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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

#151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you please be more vague? What “specific family of ideologies”? What “specific narrative”? If it is so specific, surely you could say what it is…

He's talking about the frankfurt school, and its use of the Critical theory (aka the ouija board of social theories that you can analyze any minor difference with as long as you want the outcome to be there's an oppressor/oppressed situation here and it requires a bloody revolution) to foment radicalism and revolutionary violence in any group it can get its hooks into. The schools influences include the greatest hits…

This doesn't make any sense. Not once have I ever heard "Massive advertising companies" say any of that. What are you talking about?

Re: My Free Speech Means You Have to Shut Up

#152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In the Treaty of Versailles, which Germany was not allowed to participate in the negotiation of, they were forced to accept all guilt for the war, give up vast tracts of land, and then pay an a unpayable amount on top, which many even at the time argued was excessively myopic. This repeats several depressingly common myths. For starters, germany was "forced to accept all guilt" (several other countries were conside…

That is not a particularly fair recounting of WW1. The entire world was at fault for that war. A Bosnian Serb, probably with state backing, assassinates the heir of Austria Hungary. Serbia then refuses Austria Hungary's terms for settlement of the affair, so Austria Hungary decides to invade Serbia. This then drives Serbia's ally Russia to intervene. But Germany had a military alliance with Austria Hungary which then…

Yes, Fascist Germany and Hitler weren't at fault -- the Jews made him do it. Amazing.

Re: My Free Speech Means You Have to Shut Up

#153

Unfortunately, it's a scale. Where do you think criticism ends and censorship begins?: 1. Tweeting that someone is wrong. 2. Tweeting that someone is bad. 5. A corporate Twitter account saying someone is bad. 4. One hundred thousand people tweeting that someone is bad. 6. A company withdrawing advertising from a businessman whose tweets they disagree with. 8. A company withdrawing twitter service from a customer whos…

They can cry out all they want. That's free speech too.

But censorship doesn't happen until 13.

The simple explanation is symmetry. Each one of these has a mirror action between the speaker and the responder to the speech. For example #12:

The speaker (and their sympathizers) can refuse to use those banks and marketplaces (i.e., a boycott).

As well, not allowing the marketplace to do that is forcing them to associate with that speaker. If I run a store, and I decide "I don't want to deal with Mr. X because I don't like how hateful he is.", why should I be forced to do business with him?

13 is the one that has no symmetry. We can not opt out of the government. That's why the line is there.

Re: My Free Speech Means You Have to Shut Up

#154
Better title: "My Free Speech Doesn't Mean My Freedom to Defame or Defraud"

I'm unfamiliar with the author, Media Matters, or frankly Elon Musk (past unavoidable tidbits from his annoyingly incessant omnipresence in media). But unless I'm missing some assumed context, the author completely ignores Musk's positions in the tweets they reference, instead attacking a Musk-shaped straw man.

Musk is alleging defamation by Media Matters, with supposed proof of their deceptive practices, and is using the appropriate (i.e. legal) channel to litigate his claim. The author chooses to heave rather petulant and irrelevant insults at Musk in lieu of addressing Musk's position.

Side note: I disagree with flagging this article. It's about a tech CEO regarding a tech platform on the tech topic of online content moderation. The article belongs on HN.

Re: My Free Speech Means You Have to Shut Up

#155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is not a particularly fair recounting of WW1. The entire world was at fault for that war. A Bosnian Serb, probably with state backing, assassinates the heir of Austria Hungary. Serbia then refuses Austria Hungary's terms for settlement of the affair, so Austria Hungary decides to invade Serbia. This then drives Serbia's ally Russia to intervene. But Germany had a military alliance with Austria Hungary which then…

Yes, Fascist Germany and Hitler weren't at fault -- the Jews made him do it. Amazing.

My friend, straw men are rarely the sign of a literate mind, but you took it to a bold new level here. WW1 was in 1914. The Nazi party did not exist, and Hitler was a 24 year old low ranking dispatch runner of no note, volunteering in the Bavarian army.

Re: My Free Speech Means You Have to Shut Up

#156

Can we not have articles on this site that amount to nothing more than political editorial? The only thing this has to do with tech news is that the individual the author is seething at happens to be a tech CEO.

The author is an experienced federal litagator and former AUSA. He writes frequently on first ammendment topics, which are of great interest and import to the USA'ian Hacker News community.

If you don't like his opinions, let's hear your arguments.

Re: My Free Speech Means You Have to Shut Up

#157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In the Treaty of Versailles, which Germany was not allowed to participate in the negotiation of, they were forced to accept all guilt for the war, give up vast tracts of land, and then pay an a unpayable amount on top, which many even at the time argued was excessively myopic. This repeats several depressingly common myths. For starters, germany was "forced to accept all guilt" (several other countries were conside…

That is not a particularly fair recounting of WW1. The entire world was at fault for that war. A Bosnian Serb, probably with state backing, assassinates the heir of Austria Hungary. Serbia then refuses Austria Hungary's terms for settlement of the affair, so Austria Hungary decides to invade Serbia. This then drives Serbia's ally Russia to intervene. But Germany had a military alliance with Austria Hungary which then…

> Serbia then refuses Austria Hungary's terms for settlement of the affair, so Austria Hungary decides to invade Serbia

And you talk about fair recounting?

