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The distinction between free speech as a legal right and cultural value

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Re: The distinction between free speech as a legal right and cultural value

#71

Post by User23 »

throwawaydad12 wrote: post #61
whateveracct wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you implying Balenciaga is .. trafficking children or making child porn or something? Not sure what you mean by "the person we should be worried about." My understanding is they made an offensive photoshoot using children but I wasn't aware of any sexual abuse allegations. I'm aware of the court opinion on the blanket and the sexually suggestive stuffed animals. It's inflammatory, sure, but there's definitely a c…

No abuse that I've heard of. But very offensive. Look further (not at work). It's too gross to describe on HN. I'm pretty strong on free speech myself. But if you want to repress awful stuff, Musk is not the place to start. And the narrative that he's somehow lowering the level of discourse on Twitter is absurd.

For added weirdness “ba len ci aga” is Latin for “do what you want.” See for yourself with Google translate. It could also be translated as the more familiar “do what thou wilt,” a rather infamous occult credo.

Re: The distinction between free speech as a legal right and cultural value

#72

Post by skorpeon87 »

anigbrowl wrote: post #25
skorpeon87 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's probably not much point explaining the cultural value of free speech to somebody who thinks free speech is so awful they can't even bring themselves to mention it without using a minced oath, as though they fear even the term itself.

'freeze peach' is a dig at the blatant disingenuity of some self-styled 'free speech absolutists' who are actually dedicated trolls out to upset people. Since you're new here this trope might not be familiar to you.

I'm very familiar with it. It's a minced oath used by those who disrespect free speech so intensely they suspend any pretense of decorum and resort to childish wordplay. It's the same as FOSS activists who insist on writing "M$" instead of Microsoft.

Re: The distinction between free speech as a legal right and cultural value

#73

Post by pixl97 »

aaronbrethorst wrote: post #17
pixl97 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Um what? So me and my buddy Tim are going to come to your house and talk about how much you suck. Autoexec: But this is MY private property. So yes, So are online platforms. They can kick you out at any time they want and you can pound sand. If you don't like it set up own server online to freely associate. You don't get to demand their resources. You don't get access to their network.

Alex Pareene on the subject from 2018: https://splinternews.com/if-you-truly-care-about-speech-you-...

TL;DR (I did but very quickly) the vast majority of for profit entities do not give one shit about free speech. If you think any online forum does you are in conflict with all evidence presented so far.

But it is an important point not to have just one site like Twitter or Reddit or even HN so we can go to one the competitors and complain about the former without angering the later.

Re: The distinction between free speech as a legal right and cultural value

#74

Post by nonameiguess »

zmgsabst wrote: post #66
ceejayoz wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Twitter is not a common carrier, and has significant differences from phone companies.

Perhaps you could state what you think those differences are.

Most people in the world don't have Twitter accounts and get along perfectly fine. You need phone service to apply for most jobs, contact government emergency services, go to school. It's a far more essential service.

Although the definition of a common carrier isn't necessarily that it is essential anyway. It's that it is offered explicitly as being available to the general public, not involving any sort of individual contacts between carrier and users. Everybody gets exactly the same deal. In that sense, Twitter arguably qualifies, but being a common carrier doesn't mean you can't ban people. Taxis and airlines are common carriers and can absolutely ban you if you don't follow their rules.

Re: The distinction between free speech as a legal right and cultural value

#75

Post by pannSun »

ceejayoz wrote: post #27
autoexec wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Private parties are (with some number of government constraints) free to pick who to work with, who to play with, and who to talk with, and who they don't want to do anything with. This is so true. The problem we have now is that online platforms are preventing us from making those choices for ourselves. We're being told we're not allowed to talk to certain types of people, often for ideological reasons. Online pla…

Why doesn’t Twitter, one of your “private parties”, also get to pick “who they don't want to do anything with”?

You are being deliberately obtuse. No matter how one answers your question, most internet users still have unaccountable 3rd parties opaquely choosing who they communicate with [1].

