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Backsliding on free expression around the world needs to end

thenewhumanitarian.org

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

#211

Post by ad404b8a372f2b9 »

hotpotamus wrote: post #154
ad404b8a372f2b9 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cancel culture is not the result of free speech, it's the result of a toxic social environment. Here are some actionable solutions that don't require limiting free speech: 1. Improve labor laws so craven employers can't just dump their employee because they said something online (unrelated to the company on their personal time) and people are complaining. 2. Regulate social media algorithms to prevent the feedback lo…

Doesn't free speech mean the freedom to create a toxic social environment?

Sure, if I insult my neighbour, I exercise free speech and create a toxic social environment. But how does that relate to the phenomenons I outlined to contextualize the toxicity I'm referring to?

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

#212

Post by r00fus »

californiadreem wrote: post #38
ndsipa_pomu wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance The paradox of tolerance states that if a society is tolerant without limit, its ability to be tolerant is eventually seized or destroyed by the intolerant. Karl Popper described it as the seemingly self-contradictory idea that in order to maintain a tolerant society, the society must retain the right to be intolerant of intolerance.

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,…

Seems a summary of the pivotal point of the intolerance paradox is key:

"tolerance of viewpoints requires reciprocity of tolerance from those viewpoints"

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

#213

Post by TobyTheDog123 »

SiempreViernes wrote: post #183
thfuran wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Getting kicked off social media is essentially having your ability to engage in public discourse removed, or at least severely restricted.

Quoted post unavailable.

I never understood the sarcastic, smarmy, dismissive tone people take when talking about these kinds of issues.

The parent poster obviously was not implying getting banned on Twitter is in any way similar to the government imprisoning you for your speech, yet you straw-man him while being on some kind of unearned intellectual high-horse.

He is, however, stating the fact that being banned from the platform is having your ability to participate in discourse removed or limited. While the platform may have the right to do so, it doesn't change the fact that there are varying degrees of censorship, and it's not the black-and-white "prosecution/execution or nothing."

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

#214

Post by cycomanic »

ad404b8a372f2b9 wrote: post #121
hotpotamus wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see these complaints (generally from the right wing), and I think... so what? No one ever seems to have any action tied to resolve their complaints, presumably because it would ironically require creating laws that restrict speech - what is cancel culture other than a reflection of free speech in its own right after all? Of course, if you start talking about boycotting Israel, they'll be happy to send the law after…

Cancel culture is not the result of free speech, it's the result of a toxic social environment. Here are some actionable solutions that don't require limiting free speech: 1. Improve labor laws so craven employers can't just dump their employee because they said something online (unrelated to the company on their personal time) and people are complaining. 2. Regulate social media algorithms to prevent the feedback lo…

> Cancel culture is not the result of free speech, it's the result of a toxic social environment.

> Here are some actionable solutions that don't require limiting free speech:

> 1. Improve labor laws so craven employers can't just dump their employee because they said something online (unrelated to the company on their personal time) and people are complaining.

Well that would mean changing the laws so that people can't be fired for essentially any reason like it is at the moment. Or are you proposing people should be able to get fired for any reason except for saying reprehensible things online?

> 2. Regulate social media algorithms to prevent the feedback loops that lead to events like a woman with two followers becoming the target of 20 million people.

Generally a good idea, how? Also does that include female journalists being targeted by a horde of guys who are supposedly concerned about gaming journalism?

> 3. Change media incentives to improve the quality of journalism and decrease click-bait and outrage-chasing.

I could get behind this, but how would we do that. More media financed through taxes/fees?

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

#215

Post by Georgelemental »

andsoitis wrote: post #115
Georgelemental wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That logic relies on the fact any single private corporation controls at most a small part of public discourse, so no single platform can impose speech codes on all of society. But modern tech monopolies benefit from network effects and actively collude with and lobby government to crush would-be competitors. So the old rules no longer apply to them

What’s your proposed solution?

