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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)

#81

Post by JasonCannon »

naasking wrote: post #70
simonh wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose to the extent these channels of communication recruit and radicalise, if they are shut down they will not be able to recruit and radicalise. The act of shutting them down might infuriate regular users of these channels, but they’re already radicalised anyway.

There is little evidence that radicalization happens online [1]. It seems to require in-person contact to really take root. [1] https://www.rand.org/randeurope/research/projects/internet-a...

I promise you from personal experience, radicalization does happen online too.

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

#82

Post by adamrezich »

brandonmenc wrote: post #58
nonameiguess wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 fire…

> What changed in 2020? Liberals started doing it.

you're going to continue to be downvoted but it's the truth. when Jon Stewart was going against the grain of the widely-accepted political narrative of the Bush administration, it was easy to agree with him calling out bullshit. when the political pendulum swung the other way, however...

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

#83

Post by jaywalk »

BongoMcCat wrote: post #36
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.

As an American, I find it interesting that Europeans seem so eager to have government restrict speech.

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

#84

Post by chmsky00 »

naasking wrote: post #54
faet wrote: post #6

Banning hate communities does work though [0]. I assume that the results are similar for twitter and facebook. "Hateful" Reddit or FB communities also don't allow "free speech". The moderators will ban people who go against the grain. There is no free exchange of ideas or disputing as if you're going against the grain you'll just get banned from that community (but not the platform). As such, either the platforms all…

Sure it worked at reducing hate speech on reddit , but is that the right objective? It's not implausible to think that the resentment from such local measures could cause hate to increase in a more global sense. Kind of like entropy in thermodynamics: local work can reduce local entropy, but at the expense of causing a global increase in entropy. If the real objective should be a global decrease in hate, then maybe l…

The goal is to reduce network effects.

As poetic as free speech is, the 1700s were a different time. Hard to SWAT a rando a town away let alone a country. Now a nation state can instigate localized terrorism.

Thomas Jefferson understood laws and constitutions must change in step with human discovery.

Scalia wrote laws are not open ended, and up for public romantic interpretation.

To paraphrase both. Indeed many Founders wrote of the need for free speech in official political proceedings, never considering the privilege extending to the public. In public people were welcome to get a beating if they prefer to violate local order.

Humans are biological animals first. Gentile by training.

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

#85

Post by inglor_cz »

Clubber wrote: post #56
londgine wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Banning hate communities does work though ... The sentence is incomplete. Banning X communities does work to achieve the goal of people not talking about X. I don't think that your linked study is really necessary, the Chinese cultural revolution worked really well (to achieve the goal of "preserving Chinese communism") [0]. Imagine if 30 years ago large digital monopolies banned what was considered unmentionable b…

>Banning X communities does work to achieve the goal of people not talking about X. Honestly I'm not sure that is even accurate, I would imagine it does the opposite. People are drawn to what's not allowed, it's even one of the morals of the Adam and Eve story. Pretty old but still relevant idea of human nature. Here's an interesting story about Goldberger who defended the Neo Nazis in Skokie. https://www.aclu.org/is…

From a former Communist country: whatever was banned (jokes about the Party or the Soviet Union, various conspiracies or whatever correct-but-undesirable information out there, such as the Chernobyl accident in the first days), spread like wildfire by "whispering channels".

People are really drawn to forbidden fruit.

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

#86

Post by joshuamorton »

notchFilter54 wrote: post #74
fighterpilot wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why do you care? Because zero moderation beyond criminal content is 8chan, which arguably inspired mass shootings. https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/08/04/three-m...

And when you ban misinformation on your platform, that "anti-vaxxer" instead goes to 8chan where by your argument might inspire them to shoot people up.

Given the size of 8 Chan and the size is communities banned from Reddit, we know this to be untrue.

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

#87

Post by burnafter182 »

simonh wrote: post #64
naasking wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure it worked at reducing hate speech on reddit , but is that the right objective? It's not implausible to think that the resentment from such local measures could cause hate to increase in a more global sense. Kind of like entropy in thermodynamics: local work can reduce local entropy, but at the expense of causing a global increase in entropy. If the real objective should be a global decrease in hate, then maybe l…

I suppose to the extent these channels of communication recruit and radicalise, if they are shut down they will not be able to recruit and radicalise. The act of shutting them down might infuriate regular users of these channels, but they’re already radicalised anyway.

What you end up with is recruitment. If the user remains on Reddit or Twitter they're exposed to the gamut of human thought. However extreme they may be, they're still attached, there may exist some sort of analogue for a cleavage furrow, but nonetheless the cell remains. It's only at the point where you've so alienated and shorn their attachment to the whole that they become a fully independent entity, and that they become truly radicalized. And having observed this, I can say with sincerity that they move deeper into the domain of extremity.

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

#88

Post by klyrs »

jaywalk wrote: post #78
klyrs wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 2020-2021 has shown me that most people happen to be 'fair weather fans' of civil rights. A close read of the constitution itself shows that this has been the case since the very founding of the united states. > The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.

So because the Constitution defines some rather extreme circumstances where Habeas Corpus is allowed to be suspended, the Constitution is "fair weather" when it comes to civil rights?

Yes, rights are clearly revoked when the "weather" gets bad enough. Today's argument is about where that "fair weather" line is drawn.

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

#89

Post by joshuamorton »

jaywalk wrote: post #76
farias0 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Although I don't fundamentally disagree with your point, I don't think you're framing the issue fairly. It's not a matter of most people being enemies of free speech, it's just that this is an inherently difficult problem. Everyone draws the line differently on what's acceptable and what isn't, and every platform is trying to foster a different kind of community.

> It's not a matter of most people being enemies of free speech I disagree. If you believe in censoring opinions and ideas, you do not believe in free speech. Period.

What makes something an opinion or an idea versus a threat or an obscenity?

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

#90

Post by N00bN00b »

faet wrote: post #6

Banning hate communities does work though [0]. I assume that the results are similar for twitter and facebook. "Hateful" Reddit or FB communities also don't allow "free speech". The moderators will ban people who go against the grain. There is no free exchange of ideas or disputing as if you're going against the grain you'll just get banned from that community (but not the platform). As such, either the platforms all…

I'm being censored on Reddit myself.

I'm not really sure why exactly. I suspect it has to do with having a NSFW tag on my account (that I didn't put there) that I'm afraid to turn off, because of the warning that's next to that button and it doesn't explain what "swearing" is exactly and if I turn it off and write "fuck" I might get banned.

My account provides a lot of help to other people, it's highly valued by the community, I have loads of karma, I've paid for quite a bit of server time by the rewards I've received.

But you can't search on my username, it won't show up (not even if you have NSFW visibility turned on).

I'm not about politics, or covid or any hate stuff. I'm just there to try and help people with depression, anxiety and other issues. And I'm being censored for some reason.

So whatever they're doing, it's guaranteed to overreach and it's counter productive and who knows how much damage it does to society as a whole.

It's just that no one knows the severity of the damage the censorship does.

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