Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

thefire.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

361–370 of 428 posts

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

#361

Post by machina_ex_deus »

freejazz wrote: post #343
machina_ex_deus wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Irrelevant speech is noise. Freedom of speech is freedom to speak to those who might want to hear, not to push ads and spam and porn on those who don't want it. There's no freedom of speech in a night club. If there's noise you can't speak. It doesn't stop with porn, if you're on a social platform to connect with friends and all you see is political things you don't care about, that's noise too. If a social media pla…

"Irrelevant speech is noise" And who judges the relevancy?

The listener obviously. You can't force anyone to listen anyway. And anyone else deciding means denying people things they wanted to hear.

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

#362

Post by jchw »

UncleMeat wrote: post #291
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…

Is a whole bunch of people calling somebody a "fa***t" in DMs discourse? Lots of people have told me that this isn't illegal so Twitter should do nothing.

This is a good example of a question posed in bad faith. I shouldn't have to reply, but unfortunately in this situation if I don't address it, it looks like I'm simply unable to, which is not the case.

I have a stunning revelation to make:

I am not in favor of allowing all legal things on the principle that because they're legal, they should be allowed. In fact, given that the thing you're replying to is arguing in favor of moderating SPAM, I figured it would be apparent. Apparently, it is not.

Furthermore... Like SPAM, harassing someone in the DMs by simply calling them homophobic or racial slurs is not "free expression." It's harassment. Harassment, libel, etc. are not things that everyone (hopefully not most) who believe in free expression as a principle are trying to defend.

I'm mostly not going to address the "lots of people have told me" and disregard it, since it's probably made up for the bait. But if not, I mean... Good for all of those lunatics, I guess. I'm not associated with them, and I don't like Twitter or any social media platform to begin with.

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

#363

Post by gus_massa »

ceejayoz wrote: post #318
gus_massa wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about spam from political parties? I don't have a link now, but IIRC in last USA election the spam filter of gmail blocks the fundraising or "informational" email form the mayor political parties, and it generated a big controversy.

That "controversy" was not in good faith. https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2022/11/repub... > “My parents, who have a Gmail account, aren’t getting my campaign emails,” Representative Greg Steube of Florida told Google CEO Sundar Pichai in July 2020, during a congressional hearing that was ostensibly about antitrust law. “My question is, why is this only happening to Republicans?” My Gmail spam folder i…

In case it's not clear, I think they should go to the spam as any other spam of whatever party or topic.

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

#364

Post by jmull »

rayiner wrote: post #355
jmull wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Should media companies be required to provide a platform for government leaders to broadcast their messages? To me this is basic 1st amendment stuff. We've gone pretty far down the road to authoritarianism when people think we need to protect the leader of the government's ability to force media companies to carry his messages.

It’s authoritarian when leaders force media companies to carry their messages because it puts the imprimatur of the New York Times or CNN on government propaganda. But Twitter isn’t a “media company” it’s a platform for user generated content. It doesn’t purport to have its own viewpoint, or its own editorial stance. Nobody at Twitter purports to stand behind the content posted by users in the site. In that respect T…

> It doesn’t purport to have its own viewpoint, or its own editorial stance.

The central issue here is whether government officials can override the moderation policies of these companies.

The idea that twitter and other social media companies are just neutral platforms doesn't make any sense. Moderation and promotion of messages based on the content of the message has always been central to their business.

Also, the idea that you can just call a company "a platform" and then the government can just start directing the content of its media operations is rather alarming.

> Insofar as many folks on the left believe that corporations don’t have free speech rights period

To the extent the first amendment has anything to do with free speech anymore, they do. "The press" would have to be understood as an organization, not individual people. I don't know much about your far left people, though.

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

#365

Post by jchw »

varnaud wrote: post #275
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…

Some people like to post a word or a short sentence or some kind of artwork many, many times, everywhere they can. They enjoy knowing their message is seen by many. For them, it's not pointless. At what point does it become spam and we restrict what these people view as free speech?

