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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

#131

Post by upsidesinclude »

onetimeusename wrote: post #114
ceejayoz wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

To you and the OP's point, if I am understanding where you are going with this, Twitter previously had a right to remove people it didn't like, as they should. That seems fine. Although there is no obligation to provide any reasoning, I think it would have been better for Twitter to just say "yes, if you are ____ please don't come on here". I don't think it would have even had any consequences. It's not even weird gi…

Because the point was to shape public discourse and opinion. Explicitly stating a bias that has been coded into the system somewhat defeats the purpose

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

#132

Post by unethical_ban »

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…

I hope conservatives that use the "social media is a public square" argument will finally approach logical consistency and call for a publicly-owned, federally managed Mastodon site that upholds all the free speech they think people should have.

I think morally, social media platforms should work to stomp out nation-state disinformation campaigns, tell professional trolls to fuck off, and can spam and illegal content. But as opposed to you, I'm not convinced they should be legally required to do anything but the last item on that list.

> If someone wants to create platform as a service for others, that platform should empower the users it serves to find and engage with the content they want and block/ignore what they aren't interested in.

If someone wants to create a platform as a service for others, they can do whatever the hell they want.

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

#133

Post by ceejayoz »

jchw wrote: post #124
drewrv wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Which side of that line does neo-Nazis trolling Twitter count as?

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

#135

Post by rayiner »

mech765 wrote: post #5

Freedom of association captures the idea of freedom of speech better than freedom of speech itself, I think. 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.

It’s weird to repeatedly see the argument that a corporation’s moderation of human individual’s speech is itself a form of protected speech, from a group of people who until recently mostly thought corporate speech wasn’t even broad enough to cover a corporation’s production and distribution of its own message in a political movie.

Like I think “corporations are people too, my friend” but corporate moderation as a form of protects speech or association takes Citizens United to the next level.

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

#136

Post by katbyte »

autoexec wrote: post #127
drewrv wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 l…

For the public good? You mean “aligns with what they think is for the public good and their own views” - there is no such thing as free speech as there is always limits, and really it is just where the lines are drawn.

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

#137

Post by jchw »

ceejayoz wrote: post #133
jchw wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Which side of that line does neo-Nazis trolling Twitter count as?

Trolling is a pretty vague word, it doesn't really mean anything. So it's hard to really reply to this with any degree of seriousness, if it even was serious to begin with. That said, on properly moderated forums, trolling would usually be moderated, by a human that proactively moderates discussions. Social media can't really do that because the scale of the moderation team they'd need to do it would be literally unthinkable. It's clear that they need huge moderation teams just to upkeep the crappy standard of handing reports inconsistently that they have today. Exactly what to do with that information, I don't know.

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

#138

Post by whateveracct »

throwawaydad12 wrote: post #85
whateveracct wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I looked up Borremans because I'd never heard of him but apparently a book of his work in the photo shoot is some sort pedophilic "code"? Or something like that?

What exactly is the issue with his work? That it depicts nude (but not sexualized as far as Incould find) children? And the children aren't real models afaict either.

I like what I see of his work. Reminds of Francis Bacon. Deeply human art. There's something about that kind of figure work that speaks to the soul.

So yeah, not sure why this artist is "the bottom."

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

#139

Post by kelseyfrog »

jchw wrote: post #137
ceejayoz wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which side of that line does neo-Nazis trolling Twitter count as?

Trolling is a pretty vague word, it doesn't really mean anything. So it's hard to really reply to this with any degree of seriousness, if it even was serious to begin with. That said, on properly moderated forums, trolling would usually be moderated, by a human that proactively moderates discussions. Social media can't really do that because the scale of the moderation team they'd need to do it would be literally unt…

Trolling is online speech used to deliberately upset others. That's it. That's what it means. It has a clear definition.

You might have wanted to say that no one can agree on what speech is trolling and what speech isn't, but that's not because the word is vague. It's because people disagree on the deliberate and the upset part.

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

#140

Post by whateveracct »

whateveracct wrote: post #49
throwawaydad12 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

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…

Replying to my own comment to say that I've spent my evening reading up on the controversy, looking at the ads, reading the SCOTUS decision, studying Borremans.

I'm pretty sure this is just a more digestible, mainstream version of the Wayfair human trafficking conspiracy theory.

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