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Freedom of expression is at a ten-year low globally, study says

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Re: Freedom of expression is at a ten-year low globally, study says

#41

Post by atonse »

namirez wrote: post #37
Ididntdothis wrote: post #8

Even when governments don’t limit freedom of expression we do it to ourselves as can be seen with all the Twitter mobs.

I keep hearing this kind of sentiment a lot recently. Not that I have any sympathy for the Twitter mobs, but there is a huge difference between government-sanctioned "legal" censorship, and some unorganized group of trolls harassing someone on Twitter.

I don't agree that there's a huge difference in effect. Yes they can't throw you in jail like a government could. But they could ruin your career, make you lose your job, and make you a pariah for years to come, throwing your life upside down.

Re: Freedom of expression is at a ten-year low globally, study says

#42

Post by [deleted] »

downerending wrote: post #36
jerf wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the goal. Those seeking it would be advised to consider whether it's a power they really want Trump to have, or his successor, but there's a lot of people who seem to operate on the presumption that in the long term, their side is going to have complete control of the government indefinitely and the fact that some people they disagree with has some control at the moment is a momentary aberration. I would suggest…

You can like Trump or not, but he's probably one of the people in power who'd least care for this sort of censorship. He clearly revels in public debate, perhaps even to an unhealthy degree. It may not be Lincoln-Douglas stuff, but that's how democracy is supposed to work.

[deleted]

Re: Freedom of expression is at a ten-year low globally, study says

#43

Post by corporate_shi11 »

Hate speech must be protected speech. Keep in mind that all groups suffer from hate speech attacks. Majority groups in Western countries ("white people") are some of the most publicly demonized people of the last few years, so saying that toleration of hate speech - which affects us all - is an opinion that can only be held from the secure position of being in the majority is nonsense.

Re: Freedom of expression is at a ten-year low globally, study says

#44

Post by shoes_for_thee »

downerending wrote: post #36
jerf wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the goal. Those seeking it would be advised to consider whether it's a power they really want Trump to have, or his successor, but there's a lot of people who seem to operate on the presumption that in the long term, their side is going to have complete control of the government indefinitely and the fact that some people they disagree with has some control at the moment is a momentary aberration. I would suggest…

You can like Trump or not, but he's probably one of the people in power who'd least care for this sort of censorship. He clearly revels in public debate, perhaps even to an unhealthy degree. It may not be Lincoln-Douglas stuff, but that's how democracy is supposed to work.

Citation needed. When he sees something he disagrees with he flatly calls it fake and moves on. That's not debate.

Re: Freedom of expression is at a ten-year low globally, study says

#45

Post by ikeyany »

downerending wrote: post #36
jerf wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the goal. Those seeking it would be advised to consider whether it's a power they really want Trump to have, or his successor, but there's a lot of people who seem to operate on the presumption that in the long term, their side is going to have complete control of the government indefinitely and the fact that some people they disagree with has some control at the moment is a momentary aberration. I would suggest…

You can like Trump or not, but he's probably one of the people in power who'd least care for this sort of censorship. He clearly revels in public debate, perhaps even to an unhealthy degree. It may not be Lincoln-Douglas stuff, but that's how democracy is supposed to work.

That is not factually correct. He revokes press credentials of journalists who criticize him. He encourages people to attack journalists, and some of his supporters have already done so.

I advise caution against spreading false information so blithely.

Re: Freedom of expression is at a ten-year low globally, study says

#46

Post by noonespecial »

manifestsilence wrote: post #28
BucketSort wrote: post #9

In addition to government interference in free speech, all actions/words that offend have potentially life devastating consequences in this age of the digital permanent record. Suppose you slap someone in a moment of uncontrolled anger. If someone records that, posts it on the internet, and it goes viral, you then become the mad slapper in the eyes of the world. If someone googles your name, they will see you slappin…

We do have laws to limit free speech in good and specific ways. You can't slander a person who isn't famous, for example, or incite violence against specific people or groups. And most of the cries of free speech being violated aren't really about the first amendment. Most are just people being deplatformed, which is a reminder that YouTube is just Google. It's a company, not a public space.

You can't slander a person who isn't famous, for example...

That was kind of the point. Thanks the the internet, we're all famous now. Just ask "star wars kid".

Re: Freedom of expression is at a ten-year low globally, study says

#47

Post by manifestsilence »

There has been a lot of mixing of concepts in this space lately. There is the legal question of government interference with speech, protected by the First Amendment in the US. Then there is the moral issue of deplatforming by corporations. Then there is the moral issue of groups of people bullying a dissenting viewpoint. These are different issues with different levels of severity and different solutions.

Anyone who has only been deplatformed and is complaining that the world is becoming authoritarian needs to realize that this has always been the way of the world. Forever. There has never been a time in history when someone could voice an unpopular view or be seen as an unpopular identity and not receive public ridicule, shame, or retribution of some kind, and where companies censored no content whatsoever.

What America, and other nations who value freedom, have is a protection against government interference. Let's keep it that way and accept that people are jerks to each other and not everyone wants to hear what you have to say.

Re: Freedom of expression is at a ten-year low globally, study says

#48

Post by throwaway5d097 »

tenebrisalietum wrote: post #12
Reedx wrote: post #7

>"...the desire to have someone force these companies to remove hate speech or misinformation can backfire. To see how, we need look no further than Singapore’s new “fake news” law, which has already been used to force an opposition politician to modify a Facebook post to include the government’s position on the topic he mentioned in his post, along with a large banner across the original saying “False.” This is so o…

Constitutional rights don't matter for people if parties with vast economic power can render the exercise of those rights pointless. Most people absolutely will trade freedom for security, because most people aren't late 1700's frontiersman that hunt for food, defend land from intruders, huddle together in a rickety log cabin built with their own two hands, and die before they're 40. Most people that aren't the elite…

>Constitutional rights don't matter for people if parties with vast economic power can render the exercise of those rights pointless

This is an interesting point, but I don't get how that follows from the rest of this post. More corporatism can often lead to worse quality of life as well.

By making the lack of rights explicit rather than implicit, the exercise of such rights is made even more difficult.

This seems like the kind of thinking from a lot of people in the PRC, and it's not working out very well for them, at least collectively.

Re: Freedom of expression is at a ten-year low globally, study says

#49

Post by djsumdog »

I wonder if we'll see China open up in our lifetimes. Would it even be possible with protests, or would that government need to fail in order to see that magnitude of change?

And to be fair, China isn't North Korea by any means. so in some ways, it seems like the most likely to start demeaning more freedom.

Re: Freedom of expression is at a ten-year low globally, study says

#50

Post by daenz »

jerf wrote: post #11
Reedx wrote: post #7

>"...the desire to have someone force these companies to remove hate speech or misinformation can backfire. To see how, we need look no further than Singapore’s new “fake news” law, which has already been used to force an opposition politician to modify a Facebook post to include the government’s position on the topic he mentioned in his post, along with a large banner across the original saying “False.” This is so o…

It's the goal. Those seeking it would be advised to consider whether it's a power they really want Trump to have, or his successor, but there's a lot of people who seem to operate on the presumption that in the long term, their side is going to have complete control of the government indefinitely and the fact that some people they disagree with has some control at the moment is a momentary aberration. I would suggest…

It seems like most people who support that kind of censorship are indeed short-sighted of how it can be used against them in the future, but there are also bad actors that just want to destabilize everything because it fits in with their goal making conditions bad enough that it will be easier to "smash the X" (patriarchy, capitalism, social classes, etc). Anything that upsets what they perceive as the "established order" is good, because it gives a better foothold to advance their other agendas.
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