First off, every single war decision is made by humans. People seem to gloss over this when talking about history and countries, but even if you have a treaty with another country, you're still making a choice to declare war. You can argue that its always the moral choice to obey a treaty and declare war, but its still a choice.

Secondly, the austro-hungarian "terms for settlement" were deliberately designed to be refused, the terms were extremely punitive and made with every intention of provoking a war. This isn't speculation, this is what the people making the terms said to each other. Also a sizeable part of the reason austro-hungary felt able to make such demands is because germany was encouraging them and offering support, both via treaties and more informal communications.

After that, yes, treaties gave other countries reasons to get involved in that war, but I think there's a pretty clear moral difference between "serbia gets invaded so I'm going to honor my treaty to attempt to defend them" and "oh hey, my ally started a war by invading someone, I'm going to get in on that action and invade someone else!"

> that would quickly end up turning to hyperinflation, began shortly after the Treaty of Versailles in the early 1920s, in the Weimar Republic. Germany didn't have anywhere near enough money to pay off their debts under the Treaty of Versailles,

First off, "shortly after" is doing a massive amount of work there. Yes, in terms of "history of the world" it was a short amount of time, but that doesn't mean one caused the other. The inflation was a combination of poor economic decisions and deliberate attempts to destabilize the country. Hitler wasn't made leader until 1933 but the nazis (and more importantly, their backers and allies) had a large amount of power in the country even in the 1920s (see the beer hall putsch, it didn't succeed but just the fact it was possible says a lot).

Yes, the occupation of the ruhr didn't actually help, but the occupiers also left after 2 years and a new plan of repayments was agreed to. You can argue that its "natural" or maybe just "predictable" that germany would (essentially) start voting for the nazis after something like that, but its still a choice people made, and more importantly, the choice to start invading other countries was made well over a decade later.

The point I wanted to emphasize is that all of these wars were the results of people making choices. You're never forced or required to invade someone. You choose to do that, and germany rightly bears the blame for choosing to do so. You can argue that other people/countries could hade made different choices and those different choices might have influenced the choices people in germany made, but again, they're not controlling the people making the choices.

(Also this whole storyline is a great counter-example to the silly trope about "victors writing history" since there is a massive amount of, uh "myths" about ww1 and ww2 era germany written by the germans, who certainly didn't win)

Re: My Free Speech Means You Have to Shut Up

#158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A DoS is a theft of computer resources. Since that's specifically a crime in most jurisdictions, it's not protected speech.

A DoS attack can legally be many things, theft of resources, interference, harassment, manslaughter. The question is whether the response to speech that is similar to a DoS attack against the speaker is also those things.

[deleted]

Re: My Free Speech Means You Have to Shut Up

#159

Unfortunately, it's a scale. Where do you think criticism ends and censorship begins?: 1. Tweeting that someone is wrong. 2. Tweeting that someone is bad. 5. A corporate Twitter account saying someone is bad. 4. One hundred thousand people tweeting that someone is bad. 6. A company withdrawing advertising from a businessman whose tweets they disagree with. 8. A company withdrawing twitter service from a customer whos…

They can cry out all they want. That's free speech too. But censorship doesn't happen until 13. The simple explanation is symmetry. Each one of these has a mirror action between the speaker and the responder to the speech. For example #12: The speaker (and their sympathizers) can refuse to use those banks and marketplaces (i.e., a boycott). As well, not allowing the marketplace to do that is forcing them to associate…

What about these cases?:

- A company cuts you off from their service, but you can't get it elsewhere because it is patented.

- Google closes your @gmail.com address, which you can't obtain elsewhere because they own gmail.com

- You build up a following on YouTube, but you end up with three strikes. There are no other long-form video websites with a fraction of the traffic.

In all of these cases, you have a limited ability to withdraw from the company, but you are completely replaceable to it.

Re: My Free Speech Means You Have to Shut Up

#160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can cry out all they want. That's free speech too. But censorship doesn't happen until 13. The simple explanation is symmetry. Each one of these has a mirror action between the speaker and the responder to the speech. For example #12: The speaker (and their sympathizers) can refuse to use those banks and marketplaces (i.e., a boycott). As well, not allowing the marketplace to do that is forcing them to associate…

What about these cases?: - A company cuts you off from their service, but you can't get it elsewhere because it is patented. - Google closes your @gmail.com address, which you can't obtain elsewhere because they own gmail.com - You build up a following on YouTube, but you end up with three strikes. There are no other long-form video websites with a fraction of the traffic. In all of these cases, you have a limited ab…

This is as foolish as saying "It's not fair that John kicked me out of his sub shop just because he doesn't like me. He's the only one serving my favorite sandwich!"

You have alternatives as long as you haven't talked yourself into "I have a RIGHT to use someone's particular business.", because you don't.

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