Do you admit this is a problem, but you just don't see a solution compatible with the 1st amendment's freedom of association? Do you support the Civil Rights Act's restriction of freedom based on race and/or think it is constitutionally valid? Why would the same logic not hold for restricting companies such as Twitter then?

[1] Spare me rebuttals of "if they really wanted to communicate, they could do so by carrier pigeon!" - 99% of users won't go through with such effort, or even know who they are being herded away from. The remaining motivated 1% is too small to have any political power, and so the censor wins.

Re: The distinction between free speech as a legal right and cultural value

#76

Post by woooooo »

pixl97 wrote: post #67
woooooo wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The undersea cables are private property, also. What if all of the layer 3 networks got together and decided to not allow you in particular to demand their resources?

Then I would assume that you're screwed. With that said, there's a regulator on IP allocations and their may be something doable on the governance level to revoke said IPs if you're not playing nice with the rest of the world. As for the actual server resources, you have not established where you have any legal right to them.

Perhaps, beyond a certain level of monopoly, there's more of an obligation to provide equal access to service for all?

Re: The distinction between free speech as a legal right and cultural value

#77

Post by whateveracct »

throwawaydad12 wrote: post #61
whateveracct wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you implying Balenciaga is .. trafficking children or making child porn or something? Not sure what you mean by "the person we should be worried about." My understanding is they made an offensive photoshoot using children but I wasn't aware of any sexual abuse allegations. I'm aware of the court opinion on the blanket and the sexually suggestive stuffed animals. It's inflammatory, sure, but there's definitely a c…

No abuse that I've heard of. But very offensive. Look further (not at work). It's too gross to describe on HN. I'm pretty strong on free speech myself. But if you want to repress awful stuff, Musk is not the place to start. And the narrative that he's somehow lowering the level of discourse on Twitter is absurd.

I've seen it. It's a child with one of their stuffed animal purses in BDSM gear. And there's some wine in a shot. And there's text for a SCOTUS ruling that child pornography is not protected speech.

I'm honestly not seeing what's so grotesque about it all? Feels tame as far as fashion stuff goes. Wouldn't bat an eye in the '90s.

Re: The distinction between free speech as a legal right and cultural value

#78

Post by whateveracct »

User23 wrote: post #71
throwawaydad12 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No abuse that I've heard of. But very offensive. Look further (not at work). It's too gross to describe on HN. I'm pretty strong on free speech myself. But if you want to repress awful stuff, Musk is not the place to start. And the narrative that he's somehow lowering the level of discourse on Twitter is absurd.

For added weirdness “ba len ci aga” is Latin for “do what you want.” See for yourself with Google translate. It could also be translated as the more familiar “do what thou wilt,” a rather infamous occult credo.

This is started to smell like Q-adjacent nonsense to me

Re: The distinction between free speech as a legal right and cultural value

#79

Post by someNameIG »

sokoloff wrote: post #54
anonyme-honteux wrote: post #35

Freedom of speech exists in dozen of countries but "Free Speech (TM)" is a very US specific thing that seemingly generate an infinite amount of non-sense. People get lost in abstraction and start to think that giving a megaphone to fascists like Twitter did even before Musk is somehow good because the best way to defeat fascism, when you live on planet Mars, is on the "marketplace of ideas". On planet Earth this is n…

Political speech, especially unpopular political speech, is among the speech that I think is most deserving of free speech protections. I specifically want the political speech of the people most ideologically opposed to my point of view to be able to make their speech, free from government intrusion on it. I will almost surely not like it, but I will defend vigorously their right to say it.

What if my political speech is inherently violent? Would I be allowed to support a political group or ideology that directly called for ethnic cleansing?

Re: The distinction between free speech as a legal right and cultural value

#80

Post by mech765 »

deathanatos wrote: post #4

And what of freedom of association as a right and cultural value?

I think that the most virtuous third party platform is the one that allows it's users to associate with each other with the least intervention probably with some limit such as the explicit threat of violence being moderated away. Seeing where the dice land on each social media website, I'm almost always disappointed that the websites are too heavy-handed. I suppose that "4-chan-style chaos as a business strategy" is less profitable than what they currently practice though.
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