- Mandate interoperability to break network effects

- Possibly (more extreme measure, not certain about this one) "common carrier" laws that treat the biggest platforms like public utilities (can't moderate at all). This might make Facebook & co. unviable in their current guises, but would that really be such a bad thing?

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

#216

Post by MisterBastahrd »

thfuran wrote: post #169
greenthrow wrote: post #159

This is not talking about bogus "my freedoms" claims of people being kicked off Twitter, it's talking about actual loss of freedom of expression, where the government imprisons people for saying the wrong things. In the US we have loss sight of what real freedom of expression means.

Getting kicked off social media is essentially having your ability to engage in public discourse removed, or at least severely restricted.

That's absolute nonsense.

Social media platforms are PRIVATE forums. Public discourse is getting up on your soap box and speaking directly to people, or engaging city council meetings and various public boards, or talking to your representatives and communicating with various leaders via mail and email.

THAT is what public discourse is, and absolutely none of it is affected due to decisions by Facebook or Twitter or Tiktok.

You are conflating being seen with being public. They aren't remotely the same.

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

#217

Post by thfuran »

michaelmcdonald wrote: post #201
thfuran wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Getting kicked off social media is essentially having your ability to engage in public discourse removed, or at least severely restricted.

There are still city / township board meetings. You have the ability to converse with your neighbors. You can write to / contact your local representatives. If you feel that being kicked off social media is the same as the removal of your ability to engage in public discourse can you tell me what people did BEFORE social media?

Are you going to also suggest that being banned from using motor vehicles wouldn't be a restriction on travel because people did without them in the past?

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

#218

Post by lkrubner »

Anyone interested in the wave of democracy that swept the world in the 1960s and 1970s and early 1980s, 4 small books, together regarded as a classic, are "Transitions from Authoritarian Rule" and the 4th volume (a small book that can easily be read in one day) is:

Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Tentative Conclusions about Uncertain Democracies

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1421410133/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b...

This book has a lot to say about why some transitions to democracy fail, and by implication it says a lot about why some long-standing democracies also fail. Anyone who is currently worried about the survival of democracy in the West might find this book interesting.

The most interesting thing I learned from this is how much each elite faction and institution (the military, the church, the business elites, etc) are constantly guessing how the other elite factions are going to react to any change to the status quo, and it is the uncertainty of support that often inhibits an elite faction from engaging in a course of radical change. And likewise, if any one elite faction hopes to establish itself as dominant, it is its own uncertainty about the complacency of other elite factions that has a big effect on inhibiting its own boldness. Likewise, each faction worries about the ability of other elite factions to make an appeal to the general public, as no elite faction wants to be caught out as alone in taking action when there might be a surprising upsurge of activity from the general public.

It's the fact that everyone is guessing about the power of everyone else that keeps the situation both dynamic and yet, at times, helps reinforce the status quo.

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

#219

Post by OrangeMonkey »

immibis wrote: post #194
Natsu wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Paradox of Tolerance said that people have, based on their right to self-defense, the ability to defend themselves against those who would shut down speech with fists or pistols . In short, it's aimed at protecting people from literal brown shirt tactics of assaulting people for speaking. Those invoking it now are pretty far afield from what it espouses.

The word "would" indicates targets who haven't committed the crime yet, so I'd say it's being used correctly.

I'm sorry but no.

We cannot silence others who are using their soap boxes by saying 'if they dont get their way they will use the ammo boxes so we should shut them up first.'

Based on the paradox of tolerance, they should pre-emptively try to silence us because we are trying to shut down communication.

You know this goes both ways right?

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

#220

Post by psyfi »

The whole free expression thing is irrealistic stupid idea. There is always a limit and as long as limits are not agreed on by everyone, it doesn't make sense

Some expression can be considered pitching extreme ideologies or hate speech which is illegal in most "liberal" places

Some people would argue that attacking an idea is different from attacking a person, but again this is something that is not agreed upon, some people would prefer to be insulted than for their culture/religion/idol to be insulted, so it is a different limits at the end

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