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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

#151

Post by jchw »

kelseyfrog wrote: post #139
jchw wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No, I didn't mean to say that. Case in point... Even that definition is vague.

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

#152

Post by SpelingBeeChamp »

autoexec wrote: post #94
bell-cot wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 th…

> Social media platforms can exist to serve the needs of the people, or they can exist to be self-serving

Why do you think these are the only two possibilities?

Why can’t a social media company exist to serve the needs of only some people? Or to serve the needs of everyone, while also serving its own needs, in a balance decided by the company’s owners?

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

#153

Post by [deleted] »

thomasmiller_ wrote: post #150
SpelingBeeChamp wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Companies don’t have a duty to maximize shareholder value. See here, for one discussion: https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/04/16/what-are-co...

From the same discussion: https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/04/16/what-are-co...

[deleted]

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

#154

Post by dcow »

thomasmiller_ wrote: post #144

I'm curious why these discussions sidestep the fact that a company has a fiduciary duty to maximize shareholder value. It is understandable, from a shareholder perspective, to not want your investment's brand next to potentially unsavory content. It seems that there is a real and unresolved tension between a culture of free speech (which I wholeheartedly endorse) and modern-day capitalism.

I've heard this argument a few times and my response is that I don't think it's that simple in the case of Twitter. Abstractly I agree that the limit of a corporation's tolerance for unsavory content approaches the politically correct mean as time goes on. But I honestly feel that Twitter was nowhere near that mean and their moderation decisions were far to the left essentially excluding over 50% of the population. I don't believe that people pulling their ads are doing so because they think it's a good strategy or because they have issue with any content currently on Twitter. I honestly believe they've done so to their own detriment as part of the culture war that seems to surround Musk. In time the value of advertising will speak and the fears that Twitter will turn into a cesspool will prove unfounded and the fiduciary duty of the people who pulled their ads from Twitter to their own company shareholders will kick back in and they will return. If Twitter was say 40% agreeable under it's previous moderation team, I believe there's room for it to grow to 80% agreeable by tolerating more diversity of thought.

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

#155

Post by SpelingBeeChamp »

woooooo wrote: post #76
pixl97 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

What obligation are you referring to? Wanting something does not make it reality.

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

#156

Post by SpelingBeeChamp »

thomasmiller_ wrote: post #150
SpelingBeeChamp wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Companies don’t have a duty to maximize shareholder value. See here, for one discussion: https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/04/16/what-are-co...

From the same discussion: https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/04/16/what-are-co...

The first link in that article (that the law in Delaware is clear about corporate purpose) is to the author’s own writing elsewhere.

Not that it makes him wrong, but citing yourself is not a great look, IMO.

I appreciate the link.

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

#157

Post by [deleted] »

whateveracct wrote: post #142
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…

The child was next to some glasses of wine. Why does that make you clutch pearls exactly? Have you seen Big Daddy? The Adam Sandler film? Is that also on this level? Feels like the same thing. Child actors in an adult piece of media with sexual and violent and otherwise adult themes.

[deleted]

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

#158

Post by kelseyfrog »

jchw wrote: post #151
kelseyfrog wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No, I didn't mean to say that. Case in point... Even that definition is vague.

Can you elaborate? It seems definitionally straight forward to me, so I'm not sure what I'm missing.

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

#159

Post by seattle_spring »

throwawaydad12 wrote: post #38
ceejayoz wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, it’s not about whether or not he wants the stuff on Twitter. If you fire all the staff who find it, handle user reports of it, and remove it, the end result is the same.

It doesn't matter how many flunkies you have on staff. What matters is whether the stuff is effectively caught and removed (and probably reported to the authorities). Time will tell on this, but currently Musk looks a lot _more_ credible on this than Twitter 1.0. They seemed to have been a lot more focused on repressing wrong-think than dealing with actual criminal behavior. And this isn't just abstract--they helped…

Do you have data that shows Musk is taking down more CP or similarly vile illegal content than "Twitter 1.0?" Or are you seeing the news that he took down a few noteworthy hashtags that had previously been ignored and using that as broader evidence?

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

#160

Post by snowwrestler »

upsidesinclude wrote: post #129
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.

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.

Being “intimately involved with suppression of speech at the behest of the government and political interests” exactly describes the job of removing child sexual assault content.
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