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Private censorship is not the best way to fight hate or defend democracy (2018)

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Re: Private censorship is not the best way to fight hate or defend democracy (2018)

#31

Post by iammisc »

jan_Inkepa wrote: post #4
BitwiseFool wrote: post #2

2020-2021 has shown me that most people happen to be 'fair weather fans' of civil rights. Everyone claims to love free speech but when suppression of speech opposing their own worldview comes into play, they suddenly dither and fall back on other rationalizations to justify the censorship. Well, it's not free speech being violated when it's 'hate speech'. Well, it's not free speech being violated when it's 'misinform…

I had the same realism about secularism when a catholic became head of the big secularist-leaning party in my then county of residence. People were sure interested in his private feelings about sinfulness, or said that they would never vote for a party with a religious leader. The party angled itself as secularist, but that particular kerfuffle revealed it to be a highly contingent value of the membership (and of peo…

I'm confused.. isn't a secularist party in favor of not involving personal religious beliefs in Civic issues? In that light, what's wrong with someone with personal religious beliefs from participating? Others made his religion important not him, from what you describe

Re: Private censorship is not the best way to fight hate or defend democracy (2018)

#32

Post by tomjen3 »

ggggtez wrote: post #15
BitwiseFool wrote: post #2

2020-2021 has shown me that most people happen to be 'fair weather fans' of civil rights. Everyone claims to love free speech but when suppression of speech opposing their own worldview comes into play, they suddenly dither and fall back on other rationalizations to justify the censorship. Well, it's not free speech being violated when it's 'hate speech'. Well, it's not free speech being violated when it's 'misinform…

How can you support free speech but prevent a company from exerting that speech? YouTube banning antivax content is speech . You want the government to start mandating that a company can't take a stance on important issues of healthcare? Churches spend all day every day taking stances on abortion. You want to the government to tell them they can't take a side?

Youtube is a monopoly, and monopolies should be limited in the same way the government is, and for the same reason. This also applies to groups of otherwise independent businesses that operate in concert.

That, and adding political beliefs to the list of protected classes, is what is necessary to start the US healing processes. Until there is no other option but to talk with the people you despise, neither side will start doing it.

Re: Private censorship is not the best way to fight hate or defend democracy (2018)

#33

Post by drewcoo »

ggggtez wrote: post #15
BitwiseFool wrote: post #2

2020-2021 has shown me that most people happen to be 'fair weather fans' of civil rights. Everyone claims to love free speech but when suppression of speech opposing their own worldview comes into play, they suddenly dither and fall back on other rationalizations to justify the censorship. Well, it's not free speech being violated when it's 'hate speech'. Well, it's not free speech being violated when it's 'misinform…

How can you support free speech but prevent a company from exerting that speech? YouTube banning antivax content is speech . You want the government to start mandating that a company can't take a stance on important issues of healthcare? Churches spend all day every day taking stances on abortion. You want to the government to tell them they can't take a side?

> You want the government to start mandating that a company can't take a stance . . .

I, for one, want less monopolistic media so that the people can exert viewership pressure; they can get their media elsewhere and the ad money will follow. The content being stopped is not the only loss of people's voices happening here.

Re: Private censorship is not the best way to fight hate or defend democracy (2018)

#34

Post by nonameiguess »

BitwiseFool wrote: post #2

2020-2021 has shown me that most people happen to be 'fair weather fans' of civil rights. Everyone claims to love free speech but when suppression of speech opposing their own worldview comes into play, they suddenly dither and fall back on other rationalizations to justify the censorship. Well, it's not free speech being violated when it's 'hate speech'. Well, it's not free speech being violated when it's 'misinform…

What changed in 2020? Do you not remember the Dixie Chicks getting blacklisted for speaking against George Bush, Janet Jackson being deplatformed from record labels for showing a nipple on television, the LA DNC in 2000 cordoning off protesters into "free speech zones" 4 blocks away from the convention, gangsta rap and heavy metal being censored in the 80s and 90s, pushes for civil rights being met with dogs and firehoses in the 60s, Lenny Bruce being imprisoned for stand up comedy, interracial marriage being illegal, teachers being fired for being gay, American citizens having all of their property confiscated because they were ethnically Japanese? We had anti-sedition laws passed within 22 years of the Constitution being ratified.

Most of these things that aren't a matter of private freedom of association for platform owners tend to eventually get struck down because the Supreme Court can somewhat reliably be counted on to eventually respect the Constitution, but the general public and elected politicians have never supported free speech or free anything. I would say almost the exact opposite of what you said. People only claim to love free speech when something they want to say is unpopular or suppressed. Almost nobody just supports it generally. The ACLU used to be pretty reliable about this, i.e. defending the KKK and Nazis, but I'm not even really sure where they stand any more.

