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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)

#111

Post by dhanna »

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?

Do you have any familiarity with case law? The courts major job is to deal with the shades of grey that’s our reality.

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

#112

Post by jaywalk »

dhanna wrote: post #111
jaywalk wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Do you have any familiarity with case law? The courts major job is to deal with the shades of grey that’s our reality.

Yes? I understand what courts do, my only point was that setting out two extreme situations where a certain right may be suspended doesn't constitute "fair weather" in my eyes.

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

#113

Post by stale2002 »

joshuamorton wrote: post #98
ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> " 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.…

> So, you think that we should circumstantially limit constitutionally protected rights

According to your logic, you should think that common carrier laws should be repealed entirely.

Think, the telephone company blocking certain political groups, or the only water company in town, refusing to deliver water to certain people who say things that they don't like.

It is pretty similar, philosophically. Common carrier laws are pretty uncontroversial.

So it feels weird for you to be making these types of arguments, when it is already established, that there are major counter examples.

So you'd have to either recognize the contradiction, or admit that your position is at odds with other established, and uncontroversial laws.

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

#114

Post by nescioquid »

PerkinWarwick wrote: post #63
nescioquid wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chris Hedges sometimes remarks that he finds people turn towards superstitious, religious, or conspiratorial world views when they find they have no control over their lives. I suspect that if the US somehow changed so that economic security were increased for most people, there would be much less unreason and general discourse wouldn't be so mean.

That's an interesting theory, although I doubt that 19th century US farmers, among the most self-sufficient people in history, were lacking in religion, superstition, or conspiracies.

In fairness, it is trivial to point to any number of counter-examples throughout history if you just want to dismiss the observation. Hedges is a journalist and was referring to the changes he saw in the squeezed middle and lower classes through his career, and probably wasn't making a sweeping historic claim.

I mentioned it as contrast to the parent comment who simply concluded people are incapable of rational thought, and meant to suggest there are mediating influences.

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

#115

Post by bearcobra »

commandlinefan wrote: post #107
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…

> Banning hate communities does work though [0] That's like saying banning smoking in the park reduces smoking because nobody's smoking in the park any more.

I mean location based smoking bans definitely do reduce smoking rates.

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

#116

Post by colpabar »

N00bN00b wrote: post #90
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…

> I'm just there to try and help people with depression, anxiety and other issues.

Then it's mostly like because those topics aren't "advertiser friendly." Youtube did something similar during what was called the "adpocalypse." Advertisers don't want their products to be associated with the things you talk about, and reddit cares more about selling ads than helping you help people.

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

#117

Post by inglor_cz »

simonh wrote: post #108
inglor_cz wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If ISIS can recruit in person by talking to vulnerable people in the right mosques, surely other extremists have backup channels as well.

But surely fewer channels means fewer recruits? Ultimately it's about what kind of content these platforms want to publish though.

It might also mean "higher quality recruits".

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

#118

Post by icyfox »

commandlinefan wrote: post #107
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…

> Banning hate communities does work though [0] That's like saying banning smoking in the park reduces smoking because nobody's smoking in the park any more.

These things do help. Most members of these communities get radicalized by virtue of other content they’re already browsing. If you remove the communities and force individuals to leap from Facebook to some no-name forum, they’re far less likely to engage.

This phenomenon is mirrored elsewhere as well where small interventions can lead to big impacts: see suicide rates in Britain after removing carbon monoxide in their house gas. Initial friction (or means reduction in that research) can drive change.

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

#119

Post by PerkinWarwick »

fighterpilot wrote: post #69
PerkinWarwick wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"Hateful" Reddit or FB communities also don't allow "free speech". The moderators will ban people who go against the grain. Which is fine I think, but why have Reddit or FB do the censoring (aside from things that are outright illegal). I don't much care if a bunch of Nazis or tankies are busy planning world domination on Reddit while sharing recipes. Why do you care?

> 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...

Zero moderation beyond criminal content is/was basically Usenet alt groups. Somehow the world survived all those years.

Listen, I understand the need to cordon off the wrongthink people so that they can't communicate with each other, I just don't agree with it.

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

#120

Post by readams »

mardoz wrote: post #95
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 inst…

US law defines the line as speech that incites imminent lawless action. The speech must not only be encouraging such action, it must be imminent and likely. This is in practice a pretty good line.

If you think that private companies should censor much more heavily, then you obviously don't really believe in free speech. There's no obvious reason why it's more acceptable because all the dominant communication platforms censor speech vs the government doing it.

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