The distinction between free speech as a legal right and cultural value • Hacker News Board

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

#401

Post by upsidesinclude » Sat, Dec 03, 2022, 2:33 AM UTC

dale_glass wrote: post #324

upsidesinclude wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does but because it has been purchased by a free speech enthusiast, it choses not to. Twitter has been doing exactly what you pointed out for the last several years, shaping public discourse and directing political narratives

Musk already made it clear that he's not an absolutist, but picks and chooses what he wants to allow. Most prominently, his public justification for keeping Alex Jones off Twitter is that it's personal for him. Which is just fine with me mind you, but doesn't constitute any kind of "free speech enthusiasm".

I'm not sure how aware people (you) are, in general, about Twitter and other big tech (fb, ggle) accommodating the government and political parties to amplify their messages and curtail the distribution of certain other messages.

I really don't know if that's something you or others might know about or consider deleterious to the operation of a free nation. You might be a proponent of those messages and opposed to the messages that previously had been systematically removed from the platform.

The problem is that allowing these things to occur will ultimately be bad for you as well..

I don't give a fuck about Alex Jones

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

#402

Post by upsidesinclude » Sat, Dec 03, 2022, 2:39 AM UTC

snowwrestler wrote: post #160

upsidesinclude wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Are you familiar with logical fallacy?

Yes, bad things are on the internet.

That is in no way the content or information I'm describing, nor does it fall into the category of legal free speech.

Bringing up illegal things to argument the suppression of legal speech is, I don't know, moronic.

You are perpetuating a tired trope and I haven't the energy to persist with this discussion

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

#403

Post by upsidesinclude » Sat, Dec 03, 2022, 2:41 AM UTC

abigail95 wrote: post #257

snowwrestler wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

A better word is partisan or authoritarian interests.

Hey, it begs the question, how many authoritarian and partisan tactics can one utilize before being considered an partisan authoritarian?

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

#404

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Dec 03, 2022, 2:43 AM UTC

SpelingBeeChamp wrote: post #145

upsidesinclude wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Why do you think that is “fair to assume?” To me, it sounds like wild conjecture.

[deleted]

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

#405

Post by upsidesinclude » Sat, Dec 03, 2022, 2:48 AM UTC

denton-scratch wrote: post #272

upsidesinclude wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine for a moment that the volume of spam is compared to the volume of oration. Unlimited volume is not permitted in free speech. That is a disruption to public life. There is no reason to assume that this theory would fail to be legitimized in courts. Spam is not legal in other arenas, i.e. phone calls & texts. The fact that the operators of spam bots are difficult to prosecute does not mean what they are doing h…

Spam restrictions aren't generally applied by the government, and therefore don't fall under the constitution. The law doesn't require anyone to listen to someone else's speech. It is not a violation of anyone's rights to discard their emails unread using an automated filter.

I can't make sense of your statement.

Can clarify what it is this means?

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

#406

Post by jchw » Sat, Dec 03, 2022, 4:17 AM UTC

freejazz wrote: post #398

jchw wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What counts as "obscene" sure feels arbitrary, but fine. Subjective. > Okay, but to ban speech on this is once again to pass judgment on its value to the contribution of the discourse or whatever avenue for communication is at issue. That's why the absolutist position is ridiculous. It isn't navigable from any perspective save for the very perspective they are already criticizing. The key point that I've been failing…

How is obscenity arbitrary? What's considered obscene is related to what's considered not acceptable in society... you are acting like people arbitrarily decided that ducks are obscene... >The key point that I've been failing to convey effectively is very simple: with SPAM, the expression itself is not the problem. If you post it 10,000 times responding to unrelated people, that is a problem. You have conveyed that b…

I am disengaging at this point. I do genuinely like discussing these things, but I don't think we're speaking the same language.

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

#407

Post by jchw » Sat, Dec 03, 2022, 4:19 AM UTC

freejazz wrote: post #397

jchw wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean in a different sense, in the sense that it is insincere. That's the problem with trolling right there. If you're sincere, it's obviously not trolling. Argueing that something is trolling because it solicits a reaction, or that because it's disruptive it counts as trolling, doesn't make sense. You can't distinguish trolling without knowing someone's motivations. Posts that could be trolling could just as easily…

It's not insincere. Perhaps you mean unkind?

I just looked and plenty of definitions of trolling seem to invoke the same idea of insincerity.

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

#408

Post by User23 » Sat, Dec 03, 2022, 5:08 AM UTC

axlee wrote: post #103

User23 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For added weirdness “ba len ci aga” is Latin for “do what you want.” See for yourself with Google translate. It could also be translated as the more familiar “do what thou wilt,” a rather infamous occult credo.

The company was founded more than a century ago by a spanish prodigy named Cristobal Balenciaga...stop with the conspirationist nonsense. Not here.

Don't get so worked up, it's just a funny[1] coincidence. Noticing funny patterns is definitely a thing hackers do my friend. It's taking them too seriously that's a problem, so don't do that!

[1] Weird, not haha.

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

#409

Post by whateveracct » Sat, Dec 03, 2022, 8:31 AM UTC

User23 wrote: post #408

axlee wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The company was founded more than a century ago by a spanish prodigy named Cristobal Balenciaga...stop with the conspirationist nonsense. Not here.

Don't get so worked up, it's just a funny[1] coincidence. Noticing funny patterns is definitely a thing hackers do my friend. It's taking them too seriously that's a problem, so don't do that! [1] Weird, not haha.

Can't help but think of that Sartre quote about arguing with people in Bad Faith.

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

#410

Post by blacklion » Sat, Dec 03, 2022, 10:31 AM UTC

michaelt wrote: post #253

blacklion wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is pornography, exactly? Ok, maybe spam can be defined more or less formally (but you will struggle to define "advertisement", I'm afraid, so, maybe spam has same problem). But "pornography" is big can of worms. Each culture and each person have its own definition, and global platforms are, errr, global. As result we can not post classical art to Facebook because these horrible woman nipples, you now. Pornograph…

The fact there are shades of grey doesn't mean black and white don't exist, though. A social media site needs a sensible response to Michelangelo's David - hopefully not censoring it - but also needs a sensible response to Goatse getting upvoted to the front page by trolls.

I see two problems in your example:

(1) Where will you draw the line? Who will you ask? Will you ask Iranian or UAE users? Will you ask USA users (and USA is very puritan country, even in 2022, IMHO)? Will you ask users from regions of Africa where bare woman chest is norm (Bonus question: will you allow selfies of these users)? Why? Why not?

(2) Why can trolls upvote something to the front page of user? Why did something, not posted or liked by user's "friends" ("subscriptions", "connections", you name it), appear on front page of logged-in user? It is social network, not news portal ;-) And if over-the-line content is liked by user's "friends", user can unsubscribe at any moment, it is their decision to add content from offender into their feed in first place.