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The distinction between free speech as a legal right and cultural value

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Re: The distinction between free speech as a legal right and cultural value

#371

Post by jchw »

freejazz wrote: post #349
jchw wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it's not very interesting because nobody has a good faith reason to argue in favor allowing SPAM. I assume it's being used to demonstrate the arbitrary nature of what speech people would want to allow, but it's a bit pointless. SPAM falls in the category of things that arguably are simply abuse of the system, using it in an unintended way. SPAM is not discourse, or an ideology, or a belief. SPAM is a pattern…

It's more that the SPAM issue shows that "speech people" don't have an actual working methodology of distinguishing 'good' speech from 'bad' speech any more than the very people they complain of being censorious.

Even "free speech absolutists" are not actually absolutists, because almost all of them have the asterisk of "within the law." The law is quite arbitrary too, with my most favorite bit of nonsense being obscenity law. The point isn't that you should allow everything all the time, it's that in general banishing ideas or expressions because they're immoral sucks, and I don't like it out of principle. There are, of course, other reasons why we limit expression, and some of those are more reasonable in nature, even if it's not always a good idea.

That all having been said... SPAM and harassment are not problems because of the expression itself, they're problems because of the disruptive patterns of behavior. The point is not that you can't say something, or have a given opinion, or etc.

I'm not really sure how this came to be everyone's ultimate catch 22 on free expression when there's more obvious caveats, such as how arbitrary the law is. But as arbitrary as the law is, it's like gofmt. Nobody's favorite, but everybody's favorite. (This is possibly one of the worst HN analogies this month, which now that I think about it, should probably be a thing someone tracks.)

Re: The distinction between free speech as a legal right and cultural value

#372

Post by jchw »

freejazz wrote: post #370
jchw wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trolling almost always involves fishing for a reaction by acting dishonestly or misleading. When you are simply rude and flippant on purpose, that's just being an asshole. If someone is rude to me, I don't say "ah, I just got trolled."

You don't think that being purposefully rude is to solicit a reaction? I guess we'll have to disagree about that.

Yeah, I think it's to solicit a reaction 100%, but it's not subversive at all. Their intentions are clear. The "coaxed into a snafu" meme hints at the nature of what makes trolling unique versus just flaming. Reading back the last part of that sentence has teleported me back in time about 20 years.

Re: The distinction between free speech as a legal right and cultural value

#373

Post by tastyfreeze »

cm2187 wrote: post #206
autoexec wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All online platforms need to have moderators to prevent things like spam and illegal content. That doesn't mean that they can't also uphold the idea of free speech principles though. Musk really went crazy with cutting staff, but I'm not sure if it was because he wrongly thought he needed to cut the moderation teams in order to support free speech or if he just did it because moderation is expensive.

If I had to guess what is in Musk mind, I would bet that he thought he wouldn't go anywhere with an organisation full of employees who actively hate and resist him, so this was a way to shake the tree hard, to have a chance of a fresh start. Doesn't mean a lot of those teams won't be restaffed, just not restaffed with the same political activists.

I agree. Musk purchased a company staffed by people that believe they have a duty to silence opposing views. There is simply no good reason to keep staff that are actively opposed to the new owner's goals. It was either gut the company and take the hit now or battle for years with staff that sabotage your goals.

Re: The distinction between free speech as a legal right and cultural value

#374

Post by skorpeon87 »

anigbrowl wrote: post #86
skorpeon87 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm very familiar with it. It's a minced oath used by those who disrespect free speech so intensely they suspend any pretense of decorum and resort to childish wordplay. It's the same as FOSS activists who insist on writing "M$" instead of Microsoft.

Restating your earlier opinion in more forceful terms is less than persuasive, but you're welcome to keep at it.

And your position is... "this is an obscure HN meme" (it isn't.) And "therefore you're wrong". Very persuasive.

Re: The distinction between free speech as a legal right and cultural value

#375

Post by saint_fiasco »

evrydayhustling wrote: post #323
saint_fiasco wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article explicitly makes the distinction between law and culture in free speech. Implicitly, that includes your concern about spam and porn, which are legally approved and culturally disapproved. For example, the article points out that Apple could decide at any point to remove the Twitter app from their store for any reason. Such a reason could be that there is lots of porn on Twitter, and this could encourage T…

> I don't mind it if platforms censor spam and porn as long as there is a switch somewhere I can toggle that will let me opt out of it if I want to see spam and porn. In this sentence, you've gone farther than the article (and many similar posts) in defining how you'd trade off between free speech and other values. Extrapolating a bit, it sounds like: (1) You believe "platforms" have responsibilities in free speech c…

With (2) and (3), I didn't mean to leap from is to ought right away. I think it's to be expected that companies that publish user generated content will choose to control visibility of content based on what it believes are the prevailing values of the various stakeholders like users, advertisers, regulating agencies and so on.

As a small stakeholder, I naturally would prefer a world in which the other stakeholders share my values, because that would make the companies more willing to do what I want. Right now that means I would like the culture of free speech to change in my favor.

If I lived in a place were regular people liked free speech but the government liked censorship, then I would want the laws of free speech to change, and the culture I'd believe to be fine.

Re: The distinction between free speech as a legal right and cultural value

#376

Post by valeness »

seanw444 wrote: post #368
valeness wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uhhh, he magnifies his own beliefs without the help of others. "The extent of some liberal ideas" is a really soft way of putting "open racist and transphobe" He literally did a segment on the "Great Replacement Theory". He's a white supremacist. He can get absolutely, thoroughly, and without lube, fucked.

Sometimes I wonder if people like you and I even experience the same reality.

No, we experience the same reality. You're just a white supremacist apologist, at best, and an actual white supremacist at worst.

Tucker Carlson thinks that immigration is ending the white race. That's a direct quote, go watch the segment.

