211–220 of 565 posts
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> most social media platforms don't censor far-left thoughts anyway. They do, though. https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/08/09/google-censors-block...
google results are a social media platform? And i said "most".
A common argument in philosophy is that bad ideas should occur in the open - where everyone may ridicule them. When they are cast to the shadows they can grow, under everyone's noses, in private where only there are they allowed to exist. In private, these bad ideas cannot be challenged by others and people will be convinced to believe in them, with nobody challenging the idea as a genuinely terrible idea. It gives b…
That argument works well in relatively small social groups where people generally can be relied upon to act in good faith, and where there are social disincentives to clinging to bad ideas after they have been refuted. When you have a small group with social bonds, you don't have to worry about a bad actor constantly repeating their already-refuted arguments to people who haven't heard the refutation. But when you ha…
If mere exposure to bad ideas is this dangerous then mass scale democracy is not viable. The viability of democracy beyond very small groups is dependent on the idea that human beings are capable of independent rational thought and of discussing and evaluating ideas on merit. If that's not the case then the neo-reactionaries are right and democracy is doomed to failure or worse.
What I see here is a major freakout over Trump. IMHO feeling alarmed about Trump is justified, but throwing basic freedoms and the idea of the open flow of information out the window is not the right response. The right response is to ask how and why Trump won and address the problems, ideas, and arguments that led to it rationally. The solution is also to learn how to use this new medium better. If Jones' BS is more "viral," then more rational thinkers need to learn how to play the viral game. You must learn to communicate effectively using the media of the time. If you use social media you must learn to be viral just like previous generations had to study the art of the persuasive essay or how to do makeup properly so you don't look like a sweaty pig on a TV interview (see Nixon vs. Kennedy TV debates).
If it really is true that bad ideas are inherently more viral than good ones and that cannot be combatted, I do not see how democracy can survive at all in the Information Age.
A common argument in philosophy is that bad ideas should occur in the open - where everyone may ridicule them. When they are cast to the shadows they can grow, under everyone's noses, in private where only there are they allowed to exist. In private, these bad ideas cannot be challenged by others and people will be convinced to believe in them, with nobody challenging the idea as a genuinely terrible idea. It gives b…
There are some lines you can't cross. I doubt any philosophers would truly argue that free speech is absolute, and that yelling FIRE in a crowded theater should be protected because it is possible to ridicule the speaker and calm the audience before they stampede each other to death. Malicious intent and incitement of violence are not mere speech.
https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/11/its-tim...
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Yes. Also, you can refute all you want, but if the bad ideas are better clickbait than your refutations, they will spread faster.
Maybe there's a reason a "bad idea" is clickbait.
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It's the same people who are downvoting you, it's anonymous people that can't handle different political views. Yesterday it was Alex Jones, now it's Gab, Voat will be next, then The_Donald etc. Sticks and stones is a foreign concept to people reporting these sites. They want everyone to agree with them. And since most of the major hosting companies have that liberal culture going on, they will happily ban them. Now…
We just asked you to please go read the guidelines and follow them. Could you do that now? We don't need any more flamebait here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
See here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17671916
Feel free to ban me though, this site is the worst echo chamber I've ever seen, hiding behind selectively enforced rules.
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It's the same people who are downvoting you, it's anonymous people that can't handle different political views. Yesterday it was Alex Jones, now it's Gab, Voat will be next, then The_Donald etc. Sticks and stones is a foreign concept to people reporting these sites. They want everyone to agree with them. And since most of the major hosting companies have that liberal culture going on, they will happily ban them. Now…
Just to be clear, his "political views" are a call for violence.
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That argument works well in relatively small social groups where people generally can be relied upon to act in good faith, and where there are social disincentives to clinging to bad ideas after they have been refuted. When you have a small group with social bonds, you don't have to worry about a bad actor constantly repeating their already-refuted arguments to people who haven't heard the refutation. But when you ha…
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If I own a nightclub and it becomes a hotspot for the alt-right, who don't align with my values, and I close down that nightclub for that reason, am I censoring them? No, I'm excluding them from my privately-owned space and refusing to associate with them. Nobody's right is being infringed upon here; they're free to go to any other bar. "Whether they can host their own site" is absolutely relevant to what is and isn'…
Maybe the state should provide hosting services so that the public can express itself freely without fear of being excluded.
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There was no government involvement in this. Microsoft made a business decision that hosting Gab would subject them to business pressures from other customers/potential customers not wanting to use a service used by hatemongers. That's not censorship. That's the free market at work. Gab is free to host their own website; and if necessary their own DNS servers. Hell, they're free to go Tor-only.
"business impact" is almost always a lie or used as an excuse to do what you want.
On the other hand, if you're talking about the personal business fiefdoms of billionaires, then you're quite right--they make decisions based on what the sole owner wants, financial consequences be damned.