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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

#71

Post by oefrha »

bilbo0s wrote: post #57
oefrha wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yeah, but at the same time you need to understand that you're devaluing the rights on the other side of that. The guy whose company you work for, or the company whose platform you're using, or whatever the case may be, shouldn't be obliged to have their revenue take a hit solely in support of your right. I mean, if it's not going to cost your boss' company any money? Yeah OK, I can see where they should probably keep…

You know perfectly well I’m not talking about “my right to call some black guy the N word”. I’m talking about careers destroyed by certain vocal minorities that many if not most people are secretly tired of, yet won’t speak out against because of the fear of being lynched next.

Anyway, how’s your comment even relevant to what I replied to?

GP: (implying) Twitter mobs can silence or even destroy people just like government silencing;

P: Just find another Twitter;

Me: When your career’s destroyed finding another Twitter is probably not the highest priority;

You: You deserve to have your career destroyed, because otherwise Twitter mobs will be angry with your employer and colleagues.

So you’re refuting what? If there’s freedom of expression no one’s job would be at risk. Don’t bring up “freedom from consequences”, murdered journalists also had freedom of expression, they only faced certain consequences.

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

#72

Post by [deleted] »

bilbo0s wrote: post #57
oefrha wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yeah, but at the same time you need to understand that you're devaluing the rights on the other side of that. The guy whose company you work for, or the company whose platform you're using, or whatever the case may be, shouldn't be obliged to have their revenue take a hit solely in support of your right. I mean, if it's not going to cost your boss' company any money? Yeah OK, I can see where they should probably keep…

[deleted]

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

#73

Post by BryantD »

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…

When we're considering regulation, it's important to consider the activity we're regulating in context. Here's one extreme: it's legal to light a match. It's not legal to light a match and toss it into a gas pump.

We shouldn't regulate speech, but you should own the consequences of your actions -- speech included. If you're spreading anti-vax propaganda, you're complicit in killing kids. It's certainly not as bad as pulling the trigger; you're one component of a much greater whole, and any restrictions or punishment should reflect that.

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

#74

Post by bilbo0s »

manifestsilence wrote: post #47

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…

>accept that people are jerks to each other and not everyone wants to hear what you have to say

That's exactly the sort of common sense observation that's been missing from public debate on this issue. Why is it so difficult for people to accept that, really very simple, reality?

Everyone has freedoms. That includes the freedom to ignore you or me. Or, indeed, the freedom to speak ill of you or me.

Why do people want to shut that down? Just seems weird, like they're saying, "In the name of Freedom of Speech, we have to take away your Freedom of Speech. Because you talked bad about me and told people to ignore me. When I had done nothing more than exercise my freedom of speech by talking bad about someone else."

In what bizzarro world does that make sense to people?

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

#75

Post by tunesmith »

manifestsilence wrote: post #47

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…

I think there's a real difference in magnitude though. I have no data to back this up, but, it seems that the asymmetric impact of falsehood, trolling, and bullying is far greater than it has been in the past. I think we may have gone centuries with it being "worth the pain" and it's slowly turning into a much harder question.

Ultimately I think the answer is to have tools to make it easier and faster to identify and validate misinformation. Self-appointed "fact checking" organizations seems like an old-fashioned solution.

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

#76

Post by spaginal »

manifestsilence wrote: post #26
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.

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…

We start entering massive grey areas though when these platform companies actively take taxpayer funds and monies to run these platforms, then seemingly shut down one side of the debate or participate in active censorship.

I get the argument if it's their platform with their money curating the content their way, but many of these large platform companies, like Google, have received massive infusion in funds through the government, tax breaks, or subsidies, and nearly monopolized large segments of information exchange (search, video, etc.)

When you have so much material support going into these companies from federal and state governments, and then they behave a certain way towards our rights, you begin to enter a very realistic scenario where a proxy intrusion of your rights starts becoming a real thing, especially if that platform is one of the only few realistically available to use.

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

#77

Post by gotoeleven »

ikeyany wrote: post #45
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.

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.

Im just curious what journalists you're talking about. He tried to revoke Jim Acosta's for being very uncordial (to put it lightly), and he revoked Bloombergs after they said they would only investigate him and not Democrats. Are there others? If he revoked the credentials of everyone who criticized him then there would be hardly any left...

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

#78

Post by creaghpatr »

BryantD wrote: post #73
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…

When we're considering regulation, it's important to consider the activity we're regulating in context. Here's one extreme: it's legal to light a match. It's not legal to light a match and toss it into a gas pump. We shouldn't regulate speech, but you should own the consequences of your actions -- speech included. If you're spreading anti-vax propaganda, you're complicit in killing kids. It's certainly not as bad as…

>If you're spreading anti-vax propaganda, you're complicit in killing kids.

That is absolutely nuts if you believe that.

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

#80

Post by School-Cotton »

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…

> Speech to incite violence is not protected by the first amendment and should not be.

Sure, but this has nothing to do with hate speech and is in fact completely orthogonal. There is hate speech that doesn't (immediately and directly) incite violence, and there is non-hate speech that does.

Trump's comment, for example, was inciting violence, I agree. And I agree that it shouldn't be allowed. But it wasn't hate speech. So why are you bringing it up in response to a comment about hate speech?

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