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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

#121

Post by [deleted] »

whateveracct wrote: post #82
GauntletWizard wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[deleted]

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

#122

Post by esparrohack »

RustLove wrote: post #119
esparrohack wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's really creepy that you don't see anything wrong with a child in BDSM gear. And alcohol. That's actually sadism. I dunno, maybe you just don't get it. Do you know what sadism is? On the other hand, I've yet to hear a convincing argument as to why it shouldn't bother me other than "oh just get over it it's not that bad", which isn't working with me, since I have no petty bourgeois sensibilities, and I know…

I thought the ad was creepy and weird, but you're lying here. There was no " child in BDSM gear" in the photo. Why lie to make a point? That's creepy and weird, too

I made a mistake but everyone knows what picture I'm talking about. It's not a lie.

So it was a child carrying a doll that had BDSM gear. But that's funny cus if the girl was the one in BDSM gear, that would make it wrong? Is that the line?

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

#123

Post by onetimeusename »

drewrv wrote: post #108
autoexec wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All online platforms need to have moderators to prevent things like spam and illegal content. That doesn't mean that they can't also uphold the idea of free speech principles though. Musk really went crazy with cutting staff, but I'm not sure if it was because he wrongly thought he needed to cut the moderation teams in order to support free speech or if he just did it because moderation is expensive.

Why is spam always glossed over in these "principled defenses" of free speech? It's legal speech.

it is or can be. It's a weird case though because you could theoretically drown out everyone else's speech with it. Like imagine if there were no spam inboxes or spam restrictions on SMTP or email inboxes and for every one good email you got, there were 10K spam emails about enlargement pills. It would make email much less useful and maybe unusable.

I have thought about this before and I get kind of annoyed when people assume spam is a given exception to free speech. Free speech by itself doesn't imply a limit. So I think you have to carefully design around this issue or just let it happen and maybe it dies off on its own since too much spam chases everyone away and then what's the point of spamming?

edit: drowning out other people's speech may be allowed by total free speech but it's also contrary to the intention I think. I think free speech means that any speech someone wishes to make, they may do so without restriction or censorship by the medium. This isn't a completely satisfying definition though.

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

#124

Post by jchw »

drewrv wrote: post #108
autoexec wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All online platforms need to have moderators to prevent things like spam and illegal content. That doesn't mean that they can't also uphold the idea of free speech principles though. Musk really went crazy with cutting staff, but I'm not sure if it was because he wrongly thought he needed to cut the moderation teams in order to support free speech or if he just did it because moderation is expensive.

Why is spam always glossed over in these "principled defenses" of free speech? It's legal speech.

Because it's not very interesting because nobody has a good faith reason to argue in favor allowing SPAM. I assume it's being used to demonstrate the arbitrary nature of what speech people would want to allow, but it's a bit pointless. SPAM falls in the category of things that arguably are simply abuse of the system, using it in an unintended way. SPAM is not discourse, or an ideology, or a belief. SPAM is a pattern of behaviors. The general idea is simple: in principle, expressions that are legal should not be disallowed on moral grounds, but disruptive patterns of behavior absolutely should be.

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

#125

Post by gnicholas »

andsoitis wrote: post #105
gnicholas wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is perhaps true for social media in general, but less so for twitter. For example, twitter doesn't "publish you 1 billion times on the internet" unless you have a million followers. It's less convincing to say "because we don't want to transmit your message to the 1 billion people who actively chose to follow you". How does this argument fare when it comes to email? Should I expect gmail to inspect my messages a…

> twitter doesn't "publish you Worth noting that Twitter just announced that users will see more tweets from people they don’t follow: https://techcrunch.com/2022/11/30/twitter-recommended-tweets...

Good to know. Hopefully it won't affect the reverse chron feed!

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

#126

Post by staticman2 »

catiopatio wrote: post #93
jmyeet wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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://…

Seems to me you managed to post this on a highly moderated web site.

If this web sites allowed flame wars would we all be better informed on this topic?

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

#127

Post by autoexec »

drewrv wrote: post #108
autoexec wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All online platforms need to have moderators to prevent things like spam and illegal content. That doesn't mean that they can't also uphold the idea of free speech principles though. Musk really went crazy with cutting staff, but I'm not sure if it was because he wrongly thought he needed to cut the moderation teams in order to support free speech or if he just did it because moderation is expensive.

Why is spam always glossed over in these "principled defenses" of free speech? It's legal speech.

I love me some free speech, but I don't think I've ever met a true free speech absolutist.

Most of are just fine with limiting speech when it's for the public good. We don't want companies to be able to lie about their products, so we support laws against false advertising. We're okay with people getting arrested for making bomb threats. We even approve of compelling speech when it means forcing companies by law to label the ingredients of their products!

Left unchecked spam makes the services we love unusable. It can prevent us from having those same discussions we flock to social media platforms to try to engage in.

Social media platforms should provide a constructive environment where ideas can be freely discussed and that means moderation is necessary for things like keeping out spam, keeping discussions on topic, and even filtering out trolls.

Content moderation is essential to a healthy forum, but obviously care has be taken to maintain a balance between restricting and allowing content guided by what would best facilitate the constructive discussion of ideas, and not based on personal feelings about the ideas themselves. It's not an easy task, and it's thankless work, but if it wasn't for moderation none of us would be here talking about how spam should or shouldn't be allowed to ruin everything.

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

#128

Post by upsidesinclude »

drewrv wrote: post #108
autoexec wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All online platforms need to have moderators to prevent things like spam and illegal content. That doesn't mean that they can't also uphold the idea of free speech principles though. Musk really went crazy with cutting staff, but I'm not sure if it was because he wrongly thought he needed to cut the moderation teams in order to support free speech or if he just did it because moderation is expensive.

Why is spam always glossed over in these "principled defenses" of free speech? It's legal speech.

Imagine for a moment that the volume of spam is compared to the volume of oration. Unlimited volume is not permitted in free speech. That is a disruption to public life.

There is no reason to assume that this theory would fail to be legitimized in courts. Spam is not legal in other arenas, i.e. phone calls & texts.

The fact that the operators of spam bots are difficult to prosecute does not mean what they are doing has legal grounds.

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

#129

Post by upsidesinclude »

autoexec wrote: post #16
ceejayoz wrote: 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.

All online platforms need to have moderators to prevent things like spam and illegal content. That doesn't mean that they can't also uphold the idea of free speech principles though. Musk really went crazy with cutting staff, but I'm not sure if it was because he wrongly thought he needed to cut the moderation teams in order to support free speech or if he just did it because moderation is expensive.

It's fair to assume he cut moderation teams because they were intimately involved with suppression of speech at the behest of the government and political interests.

Determining those moderators which have been witting participants in the chilling of free speech is more difficult than axing a great many of them that underperformed and keeping the few with real tangible contribution.

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

#130

Post by upsidesinclude »

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”?

It does but because it has been purchased by a free speech enthusiast, it choses not to.

Twitter has been doing exactly what you pointed out for the last several years, shaping public discourse and directing political narratives

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