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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)

#151

Post by throwaway894345 »

lowbloodsugar wrote: post #146
throwaway894345 wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Assuming we're talking about the abstract concept of free speech (as opposed to 1A, which dictates what the US government is allowed to censor), the "line" is around expression of ideas. A death threa…

Compare: "My followers, I order you to go out and kill this man" vs "I wonder if the world would be a better place if this man did not exist" However you define free speech, anyone can order someone killed while being acceptable to your rules.

Defining free speech is easy, adjudicating it is sometimes hard. In this case, a threat requires the intent to compel (note that compulsion != persuasion). Determining whether "I wonder if the world would be a better place if this man did not exist" is intended to compel or not is harder.

But most free speech absolutists will be pretty content if we get to a point where the thrust of the free speech debate concerns itself with outlier cases like this one (rather than "is it 'hate speech' to criticize woke excesses?" or "to use a Chinese word that sounds vaguely like an English racial slur?").

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

#152

Post by BoxOfRain »

Clubber wrote: post #52
BoxOfRain wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 y…

>Fear for yourself, your family, and your future will apparently cause people to abandon all sorts of supposedly cherished beliefs. And we (the US) must realize we've been put under a constant state of fear by news / advertisers for the last 30+ years. We don't really even realize that we aren't in a "neutral" mental state because we've been constantly bombarded by fear mongering. The constant fear is "normal" here.…

>It's nefarious to use our fear for our children to pass controversial legislation. I mean stop to think about how evil that is.

It's absolutely contemptible, yet as Western societies we spend so much time criticising our neighbours and blaming them for our problems rather than criticising the people amping up the fear on us. If I could change just one thing about society I'd introduce some sort of "immune system" against those who try and use fear to manipulate people, the correct response to fearmongering is contempt towards those responsible for it in my opinion.

>What would our country look like if we weren't being constantly being programmed to be afraid?

I'm not American, but here in the UK we face exactly the same issue. I think both of our countries would be unrecognisable and probably a lot better than they are today. How much avoidable inequality exists because the fear of Russian-style Bolshevism harmed moderate left-wing policies in the 20th century? How much avoidable authoritarianism would we have if the War on Terror hadn't itself become an intense source of domestic fear in the 21st? Fear is the fountain from which all tyranny and bigotry springs in my opinion.

It's not just politics that would be affected, every aspect of society would be changed for the better I think. Maybe that's the form a modern Enlightenment would take, an active rejection of fear and promotion of courage and tolerance for dissent in its place.

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

#153

Post by SuoDuanDao »

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…

>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.

Well, you've got to draw the line somewhere, right? /s

But seriously, I think one can be a free speech advocate without being a free speech absolutist, and believe that we are heading in the wrong direction. In fact I think it's wrong to think of 'where to draw the line' at all, because what is acceptable discourse is not, and should not, be thought of as static.

I think a much better question is how 'the line' is shifting, as the amount of things we can't talk about is both a lagging indicator of institutional health (because being able to have uncomfortable conversations is a sign of emotional maturity), and a leading one (because public discourse is necessary to solving problems we don't understand or would rather not acknowledge).

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

#154

Post by fallingknife »

xadhominemx wrote: post #101
naasking wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

This “study” has been proven to be obviously and demonstrably incorrect in the years since it was published. The authors should retract.

source?

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

#155

Post by fallingknife »

Pils wrote: post #93
naasking wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There were also lone wolf mass shootings before the internet, so what does this prove?

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

#156

Post by PerkinWarwick »

fighterpilot wrote: post #91
notchFilter54 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

>Reddit now will become the place that inspires mass shooters instead of 8chan

I can guarantee that there are plenty of evil doings on Reddit and Facebook.

One argument, and a more honest one, that people can make is that (a) social media is toxic and (b) it should be made illegal generally. Bingo bango, no mass shootings I guess.

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

#157

Post by xadhominemx »

fallingknife wrote: post #154
xadhominemx wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This “study” has been proven to be obviously and demonstrably incorrect in the years since it was published. The authors should retract.

source?

Have you read the conclusions of the study? Do they comport with events of the past 5 years? Not at all

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

#158

Post by fallingknife »

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…

Also important to note that Reddit doesn't ban hate. They ban unpopular opinions. If you want to see hate, go to r/politics.

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

#159

Post by idiotsecant »

icyfox wrote: post #118
commandlinefan wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 the…

I'm not convinced we should think it's acceptable for you or I to decide who does and does not get exposed to information that will 'radicalize' them because you and I may have wildly different opinions of what constitutes a radical opinion. Humans sometimes develop stupid opinions, and that is OK. They're allowed to do that. They aren't allowed to act on those opinions in a way that constitutes a crime, which is why we go through the trouble of defining crimes in the first place. 'Precrime' thought policing seems like a pretty dangerous road to go down and one that is full of unintended consequences.

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

#160

Post by idiotsecant »

majormajor wrote: post #130
commandlinefan wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

A lot fewer people smoke now in the US than several decades ago. So let's do it. Let's isolate and restrict the hateful, the angry, the irrational EXACTLY like we did smoking.

This seems like a decent idea until someone in power decides that you are hateful, angry, or irrational.
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