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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)

#91

Post by fighterpilot »

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.

But you want Reddit to literally adopt 8chan's moderation policy, meaning that Reddit now will become the place that inspires mass shooters instead of 8chan (which by the way, is no longer a place that inspires mass shootings, since it was killed by Cloudfare after the last one, and replaced with the impotent and unpopular 8kun).

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

#92

Post by kgwxd »

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…

IMO, if the government isn't using the extraordinary power's granted to them (search, seizure, arrests, fines, imprisonment, etc) against it's citizens strictly for the words they say or write, "free speech" hasn't been violated and it would be incorrect to use the term in that context.

I think even a government hosted forum could filter content without violating even the spirit of "free speech", and I'm pretty sure it wouldn't legally be considered a violation of the first amendment, even if that filtering reached blatant censorship levels.

Censorship, government or private, is a separate concern from freedom of speech, and using one to make arguments about the other doesn't make any sense to me.

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

#93

Post by Pils »

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...

That research was published by a libertarian think tank in 2013. Since then, there have been numerous examples of lone wolf terrorist attacks where the perpetrators appeared to have no offline contacts with extremist groups. See: New Zealand shooting, Pittsburgh shooting, etc.

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

#95

Post by mardoz »

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 free speech advocates ignore here is that even they generally draw a line somewhere. Death threats, defamation, pedophilia, sharing bomb making materials etc are usually accepted by everyone to not be acceptable.

'But those are different' is usually the argument here. But why though? Because they cause harm? Doesn't inciting racial hatred cause harm?

Once we stop arguing over the issue being black/white but instead discuss _where exactly_ we draw the line then I think we are finally having a far more honest discussion. Just because some speech is illegal and other speech isn't illegal shouldn't be the deciding factor on whether someone (or some company) needs to platform that view. That's then leaving it to governments to decide what is ok and what isn't, instead leave it to society to choose not to propogate hateful and distasteful messages.

I also find it frustrating that some armchair psychologists have decided that people like me with more nuanced views simply want to repress and censor things that we disagree with which is not what it's about at all.

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

#96

Post by inglor_cz »

jaywalk wrote: post #83
BongoMcCat wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

As a European who likes the American First Amendment, people everywhere generally gravitate to status quo.

But youngish generations across the pond seem to favor government restrictions on speech in much higher numbers than before:

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/11/20/40-of-mille...

I am afraid that the U.S. might one day flip too.

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

#97

Post by jan_Inkepa »

iammisc wrote: post #31
jan_Inkepa wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Right, that was the surprise. It should be what you said, but in practice it became the tribe-of-choice for people who wanted not just religion out of government but also religious people.

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

#98

Post by joshuamorton »

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #38
ggggtez wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 conspira…

> Corporations are not humans (regardless of the "corporate personhood" doctrine) and thus should not be entitled to the full rights of humans.

True, but corporations are just connections of people with shared goals. Should groups of people lose "fundamental" rights when they organize?

> Fair-weather friends indeed.

Yes, I fully support the rights of platforms to do stupid things. Use rumble or whatever if you want. I'll mock those platforms, but I don't think the government should ban them.

> Semi-monopolies like Youtube are especially not entitled to use their dominance to manipulate public opinion, given how easily it can be abused.

So, you think that we should circumstantially limit constitutionally protected rights, for the greater good? Fair weather friends indeed.

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

#99

Post by fighterpilot »

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…

Should YouTube censor ISIS propaganda or not?

If yes, how is this not a violation of the principles you've laid out?

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

#100

Post by kongin »

inglor_cz wrote: post #85
Clubber wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

You need to understand that the people who are saying we must ban misinformation are the party apparatchiks, trying to argue in good faith with them is pointless. The only reason to engage is to show the silent majority that they aren't crazy for disagreeing with those in power.
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