The average citizen doesn't give a crap about any abstract ideals at all. They just want to live their lives and possibly raise a family in an atmosphere not dissonant with their own cultural traditions and beliefs. Allowing people with other traditions and beliefs to spread those via public advocacy, art, or any other means that may lead to them being mainstream or even dominant is antithetical to that.

Re: Private censorship is not the best way to fight hate or defend democracy (2018)

#36

Post by BongoMcCat »

BitwiseFool wrote: post #2

2020-2021 has shown me that most people happen to be 'fair weather fans' of civil rights. Everyone claims to love free speech but when suppression of speech opposing their own worldview comes into play, they suddenly dither and fall back on other rationalizations to justify the censorship. Well, it's not free speech being violated when it's 'hate speech'. Well, it's not free speech being violated when it's 'misinform…

As a European, I mostly just find it interesting that americans have such an extremely black/white view of free speech.

Re: Private censorship is not the best way to fight hate or defend democracy (2018)

#38

Post by ThrowawayR2 »

ggggtez wrote: post #15
BitwiseFool wrote: post #2

2020-2021 has shown me that most people happen to be 'fair weather fans' of civil rights. Everyone claims to love free speech but when suppression of speech opposing their own worldview comes into play, they suddenly dither and fall back on other rationalizations to justify the censorship. Well, it's not free speech being violated when it's 'hate speech'. Well, it's not free speech being violated when it's 'misinform…

How can you support free speech but prevent a company from exerting that speech? YouTube banning antivax content is speech . You want the government to start mandating that a company can't take a stance on important issues of healthcare? Churches spend all day every day taking stances on abortion. You want to the government to tell them they can't take a side?

> "How can you support free speech but prevent a company from exerting that speech?"

Corporations are not humans (regardless of the "corporate personhood" doctrine) and thus should not be entitled to the full rights of humans. Semi-monopolies like Youtube are especially not entitled to use their dominance to manipulate public opinion, given how easily it can be abused.

Ask yourself, if YouTube were pushing conspiracy content and suppressing pro-vaccination content instead would the parent poster and those like them still be saying what they are saying? Fair-weather friends indeed.

> "You want to the government to tell them they can't take a side?"

The United States government already can and has in the past; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal-time_rule and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_fairness_doctrine .

Re: Private censorship is not the best way to fight hate or defend democracy (2018)

#39

Post by BoxOfRain »

BitwiseFool wrote: post #2

2020-2021 has shown me that most people happen to be 'fair weather fans' of civil rights. Everyone claims to love free speech but when suppression of speech opposing their own worldview comes into play, they suddenly dither and fall back on other rationalizations to justify the censorship. Well, it's not free speech being violated when it's 'hate speech'. Well, it's not free speech being violated when it's 'misinform…

>I have a much better understanding of historical moral panics and cessions of freedoms. Whereas I used to wonder how some societies ever gave into such pressures, I now realize it's not that hard to persuade the average citizen into accepting such things.

Me too. I've always wonders what drives people into the arms of fascists and other such overtly unpleasant belief systems and the simple answer is fear. Fear for yourself, your family, and your future will apparently cause people to abandon all sorts of supposedly cherished beliefs.

This is why I think here in the UK SAGE's SPI-B group using behavioural psychology to increase the perception of personal threat as part of the anti-coronavirus measures was such a dangerous and short-sighted policy. Using fear might be a convenient way to convince people into doing what you want for a while, but fear also drives people into the welcoming arms of all kinds of nasty ideologies. That cat's out of the bag now too, I suspect using fear to "nudge" the public into doing what the government of the day wants will become a much more common feature of liberal democracies in the future now. We've done a deal with the devil and he always collects in the end.

Re: Private censorship is not the best way to fight hate or defend democracy (2018)

#40

Post by zionic »

ggggtez wrote: post #15
BitwiseFool wrote: post #2

2020-2021 has shown me that most people happen to be 'fair weather fans' of civil rights. Everyone claims to love free speech but when suppression of speech opposing their own worldview comes into play, they suddenly dither and fall back on other rationalizations to justify the censorship. Well, it's not free speech being violated when it's 'hate speech'. Well, it's not free speech being violated when it's 'misinform…

How can you support free speech but prevent a company from exerting that speech? YouTube banning antivax content is speech . You want the government to start mandating that a company can't take a stance on important issues of healthcare? Churches spend all day every day taking stances on abortion. You want to the government to tell them they can't take a side?

>How can you support free speech but prevent a company from exerting that speech?

Because these "platforms" are in fact utilities.

We have allowed corporations to own and control the common square and bypass rights our forefathers fought wars to establish.

The gov has been all too lenient enforcing laws against these giants because it allows them to censor-by-proxy.

For the left-leaning among, please recall that the definition of fascism is "the merger of state and corporate power".

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