111–120 of 166 posts
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Who exactly is unelected?
European Commission fits here. Head of commission is approved by parliament as far I know, but commissars are not elected, just suggested by each state governments. Also, all EU laws can only be proposed by European Commission. Others can suggest them, but only they can bring them to parliament. Someone correct me if I am wrong.
Very few countries have freedom of speech enshrined quite as forcefully as it is in the United States. One really has to wonder where this is going to go? I understand why they want to do it, but once a censorship regime is established it will be very difficult to dislodge. What happens when the next set of elections puts in somebody who uses that power for less than ideal purposes?
Your concerns about the potential pitfalls of establishing a censorship regime are 100% warranted. However the paradox of tolerance, as described by Karl Popper, is quite relevant here. Popper posited that for a society to remain tolerant, it must have the right to be intolerant of intolerance. This seems contradictory, but the essence is that unchecked tolerance can eventually be exploited by the intolerant, jeopard…
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Absolutism isn't the point. We all know that there are limits - the classic example of yelling fire in a crowed theater. And as somebody below pointed out, no country has full freedom of speech and while that is true the US does have freedom of speech enshrined in its founding documents as the first amendment. For most other countries, it's not a clear "right" except by common practice and legislation that could be e…
The limits in the US are essentially action . You can say whatever you want. But when you take an illegal action (or, grey area, compel someone else to take an action) then you lose free speech protections. "Fire" in a movie theater is the classic example of the court deciding what sort of speech consitutes compelling action. This in contrast to other many other countries, where there is no guarantee that speech-that…
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The limits in the US are essentially action . You can say whatever you want. But when you take an illegal action (or, grey area, compel someone else to take an action) then you lose free speech protections. "Fire" in a movie theater is the classic example of the court deciding what sort of speech consitutes compelling action. This in contrast to other many other countries, where there is no guarantee that speech-that…
Aren’t the limits in the US you mention more accurately described as the consequences of an action rather than the action itself? For example if you suggest a person to commit suicide and they actually do it, you could be held responsible for murder/manslaughter, but if that person didn’t do anything then it’s a much less severe crime. Similarly, at what point does saying fire in a theater become illegal? Do I have t…
When yelling fire without a compelling reason, a reasonable person would anticipate everyone else's standard reaction, and that in the course of that action injury and/or death might occur.
Which is why culpability in the US depends on the speaker's intent. What if I believed I smelled smoke and yelled "Fire" because of that? But was simply wrong?
Unfortunately, intent is impossible to prove definitively, without actually peering into someone else's mind. Thus, can of worms.
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European Commission fits here. Head of commission is approved by parliament as far I know, but commissars are not elected, just suggested by each state governments. Also, all EU laws can only be proposed by European Commission. Others can suggest them, but only they can bring them to parliament. Someone correct me if I am wrong.
Isn't this the same as like a secretary in the US, appointed by an elected government official?
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European Commission fits here. Head of commission is approved by parliament as far I know, but commissars are not elected, just suggested by each state governments. Also, all EU laws can only be proposed by European Commission. Others can suggest them, but only they can bring them to parliament. Someone correct me if I am wrong.
Are the EU state governments not elected? Last I checked they were. Lots of bureaucratic and political positions are appointed by other elected representatives. We can't elect everybody, that would be too much. So is that really a problem here? I am not that up to speed on the intricacies of EU governance at this level so I really don't know if this is a real problem or not.
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I think one issue is that on the internet it's becoming impossible to know anything. You can't know that those thousands of accounts are trolls or neighbors. Does freedom of speech grant you the right to use a troll/bot army to spread misinformation? I suppose if each troll/bot were labeled I would be fine with it but they aren't, they pollute these online spaces. Whose speech is being protected?
Also there’s less accountability at the same time that the costs have never been lower. A lot of free speech assumptions are based on relative ratios and implicit social pressure to discourage abuse. There just aren’t that many people who are going to stand around screaming insults or lies in a public space, and there’s no equivalent for one guy pretending to be hundreds of people or, especially, for 10 people in a d…
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Isn't this the same as like a secretary in the US, appointed by an elected government official?
I would not call the Secretary of the Treasury, or any cabinet head, an elected position in the US.
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Also there’s less accountability at the same time that the costs have never been lower. A lot of free speech assumptions are based on relative ratios and implicit social pressure to discourage abuse. There just aren’t that many people who are going to stand around screaming insults or lies in a public space, and there’s no equivalent for one guy pretending to be hundreds of people or, especially, for 10 people in a d…
So are we banning bots or what the bots are saying? One guy can say the same thing and that is what appears to be targeted.
I don’t claim to have the answers, but was just pointing out that the world has changed and we will need different policies.
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> There is a reason spectrum is regulated Yeah because it's scarce and if overuse leads to pollution and interference. It's not because [x] group of people are too dumb and shouldn't have ideas voiced.
Attention is scarce. The Attention Economy is about allocation of scarce Attention. It's not happening right now because Americans confuse Free Speech with Free Broadcast. When everyone broadcasts what happens to Attention?