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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

#171

Post by thomasmiller_ »

dcow wrote: post #154
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…

I think this is very good analysis with respect to Twitter. I suppose I'm really interested in how firms do their free speech vs. profitability cost-benefit analysis with respect to markets and environments where speech is restricted. For example (and I'll admit this is a glib argument) I am curious how Musk would reconcile his free speech absolutism with Tesla being active in China. Open to hearing thoughts on that.

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

#172

Post by maxbond »

esparrohack wrote: post #168
whateveracct wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The thing is I just don't care how you feel. You haven't explained how the kid can consent to this photo shoot or why it isn't sexual abuse. I want to know if you think it's ok if the kid wears BDSM gear. Yes? No?

Why do you want to know that when you've acknowledged in a parallel thread that that wasn't what happened? It's hard for me to read this any other way than a deflection so that you can discuss a different set of events, which didn't happen, where you feel your arguments would fair better.

Given that we're already talking about a hot-button issue which is the subject of conspiracy theories, that seems dangerous.

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

#173

Post by etchalon »

I have a lot of respect for FIRE. Hell, I designed and built their website over a decade ago, when the organization was primarily focused on speech codes on college campuses. They were doing great and important work then, and continue to do now.

It's also nice to see them attempting to separate "free speech" into two buckets of meaning, the legal and the cultural. It's a point that gets muddled.

However, the article, like a lot of "free speech culture" defenses I see, fails to explain why "free speech culture" has to, essentially, be "one way". The freedom of someone to say something, but without the freedom for someone to speak against it. If the consequence of saying something is a lot of people mocking you for it, that can be, and often is, just as chilling as any specific action.

It also fails to discuss, at all, how actions and speech are somehow distinct things. If you're saying something I disagree with, am I morally obligated, within "free speech culture" to sit there and hear you say it? Am I morally obligated, within "free speech culture", to support businesses which publicly say things I disagree with, or things which specifically target me, or my family? If not, isn't then the monetary consequence of "free speech" potentially chilling?

And if people should/must be free to speak against speech they disagree with, and if people should/must be free to deny business to businesses they disagree with, then isn't the "free speech culture" defense just a disagreement over whether someone, or some group, is right in the speech they use, and actions they take? The argument isn't about broader principles.

Elon Musk took over Twitter and disagreed with speech, and actions, the previous owners took. He reversed course. He's "free" to do so. He also took issue with speech and actions the previous owners didn't take, and banned accounts whose speech he disagreed with. He's free to do so.

Individuals are free to speak against that. Individuals are free to take their business elsewhere because of that.

That is, as far as I can tell, what a "free speech culture" should/must mean.

Finally, I took note that their most compelling "you have to be for 'free speech culture'" cautionary tale in the article was explicitly not about private individuals, or companies, but a government's (CCP) ability to pressure private companies – something which is explicitly rebutted by "free speech law" as bounded by the author.

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

#174

Post by xigoi »

unethical_ban wrote: post #132
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…

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…

> 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.

Not a conservative, but I support free speech and I'd definitely like such an instance. What point are you trying to make?

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

#175

Post by rhaksw »

Indeed, Twitter has a legal right to moderate how it pleases.

The question we should be asking is HOW content is being moderated. Shadow moderation, when a forum tricks authors into thinking their removed or demoted content is publicly visible, is an abridgement of free speech culture we should be addressing. I recently gave a talk on this [1] which led to some discussion on HN [2]. The wider public is generally unaware of the degree to which this happens— to all of us.

I'm pretty sure Twitter already shadow moderates content. My reply here [3] only shows up when directly linked, not under the parent tweet [4], and it wasn't hidden by FIRE.

This is openly admitted when platforms say "Free speech but not free reach" as in the case with Musk and Twitter, or when they talk about raising or reducing content as in the case of YouTube [5].

[1] https://cantsayanything.win/2022-10-transparent-moderation/

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33475391

[3] https://twitter.com/rhaksw/status/1594103021407195136

[4] https://twitter.com/TheFIREorg/status/1594078057895063553

[5] https://blog.youtube/inside-youtube/the-four-rs-of-responsib...

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

#176

Post by whatshisface »

someNameIG wrote: post #79
sokoloff wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Political speech, especially unpopular political speech, is among the speech that I think is most deserving of free speech protections. I specifically want the political speech of the people most ideologically opposed to my point of view to be able to make their speech, free from government intrusion on it. I will almost surely not like it, but I will defend vigorously their right to say it.

What if my political speech is inherently violent? Would I be allowed to support a political group or ideology that directly called for ethnic cleansing?

You can't be stopped from supporting them, only telling me that you support them. That's basically the problem.

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

#177

Post by Animats »

onetimeusename wrote: post #123
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.

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 peop…

That's because you can spam anonymously. If email senders had to be securely identified, as in China, spam would not be a problem. Spam, and a ton of CAN-SPAM lawsuits land on you.

Most of the problems that seem to justify prior restraint come from poor source identification. If it's illegal, deal with it through the legal system, after the fact.

Facebook may have had the right idea with their "real names" policy, if they'd stuck to it and required strong authentication.

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

#178

Post by majormajor »

xigoi wrote: post #169
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.

Free speech is about allowing any idea to be expressed. Spam is not an idea, but a way of expressing something, so it's not inherently against free speech to restrict it.

Yet many will complain that what they call "hurt feelings" are irrelevant regarding whether or not their statements were OK and should be welcome. What separates a "way of expressing" from a true "idea"? "Abuse" is not an idea, but a way of expressing something? "You suck" is something of an "idea," but "I hope you die" or "watch out for your kids" if it's not a literally true threat? Not so much... And if it IS a true threat? For that matter... "mockery" is not an idea... "hateful" is not an idea... "insulting" is not an idea? Seems like you can take that definitional dodge to lengths to allow just about any sort of moderation.

(Any given post of spam, basically just unsolicited peer-to-peer advertising, seems evidently an idea, IMO - it's very much something you are supposed to believe and act on. If it's a volume/repetition/thoughtlessness thing, how's that different from a wave of trolling posts?)

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

#179

Post by lelanthran »

dgreensp wrote: post #95

> 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…

> Social norms are changing; that's not fascism.

Maybe they are, but what I've often observed is that a vocal minority of believers are shouting down any and all non-believers.

You're looking at a small mob and thinking that they're representative of all of society.

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

#180

Post by jchw »

kelseyfrog wrote: post #158
jchw wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

"online speech used to deliberately upset others" does not actually distinguish trolling versus other malicious behaviors, such as just being rude and flippant on purpose, so it is not very precise. It also doesn't really describe the actual kinds of behaviors that trolls engage in, but rather constitutes a class of behaviors that are not necessarily obviously connected, so it's vague. There's a lot of different ways that people troll, and different kinds of trolling, and I don't feel like that definition really summarizes it. For example, the term "concern trolling" is generally included in the umbrella, but it's actually more subtle than just being used to upset others; it's subversive, but the goal isn't necessarily just to upset others.

Truthfully, the two observations are related: The word "trolling" being kind of vague is probably the main reason why people do not agree on what actually constitutes it.

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