11–20 of 366 posts
I think this article misses one big point which is how we - the people on this website - have actively constructed a world where advertisers can shift spend really quickly. Brand safety is a big reason for censorship - the idea of keeping ads for a company away from content that people might not like. YouTube demonetizes loads and loads of controversial topics across the political spectrum - and that's a Feature for…
"We are a digital media company providing engaged citizens with fact-based reporting and commentary on politics, policy and culture—informed by conservative principles." A ton of conservative opinion pieces are being posted to Hacker News every single day lately. Often by younger accounts that tend to post a lot of things in a similar vein. Political opinion pieces generally don't belong on HN: "Off-Topic: Most stori…
I come to HN for a diversity of opinion. I'm more interested in the ideas than the ideology of the authors. Good ideas can come from anywhere.
Liberal leaning articles get flagged and removed all the time.
When if/when they're unflagged by mods, they remain buried.
"We are a digital media company providing engaged citizens with fact-based reporting and commentary on politics, policy and culture—informed by conservative principles." A ton of conservative opinion pieces are being posted to Hacker News every single day lately. Often by younger accounts that tend to post a lot of things in a similar vein. Political opinion pieces generally don't belong on HN: "Off-Topic: Most stori…
I come to HN for a diversity of opinion. I'm more interested in the ideas than the ideology of the authors. Good ideas can come from anywhere.
One major distinction this glosses over is the difference between making it so you can't read something (e.g., banning it), and making it so you aren't required to read something (e.g., removing it from the curriculum). Only the former is censorship.
> [...] he noted that there exists not just a right to speak but a right to hear. “To suppress free speech is a double wrong. It violates the rights of the hearer as well as those of the speaker.”
But this is of course a gray area. You don't have to listen to anything anyone has to say, but it's also possible to sideline something enough that it is effectively censored without being outright forbidden.
"We are a digital media company providing engaged citizens with fact-based reporting and commentary on politics, policy and culture—informed by conservative principles." A ton of conservative opinion pieces are being posted to Hacker News every single day lately. Often by younger accounts that tend to post a lot of things in a similar vein. Political opinion pieces generally don't belong on HN: "Off-Topic: Most stori…
Yes, but they end up "[flagged]"/"[dead]" way more often than liberal opinion pieces on the same topics do.
"We are a digital media company providing engaged citizens with fact-based reporting and commentary on politics, policy and culture—informed by conservative principles." A ton of conservative opinion pieces are being posted to Hacker News every single day lately. Often by younger accounts that tend to post a lot of things in a similar vein. Political opinion pieces generally don't belong on HN: "Off-Topic: Most stori…
Is that a problem?
I'm not saying that the accusations of cancel culture are unfounded, I'm saying they are wildly hypocritical.
(It's good that efforts at censorship on the right are raised in the article as a pressing concern, the point is that this is not new, in fact it looks to me like the 'left' are the newcomers at the censor-burn-suppress game)
I believe in freedom of speech. What I do not believe in is freedom of mass speech. Your responsibility to the truth should increase in line with your reach. Have 1000 followers in twitter and want to talk about starting the next holocaust? Great, say whatever. A million followers? Yeah, that’s a problem. I don’t know how this gets enforced, but we simply cannot give every lunatic a megaphone.
At least in the US you can't enforce it - and yes, any lunatic can grab a megaphone if they want.
The best way to handle problematic speech is more speech, NOT less. Trying to pretend lunatics don't exist is irrational and often a pretext to just block people that others disagree with. Screw that. Safest place for lunatics is out in the open, not driven underground.
I believe in freedom of speech. What I do not believe in is freedom of mass speech. Your responsibility to the truth should increase in line with your reach. Have 1000 followers in twitter and want to talk about starting the next holocaust? Great, say whatever. A million followers? Yeah, that’s a problem. I don’t know how this gets enforced, but we simply cannot give every lunatic a megaphone.