Society has a trust problem. More censorship will only make it worse • Hacker News Board

Re: Society has a trust problem. More censorship will only make it worse

#601

Post by thephyber » Thu, Feb 03, 2022, 12:47 AM UTC

UncleMeat wrote: post #424

colordrops wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Free speech by our definition in the US is a sacred and mostly irreducible "holy" thing, as being the very first amendment of the constitution. There is no true democracy without free speech. Free speech is a fundamental atom of a healthy and fair democracy. There is almost never a case where restriction of speech isn't abused to give one individual or group political advantage over another.

There are numerous legal restrictions on speech, including against false advertising and slander. Further, free speech has not been considered "holy" in private spaces for the history of the US. This modern discussion of social media and moderation is completely novel and cannot draw from past feelings on free speech as a principle.

Yes. I feel like too many people are making the argument that social media spaces are the "town square" (legal concept) despite the fact that it has never been established. It's much closer to individuals sending in their opinions to a newspaper in hops of being printed in the OpEd section.

Re: Society has a trust problem. More censorship will only make it worse

#602

Post by thephyber » Thu, Feb 03, 2022, 1:00 AM UTC

amendenment wrote: post #382

jrimbault wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> very first amendment So, it's not , it's just the first change to an already existing document. The first article of your constitution describes the legislatives institutions. I (vaguely) know that, I'm not even American.

It is precisely because it is the first amendment in the bill of rights, that demonstrates how highly the value is held. Any other "change" could have been first, but freedom of speech was chosen. The founders were not going to otherwise ratify the constitution without the bill of rights. I find it a bit pointless to say you are not American and vaguely know something in order to demonstrate that you understand the c…

Both you and the parent comment are correct.

Some states (Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Georgia, and Connecticut) ratified the Constitution before the Bill of Rights was formally drafted[1] and initially without requiring the Bill of Rights. The Massachusetts Compromise was an agreement that the Bill of Rights would be packaged with the new Constitution (with the BoR being active at ratification, before the Constitution) and was required before some of the remaining states would ratify the Constitution.

It's worth pointing out that the Bill of Rights was ratified 2.0 years after the first elections for national office and 1.5 years after the constitution was finally ratified. [1]

[1] https://constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution/blog...

Re: Society has a trust problem. More censorship will only make it worse

#603

Post by thephyber » Thu, Feb 03, 2022, 1:35 AM UTC

tekknik wrote: post #573

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #486

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They are required. Why are they required and what are they required for? Countries exist that don't have the exact same human rights, so clearly those rights don't need to exist for a nation or an individual to successfully exist.

Did you not read the post? The answer as to why is a very deep discussion. Sure North Korea exists, do you want to live there? Maybe start with personal feelings?

"The Flying Spaghetti Monster exists and is the only true god. The evidence exists but you have to already be an expert to understand it and it would take too long to explain it to you." This a tactic to shut down the discussion, not advance it.

Any time someone invokes "human rights" or "natural rights", it's worth at least referencing a common basis of facts written somewhere. Without this, such discussion is likely to follow two diverging paths and the people discussing it likely aren't talking about the same concepts. The relevant Human Rights document is usually the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights[1] and Free Speech/Expression is Article 19.

Some people sat down and decided the list of things that are "human rights". Lots of other people object to some of the items on that list, so it's not exactly infallible.

North Korea is a good example of a place with the lack of 1A protected speech from government interference, but it also has lots of other "human rights" violations, so you aren't really clarifying the problem with free speech by using it as an example. North Korea frequently violates most of the 30 UN declared human rights articles, so the connotation of using that country as an example leads to conflation of other issues.

Everything that creates or improves "personal feelings" isn't a human right, so that doesn't help the discussion much either.

[1] https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-huma...

Re: Society has a trust problem. More censorship will only make it worse

#604

Post by thephyber » Thu, Feb 03, 2022, 1:43 AM UTC

perryizgr8 wrote: post #417

epgui wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So if I ask you "why do we have or need human rights", would you say "there is no reason, the analysis stops there"?

I saw a video in which Richard Feynman was asked to explain why magnets repel. He went on a long tirade but finally the answer was "magnets repel, because they do". Asking for a deeper explanation does not make sense unless you want to study theoretical physics for the rest of your life. I feel this question about human rights falls into a similar category. They are required. If you want to go deeper into the reasons…

"Because they do" is really vague, but a more useful way of saying the same thing is "repulsion is an observed property of some physical objects due to the force of magnetism" is a better answer. Feynman was creative and coy with some of his answers. That doesn't mean we all have to be.

The "Human Rights" discussion is different from a law of physics. It is a human-curated list of rights and they all have restrictions and exclusions, which is core to the "censorship by private companies on their properties" discussion.

It's helpful to discussions of "Human Rights" or "Natural Rights" to point to a written document that disambigautes the terms and enumerates the specific rights, so we know we are discussing the same thing.

The UN Declaration of Human Rights Article 19 says

> Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.[1]

[1] https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-huma...

Re: Society has a trust problem. More censorship will only make it worse

#605

Post by tekknik » Thu, Feb 03, 2022, 3:18 PM UTC

thephyber wrote: post #603

tekknik wrote: post #573

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you not read the post? The answer as to why is a very deep discussion. Sure North Korea exists, do you want to live there? Maybe start with personal feelings?

"The Flying Spaghetti Monster exists and is the only true god. The evidence exists but you have to already be an expert to understand it and it would take too long to explain it to you." This a tactic to shut down the discussion, not advance it. Any time someone invokes "human rights" or "natural rights", it's worth at least referencing a common basis of facts written somewhere. Without this, such discussion is likel…

You just said a whole lot of nothing trying to demand people subscribe to the ideas of human rights of a particular country. Human rights are universal, by definition.

Re: Society has a trust problem. More censorship will only make it worse

#606

Post by thephyber » Thu, Feb 03, 2022, 11:25 PM UTC

tekknik wrote: post #605

thephyber wrote: post #603

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The Flying Spaghetti Monster exists and is the only true god. The evidence exists but you have to already be an expert to understand it and it would take too long to explain it to you." This a tactic to shut down the discussion, not advance it. Any time someone invokes "human rights" or "natural rights", it's worth at least referencing a common basis of facts written somewhere. Without this, such discussion is likel…

You just said a whole lot of nothing trying to demand people subscribe to the ideas of human rights of a particular country. Human rights are universal, by definition.

But they aren't universal in the sense that all people and governments agree on the list and definitions.

In particular to the Freedom of Speech discussion, the most important part is the list of exemptions. Even China would argue they give their people Freedom of Speech, but they have more restrictions/exemptions than other countries. Hence, they are not universal in a practical sense and the details must be discussed.