Re: The distinction between free speech as a legal right and cultural value

#377

Post by saint_fiasco »

evrydayhustling wrote: post #323
saint_fiasco wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article explicitly makes the distinction between law and culture in free speech. Implicitly, that includes your concern about spam and porn, which are legally approved and culturally disapproved. For example, the article points out that Apple could decide at any point to remove the Twitter app from their store for any reason. Such a reason could be that there is lots of porn on Twitter, and this could encourage T…

> I don't mind it if platforms censor spam and porn as long as there is a switch somewhere I can toggle that will let me opt out of it if I want to see spam and porn. In this sentence, you've gone farther than the article (and many similar posts) in defining how you'd trade off between free speech and other values. Extrapolating a bit, it sounds like: (1) You believe "platforms" have responsibilities in free speech c…

Sorry, I forgot to directly answer the questions.

- I think a platform doesn't have a specific responsibility to rebroadcast everything. If I don't like what things they choose to rebroadcast I'll find them less useful and start using a different service.

- For content that I don't want to see, they should introduce any hurdle they want. I am only annoyed with censorship when they get in between the sender and the receiver without asking the receiver first. For example, censoring spam and porn is fine when done at the request of the user who would receive the spam and porn. Censoring misinformation is less fine because it has to be done without permission of the receiver. The receiver may be gullible and stupid, and then it looks like censoring misinformation is good. But sometimes the receiver is smart and better informed than the censors, and it's not easy to tell in advance.

- Same as the previous, the categories for which it is OK to introduce friction are those categories that the user who would receives the messages asks you to censor. For example when an ad is irrelevant there is often a button you can press to tell the platform that you don't want to see those kinds of ads, and then they start showing different ads. I would like something similar for spam, porn and misinformation.

- I don't know about competition, network effects seem very strong. Instead of having a special network only for special people who like free speech, I would prefer to change the wider culture so that the mainstream social networks support free speech. It's either that or wait for some crazy billionaire who happens to value free speech to buy the mainstream platform? Seems unreliable.

Re: The distinction between free speech as a legal right and cultural value

#378

Post by efitz »

andsoitis wrote: post #311
efitz wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is the dangerous opinion that led us down the censorship path that the article is decrying. “Pro-social” and “anti-social” are subjective, not objective. To a religious conservative, it would be pro-social to say “marriage should only be between one man and one woman”. To many progressives, this would be “anti-social”. Here’s a conundrum. Is “we should kill all nazis” pro-social or anti-social? On its fa…

AFAIK Musk has also characterized himself as a free speech absolutist but has now re-suspended Ye. I’d be curious to hear whether you think that this suspension is compatible with free speech absolutism? Put differently, was Musk simply marketing himself as an absolutist (to win over following) but is in reality a pragmatist, willing to bend his stance when he views it in his own or society’s best interest?

For now, Twitter can ban whoever it wants, but I don't think that banning Ye really aligns with free speech absolutism. Mandatory disclaimer: I found Ye's comments highly offensive (and stupid), but that is not my standard for censorship.

Re: The distinction between free speech as a legal right and cultural value

#379

Post by rfgood »

msla wrote: post #244
rhaksw wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Greg Lukianoff also suggested drawing the content moderation line at legal speech [1]. > Why does this matter? Because free speech, free expression in general, is a means to express values and beliefs. Saying this does not convince people who are concerned about hate speech. Such individuals imagine that the government or the platform will, or can be coerced, to simply remove whatever they do not like. These folks, w…

> Saying this does not convince people who are concerned about hate speech. Such individuals imagine that the government or the platform will, or can be coerced, to simply remove whatever they do not like. These folks, who consider themselves among the majority, never imagine that they will one day be a minority, or that such power will then be used against them. Exactly. And it isn't even that difficult to imagine h…

> Australian radical feminist Sheila Jeffreys went before the UK Parliament in March 2018 and declared that trans women are "parasites," language that sounds an awful lot like Trump speaking about immigrants.

What she actually said was this:

"When men claim to be women [...] and parasitically occupy the bodies of the oppressed, they speak for the oppressed. They come to be recognised as the oppressed. There's no space for women's liberation."

She is using this metaphor to point out that once men declare themselves to be and are accepted as women, they benefit from all the rights that generations of women have fought for - all while curtailing the means for women to speak about themselves, their lives, and their concerns as women.

Which, as I'm sure you'll agree, is a reasonable feminist viewpoint.

Re: The distinction between free speech as a legal right and cultural value

#380

Post by naasking »

valeness wrote: post #376
seanw444 wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes I wonder if people like you and I even experience the same reality.

No, we experience the same reality. You're just a white supremacist apologist, at best, and an actual white supremacist at worst. Tucker Carlson thinks that immigration is ending the white race. That's a direct quote, go watch the segment.

You seem like a positively delightful person. Thanks for forcing me to watch my first Tucker Carlson segment since this keeps coming up [1].

I didn't hear this "direct quote" of yours anywhere. Tucker doesn't mention the "white race" at all, he speaks about government policies and how they influence native population growth (Americans born to Americans), and about the rate of immigration. If I missed your direct quote, then please provide a timestamp. While I find many of the supposed factual claims there debatable, this argument that too much immigration can be destabilizing is not obviously false.

What I've seen time and time again in situation like this, from both sides, are claims of "dog-whistling", wink-wink-nudge-nudge "we know what you're really talking about [insert-person-I-hate]".

I'll also note that "demography is destiny" has been an unofficial Democratic party tag line for decades now. The notion that Democrats have more vested interest in increasing immigration is not exactly a conspiracy theory, although given how the Latin population is now leaning Republican I think they're realizing that that tagline is deeply flawed as an actual strategy.

[1] https://www.foxnews.com/video/6309741334112

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