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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

#101

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…

> When people do it, it's just dissenting voices.

Except when those dissenting voices make credible threats to your person, family, and livelihood or libel and slander you at a volume that is infeasible to litigate.

> I little sympathy for people getting upset at being deplatformed - they can go elsewhere

Where can they go when all of the major social media companies share the same general ideology? This idea that social media networks are plug-and-play beggars belief. Or perhaps you simply meant that people who don't adhere to this ideology simply don't deserve to participate in social media; that it's a privilege and not a right?

> their cries of freedom of expression cry wolf to the constitutional issue of those in power doing actual oppression.

What does this even mean?

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

#102
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.

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

"disagree"

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

#103
post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you can make up any scenario you want. does this actually happen?

It did. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21484347

That's just freedom of association in action.

> PC police do everything they can do destroy you and your project because you have run afoul of their wishes

No one was trying to destroy the Linux Foundation, Linux itself, or the KubeCon conference.

I've seen people say they'll stop working with a project if someone else they don't like is working on it, but I've never seen anyone actually attempt to destroy the project.

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

#104
post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's already happened. Facebook, Twitter, Youtube already remove and delete comments that are outside the overton window. Sure, they're not part of the government, but when it comes to freedom of expression does it really matter?

Google, Facebook, and Twitter cannot jail you.

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

#105
post #57
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…

The Equal Opportunity Act begs to differ. Specifically, companies are/were prevented from discriminating on a racial (etc) basis even though (in many places, at various times) it was unpopular to employ minorities and could even impact the companies' bottom lines. Personally, I'll trade employer profit for employee rights all day every day.

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

#106
post #45

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.

He certainly does not revoke press credentials of journalists just for criticizing him. He did revoke the credentials of a single journalist who was apparently incapable of waiting his turn and repeatedly interrupted the press conference.

I'd advise you to heed your own advice about spreading false information.

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

#107
post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It did. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21484347

That's just freedom of association in action. > PC police do everything they can do destroy you and your project because you have run afoul of their wishes No one was trying to destroy the Linux Foundation, Linux itself, or the KubeCon conference. I've seen people say they'll stop working with a project if someone else they don't like is working on it, but I've never seen anyone actually attempt to destroy the projec…

> No one was trying to destroy the Linux Foundation, Linux itself, or the KubeCon conference.

Right, because they acquiesced to the demands of the PC police. Had LF stood their ground and pushed back against the PC police, there may have been protests, etc. that caused KubeCon to be cancelled. Never underestimate the power of PC police whipping up a righteous maelstrom on twitter.

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

#108
post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's just freedom of association in action. > PC police do everything they can do destroy you and your project because you have run afoul of their wishes No one was trying to destroy the Linux Foundation, Linux itself, or the KubeCon conference. I've seen people say they'll stop working with a project if someone else they don't like is working on it, but I've never seen anyone actually attempt to destroy the projec…

> No one was trying to destroy the Linux Foundation, Linux itself, or the KubeCon conference. Right, because they acquiesced to the demands of the PC police. Had LF stood their ground and pushed back against the PC police, there may have been protests, etc. that caused KubeCon to be cancelled. Never underestimate the power of PC police whipping up a righteous maelstrom on twitter.

Again you can make up any scenario you want. You have no evidence that that is what actually would happen, because it didn't happen.

Even if it did, I don't see the problem. People have the right to protest and say what they want about the Linux Foundation.

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

#109
post #11
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…

> 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 who are willing to alter the rules to make sure that, once they get power, it will be easier for them to continue to have complete control indefinitely. And why? Because they are certain of the rightness of their ideas, and therefore if the people vote against them, it can only be because the people have been lead astray by lies and propaganda.

Such people deserve, at a minimum, our profound suspicion.

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

#110
post #73
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…

Your first example is perfect and flatly contradicts your second. We don't punish the movies that showed people lighting cigs at gas stations when a gas pump blows up, we punish the person who actually committed the bad action. Speech about bad action is totally different than bad action and your attempt to conflate them is shameful.
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