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Iranian writer is sentenced to 12 years after tweeting a dot at supreme leader

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Re: Iranian writer is sentenced to 12 years after tweeting a dot at supreme leader

#61
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Technically the article never says the dot is related to the arrest, but it's certainly implied. Given the last sentence of the article is "The prosecutor’s office in Ardabil alleged that Shanbehzadeh had been in contact with Israeli intelligence officers and was arrested when trying to leave the country, according to Voice of America." it's not even implied.

It seems implied. Anybody only reading the headline or not giving it a thorough enough reading would probably think the dot is relevant to the sentencing. Even carefully reading it, the dot takes up significantly more of the article than what Iran claim the charges were.

Sorry I misread, I meant that the article itself points to the fact that theres more to the charge than the "dot", the just, oddly, happen to mention it on the last line.

Re: Iranian writer is sentenced to 12 years after tweeting a dot at supreme leader

#62

I've been thinking a lot recently about where I would personally draw the line on what sorts of speech should be criminal. If someone publicly called for specific violence (ex: "let's all meet at Joe's house to burn it down—I'll bring the lighter") that feels to me like the sort of thing that would be useful to do something about instead of waiting for the actual crime to be committed. But publicly stating that you s…

> without neutering the ability for a society to come up with new ideas. The goal isn't always this instrumental one. There is also freedom of conscience, which (like the US freedom of religion) isn't about generating new ideas. But wrt to the goal of generating new ideas you also need to consider all ways of making it too expensive to access information. There's the 1984 approach of violently preventing the spread o…

The new war makes it so you can post anything you want but the algorithm will make sure nobody ever sees it. They give you a megaphone but they also put you in digital Antarctica without a soul around.

I think just as there is freedom of speech- there is freedom to hear. If I want to listen to someone's words I should not be prevented from hearing them. Why do we need platforms? We have the internet already but then we are still at the whims of a search engine. We want our cake and to eat it too.

Re: Iranian writer is sentenced to 12 years after tweeting a dot at supreme leader

#63
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Source? What are the fines for using a banned service in the US?

The only ways for a service to be banned in the US are by court order (i.e. judge says the site has to come down) which carries no penalties for visitors, and sanctions in which case visiting is generally still OK but paying the site is a no-no. In general, users never face fines in the US even for visiting "banned" pages.

In this case, X is banned in Brazil. Brazil has an entirely different legal framework than the United States.

Re: Iranian writer is sentenced to 12 years after tweeting a dot at supreme leader

#64
post #54

I've been thinking a lot recently about where I would personally draw the line on what sorts of speech should be criminal. If someone publicly called for specific violence (ex: "let's all meet at Joe's house to burn it down—I'll bring the lighter") that feels to me like the sort of thing that would be useful to do something about instead of waiting for the actual crime to be committed. But publicly stating that you s…

A liberal prohibition on violent speech is an aspirational privilege of a people who have solved all their social problems to such a degree that the credible threat of violence is never necessary for justice or progress. Or an aspirational privilege of an aristocracy who have solved all of their material problems at the expense of everybody else, and demand militant proactive protection of their hoard and their perso…

I don't remember the effective social movements and resulting changes in society you describe coming from threats of violence (in the US). Whether it was suffrage or labor rights, the greatest power for violence was always with the status quo and not with those protesting. Often violence has brought about change in perception opposite to its intent. This was true in civil rights, gay rights, antiwar, and labor movements.

So I disagree that prohibition of violent public speech is an aspirational privilege otherwise necessary for justice and progress. A terrorist Ghandi wouldn't have been as effective against the British Raj (who could and did kill indiscriminately).

If you were talking about private speech (not threats), I would have some more understanding.

Re: Iranian writer is sentenced to 12 years after tweeting a dot at supreme leader

#65
post #54

I've been thinking a lot recently about where I would personally draw the line on what sorts of speech should be criminal. If someone publicly called for specific violence (ex: "let's all meet at Joe's house to burn it down—I'll bring the lighter") that feels to me like the sort of thing that would be useful to do something about instead of waiting for the actual crime to be committed. But publicly stating that you s…

A liberal prohibition on violent speech is an aspirational privilege of a people who have solved all their social problems to such a degree that the credible threat of violence is never necessary for justice or progress. Or an aspirational privilege of an aristocracy who have solved all of their material problems at the expense of everybody else, and demand militant proactive protection of their hoard and their perso…

[deleted]

Re: Iranian writer is sentenced to 12 years after tweeting a dot at supreme leader

#66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you point to something happening in the UK you think is similar to this? Edit: I guess there's this [1] which free-speach maximalists would probably disagree with. Personally I think there's a line between free speech and calls to violence at which point its reasonable to prosecute people. She tweeted calling for people to set fire to buildings where migrants were being housed. [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/arti…

[flagged]

Could you link to the particular case you're referring to?

Re: Iranian writer is sentenced to 12 years after tweeting a dot at supreme leader

#67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't see how we could possibly criminalize anything like that without neutering the ability for a society to come up with new ideas. But isn't that exactly the point of policies like this? They're intended to dissuade new ideas, such as ideas about who should be in charge of society.

With fairly rare exceptions, most folks are just quibbling over where to draw the lines. Some things - death threats, defrauding people - are clearly both speech and over the line, and letting them go unchecked also "dissuades new ideas".

Even death threats are not “over the line” for everyone.

Re: Iranian writer is sentenced to 12 years after tweeting a dot at supreme leader

#68
post #64
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A liberal prohibition on violent speech is an aspirational privilege of a people who have solved all their social problems to such a degree that the credible threat of violence is never necessary for justice or progress. Or an aspirational privilege of an aristocracy who have solved all of their material problems at the expense of everybody else, and demand militant proactive protection of their hoard and their perso…

I don't remember the effective social movements and resulting changes in society you describe coming from threats of violence (in the US). Whether it was suffrage or labor rights, the greatest power for violence was always with the status quo and not with those protesting. Often violence has brought about change in perception opposite to its intent. This was true in civil rights, gay rights, antiwar, and labor moveme…

> don't remember the effective social movements and resulting changes in society you describe coming from threats of violence (in the US).

I mean there was the whole civil war thing…

If a movement has millions of people, possibility of violence is implied if you piss then off enough.

Re: Iranian writer is sentenced to 12 years after tweeting a dot at supreme leader

#69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With fairly rare exceptions, most folks are just quibbling over where to draw the lines. Some things - death threats, defrauding people - are clearly both speech and over the line, and letting them go unchecked also "dissuades new ideas".

Even death threats are not “over the line” for everyone.

They are those "fairly rare exceptions", yes.

Like the folks who think the Second Amendment means you can own nukes, or the Libertarian Party folks who don't like drivers' licenses, they're pretty fringe.

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