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

thefire.org

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

#81
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.

> If you don't like it set up own server online to freely associate. How exactly does your server get online without utilizing the private property of some entity?

You don't.

With that said we typically treat transport (phone lines, network connectivity) different than applications, and absolve the carrier of the traffic from the content of the traffic itself. With non-transport hosting it gets more complicated quickly.

But until the time we adjust our laws (and good luck with that) it's going to be difficult to nullify property rights and freedom of association of the property owners over the users of the services.

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

#82

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…

And this gets to the heart of the problem. Twitter users think that because it was parody, the photoshoot was neither child pornography nor sexually abusive. Human beings recognize that it may have been parody but it was still child pornography and sexually abusive. It introduced, nay, immersed children in those scenes and behaviors.

But how was it abusive exactly? Child actors aren't allowed to be photographed in adult contexts anymore? I assume their parent(s) were present and involved and therefore it probably wasn't unsafe. Unless it's abuse by osmosis of their surroundings? Feels like Nathan Fielder's use of child actors was more offensive than this ad campaign and that was fine.

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

#84

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.

Going further, it feels like the ad campaign did contain some social commentary about the sex-posi, BDSM-posi, generally more adult world children have to navigate. The fact that people find it uncomfortable feels like the point.

But as a society, can art and images only be taken literally and autobiographically now? That feels like old Christian ways when Jesus could not be depicted (or at least the art history part of my brain thinks of that)

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

#85

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.

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.

You haven't reached the bottom yet. Keep going until you hit Borremans. It's not 4chan, but I'm not listening to these people on the subject of standards and practices.

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

#86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'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.

Restating your earlier opinion in more forceful terms is less than persuasive, but you're welcome to keep at it.

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

#87

Posting online consists of an individual speaking and a platform publishing it. Social media is not a passive medium like a telephone; it acts as an editor, albeit algorithmically. In my opinion, the fact that speech online has this dual nature is why there is so much debate about it. Here's a mock interaction... Individual: "You shadowbanned me. Why?" Platform: "We don't want to publish you 1 billion times on the in…

Regarding shadow banning: In just the last hour I came across the concept of "heaven banning" which tickles me. https://twitter.com/nearcyan/status/1532076277947330561

(Note: The article in the image is fake, hence the word "hypothetical" in the tweet.)

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

#88
post #21
post #6

> The popular radio program “On the Media” feared Musk’s support for free speech would lead to a free-for-all environment rife with child pornography. But that’s a strawman: child pornography is illegal. This is itself a strawman. No one thinks Musk will permit it on Twitter. The gutting of the moderation teams who tackle it is the concern. An underenforced rule is often not a very effective one.

This is the quote they're referencing: NATALIE WYNN (the mind behind Control Points, a left wing YouTube channel) I do think that looking at 8Chan is a pretty good case study in what happens when you create a "okay, let's just let people say anything." People are posting child pornography to this website on a fairly frequent basis. I think you're right. "On the media" was just talking about how having an "anything go…

For reference, it's ContraPoints.

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

#89
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So me and my buddy Tim are going to come to your house and talk about how much you suck. My house isn't a global social media platform. It's a private residence. Different rules. It's not that small private online groups shouldn't exist either, but we absolutely should expect major social media platforms to uphold free speech ideals and allow people to speak without excessive censorship. We should seek out and supp…

Please show me where these different rules are codified? It's a bullshit argument and you know it. Social media does not make sense globally. You cannot appease both the US government, conglomerate of EU governments, and the Chinese government without being in conflict of what one of them wants. 'free speech' cannot exist with current national laws in most places and would be banned at DNS level, with the more author…

> Please show me where these different rules are codified?

Well, for starters, there are laws where I live against billions of people showing up in my home even though billions of people show up on social media platforms. the rules for residential housing and social media platforms are different just as their intended uses are different.

> Social media does not make sense globally.

And yet here we are... on a global social media platform. It somehow works.

> You cannot appease both the US government, conglomerate of EU governments, and the Chinese government without being in conflict of what one of them wants.

social media platforms shouldn't concern themselves with what every government on earth wants. An online service should (generally speaking anyway, this is obviously an oversimplification) only worry about the law says in the country they're located in and it should fall on users to make sure what they post doesn't violate local laws. Some governments won't like that and may block your platform but that's a problem for that country's citizens to sort out with their repressive government.

If every person and service on the internet had to concern itself with the laws of every nation on Earth the internet itself would be impossible.

> You again want access to someone else's network and software you have absolutely zero right to. You use these services under surveillance capitalism without paying directly yourself and make demands of them. Their platform owes you less than nothing and we see this codified in the TOS's that state exactly that.

Within certain legal limitations, a platform has every right to be as restrictive as it wants. It can allow only connections from certain IP ranges. It could only allow people to sign up if they pay them. It can refuse to allow anyone to post anything but the number "8" if it wants to.

What a platform has a legal right to do, and what it ought to do are very very different things. I'm not arguing that a platform MUST under the law allow anyone to post anything they want. I'm stating that a major social media platform SHOULD allow people to discuss the topics that interest them freely and openly. It SHOULD avoid censoring people for ideological reasons.

We, as users of social media, should make demands of the platforms we use. They exist to serve us. We provide the entirety of their content, which those platforms get and publish without ever paying us directly. It is OUR content that drives the traffic and engagement they see. We should reward platforms that follow free speech ideals and enable us to discuss what we like and we should shun platforms that censor us and limit what we're able to see and do.

> Disconnect from them completely and take their power away. Run your own services and control what is said on your own network.

That's the problem with a global internet isn't it. Let's say I do decide to create my own social media platform. I still need to depend on others to host my domain and my servers. I depend on payment processors to pay for those things. I depend on every other ISP to carry traffic to/from my IP. I depend on protocols and software written by other people. You cannot have a social media platform on the internet without depending on others. At every step in the chain countless people have the power to censor things they don't like. It's better for everyone when they don't. Censorship should be heavily discouraged everywhere, but especially online.

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

#90
post #50

> The White House is free to make the argument that Twitter should police “misinformation” and “hate speech” on its platform. But it has no legal basis to say that Twitter must do so. False. Or, rather, it's false if you want Twitter to maintain its liability shield in Section 230 of the Cojmunications Decency Act [1], specifically 230(c)(2). Without this, Twitter becomes liable for any content. This is of course US-…

Is it transphobia to argue if children should have access to surgery? To argue about puberty blockers? To argue about therapies different than transition for dysphoria? Society is changing, and people want to discuss it. To be heard. Yes, that makes change harder and slower. But you absolutely do not get to choose the "right" solution and call everyone that is concerned and unconvinced "transphobic" Eg: https://www.k…

> Is it transphobia to argue if children should have access to surgery?

It is transphobia to deliberately and knowingly lie that children are getting gender confirmation surgery. Because they aren't.

> To argue about puberty blockers?

Puberty blockers are non-invasive and reversible and given as medical care for harm reduction. Why do you think what medical care someone gets is anyone else's business? More importantly though, such discourse is never in good faith.

> Pretty weird if something can be discussed in legislature, but not on twitter

It's still misinformation and hate speech when it's "discussed" in bad faith by reactionary state legislatures.

> The point is that we, as a society, need to discuss.

First ask yourself why anyone else gets a say in another person's medical care. It's really no one else's business.

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