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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

#221

Post by tailrecursion »

at_a_remove wrote: post #42

I find the whole thing perversely enjoyable. If you want to test someone, allow them to succeed. Give them power. When I was young, the left was the underdog, and they sure sounded like a nice bunch of people ... kindness, forgiving, can't we all get along? Free speech, our country was founded on it! The wheel turns and now they are in power. Suddenly it is cancel, no contact, punch Nazis, hang the traitors, and so o…

It's telling to see this comment suppressed with not even a hint as to why. Feminism has changed drastically over the years. The gay movement has been taken over by toxic individuals. Occupy Wall St was taken over. Antifa shootings, BLM riots, lockdowns, get vaccinated or lose your job, and the redefinition of words, all occurred recently. Biden's rhetoric re Trump voters, 80+ million people, is very interesting. We're going to suppress it all with no discussion.

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

#222

Post by throwawayacc2 »

ndsipa_pomu wrote: post #8
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…

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.

I feel like this idea is taken as gospel. I am not sure I buy it. Especially when applied to speech.

I feel like there are many unanswered questions or implied assumptions when saying “tolerant exact for the intolerant”.

1. Who decides what is “intolerant behaviour”?

2. What checks and balances do we have to ensure tolerable behaviour is not incorrectly labelled as intolerant.

3. Is intolerant behaviour on a slider or is it a binary? If so, what mechanism do we have in place to ensure the “intolerance of intolerance” is proportional?

I suppose going a step forward, we can also ask ourselves why is tolerance a good thing or a societal goal? Is it even a feasible goal?

To me it doesn’t seem like society is “tolerant except for the intolerant”. It just seems it’s changing it’s labels for what behaviours are acceptable and what are not.

I feel like if you’re really committed to “tolerant except for the intolerant” you need to draw the line at quantifiable harm, like violence or theft. If you don’t and include things like “psychological harm” or “systemic harm” or “hate speech” etc, you open up the system to abuse due to the grey area around labelling.

I’m not saying psychological harm doesn’t exist or hate speech doesn’t have a negative effect on people subjected to it. But they are impossible to quantify and even harder to agree on. And that makes for bad concepts to build morality or even worse, law around.

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

#223

Post by golemotron »

dleslie wrote: post #82
golemotron wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing Popper misses is that once you rationalize your own intolerance, others will rationalize theirs, missing the nuance of his limit. And, indeed, that has happened. I can't remember ever seeing anyone other than you mention the limit, and that includes quite a few people quoting Popper to justify their intolerance. I'd argue that Popper left his wheelhouse when he formulated this. It was at the moment when WW2…

He's not advocating for a world free of intolerance; in fact, he advocates for the use of intolerance when necessary, and describes when it is necessary. Intolerance can be rational, after all; and intolerance can be moral. FWIW, I am aware of the full quote because I've seen it elsewhere; but then, I used to spend quite a lot of time arguing on the intarwebs.

The thing Popper misses is that once you rationalize your own intolerance, others will rationalize theirs, missing the nuance of his limit.

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

#224

Post by MrsPeaches »

colechristensen wrote: post #152
MrsPeaches wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>To be clear the article is talking about States suppressing freedom of expression (not the ephemeral Twitter mob). The point I am trying to make is an intolerant population is really easy to control by an intolerant state. The people in power at the top usually don't actually care very much about the topics of intolerance, but they are a useful tool for building and maintaining power. Intolerance in a population is…

> The point I am trying to make is an intolerant population is really easy to control by an intolerant state.

I understand what you are getting at here, but I have to disagree. My view is that state sanctioned intolerance is usually a top-down process, primarily driven by economic incentives.

Hitler for example exploited the absolutely dire economic situation of Weimar Germany, directed the hate against a clearly delineated social group who were perceived as wealthy.

Same thing in Uganda, Kosovo, Rwanda etc.

People switch from being tolerant to intolerant in an instant (with tragic consequences) but it is almost always driven from the top.

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

#225

Post by wizofaus »

thfuran wrote: post #217
michaelmcdonald wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

It's a restriction, but not a particularly punitive or effective one, unless you live in a city that's become so beholden to a single mode of travel that car usage has become some kind of dependency . Even then I'd hardly compare it to being booted from a single platform like Twitter that despite the claims of many here only represents a fraction of "public discourse" (indeed, not even a particularly large percentage of online discourse).

