Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

cjr.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 178 posts

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

#61

Post by bilbo0s »

atonse wrote: post #41
namirez wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

But what are you suggesting?

That you should have freedom of expression, but the twitter users should not have freedom of expression?

I feel like that's what's being lost in this discussion. The acceptance of the fact that everyone has rights. Not just you. Or just me. Or just the politicians. Or what have you.

But everyone.

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

#62

Post by efa »

Merrill wrote: post #20

The report seems to deal mainly with freedom of expression by journalists, members of NGOs, activists, widely read bloggers and other members of the gadfly class. I wonder whether freedom of expression by the average citizen is decreasing or increasing. They certainly have more opportunity to express their views.

But I think there is more fear in expressing opinions. More opportunities to express and more people to attack unpopular views.

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

#63

Post by fzeroracer »

BucketSort wrote: post #40
fzeroracer wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe you shouldn't assault people if you don't want to be known for assault? Slap or not, hitting someone in a fit of anger is assault, full stop. Even people which have been 'cancelled' for things that aren't assault still end up going on to have their career mostly unaffected unless they did something really henious.

People aren't perfect. I don't think anyone commits a crime after performing a full calculation of the consequences. I think you demonstrate an important trend with your comment. The desire to label things and ignore circumstances. It appears to me that people don't want to think about the nuances of things; they just want to simplify all thought to some label level where conclusions are easily made.

The scenario you shared was someone assaulting someone else because they were angry.

Just because you're angry and not able to understand the consequences of your action does not excuse you from them. I find it more disturbing that we're defending literal assault because somehow it's the result of PC culture gone mad and not the result of laws meant to discourage violence.

If you're trying to connect this to people saying something silly on Twitter and having that follow them, you chose a really poor initial example of someone committing an actual crime.

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

#64

Post by spaginal »

shoes_for_thee wrote: post #44
downerending wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

But that is where it ends with him. Debate doesn't have to be healthy to still be debate, but he isn't stopping the people from saying the things against him.

When you start trying to create laws or compel companies to shut down speech you disagree with or don't like, either through the guise of hate speech laws or "stopping disinformation", that is the scenario we are scared about that is rampant for abuse.

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

#65

Post by [deleted] »

manifestsilence wrote: post #58
corporate_shi11 wrote: post #43

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.

No. There is a crucial distinction here. Hate speech that is only mean is one thing and should be protected. Hate speech that incites violence against a particular individual or group is not protected speech. This includes a few things said by the current POTUS, such as (approximate quote from memory), "maybe the guy should be roughed up", said of a guy who was currently being roughly physically removed from his rall…

[deleted]

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

#66

Post by ratsmack »

jessaustin wrote: post #60
tboyd47 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those "mobs" are only ordinary people exercising their own freedom of expression online. I think a more correct sentiment would be that even when there are governments that don't want to limit freedom of expression, multinational corporations will still oblige those governments and influential citizens that do.

Governments and "influential citizens" dance to the tune of corporations, not the other way around.

This is largely the case in America today. All you have to do is look at where political contributions come from and the amount and source of the money spent on lobbing. In addition, take a look at who traverses the revolving door between the financial sector and powerful government positions.

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

#67

Post by BucketSort »

fzeroracer wrote: post #63
BucketSort wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People aren't perfect. I don't think anyone commits a crime after performing a full calculation of the consequences. I think you demonstrate an important trend with your comment. The desire to label things and ignore circumstances. It appears to me that people don't want to think about the nuances of things; they just want to simplify all thought to some label level where conclusions are easily made.

The scenario you shared was someone assaulting someone else because they were angry. Just because you're angry and not able to understand the consequences of your action does not excuse you from them. I find it more disturbing that we're defending literal assault because somehow it's the result of PC culture gone mad and not the result of laws meant to discourage violence. If you're trying to connect this to people s…

Do you see how labeling a slap with the larger class of physical violence, which encompasses all sorts grievous acts, makes the rather innocent crime seem much more severe? This is a huge problem. It's a slap. Not a vicious beat down. It's violence, but there are degrees of violence. Should those degrees of violence not be reflected in our perception of the act?

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

#68

Post by [deleted] »

atonse wrote: post #41
namirez wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[deleted]

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

#69

Post by Miner49er »

oefrha wrote: post #34
manifestsilence wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's such an important distinction though. When people do it, it's just dissenting voices. When a platform removes someone, they can just find another platform. Twitter doesn't owe anyone a voice on it. But when the government says you can't talk about a thing, they can make you take it down everywhere. Only this is protected, and this line needs to not be crossed. I little sympathy for people getting upset at being…

When you have your career destroyed by voicing a non-pc opinion, it’s a lot more complicated than finding another Twitter to post 140 character posts.

Blame your employer for that, not the people on Twitter who disagree with you.

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

#70

Post by GhettoMaestro »

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 won’t happen. It is incompatible with the first amendment. Thank god we baked that shit in instead of just passing a law to that effect.
Post reply on HN