Earlier quoted context omitted.
Twitter recently shut down several child exploitation hash tags that had been ignored until Musk took over.
Such as?
You can easily find them on google if you're actually interested.
The distinction between free speech as a legal right and cultural value
221–230 of 428 posts
Re: The distinction between free speech as a legal right and cultural value
#222"I cannot contemplate human affairs, without laughing or crying. I choose to laugh. When People talk of the Freedom of Writing Speaking or thinking, I cannot choose but laugh. No such thing ever existed. No such thing now exists: but I hope it will exist, But it must be hundreds of years after you and I Shall write and Speak no more." -John Adams, letter to Thomas Jefferson, 1817 https://founders.archives.gov/documen…
This is particularly ironic since Adams famously was responsible for the Alien and Sedition Acts and had people imprisoned for criticizing him.
Exactly why such values need to be enforced in a decentralized manner. Separation of powers goes a long way in this.
Re: The distinction between free speech as a legal right and cultural value
#223Earlier quoted context omitted.
Greg Lukianoff also suggested drawing the content moderation line at legal speech [1]. > Why does this matter? Because free speech, free expression in general, is a means to express values and beliefs. Saying this does not convince people who are concerned about hate speech. Such individuals imagine that the government or the platform will, or can be coerced, to simply remove whatever they do not like. These folks, w…
And yet people only have so much time, and so much of it continues to be dominated by work and transportation to/from work (if you’re not lucky enough to have the option of remote work). When you’ve been busy and focused for the better part of 10 hours, bettering oneself for immaterial gains is going to be unappealing when you could doom scroll TikTok, watch the latest hit TV series, or even better yourself in areas…
> That’s why people opt for moderated communities, actually learning to handle content and ignore repugnant or vile content takes diligence and building that up is time-consuming, so they’ll happily pay money (via ads or directly) to offload filtering out that content.
The catch here is that people are not aware that their content is frequently shadow moderated. Even if you do try to engage with vitriolic commentary, your comment may be removed without your knowledge, and the forum will still show you your comment as if it's not removed. It works like this on Reddit for all comments [1], but again as I said, all forums now engage in shadow moderation. And at the end of the day it is also an us problem, not just a them problem, because we're often the ones reporting the content that gets taken down. When people are made aware that this is happening, they do call for change, for example [2],
> ...what is the supposed rationale for making you think a removed post is still live and visible?
> ...So the mods delete comments, but have them still visible to the writer. How sinister.
> ...what’s stunning is you get no notification and to you the comment still looks up. Which means mods can set whatever narrative they want without answering to anyone.
Here's another way to think about whether or not to use shadow moderation. If you think it's a good idea to use it, then you think it's an effective tool for changing minds. Your ideological opponent, whose comments you want to secretly hide (lest they give you more trouble), is, by your definition, immoral. The extreme left and right both think this of each other. And since they are immoral, they will make more immoral use of this tool than you do, thereby effecting more influence than you, which is precisely the opposite of what you set out to achieve. Therefore the only winning move is not to play [3]. You cannot support the use of a tool in the world without your opponent eventually getting their hands on it. So it's really a game of: who can make the first truly free speech forum that encourages rather than secretly shuts down debate?
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/CantSayAnything/comments/ynfu22/wri...
Re: The distinction between free speech as a legal right and cultural value
#224Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why do you think that is “fair to assume?” To me, it sounds like wild conjecture.
Musk has stated that Twitter interfered with elections. I'm not sure what evidence he's provided for that, but he did say it.
he has said a lot of things that are wildly inaccurate.
Re: The distinction between free speech as a legal right and cultural value
#225Earlier quoted context omitted.
And yet people only have so much time, and so much of it continues to be dominated by work and transportation to/from work (if you’re not lucky enough to have the option of remote work). When you’ve been busy and focused for the better part of 10 hours, bettering oneself for immaterial gains is going to be unappealing when you could doom scroll TikTok, watch the latest hit TV series, or even better yourself in areas…
> That’s why people opt for moderated communities, actually learning to handle content and ignore repugnant or vile content takes diligence and building that up is time-consuming, so they’ll happily pay money (via ads or directly) to offload filtering out that content. The catch here is that people are not aware that their content is frequently shadow moderated. Even if you do try to engage with vitriolic commentary,…
Yes, yes, but extremists don't want to co-exist on a level playing field overseen by Uncle Sam, or any other Uncle. They want be the Uncle and wipe out serious dissent. To them, the tool is not the problem. The other side having the tool is the problem.
