Backsliding on free expression around the world needs to end • Hacker News Board

Re: Backsliding on free expression around the world needs to end

#101

Post by ErikCorry » Thu, Sep 01, 2022, 5:46 PM UTC

TeeMassive wrote: post #46

californiadreem wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For anyone wanting the full quote from Popper's The Open Society: "Less well known is the paradox of tolerance: unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them. In this formulation,…

Nothing in your quote talks about speech.

Utterance means speech.

Re: Backsliding on free expression around the world needs to end

#102

Post by wikitopian » Thu, Sep 01, 2022, 5:46 PM UTC

kitsunesoba wrote: post #84

wikitopian wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand you believe there's a compelling case for placing your hand over my mouth. I'm sure you earnestly believe your case, and think placing your hand over my mouth is the moral, right, and just thing to do. Time will tell if you're capable of holding it there.

I guess what I’m getting at is that if we’re to eliminate all traces of censorship, other actions must be taken in parallel to not allow the negative effects of doing that spiral out of control. A starting point might be to restore Fairness Doctrine and other policies that help prevent traditional media from becoming hyper-polarized Nielsen-rating-chasing entertainment rather than legitimate news sources, as well as…

But what if you're incorrect?

What if bots and bad actors aren't really the driving force behind the existential divorce?

What if Americans are going in different directions by their own volition? What if using the state to ensure your side wins is unwise and harmful?

Re: Backsliding on free expression around the world needs to end

#103

Post by RobotToaster » Thu, Sep 01, 2022, 5:46 PM UTC

hexator wrote: post #48

hunglee2 wrote: post #35

the article is an example of orientalism, presenting the case as if there is no urgency on the matter in the Western world. Cancel culture, de-platforming, algorithmic dampening, account mislabelling, brigading on-platform, account suspension and deletion - all of these things are happening in the Western world, on US platforms. I used to have sympathy with the the argument that 'private company's can do what they li…

There's quite a bit of difference between the government banning free expression and a private company deciding that they don't want intolerable people on their platform — which itself is an example of their free expression.

Why is corporate censorship more tolerable than government censorship?

Why is censorship by the bourgeoisie more tolerable than censorship by the government bureaucrat?

When corporations control de-facto monopoly platforms by nature of the network effect, they become censors, this shouldn't be a controversial statement.

(not to mention the idea that corporations are people is one of the dumbest legal constructs since the divine right of kings)

Re: Backsliding on free expression around the world needs to end

#104

Post by mikkergp » Thu, Sep 01, 2022, 5:46 PM UTC

debacle wrote: post #91

mikkergp wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of those examples are explicitly violent. Although vigorous we are still having that debate. You're not entirely wrong, but heads of state start assassinating journalists is a different spectra.

It took 40 years for growing antisemitism in Europe to lead to the Holocaust.

I don't really see what your point has to do with mine. OP seems mad that an article might talk about active violence vs potential violence. The article can't cover everything and to my original point we are still able to have those discussions.

I wouldn't object to a different article discussing issues here and how they may result in violence in the future, there are hundreds of those and I would happily read and debate them -- but I also don't object to an article that talks about active organized violence against the media around the world, and how that is a different issue.

Re: Backsliding on free expression around the world needs to end

#105

Post by photochemsyn » Thu, Sep 01, 2022, 5:48 PM UTC

Why are these kinds of articles always so reluctant to explain issues like this, on Putin/Russia and MBS/Saudi Arabia? Note also, Saudi Arabia's war on Yemen is the more appropriate comparison to Russia's war on Ukraine (and let's not forget the USA's wars on Iraq and Afghanistan, either). Here's an excerpt from the report:

> "Russia, for example, has long targeted dissidents outside its borders. But only in the wake of the Ukraine invasion has the international community taken strong measures to hold Putin’s government to account. Meanwhile, the wider lesson seems to have escaped the international community: Even as Western countries slap sanctions on Russia, they have slowly allowed Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman back into the fold, despite his appalling record of suppressing freedom of expression online and evidence that he played a role in the murder of Khashoggi."

Is it not obvious that American presidents pander to Saudi princelings because Saudi Arabia recycles petrodollars to Wall Street in the form of bloated arms deals and other investment activities? Dictators and authoritarians who do this always get a pass from 'the democratic Western humanitarian governments'.

Does anyone really doubt that if Putin had taken that route, and recycled the majority of Russian oil export money into the Western banking system, that there never would have been US support for regime change in Ukraine in 2014, or in Georgia in 2008, or an effort to block the Nordstream 2 pipeline, and so on? Any military action in eastern Ukraine would have been treated with the same relative indifference that the Saudi/UAE military assault and blockade of Yemen.

