really strongly about this stuff and I think we’re on the same side. I think I probably agree with you more than you realize. I want to say one more time - I’m not interested in discussing these details. It isn’t that I don’t find them valuable, can’t understand them, or never have learned about them. There are other valid reasons for not wanting to, and I’d appreciate a little intellectual charity from you. But that’s yours to give, not mine to demand. I do wish you well.
Edit: softened tone at the end
It’s more an observation that your position isn’t justified well.
You are talking about weakening legal integrity of fundamental rights & committing violence against nonaggressors (violence against peaceful expression is never necessary): that’s flat out illiberal & incompatible with free society. Worst of all, you’ve failed to demonstrate any of it is necessary or sufficient to safeguard the fundamental rights free society stands for: basic logic indicates it does the opposite. Moreover, historical record discredits your position & shows such approaches when attempted are easily abused by authorities, harm society, and end up failing: you remain conveniently mute on this.
Claiming to have heard & understood it all before doesn’t mean your position now isn’t broken & muddled. “Defeating” illiberal movements in ways that end up defeating free society is incompetent advocacy. I think you’re mistaking fighting fascism (even at the expense of fundamental freedoms that define free society) with defending free society.
Anyone who seriously cares about free society needs to oppose illiberalism from your direction, too. I do. Your illiberalism is more insidious than overt fascism, because someone might mistake yours for progressive.
The only positive is there’s a better chance of reasoning with misguided people trying to do the right thing than someone who definitely wants to end free society.
No, this disagreement is real. I cannot support recklessly subverting fundamental rights to score cheap “wins” that ultimately result in loss. Committing to a free society requires integrity to defend all of it consistently.
It’s seems to me your “solution” adds to the problem. It’s possible to oppose it, oppose facism, & argue for a better solution.
Moreover, it seems to me you’re falling for their game. Testing integrity by trying to provoke society to weaken its legal protections enough to punish offensive exercise of fundamental rights is a classic challenge illiberals pose to lure society to attack free society.
Advocating for unnecessary limits on liberties is objectively illiberal. Weakening integrity of legal protections for fundamental rights increases their vulnerability to abuse by authorities, which is a step toward authoritarianism.
But it’s wrong, your reasoning is unsound, and no one has to agree with it. Your logic isn’t compelling.
Germany is not a great example. Do their restrictions inhibit the rise of abhorrent movements? People still speak & assemble privately. Neo-nazis are still around. AfD continues gaining with its intimations of ethnofascism skirting barely within legal limits. German laws seem ineffective at deterring the rise of far-right extremism, which looks hardly any different in the rest of the world.
Meanwhile, Germany has internet patrols penalizing vitriol, insults, & satirical images of politicians showing fake quotes & live police suppressing pro-Palestinian protests as anti-semitic. So, German laws seem effective at helping authorities stifle & penalize online criticism. At least when authorities (following eerily similar rationalizations in the US & Germany) try to suppress pro-Palestinian protests, protesters in the US have firmer legal claims to defend their rights.
The Principle of Charity means interpreting your words in their truest, likeliest meaning favoring the validity of your argument. It doesn’t mean just letting you have the argument.
If you don’t want to justify your claims convincingly, that’s fine. I’m still going to tell everyone who reads this why I think a free, democratic society deserves better than the deeply broken idea you’re pushing.
While I wish you well, too, you and the rest who endorse that thinking seem sorely misguided, and I wish you would think better.