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My Free Speech Means You Have to Shut Up

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Re: My Free Speech Means You Have to Shut Up

#11

Post by diob »

bad_username wrote: post #9
Pat_Murph wrote: post #7

" In my view, too many critics of “cancel culture” are recklessly promoting not the speech of the powerless, but the censorious resentment of the powerful." Yep, to often when i see these anti woke, cultur war, anti cancel culture critics. What they are actually doing is attacking people's free speech and defending the authoritarians that are actually trying to limit speech and other rights. They convinced themselves…

Let me divert from Musk specifically for a moment. The "anti woke cancel culture critics" are in fact concerned with the inorganic, overwhelming influence that a specific family of ideologies has today over the means of modern communication. Observe the similarity with the left themselves, who are concerned with the inorganic, overwhelming influence that a specific class of wealthy people have today over the means of…

Can you give some concrete examples of inorganic, overwhelming influence?

And then perhaps contrast it with some concrete organic, overwhelming influence examples. But that's a bonus.

Re: My Free Speech Means You Have to Shut Up

#13

Post by mcpackieh »

SenAnder wrote: post #10
jmye wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The “ideal” of free speech would uphold everyone being able to speak in whatever manner they choose. If you’re an economic loser as a result, that is not a failure of free speech, that is a failure of society to protect you from free speech. You’ve inadvertently stumbled on the exact reason that “free speech absolutism” is absolutely asinine nonsense (Musk’s incoherent/idiotic implementation aside), and why some spee…

> If you’re an economic loser as a result, that is not a failure of free speech This neatly avoids the question of whether we should want advertisers and multi-billion dollar corporations to be gatekeepers of the public sphere. As usual, laissez-faire when things are going my way, anti-discrimination and disparate impact laws when they're not.

Our "public spheres" are in fact not public, but rather are private property. Advertisers having control over them is a consequence of this.

If you actually go into town IRL and talk in the public square, no advertiser will be able to silence you because the public square is actually public. Or if you use an actually public means of communication like the postal service, again you won't be cut out because some corporate advertisers consider your speech bad for business. This phenomenon of corporate advertisers being gatekeepers of the "public sphere" only exists in actually-not-public spaces.

Re: My Free Speech Means You Have to Shut Up

#14

Post by atoav »

vacuity wrote: post #6
atoav wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jup. If everybody is allowed to say whatever they want, the side with the sticks will use it to threaten those with slightly less sticks into silence. Which ironically means that collectively speech will be more free if you prohibit certain types of it for all. A free society doesn't strictly have to tolerate anti-free-society positions like those of ISIS terrorists or neo-nazis — some (including Karl Popper) would s…

Frankly, if the society is so fragmented that the court of public opinion doesn't get genuine neo-Nazis laughed out of town, I don't think the primary issue is whether Xitter (I like that term LOL) or other platforms strictly uphold free speech. I think we'd better fix the people first, either the neo-Nazis or everyone else, so that they don't have a foothold on the Internet or in ways that matter.

The problem with the current state of society is that we don't know whether this is normal or not. We never had a society, ever, that had something like the internet.

So I think it is very likely that applying all the old ideas to a new world will not get us far. But yeah, in the end having people that care enough to do something is always a precondition for keeping a society free.

Re: My Free Speech Means You Have to Shut Up

#15

Post by kstrauser »

bad_username wrote: post #9
Pat_Murph wrote: post #7

" In my view, too many critics of “cancel culture” are recklessly promoting not the speech of the powerless, but the censorious resentment of the powerful." Yep, to often when i see these anti woke, cultur war, anti cancel culture critics. What they are actually doing is attacking people's free speech and defending the authoritarians that are actually trying to limit speech and other rights. They convinced themselves…

Let me divert from Musk specifically for a moment. The "anti woke cancel culture critics" are in fact concerned with the inorganic, overwhelming influence that a specific family of ideologies has today over the means of modern communication. Observe the similarity with the left themselves, who are concerned with the inorganic, overwhelming influence that a specific class of wealthy people have today over the means of…

You mean when the advertising companies pulled their money from Twitter after its owner said Jews "pushing [...] hatred against whites" was "the actual truth"? Darn those woke hippies at... let's see... IBM!

Or maybe, just maybe, the simpler explanation is that they don't want their ads running alongside that trash.