Hypocrisy is the name of the game for the 'free West' on this issue.

Re: Backsliding on free expression around the world needs to end

#106

Post by mikkergp » Thu, Sep 01, 2022, 5:49 PM UTC

RobotToaster wrote: post #103

hexator wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's quite a bit of difference between the government banning free expression and a private company deciding that they don't want intolerable people on their platform — which itself is an example of their free expression.

Why is corporate censorship more tolerable than government censorship? Why is censorship by the bourgeoisie more tolerable than censorship by the government bureaucrat? When corporations control de-facto monopoly platforms by nature of the network effect, they become censors, this shouldn't be a controversial statement. (not to mention the idea that corporations are people is one of the dumbest legal constructs since…

Corporations don't have a monopoly on violence, the article discusses governments killing people.

Re: Backsliding on free expression around the world needs to end

#107

Post by angio » Thu, Sep 01, 2022, 5:49 PM UTC

hexator wrote: post #48

hunglee2 wrote: post #35

the article is an example of orientalism, presenting the case as if there is no urgency on the matter in the Western world. Cancel culture, de-platforming, algorithmic dampening, account mislabelling, brigading on-platform, account suspension and deletion - all of these things are happening in the Western world, on US platforms. I used to have sympathy with the the argument that 'private company's can do what they li…

There's quite a bit of difference between the government banning free expression and a private company deciding that they don't want intolerable people on their platform — which itself is an example of their free expression.

One issue is that the entrepreneurial class and politicians are not separated, but interconnected.

Re: Backsliding on free expression around the world needs to end

#108

Post by colechristensen » Thu, Sep 01, 2022, 5:49 PM UTC

russdill wrote: post #80

colechristensen wrote: post #3

"I find people who don't think exactly like me to be intolerable" is the bread and butter for controlling a population. People look at the past and think to themselves "those people in the past were wrong, that's why the one acceptable way to think being enforced with power was immoral, on the other hand, my opinions are right, so the ends justify the means". Intolerance is intolerance, regardless of how morally just…

That's a super broad brush. Throwing in the "exactly" makes this particularly overbroad. It's perfectly OK to think that people with certain views are intolerable and that isn't some path to fascism. There are people I don't want to associate with because of views I deem intolerable. I think the necessary addition is "and they need to be stopped".

To be fair, I am not red-teaming my comments or spending hours agonizing over each word.

But to a second point, it should be clear that "exactly" isn't meant in a mathematical sense of "literally every single thought". I don't think the people shouting about social justice and similar morality or other hot political issues want to go to war over whether or not you like poppyseed muffins, there's no reason to take words to their extreme when there isn't a question if a reasonable person would mean something like that.

Finally though, I actually do mean exactly. Find me someone passionate about their political and social opinions who is doing the yelling driving this societal problem who does tolerate different opinions on topics they care about. Few and far between. The problem is explicitly that the median person in these yelling groups actually doesn't tolerate any differences of opinions on a wide array of topics.

Re: Backsliding on free expression around the world needs to end

#109

Post by throwAwaxxx666 » Thu, Sep 01, 2022, 5:49 PM UTC

I was banned from LinkedIn for 4 months for saying “Chinese virus” in the context of a post about a UK Telegraph article reporting on evidence on the origin of the virus. I did not mean to say anything more than if I was to say the Spanish Flu or German Measles or Middle Eastern Respiratory Disease. Somehow it’s been a bad thing to use the same naming pattern in case of Covid (based on where it originated)

I have back and forth emails with LinkedIn support with them telling me that saying “Chinese Virus” amounts to hate speech.

Re: Backsliding on free expression around the world needs to end

#110

Post by MrsPeaches » Thu, Sep 01, 2022, 5:49 PM UTC

colechristensen wrote: post #66

moomin wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You really should read the article. There’s real threats to free speech out there, not just people telling you you’re an idiot.

The biggest threat to free speech around the world is the failure to lead by example of the western world, particularly by America. It doesn't matter that we're a few notches better than somewhere else, they see us doing the same things by popular demand so doing a bit more themselves is easy to justify. We're losing the high ground and the argument that nobody else should do the same things we're doing.

From my skimming, the article linked makes no such claim and I would like to see evidence of what you are claiming.

To be clear the article is talking about States suppressing freedom of expression (not the ephemeral Twitter mob).

You could make a case that Snowden and Assange are examples of America suppressing freedom expression but I am not sure how helpful it is to conflate woke/anti-woke debates with erosions of press freedoms in states trending towards authoritarianism (e.g. Hungry and Poland as mentioned in TFA).