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

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211–220 of 330 posts

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

#211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>But you want Reddit to literally adopt 8chan's moderation policy, I want reddit to adopt the public square's policy of allowing any content that isn't illegal, which also happens to be pretty much synonymous with 8chan's policy. Do you consider the town square (which has the policy of allowing content that is not illegal) a center of inspiration for mass shootings? Could it be that the public square is not viewed as…

"Do you consider the town square a centre of inspiration for mass shootings" Before the internet, yes, definitely. Maybe not mass shootings specifically because that seems to be a recent fashion trend after Columbine, but violent extremism in general. How do you think Hitler managed to secure over 40 percent of the democratic vote in the early 1930s? How did Osama Bin Laden recruit extremists who were willing to put…

I appreciate your honesty in believing the public square is a center of inspiration for mass shootings.

I believe quite the opposite. It has been a place for the public to plan self defense, both to organize themselves in defense from natural disaster, hostile forces, wildfires, and anyone who seeks to do them harm. It is a place for the public to engage in the marketplace of ideas and inspirations, which ultimately leads to the saving of lives, prosperity, security, and bonding of the populace. Harmful ideas can be shamed and those espousing bad ideas have a chance of learning the holes in their ideas. The mass shooter espousing violent ideas in the public square is as likely to have alerted his neighbor to be alert for any evidence of crime, as he is to convince the general populace of his nutjob ideas.

I don't buy your hypothesis that Hitler came to power because of free speech, and quite frankly it is laughable to think banning Hitler from Reddit (were it to exist in his day) would have any effect whatsoever. You seem quite ignorant of the factors precipitating Naziism, including the economic situation of Germany at that time. It's also worth noting that Hitler was quick to stifle certain speech that went against his ideas, meaning he found free speech at odds or even dangerous to Naziism.

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>How did Osama Bin Laden recruit extremists who were willing to put a bomb into the WTC basement? Propaganda, speech.

Bin Laden attempted to blow up the WTC basement with bombs, not free speech. Bin Laden lived in Muslim nations with more limited speech regulations than Reddit.

>Moreover you have to recognize that these isolated echo chambers would naturally self-segregate on Reddit if given free reign, and so in practice you haven't changed anything aside from giving these ideas more distribution. It's not like /r/88 or whatever would be interacting with the rest of Reddit thus helping their members deradicalize.

Some may, some may not. I've stopped using reddit because I was banned because I simply said things like I didn't believe forcefully shutting down a restaurant is an appropriate way to deal with coronavirus. Now maybe that is a very wrong and bad idea, but I'm willing to debate with others on it and learn their perspectives. Instead these communities said fuck you, you're banned, and now you have to go to some echo-chamber where everyone agrees with it. I'm not interested in an echo chamber, I'm interested in engaging with others so my bad ideas can be brought to light and shown to be bad, or my good ideas can be integrated. Your argument sounds more like one against having subreddits.

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

#212
Ironic that this is from the EFF, who were happy to dogpile on RMS when he said some things that some people took offense to [1]. Just like private censorship, trying to cancel someone is not the best to fight hate.

[1]: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/03/statement-re-election-...

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

#213
post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> http://comp.social.gatech.edu/papers/cscw18-chand-hate.pdf This paper is trash. On defining hate speech, "we focus on textual content that is distinctively characteristic of these forums", so, yes, banning specific subreddits resulted in less of that content in the overall Reddit. Did it make Reddit a more friendly place? Probably not as tensions have never been higher.

> Did it make Reddit a more friendly place? Probably not as tensions have never been higher. Did allowing hate speech make 8chan/Voat friendlier? There are plenty of unfriendly communities that lack overt racism/fatphobia, but I can't think of any friendly ones that do.

Yes. People weren't trying to censor each other so they were less pissed off.

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

#214
post #18

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…

New Zealand has a Censorship Office and an official called the Chief Censor. The government has the power to declare that certain communications are illegal and prosecute people for making those communications. They recently, famously did this with footage from the Christchurch shootings as well as the shooter's manifesto. Yet New Zealand consistently tops Cato Institute's freedom index. Maybe, just maybe, an absolut…

>Yet New Zealand consistently tops Cato Institute's freedom index.

Well I'm sure those who got arrested for sharing the Christchurch footage (footage that was, btw, widely available and shared worldwide) will be happy to hear that. They may be in jail but at least the Cato institute declared that they were still living in a country that tops their index. An index that hasn't even changed or taken in consideration the extreme drift towards authoritarianism that we have seen in the 2020.

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

#215

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…

Yeah, most people tend to get squidgy about abstracts like "free speech" when the crazies come out of the woodwork and start calling for treason, mass deaths, and so on.

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

#216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Yup. These platforms are all perfectly 100% fine with hatred as long as it's the right kind.

[deleted]

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

#217
post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who defines what speech is harmful or wrong? Democracy is a system in which your party loses elections. And when they lose, do you want them dictating what you can and can’t say? No one has a monopoly on the truth. In fact, our greatest scientific discoveries (the closest thing we have to Truth) have been forged by “offensive speech”. The ability to offend actually helps minimize misinformation.

> Who defines what speech is harmful or wrong? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28698642

Let's trust the billionaire execs at Google, Facebook, Amazon and Twitter to listen to the correct academics rather than responding to the incentives of capital. When faced with calls to ban pro-Palestinian rights activism on their platforms, they've never caved before

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

#218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The speech in your post is oppressing me right now. Cease and desist your verbal oppression or else I will use state-sponsored violence to end your oppressively free speech.

Shouting 'fire' in a crowded theater has never been protected speech.

In the US? Yes it is. You realize you are quoting a 1919 supreme court case (that used the "fire in a theater" argument to make protesting against the draft illegal)... which has been overturned 50 years ago, right?

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

#219
post #95

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…

>What free speech advocates ignore here is that even they generally draw a line somewhere.

The issue isn't where the line is drawn. The issue is that no singular entity can be trusted to draw that line.

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

#220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The speech in your post is oppressing me right now. Cease and desist your verbal oppression or else I will use state-sponsored violence to end your oppressively free speech.

Shouting 'fire' in a crowded theater has never been protected speech.

For a while now it's been understood that the "'fire' in a crowded theater" thing is a misinformed meme

https://www.popehat.com/2015/05/19/how-to-spot-and-critique-...

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