Re: My Free Speech Means You Have to Shut Up

#16

Post by foolswisdom »

kstrauser wrote: post #15
bad_username wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me divert from Musk specifically for a moment. The "anti woke cancel culture critics" are in fact concerned with the inorganic, overwhelming influence that a specific family of ideologies has today over the means of modern communication. Observe the similarity with the left themselves, who are concerned with the inorganic, overwhelming influence that a specific class of wealthy people have today over the means of…

You mean when the advertising companies pulled their money from Twitter after its owner said Jews "pushing [...] hatred against whites" was "the actual truth"? Darn those woke hippies at... let's see... IBM! Or maybe, just maybe, the simpler explanation is that they don't want their ads running alongside that trash.

That's not exactly what happened though https://x.com/billackman/status/1725898682438979972?s=46&t=K...

Re: My Free Speech Means You Have to Shut Up

#17

Post by lmm »

jmye wrote: post #8
SenAnder wrote: post #4

Musk's incoherent stance aside, the author is afaik a lawyer, and has a habit of conflating the ideal of free speech, with the 1st amendment. Placing advertisers and billion-dollar corporations as arbiters of what may enter the public sphere is counter to the spirit of free speech, even if it complies with the 1st amendment. There may be no simple legal means to prevent it (to get ahead of the usual "oh so you want g…

The “ideal” of free speech would uphold everyone being able to speak in whatever manner they choose. If you’re an economic loser as a result, that is not a failure of free speech, that is a failure of society to protect you from free speech. You’ve inadvertently stumbled on the exact reason that “free speech absolutism” is absolutely asinine nonsense (Musk’s incoherent/idiotic implementation aside), and why some spee…

> The “ideal” of free speech would uphold everyone being able to speak in whatever manner they choose. If you’re an economic loser as a result, that is not a failure of free speech, that is a failure of society to protect you from free speech.

Not even the most repressive societies physically prevent people from speaking - they just impose distinctly unpleasant consequences on those who speak in undesirable things. The fact that we impose negative consequences for undesirable speech via different mechanisms than the direct actions of government agents does not make what we're doing fundamentally different. In some ways it's worse - a Thai accused of slandering the King at least gets their day in court and can make their case for exhoneration and/or plead for forgiveness, while someone who is passed around on a list of "terrible human beings" gets no such chance.

"Economic loser" is excessively trivialising very real harm - potentially life threatening in a country that lacks public healthcare and similar basic social protections.

Re: My Free Speech Means You Have to Shut Up

#18

Post by SenAnder »

mcpackieh wrote: post #13
SenAnder wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you’re an economic loser as a result, that is not a failure of free speech This neatly avoids the question of whether we should want advertisers and multi-billion dollar corporations to be gatekeepers of the public sphere. As usual, laissez-faire when things are going my way, anti-discrimination and disparate impact laws when they're not.

Our "public spheres" are in fact not public, but rather are private property. Advertisers having control over them is a consequence of this. If you actually go into town IRL and talk in the public square, no advertiser will be able to silence you because the public square is actually public. Or if you use an actually public means of communication like the postal service, again you won't be cut out because some corpor…

Public sphere as in the places and platforms hosting most public conversations these days. I am aware they are privately owned.

Re: My Free Speech Means You Have to Shut Up

#19

Post by kstrauser »

foolswisdom wrote: post #16
kstrauser wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean when the advertising companies pulled their money from Twitter after its owner said Jews "pushing [...] hatred against whites" was "the actual truth"? Darn those woke hippies at... let's see... IBM! Or maybe, just maybe, the simpler explanation is that they don't want their ads running alongside that trash.

That's not exactly what happened though https://x.com/billackman/status/1725898682438979972?s=46&t=K...

[flagged]

Re: My Free Speech Means You Have to Shut Up

#20

Post by ytoawwhra92 »

mcpackieh wrote: post #13
SenAnder wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you’re an economic loser as a result, that is not a failure of free speech This neatly avoids the question of whether we should want advertisers and multi-billion dollar corporations to be gatekeepers of the public sphere. As usual, laissez-faire when things are going my way, anti-discrimination and disparate impact laws when they're not.

Our "public spheres" are in fact not public, but rather are private property. Advertisers having control over them is a consequence of this. If you actually go into town IRL and talk in the public square, no advertiser will be able to silence you because the public square is actually public. Or if you use an actually public means of communication like the postal service, again you won't be cut out because some corpor…

> This phenomenon of corporate advertisers being gatekeepers of the "public sphere" only exists in actually-not-public spaces.

I disagree with this.

A very common example is a person saying a thing outside of work, that thing being brought to the attention of their employer, and their employer firing them.

People know this happens, and it creates a chilling effect on what they say regardless of whether they're in a public or actually-not-public space.

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