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

#226

Post by hotpotamus »

ad404b8a372f2b9 wrote: post #211
hotpotamus wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I mean, do employers not have freedom of association? I don't understand how you'd compel them to employ people whose speech they don't like for instance.

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

#227

Post by angst_ridden »

ad404b8a372f2b9 wrote: post #207
angst_ridden wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Should employers be required to retain employees who say things that damage their business? Are algorithms free speech? Who gets to determine which algorithms I'm allowed to implement to promote or demote comments on my private media platform? How do you propose altering media incentives without restricting people's freedom of expression? Passing laws?

To your first question, an emphatic yes. That's the point of labour laws, employers rarely fire people for fun, they do it for economic reasons. I expected your second and third questions, and I agree with the premise to some extent. If algorithms promote or demote some speech they affect free speech. If you accept that, free speech does not exist online and never can by definition. It's a spectrum however and it's h…

I have mixed feelings about your point 1. For example, I fully support employee's right to talk about unions, or discus their salaries with one another. But if I ran a coffee shop, say, and my employee seriously reduced my income by standing on the sidewalk outside the store on his off hours and insulted customers, I'd feel like I shouldn't be forced to fund that activity by employing him. Admittedly, it gets a little more complicated if he were there telling them that coffee is a neurotoxin that will turn their french bulldogs gay. In either case, he's still driving away my customers.

There's a point where freedom of speech intersects with freedom to not be harassed. If someone doxxes me in an argument, that's one thing. If they publish my kids' pictures and the address of their school, that's another entirely. But where the point of "acceptable" lies is difficult to nail down. Intimidation and threats can take many forms, depending on the relative position and power someone has in society, not to mention their histories. What would be a dumb insult to me might be a direct threat to someone else, and vice versa.

I agree that social media and today's news media operate largely on a Lacanian outrage mechanism that is divisive, self-amplifying, and accelerational. I don't have a good solution to that. My general inclination has historically been towards government regulation, but even the law depends on some degree of a shared vision of society. If you have no faith in the community and feel no obligation to it, or worse yet, feel that it is illegitimate on its face, you can always find ways to circumvent the letter of the law. That phenomenon has been increasingly weaponized, and I can't see any good ways to break that cycle.

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

#228

Post by ad404b8a372f2b9 »

cycomanic wrote: post #214
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…

> 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 ca…

I think stronger labour laws are generally a good idea, employment is survival. The full extent is out of scope for this discussion but I've seen many deplorable examples of employee abuse beyond being fired for expressing an opinion. Reprehensible is an interesting term, I think it's at the core of this issue.

I gave a couple ideas in a comment below for algorithms so I'll you check that out. I don't understand the basis of the question with regards to the journalist, could you elaborate why you'd want a different algorithm for this female journalist?

With regards to the media I answered that in another comment too. Tax incentives and government subsidies are an idea but it's tricky, it depends on the implementation. We have a lot of government influence over the media already so we're not starting from a blank slate. Everything needs to be weighed, I don't have the skills to do so.

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

#229

Post by tailrecursion »

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.

But, it is correct to say that being banned from social media severely restricts one's ability to participate. In addition, banning has a significant effect on anyone aware of the ban.

It's important to learn from the mistakes of ____(some worse country), so that we don't continue in the direction of ____.

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

#230

Post by dleslie »

golemotron wrote: post #223
dleslie wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's not advocating for a world free of intolerance; in fact, he advocates for the use of intolerance when necessary, and describes when it is necessary. Intolerance can be rational, after all; and intolerance can be moral. FWIW, I am aware of the full quote because I've seen it elsewhere; but then, I used to spend quite a lot of time arguing on the intarwebs.

The thing Popper misses is that once you rationalize your own intolerance, others will rationalize theirs, missing the nuance of his limit.

He advocates to be intolerant of those who refuse engage in rational argument and those who opt for violence.

The nuance is in the limit. If a person, in their intolerance, is resorting to violence towards those that are not doing likewise, then they are in the wrong. Even if they believe that they are abiding by the limit when doing so. Rational argument should always be the preferred course of action, and intolerance and violence only as a bitter last resort.

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