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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

#91

Post by wutbrodo »

anotherevan wrote: post #87
biophysboy wrote: post #34

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.)

The first time I read about this, I got a strong feeling of Ellisonian existential dread.

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

#92

Post by bell-cot »

autoexec wrote: post #39
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.

> 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…

> My house isn't a global social media platform...Different rules...we absolutely should expect major social media platforms to uphold...

How exactly is this different from you deciding that all the popular kids at school must be friends with you, that churches have to welcome you into their pulpits to preach, and that Random House has to publish the book you wrote?

Neither the world, nor other people, exist to meet your needs. Nor to implement your professed value system.

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

#93

Post by catiopatio »

jmyeet wrote: post #90
savingsPossible wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 importantl…

The most interesting thing about your reply is that you are, yourself, parroting misinformation.

Children are being subject to surgery, and puberty blockers are not “non-invasive and reversible”.

This is trivially verifiable and well-documented, including, most recently, in the New York Times; that you’d label objective, obvious truths as “transphobia” demonstrates exactly why we need robust, open discourse.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/14/health/puberty-blockers-t...

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

#94

Post by autoexec »

bell-cot wrote: post #92
autoexec wrote: post #39

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…

> My house isn't a global social media platform...Different rules...we absolutely should expect major social media platforms to uphold... How exactly is this different from you deciding that all the popular kids at school must be friends with you, that churches have to welcome you into their pulpits to preach, and that Random House has to publish the book you wrote? Neither the world, nor other people, exist to meet…

> How exactly is this different from you deciding that all the popular kids at school must be friends with you

If we're running with the school/friends analogy the problem we have now is that schools are preventing us from becoming friends with all the popular kids at school. Schools shouldn't control who we are able to be friends with at all. Schools should enable kids to gather together and form friendships with the kids they like, and also allow kids to avoid harassment from kids they aren't interested in without kicking those kids out of school because other kids might want to be their friends.

Social media platforms shouldn't censor what topics we're able to discuss or decide who we can talk to. They should provide a place for users go gather and discuss what they want, while providing a means to unfriend/hide/unsubscribe from things users aren't interested in (while still allowing others to see those things if they want to)

> that churches have to welcome you into their pulpits to preach

If a church puts a giant welcome sign up that invites members to come up to the pulpit to preach, and I find that idea valuable they surely have a right to turn me away for arbitrary reasons, but that probably makes them an asshole and I'd look for another church. A book publisher doesn't have to accept my manuscript, but a world where the only books that can get published are ones that support a certain ideology would be dangerous and undesirable.

Social media platforms can exist to serve the needs of the people, or they can exist to be self-serving. The more platforms that exist to serve the people by providing a space for them to discuss what they like without forcing them to see content they aren't interested in the better off we all are.

We should support social media platforms that exist to meet our needs and we should reject social media platforms that fail to. We, as a people, are best served by social media platforms that respect the ideals of free speech. Online platforms would rather dictate what we're allowed to see and hear, but while that sort of self-serving behavior is common it is also increasingly harmful as the influence of a platform grows and as it becomes increasingly difficult for less repressive alternatives to exist.

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

#95

Post by dgreensp »

> We need a free speech culture to reap the benefits of free speech law

No we don't. This essay is trying so hard to say that while de-platforming may not be government censorship, it's just as bad. But it's not. In China right now, people are protesting in the street with blank signs because they aren't allowed to say anything about anything in public, and they are still getting arrested. There's a sort of slippery slope argument given in the article that we shouldn't be headed in that direction. But Twitter's content policies, for example, are in line with the culture and laws of Western nations as a whole. My understanding is some countries have hate speech laws that the US doesn't have. There is no "slippery slope to China," just the US wanting to be a rough-and-tumble outlier. It's the same kind of slippery slope argument that says having "normal" healthcare like other Western countries would make us communist or something.

Social norms are changing; that's not fascism. That hyperbolic metaphor has gotten out of control. We have a republic "if we can keep it," as the article says; losing our democracy to an authoritarian regime permanently (or for a long term) would entail a level of real suffering that is not comparable to (and has nothing to do with) it becoming permanently socially unacceptable to use a racist slur, say, in public discourse. There are no brilliant "ideas" embedded in sheer bigotry that we are missing out on, and giving less airtime to hate speech or misinformation is nothing more or less than that.

At the very least, the article claims to elucidate a "distinction" but actually blurs several things together, such as censorship; "canceling" (which can mean a lot of things but is sometimes just a simple result of public backlash leading to a TV show being canceled, and you can't force people to like some celebrity who committed sexual assault or is racist etc etc and see them the same way as before, or treat having a talk show on TV with advertisers as some kind of fundamental human right); and what ideas are considered worth discussing at academic institutions (which have always had their idiosyncratic preferences about what ideas merit discussion and research, I'm sure).

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

#96

Post by Gigachad »

biophysboy wrote: post #34

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…

You can not be your own platform on the internet. As we have seen, they will go after your CDN, then your domain name, even your personal phone number and email address, then they will go after random ISPs getting them to drop packets to your site.

We can accept that social media platforms can engage in censorship. But net neutrality needs to be restored so ISPs can’t disrupt legal traffic.

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

#97

Post by Gigachad »

someNameIG wrote: post #83

> But many countries where Twitter operates are no friend to free speech Isn't that every country? I'm not American but to my understanding speech calling for direct violence is illegal the US, where Twitter is based.

Free speech is a spectrum. Speech can be more or less free but when used on its own it usually refers to the freeness level allowed in the US.

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

#98

Post by MrMan »

autoexec wrote: post #56
macintux wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When everyone’s shouting disinformation, fact checking often falls on deaf ears. There’s no evidence that sunlight is actually the best disinfectant; if anything, making it easier for conspiracy theorists to find each other has just expanded their echo chamber.

> There’s no evidence that sunlight is actually the best disinfectant; We've never found anything that works better. For any given idea discussing and examining the positions for and against it is still the best way to get to the truth. The more transparent that process is, the better. Conspiracy theorists don't care about facts or truth. They will act as they do regardless, but free speech ideals make it very diffic…

there were, numerically, basically no alt-right people 20 years ago. now regular assholes are being infected by this stuff and a huge percentage of the information storm coming at me every day is either angry, an outright lie, a reposting of something hateful or untrue, and "sunlight" isnt helping anything. we are creating an insane landscape of anger, loathing and unreality, and now more and more public figures are amplifying it, including the owner of a major social media site.

sunlight being disinfectant is not true. stochastic terrorism driven by media hyper engagement is definitely true.

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

#99

Post by feet »

whateveracct wrote: post #78
User23 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

That's basically what it is

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

#100

Post by someNameIG »

Gigachad wrote: post #97
someNameIG wrote: post #83

> But many countries where Twitter operates are no friend to free speech Isn't that every country? I'm not American but to my understanding speech calling for direct violence is illegal the US, where Twitter is based.

Free speech is a spectrum. Speech can be more or less free but when used on its own it usually refers to the freeness level allowed in the US.

But why should US legal allowances/restrictions be the baseline for the global cultural definition of free speech? And seeing the current discussion of this is focused on Twitter, ~75% of it's users aren't in the US.
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