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People want platforms, not governments, to be responsible for moderating content

reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk

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Re: People want platforms, not governments, to be responsible for moderating content

#111

Post by IAmBroom »

buzer wrote: post #90
gwd wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I’d say if you can be jailed for a particular opinion Can you give an example of someone in a modern democracy jailed for their "opinion"? To wit, are the examples you're thinking of "statement of opinion", "statement of fact", "pejorative insult", or "incitement"? Saying "I think is an idiot" is an opinion. "The earth is flat" or "The holocaust never happened" are not opinions; neither is, "Kick out all the ." And…

> "The holocaust never happened" Not really an opinion but it can be a belief. I'm not sure why we are okay with people believing that Earth is ~6000 years old, but not with someone believing that we are in a simulation and everything before e.g. year 1999 is just a collective memory fabrication.

I am not "okay" with either belief, but it's not my place to police other people's beliefs - so long as they don't hurt others.

If you want to visit that idiotic Noah's Ark museum, go.

If you want to prohibit teaching about evolution in schools, go to hell.

Re: People want platforms, not governments, to be responsible for moderating content

#112

Post by incomingpain »

Here in Canada, it's sad to watch what's happening in the UK.

In the UK(like OP), they are arresting people for thought crimes. An unexpected consequence of Brexit was the loss of free speech protection of Article 10.

Opinion polling has labour in steady steep decline. Given the unprecedented attack on freedom, presumptive decimation in the next election is guaranteed at this point. There's no future for the labour party beyond 2029, absurd that they would do this to their party unless they had a plan.

You obviously don't play your cards down like they have if you're intending to have a fair election 2029; or one at all.

Re: People want platforms, not governments, to be responsible for moderating content

#113

Post by alphazard »

pickledoyster wrote: post #58
bradley13 wrote: post #18

Several European governments have jailed people for social media posts. Many Europeans support this - they don't understand how government censorship can quickly get out of hand. As for falsehoods: some people will be mistaken, some people will lie, and sometimes sarcasm will be misunderstood. Why should anyone be liable? It is on each individual to inform themselves, and to decide what to believe and what to disrega…

>Several European governments have jailed people for social media posts. Many Europeans support this - they don't understand how government censorship can quickly get out of hand. I think quite a few Europeans have lasting and direct experience with totalitarian, oppressive regimes. Which might also explain why they have stricter (or simply more precise) laws governing expression – not as an oppressive tool, but as a…

> not as an oppressive tool, but as a safety valve for the society.

This strikes me as just incorrect. What example from history shows totalitarianism being successfully avoided because of controls on speech?

The first item in the totalitarian playbook is controlling speech, and there are historical examples of that in every single totalitarian regime that I'm aware of.

Re: People want platforms, not governments, to be responsible for moderating content

#114

Post by jszymborski »

Braxton1980 wrote: post #110
potato3732842 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> yet keeps coming up as an example of speech that's permissible to suppress for some reason Because they don't actually have an example of not imminently violence causing non-fraudulent speech that SCOTUS has upheld a ban of. And then when you call them out they'll say "but wait, it's metaphorical". If they had a better example they'd be using it.

Child pornography

Child sexual abuse material is evidence of violence, and act of violence, all at once.

Re: People want platforms, not governments, to be responsible for moderating content

#115

Post by tejohnso »

Braxton1980 wrote: post #105
aydyn wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Silencing speech IS the oppressive regime.

A regime attempting to kill a large group of people is also oppressive and much worse. If the regime is able to do this because of speech then people are choosing the least worst option.

> If the regime is able to do this because of speech

Okay but that's a big "IF". I suspect a regime attempting to do that might be promulgating a significant amount of propaganda, but I doubt that they're able to be oppressive "because of speech".

What about loss of upward mobility for the middle class, or loss of living wages, mismanaged public institutions, corruption, bribery, collapse of democratic process?

All of this enables or sustains oppressive regimes and doesn't require any kind of speech from citizens. And without these kinds of serious problems, citizens barking nonsense won't result in much. Hindering free speech only makes it easier for a regime to continue to exacerbate these serious problems and continue oppression without being called out.