Re: The distinction between free speech as a legal right and cultural value
#226Earlier quoted context omitted.
Exactly! I should be able to join or leave groups discussing any sort of topic or view point I like on social media platforms without having my options limited or my views censored. If I don't want to associate with someone I can unfollow them, unsubscribe from their subreddit, block them etc. What matters is that it's my choice to do that. We shouldn't have that choice made for us by the people running online platfo…
If I make an online space (subreddit, FB group, etc) about a specific topic (eg hiking) and some clown comes in and repeatedly posts about unrelated politics, that person should be moderated away.
The motte: wanting to ensure a niche forum remains on topic.
The bailey: getting sites removed from the Internet.
Re: The distinction between free speech as a legal right and cultural value
#227The "sides" of this argument have flipped. The pre-Musk arguments about Twitter's responsibility as a "public square" are now about how Twitter can do whatever they want as a private actor. And vice versa on the other side. I wonder if the left will be able to take advantage of Texas' social media law[1] now that leftists accounts are being banned[2]. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/09/technology/texas-social-m..…
Note that neither the left nor the right have uniform opinions.
The people advancing one arguement pre-Musk might be different to the purple advancing the argument the opposite way, even on the same political side.
But I agree that on aggregate, the same logic is now being applied to form opposite conclusions.
Re: The distinction between free speech as a legal right and cultural value
#228Earlier quoted context omitted.
> That’s why people opt for moderated communities, actually learning to handle content and ignore repugnant or vile content takes diligence and building that up is time-consuming, so they’ll happily pay money (via ads or directly) to offload filtering out that content. The catch here is that people are not aware that their content is frequently shadow moderated. Even if you do try to engage with vitriolic commentary,…
Yes, yes, but extremists don't want to co-exist on a level playing field overseen by Uncle Sam, or any other Uncle. They want be the Uncle and wipe out serious dissent. To them, the tool is not the problem. The other side having the tool is the problem.
> Yes, yes, but
The refrain "I believe in free speech, BUT" is so common that first amendment lawyers regularly joke about it [0] [1] [2].
"Free speech for me— but not for thee" is also the title of an excellent book by Nat Hentoff [3]
Personally I like how ACLU founder Roger Baldwin put it to historian Arthur Schlesigner, Jr.:
> Arthur: "What possible reason is there for giving civil liberties to people who will use those civil liberties in order to destroy the civil liberties of all the rest?"
> Roger: "That's a classic argument, you know. That's what they said about the Nazis and the Communists, that if they got into power they'd suppress all the rest of us. Therefore, we'd suppress ‘em first. We're going to use their method before they can use it.
> Well that is contrary to our experience. In a democratic society, if you let them all talk, even those who would deny civil liberties and would overthrow the government, that's the best way to prevent them from doing it." [4]
[0] https://youtu.be/0ZpsiLX9_HY?t=419
[1] https://youtu.be/J1iZffRFs8s?t=736
[2] https://youtu.be/-ByRjHwknbc?t=1210
[3] https://archive.org/details/freespeechformeb0000hent/page/n9...
Re: The distinction between free speech as a legal right and cultural value
#229If you are reading a piece about free speech and content moderation on platforms like Twitter, look to see if it meaningfully engages with the concepts of spam and porn, which are both fully legal speech, and both heavily moderated with little controversy. (This piece does not.) Why does this matter? Because free speech, free expression in general, is a means to express values and beliefs. Our values and beliefs are…
Greg Lukianoff also suggested drawing the content moderation line at legal speech [1]. > Why does this matter? Because free speech, free expression in general, is a means to express values and beliefs. Saying this does not convince people who are concerned about hate speech. Such individuals imagine that the government or the platform will, or can be coerced, to simply remove whatever they do not like. These folks, w…
Just FYI, hate speech being free speech is an American thing. Other democracies in the world have frameworks for limiting/prioritizing basic rights, right to free speech included (take, for example, German moderation laws) and have not become a totalitarian dystopias yet.
One opinion I've heard in Germany is that the free speech absolutism and value neutrality of the constitution of the Weimar Republic allowed NSDAP to take power in the first place.
Re: The distinction between free speech as a legal right and cultural value
#230I 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,…
I agree. People being able to call out and criticise the views of others is an important facet of free speech.
I see the problem as:
* disproportionate justice such as dogpiling
* trying to get people fired, by applying pressure on employers
* trying to de-platform, e.g. removing accounts and websites
If it was just replies, there wouldn't be a problem.