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You can't censor away extremism or any other problem

freddiedeboer.substack.com

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Re: You can't censor away extremism or any other problem

#851

Post by dbsmith83 »

claudiawerner wrote: post #845
dbsmith83 wrote: post #840

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ... but (for instance) it seems similarly doable to ban certain forms of speech that cause unreasonable harm while leaving other forms alone. Except that the article is dedicated to explaining why it's not doable and is a bad idea in general

The article at best provides some counter-examples, it does not refute the case in general , especially when other commenters in this thread have pointed out counter-counter examples such as in West Germany. The article also does a pretty poor job of the examples it describes; for example, it assumes that the rise in FN is on the backs of those who share the ideas targeted by anti-hate-speech laws, but to support FN…

> The article does not address whether it's a bad idea, rather its entire premise is built upon the fact that whether it's a good or bad idea is preceeded by a question of whether it works.

An idea that won't work is a bad idea (to me, at least). From the author's point of view, it won't.

> Several commenters in this thread have pointed out that it does work, and is used to this day, from China's authoritarian implementation to the implementation at other points in history. > I think it's reasonable to make the statement: assuming that it does work (and maybe the article is correct - perhaps it doesn't work), would it still be a good idea? What number of people would it need to work on to be a good idea?

Depends on your definition of works, I suppose. Unfortunately, even if the main objective could be achieved, there are drawbacks. I would not call CCP's implementation a success. Sure, in some ways they have squashed extremist speech, but at what cost? They have also severely curtailed speech which criticizes them. They have created a culture of fear where people self-censor. Eventually, I believe something will have to give. It is simply too early to call it a success or failure at this moment.

Re: You can't censor away extremism or any other problem

#852

Post by Griffinsauce »

tsimionescu wrote: post #124
Griffinsauce wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the problem there lies in the market power of the monopolies, not their speech.

So if there were 50 companies, and all of them censored you for saying something really unpopular, would things be any better? Critical infrastructure must be legally protected from censorship and (private, mandate-less) eavesdropping. Whether it is run by a monopoly or many small companies is immaterial.

I agree but this is mostly a different problem: our definition of "critical infrastructure" is outdated, especially in law.

Re: You can't censor away extremism or any other problem

#854

Post by throwaway316943 »

mywittyname wrote: post #508
throwaway316943 wrote: post #448

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can pass all the laws you want but if they aren’t backed up by a general consensus in the society they will be defied at every turn.

Counter-point: authoritarian regimes. The general consensus in such countries is that the laws are terrible and oppressive, the the brutal enforcement largely ensures compliance.

Brutal enforcement is quite distinct from legislation so much so that the legislation becomes unnecessary since such practices often take the form of extrajudicial conviction and punishment at the hands of police or the military.

Re: You can't censor away extremism or any other problem

#855

Post by tsimionescu »

XorNot wrote: post #301
tsimionescu wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that guaranteed? Parler has found that the machines their code ran on could be taken away for having bad opinions. I'm not a defender of fascists, if anything I lean towards being happy when their megaphone is taken away, even when they receive the occasional punch, but the precedent this has set with the power of these companies is frightening for anyone. What if Amazon will refuse to do with business with people…

Amazon contracts haven't changed, they always have had the right to drop you for any reason. Amazon is not a common carrier: the cloud, other people's data centers, have no legal requirement to be neutral about what runs on them (and it's not even clear how this would work given the difference between compute and communications).

First of all, there is a difference between current law (which means that what AWS did with Parler is indeed perfectly legal) and a theoretical "perfectly fair" law, which is essentially what people mean when they say such and such should/should not be legal.

Secondly, there are limits even in current law on what grounds a business can refuse to do business. For example, Amazon could not refuse to do business with someone because of their skin color, or because of their religion. Extending this in more of a free speech direction (where companies could be prevented from refusing to do business with organizations whose message they do not condone) is not unthinkable (though there are pros and cons).

Re: You can't censor away extremism or any other problem

#856

Post by Can_Not »

CyberRabbi wrote: post #808
yongjik wrote: post #781

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If her district finds no fault with her holding that opinion, then it matters not what others think. You know, this is literally what the infamous poem warned about: "Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out --- Because I was not a Jew." (Also, it wasn't my district.)

Again: I will not be shamed out of a liberal position by exceptional strawmen. Please make a real argument for why you think democracy is flawed. Appeals to emotion only degrade discussion.

> Greene "liked" posts calling for the assassination of prominent Democrats including former President Barack Obama, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. Greene also used social media to boost false claims that deadly mass shootings in Parkland, Florida, Newtown, Connecticut and Las Vegas, Nevada were actually staged.

