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Those who exercise free speech should also defend it even when it’s offensive

latimes.com

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Re: Those who exercise free speech should also defend it even when it’s offensive

#81

Post by nikanj »

cat_plus_plus wrote: post #75

For the past five years or so, I prefer discussing current events with conservatives - not because I think they are closer to truth, but because they are willing to be a good sport in a conversation. This has nothing to do with political parties, which are both dumpster fires. Maybe Republicans started earlier with Tea Party and got worse, but Democrats are heading in the same direction after Occupy Wall Street. And…

You might get cancelled for discussing things with the wrong people, despite what you say. Especially if you get on a podcast to discuss things with a conservative figure.

Re: Those who exercise free speech should also defend it even when it’s offensive

#82

Post by imgabe »

AHappyCamper wrote: post #78

I understand that there are a lot of people who are hurting right now, and I empathize with their pain, but how can we share out most wonderful and beautiful ideas with each other or convey important information to the public if we believe there might be serious reprisals against us if we "say the wrong thing". For example, I personally helped work against slavery on the Black Market in the Middle East, and I wanted…

Part of the issue is that some people consider any speech they disagree with as a threat of violence or "endangering my safety".

Re: Those who exercise free speech should also defend it even when it’s offensive

#83

Post by gentleman11 »

DanBC wrote: post #79
gentleman11 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In mainstream news (ap, CBC, bbc, others), increasingly people and groups are being labelled as racist without any discretion. Eg, people out protecting Churchill statues in the UK are labelled as racists in several stories[1]. Surely, there is at least one racist in the group, but increasingly every single person who doesn’t tow the line is being called out - entire police departments, mayors, city councils, schools…

> Eg, people out protecting Churchill statues in the UK are labelled as racists in several stories You missed out the bit where some of them were doing Nazi salutes or carrying EDL / Britain First etc flags.

If you’re in a group with people you don’t know very well and some of them say or do something utterly stupid, you are not automatically one of them. Eg, some people were looting during the protests but it would be ridiculous to say the entire protest is just a bunch of thugs

Re: Those who exercise free speech should also defend it even when it’s offensive

#84

Post by cousin_it »

cheschire wrote: post #67
gentleman11 wrote: post #65

There are a lot of downvoted posts in this thread that make reasonable arguments and that are promoting discussion. I disagree with a lot of them, but it’s awkward for this to be a story where people are heavily downvoting people they disagree with

It's a question I've been struggling with lately. Downvotes reinforce groupthink, that much is subjectively clear. I've considered solutions, and I believe forcing people to reply before they are allowed to downvote would help. However, in opposition to my own idea, I consider that simply requiring a more effort wouldn't necessarily change the groupthink problem, but would just stifle low effort downvotes. Let's cons…

We could remove downvotes. They had three purposes:

1) Crowdsourced moderation. Well, everyone is using manual moderation anyway.

2) Silencing others. This is a misfeature.

3) Finding the best content. Upvotes are enough for that.

That said, I'm not sure this will reduce groupthink. Twitter has no downvotes and plenty of groupthink.

Re: Those who exercise free speech should also defend it even when it’s offensive

#85

Post by DanBC »

gentleman11 wrote: post #83
DanBC wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Eg, people out protecting Churchill statues in the UK are labelled as racists in several stories You missed out the bit where some of them were doing Nazi salutes or carrying EDL / Britain First etc flags.

If you’re in a group with people you don’t know very well and some of them say or do something utterly stupid, you are not automatically one of them. Eg, some people were looting during the protests but it would be ridiculous to say the entire protest is just a bunch of thugs

If you're in a large group, and many members of that group are by any definition racist, you're going to be called part of a racist group.

Re: Those who exercise free speech should also defend it even when it’s offensive

#86

Post by AHappyCamper »

imgabe wrote: post #82
AHappyCamper wrote: post #78

I understand that there are a lot of people who are hurting right now, and I empathize with their pain, but how can we share out most wonderful and beautiful ideas with each other or convey important information to the public if we believe there might be serious reprisals against us if we "say the wrong thing". For example, I personally helped work against slavery on the Black Market in the Middle East, and I wanted…

Part of the issue is that some people consider any speech they disagree with as a threat of violence or "endangering my safety".

Again, I empathize with the feelings of people who may feel emotionally threatened by a derogatory comment, but some speech deals with people whose lives are in imminent mortal danger (e.g. those about to be sold on Black Market) and if we can't quickly discuss their cases and potential responses to rescue them, then they will be doomed to a life of untold misery. In such situations, there is no time to filter every comment and every email for potential sources of offense - we need to convey info as fast as possible.

Re: Those who exercise free speech should also defend it even when it’s offensive

#87

Post by axegon_ »

gentleman11 wrote: post #65

There are a lot of downvoted posts in this thread that make reasonable arguments and that are promoting discussion. I disagree with a lot of them, but it’s awkward for this to be a story where people are heavily downvoting people they disagree with

This is the problem. The upvoting-downvoting is a good idea in principle but it does not (and cannot) take human subjectivity into account, which is what makes it fundamentally flawed. By the way this is an extension of the same problem as with silencing opinions or comments online or in real life.

Re: Those who exercise free speech should also defend it even when it’s offensive

#88

Post by Guthur »

AHappyCamper wrote: post #86
imgabe wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of the issue is that some people consider any speech they disagree with as a threat of violence or "endangering my safety".

Again, I empathize with the feelings of people who may feel emotionally threatened by a derogatory comment, but some speech deals with people whose lives are in imminent mortal danger (e.g. those about to be sold on Black Market) and if we can't quickly discuss their cases and potential responses to rescue them, then they will be doomed to a life of untold misery. In such situations, there is no time to filter every…

This has become a problem because the internet social networking has opened up the potential of mob justice tar and feathering that is causing people real harm in terms of their livelihood and I'd imagine mental well being.

Re: Those who exercise free speech should also defend it even when it’s offensive

#89

Post by gentleman11 »

DanBC wrote: post #85
gentleman11 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you’re in a group with people you don’t know very well and some of them say or do something utterly stupid, you are not automatically one of them. Eg, some people were looting during the protests but it would be ridiculous to say the entire protest is just a bunch of thugs

If you're in a large group, and many members of that group are by any definition racist, you're going to be called part of a racist group.

Then the early black lives matter protests were nothing but a bunch of anarchistic rioters and looters. And every cop in those police departments is racist. And all those city councillors too. It isn’t true though and the point is you can’t just go around labelling people like that willy nilly. You can’t just group everyone together based on what the worst of them do.

Imagine a world where every honest cop quit in order to avoid being associated with the bad ones

Re: Those who exercise free speech should also defend it even when it’s offensive

#90

Post by phkahler »

AHappyCamper wrote: post #78

I understand that there are a lot of people who are hurting right now, and I empathize with their pain, but how can we share out most wonderful and beautiful ideas with each other or convey important information to the public if we believe there might be serious reprisals against us if we "say the wrong thing". For example, I personally helped work against slavery on the Black Market in the Middle East, and I wanted…

>> There is no "right" way to convey the issue above without offending someone.

You are not responsible for those people being offended. If people actually respond that way to your efforts they look stupid. Just carry on doing what is right.

Most of them are not actually offended but are claiming you may be offensive to someone else.

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