Re: People want platforms, not governments, to be responsible for moderating content

#116

Post by txrx0000 »

piva00 wrote: post #72
bradley13 wrote: post #18

Several European governments have jailed people for social media posts. Many Europeans support this - they don't understand how government censorship can quickly get out of hand. As for falsehoods: some people will be mistaken, some people will lie, and sometimes sarcasm will be misunderstood. Why should anyone be liable? It is on each individual to inform themselves, and to decide what to believe and what to disrega…

> It is on each individual to inform themselves, and to decide what to believe and what to disregard. That's where the conundrum lies, requiring individual responsibility for protecting a whole society of potential bad actors using this freedom to break society apart. How is it solved? No one knows, what we know is that relying on individuals to each act on their own to solve it won't work, it never works, we also se…

> How is it solved?

It is solved by a democratic system that defines truth as "mutually observable phenomena", defines good as "the wishes of the people", and allows individuals to engage in free dialogue as a replacement for violence.

Good outnumbers bad, so the good will win, unless both sides think they're good in a 50/50 split.

This can happen even in that ideal society, because 50% of the individuals will eventually decide to have fundamentally different goals as the other 50%. In which case, I don't think we should hold that society together by force, but rather provide a mechanism for it to peacefully split into two, precisely to uphold the democratic principle of respecting the wishes of every individual.

Suppose half of those people are mistaken in a collective delusion, and their goals are in actuality aligned with the other half, but the other half have just failed so spectacularly at enlightening them (or perhaps the delusional half are so spectacularly delusional that they're impossible to enlighten). In this rare case of a perfect failure, they will quickly realize after the split and want to get back together, because reality is a harsh judge, and its judgements are ultimate.

Re: People want platforms, not governments, to be responsible for moderating content

#117

Post by nathan_compton »

DocTomoe wrote: post #47
floundy wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps there's simply no middle ground between something like Voat which turned into a gathering place of bonafide racists, and something like Reddit which is essentially just a confirmation bias hugbox. If there is, it's certainly not a profitable product.

Voat turned into a gathering place for racists because reddit at first only kicked those out - and became more fundamentalist only after voat was the well-known 'bad place for bad people' where 'respectable, but misunderstood people' did not linger. The frog cooks slowly. > If there is, it's certainly not a profitable product. I think this is the main issue: that we walled up our discussion plazas to make them 'profi…

All I know for sure about this is that the only platforms I use consistently have very strong moderation. I'm tempted to believe that for most practical purposes you cannot build a functional community without active moderation to which the users either explicitly or implicitly consent, so from my point of view many small, strongly moderated, platforms are better than one big unmoderated one, even if I can control what I see on it.

Re: People want platforms, not governments, to be responsible for moderating content

#118

Post by txrx0000 »

Braxton1980 wrote: post #105
aydyn wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Silencing speech IS the oppressive regime.

A regime attempting to kill a large group of people is also oppressive and much worse. If the regime is able to do this because of speech then people are choosing the least worst option.

> A regime attempting to kill a large group of people is also oppressive and much worse.

Indeed. But one should realize that thorny words are precisely what replaces physical violence.

Human nature doesn't change in a democratic society that allows free dialogue, what changed is the way it is expressed.

If you erase the horrible parts of ourselves we worked hard to banish onto paper, they will eventually remanifest themselves in reality.

Re: People want platforms, not governments, to be responsible for moderating content

#119

Post by aydyn »

Braxton1980 wrote: post #105
aydyn wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Silencing speech IS the oppressive regime.

A regime attempting to kill a large group of people is also oppressive and much worse. If the regime is able to do this because of speech then people are choosing the least worst option.

That is the exact opposite of reality. In reality, the oppressive regimes that enacted genocides all suppressed speech.

Re: People want platforms, not governments, to be responsible for moderating content

#120

Post by tiahura »

IAmBroom wrote: post #66
tiahura wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In most common law countries, juries fill that roll. Currently, in the US, internet companies get a special exemption from the laws that apply to other media companies via the DMCA. If traditional media companies publish libelous material, they get sued. Facebook and Google get a "Case Dismissed" pass. Most people look at the internet and conclude that hasn't worked out very well.

> Most people look at the internet and conclude that hasn't worked out very well. Cite?

That’s what this survey is.
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