>In light of the revelations, the Democratic-controlled House took the unusual step of voting to force Greene to be removed from her committee assignments on Thursday after GOP leaders failed to act on the matter themselves. Democrats were joined by 11 Republicans who voted to strip Greene of the assignments.

https://www.newsweek.com/marjorie-taylor-greene-has-average-...

That's a lot of "they came for the [...] and I did nothing" and not a lot of straw in the "straw-congresswoman".

Re: You can't censor away extremism or any other problem

#857

Post by ersatz_username »

claudiawerner wrote: post #801
airhead969 wrote: post #798

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's not confuse or conflate the bounds of in-person speech, with printed or online content. These differ slightly. > Similarly, the fact that a hate speech law can be abused is not a good argument; plenty of laws can be abused, including, say, anti-terrorism laws. False equivalency, red herring, and two wrongs don't make a right. Laws can be written across a continuum of vagueness and precision. Laws must be contin…

>Laws can be written across a continuum of vagueness and precision. Laws must be continually updated and oversight assured so that policy underpinning is implemented in good faith and appropriately. Crafting particular words for a law alone is insufficient to accomplish the presupposed objectives. The real world doesn't work like that. I very much agree; the law should be evidence-based and continuously under review…

Science, as colloquially understood, seeks to empirically validate truth - true things can cause “harm.” So which is it? Are you looking for censorship of untrue ideas as discovered through open scientific inquiry, or, are you looking to censor ideas which cause harm. You can’t have both.

Put that aside, first principles, how can you hold a robust scientific debate on a topic that’s censored? The historical and common sense evidence strongly indicates it’s not possible.

Re: You can't censor away extremism or any other problem

#858

Post by thomastjeffery »

alacombe wrote: post #848
soared wrote: post #668

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Incorrect. If I spam a link to my personal blog on hn the moderator or community will flag/kill them. That is not censorship.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information. "moderation" fits within that definition.

You are loosely interpreting the word "suppression".

Moderation is more akin to taking back an already provided microphone than it is to "suppression". The baseline for a person's ability to speak does not include someone else's forum.

A common example of censorship is with music on the radio: Musicians record a song which contains the word "fuck", which radio hosts would like to play in its entirety, but the hosts are regulated by a third party (government) to remove the word "fuck" from the track while broadcasting the song in the public radio spectrum. In this case, a third party (government) is constraining the radio host's ability to play a song on their own station. Because the radio host would normally be able to put whatever content they want on their station without assistance from a third party, this is censorship.

On the other hand, if a radio host decides to have a guest on their program, and chooses to end the broadcast before that guest is finished speaking, it is not censorship. The host is not suppressing the guest's inherent ability to speak, but instead are simply removing the microphone and audience they provided in the first place.

The irony is that the latter case is extremely common practice for many right-wing radio hosts who are equating moderation with censorship; yet these hosts do not claim they are practicing censorship themselves (they are not), even when rudely talking over guests or focusing on their own talking points.

Re: You can't censor away extremism or any other problem

#859

Post by elastolin »

sagichmal wrote: post #849
elastolin wrote: post #836

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Some people should never have power, like nazis. That's exactly what I'm arguing against. That's just your opinion and you treat it like some universal axiom. Same way you treat 'Holocaust deniers' as some kind of monstrous apparitions. You may not agree, that's all. It's people like you that inspire me to counteract this trend with full force.

> That's just your opinion and you treat it like some universal axiom. It's OK that some things involve subjective judgment.

Sure, as long as it's not legislated (see 'Volksverhetzung').

I mean, my subjective judgement could tell me that you're a fucking faggot and that I should beat the living shit out of you. It would be right for me to have that subjective judgement, but it can't be for monopolies, nor governments.

Re: You can't censor away extremism or any other problem

#860

Post by alacombe »

thomastjeffery wrote: post #858
alacombe wrote: post #848

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information. "moderation" fits within that definition.

You are loosely interpreting the word "suppression". Moderation is more akin to taking back an already provided microphone than it is to "suppression". The baseline for a person's ability to speak does not include someone else's forum. A common example of censorship is with music on the radio: Musicians record a song which contains the word "fuck", which radio hosts would like to play in its entirety, but the hosts a…

> You are loosely interpreting the word "suppression".

Moderation / censorship, taxes / theft, capital execution / murder are the same idea, one is just the more palatable way to express the other.

> The irony is that the latter case is extremely common practice for many right-wing radio hosts who are equating moderation with censorship

It's just as much the case on many left wing broadcast media. Don't conflate "left wing" with "openness".

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