131–140 of 164 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't want to make a value judgement by using a word like "behind", but I do think most Americans are simply not aware of how extreme our country's stance on free speech is compared to the rest of the world. Countries like the UK, France, and Germany seem to function just fine with their more restrictive laws on speech.
Could be that it’s only “fine” in the short term. Just 80 years ago Germany was very far from “fine”.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The words on Twitter do sometimes include slander and threats which would make them illegal. The idea of a nebulous "illegality" is simplistic and wrong, in the US. They might open an individual to civil liability, but they aren't in violation of a criminal code, nor tort law. > That doesn't mean the action of speaking those words are legal Speech is always legal, in the US. What you think "legal" means is up for d…
Not all speech is always legal in the USA: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Illegal_speech_in_the...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
So, my local paper had a comment section that was dominated by the typical hysterical, unhinged, anonymous arguing between far right and far left partisans that we see in a lot of online discourse. They changed to a "real name" policy and now the comments, while much reduced, are also much more thoughtful and tend to stay on-topic.
> They changed to a "real name" policy and now the comments, while much reduced, are also much more thoughtful and tend to stay on-topic. Real name policies eliminate specific categories of speech. One of those categories is trolling, which naturally makes everybody very happy. The problem is that some of the other categories are really important . If you require real names then people with minority views are afraid…
What anonymity does do to social media is muddy the waters to a great degree. Online discourse is now built on bad faith, because of the lack of consequence and reputation.
I've enjoyed anonymity as much as the next person, but I believe it is a net detriment to communication.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
So, my local paper had a comment section that was dominated by the typical hysterical, unhinged, anonymous arguing between far right and far left partisans that we see in a lot of online discourse. They changed to a "real name" policy and now the comments, while much reduced, are also much more thoughtful and tend to stay on-topic.
Okay, but what about political dissidents, people in abusive relationships, people in backwards areas who aren't heterosexual, just play shy people, and many others? I don't have a clear cut answer myself, because on the other hand, anonymity opens the floodgates to so much manipulation that also ends up hurting real people, and that will only get worse as technology gets refined in those directions. Those that want…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
As long as it isn't libel/slander or 'fighting words', we do allow it in the physical world. Shouting words at someone is not illegal.
Depending on the words, it is entirely illegal in many countries around the world. The USA is behind the curve on that.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
As long as it isn't libel/slander or 'fighting words', we do allow it in the physical world. Shouting words at someone is not illegal.
Depending on the words, it is entirely illegal in many countries around the world. The USA is behind the curve on that.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Disincentivize for-profit news.
Make negative campaign ads illegal. Elections are votes FOR a candidate, not votes against someone.
Does anyone truly believe that regulation is going to fix that in a way that leaves people the ability to freely express their thoughts -- something that is and should be a human right? I think the real issue here is that social media has moved us to a place where people's real thoughts are visible to all, and the problem we need to solve is how society will work now that the genie is out of the bottle. Social media…
Ug, never proposals for education, grants for preferred alternative implementations, publicly funded communication platforms, recognition that the status quo is people's preference, data transparency encouragement (not user transparency...not "who", but "what" wrt internal analytics), enforcement of existing advertisement/fraud/collusion statutes, etc. The first step always has to be more legislation, very sad. I'd a…
>recognition that the status quo is people's preference...I'd argue in the scheme of things, it's not really that broken Continuing the status quo means the people in power stay in power. It therefore isn't surprising that the people in power prefer preserving the status quo. It also isn't surprising that the people who believe the system is broken and are most against the status quo are those that belong to historic…
People have been politically mobilized by the idea of "change" since the beginning of democracy. But that's just because the idea of "change" has a certain energy to it that is important for campaigning. Most people don't like the idea of supporting the existing status quo because it seems ... low energy.
So anyway. You'll find a lot of professional activists working at big tech companies (a lot of companies now have 'racial equity' orgs which essentially exist to do political activism), having their concerns heard by people in power, and all the while talking about smashing the status quo. But they aren't really trying to smash the status quo. They are just taking the existing status quo step by step to its logical conclusion.
The people trying to smash the status quo are usually the ones having laws passed against them. Who don't have corporate leaders pandering to them. Who don't get celebrated by the media.
It's the anime avatar having people on Twitter, who constantly break taboos with their speech, who are against the status quo and that's why the current power structure wants to shut them down.
(I'm not saying you are wrong for supporting the existing power structure, but it _is_ wrong to pretend that the current power structure isn't pro-LGBTQ and PoC because it is emphatically so.)