I hate that I am answering this, as if it's really a question posed in good faith. But again, the problem isn't the expression. The word or artwork isn't the problem. The problem is the disruptive behavior pattern.

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

#366

Post by dale_glass »

dcow wrote: post #346
dale_glass wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No need for weird conspiracies. An actual ad executive explained to Musk what problems he had. Musk proceeded to get pissy and block him, which I'm sure the rest of them didn't find very reassuring. So far what I've been hearing is that the ad industry considered Twitter to be a bad place to advertise to start with. Then Musk came in. First thing he does is to shout that there's too many bots on the platform, which I…

You seem to be the one embroiled in conspiracies. Removing bots from the platform will make it more valuable and effective for advertisers in the long run. Firing deadweight will make it more lucrative in the long run. There’s a saying: “when you remove your hand from the bucket of water, the void will fill”.

No, I'm saying that one of the first things Musk did was saying "This has a lot more bots than I thought at first". He wanted to bail out over that. Advertisers of course saw that, and that didn't make Twitter any more attractive to them.

Yes, firing deadweight might help. Doing it immediately, before figuring out who's dead weight and who is not, that was the stupid part.

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

#367

Post by jchw »

freejazz wrote: post #351
jchw wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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…

"such as just being rude and flippant on purpose" How is that not trolling?

Trolling almost always involves fishing for a reaction by acting dishonestly or misleading. When you are simply rude and flippant on purpose, that's just being an asshole. If someone is rude to me, I don't say "ah, I just got trolled."

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

#368

Post by seanw444 »

valeness wrote: post #358
seanw444 wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tucker disagrees with the extent of some liberal ideas. That does not make him responsible for others taking his beliefs, magnifying them, and committing atrocities. If bluntly disagreeing with progressivism makes you blame-worthy for mass-murderers, well then we should throw all conservative media hosts in indefinite prison. Or execute them.

Uhhh, he magnifies his own beliefs without the help of others. "The extent of some liberal ideas" is a really soft way of putting "open racist and transphobe" He literally did a segment on the "Great Replacement Theory". He's a white supremacist. He can get absolutely, thoroughly, and without lube, fucked.

Sometimes I wonder if people like you and I even experience the same reality.

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

#369

Post by rhaksw »

judge2020 wrote: post #357
rhaksw wrote: post #223

Earlier 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,…

> The catch here is that people are not aware that their content is frequently shadow moderated Is that really the catch? Reddit didn't get to where they are today by saying "we totally allow free speech". Since its inception, it's been a trope that Reddit actively moderates away actively harmful content, and even constructive-but-contrarian content to the point where every small subreddit community is a circlejerk/e…

> Is that really the catch?

Yes, users don't know about this. That is clear from the above quotes.

> Reddit didn't get to where they are today by saying "we totally allow free speech".

I don't know whether shadow moderation was necessary for Reddit to grow. They certainly don't inform users about it. That's manifested by the secrecy inherent in the feature itself.

> I think people understand that, especially when they're using an iPhone[0,1], everything they see is going to be filtered

People expect that authors are informed when their content is removed. That isn't happening with any consistency on any of the platforms, and it's built into the system. It is not a choice made by mods.

> they'll know if they're on a "true free speech" platform as soon as the platform shows then pro-nazi images

That's just the result of sidelining today's unpopular extreme. At both 60 and 120 years ago, information about gay marriage or contraception was considered to be immoral by those in power. It depends who's in charge. The environment will flip at some point, so don't give up your free speech principles. The shoe will eventually be on the other foot.

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

#370

Post by freejazz »

jchw wrote: post #367
freejazz wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"such as just being rude and flippant on purpose" How is that not trolling?

Trolling almost always involves fishing for a reaction by acting dishonestly or misleading. When you are simply rude and flippant on purpose, that's just being an asshole. If someone is rude to me, I don't say "ah, I just got trolled."

You don't think that being purposefully rude is to solicit a reaction? I guess we'll have to disagree about that.
Post reply on HN