> the service provides should have no say Who’s the censor in this conversation again? I’m having a hard time squaring the idea of free speech maximalism with “a certain group of people should have no say.”
Service providers should act as an utility, such as roads, waterworks, sewers, etc. We have laws set in place where we decide who can drive on roads using which kinds of vehicles, and road operators and owners (not sure how road system works in USA, in my country, some roads are country-owned, some are owned by the municipality, and some private ones can join the road system - eg. the long road from the main street t…
What effect do you feel your policy might have on service providers such as HN?
I accept the right of others to say things I find absolutely abhorrent because I recognize that I sometimes say things I believe to be perfectly rational and someone else finds intolerable. Fighting disagreeable speech with more free speech is harder than just banning it, but generations that follow will be better off for it. Just seeing the Russia v Ukraine conflict and seeing how one country can enforce a narrative…
The irony of course being that the American political demographic, MAGA, with the biggest grievances regarding tech “censorship” also appear to be most willing to make excuses for or deny Russian war crimes.
I can go on Twitter and see a lot of examples of this and generate that impression, but then I don’t see it in real life.
What’s real? How do we know our perception of reality isn’t being distorted by algorithms and sampling bias?
Just conveniently ignoring the content of these sites/services that gets them banned in the first place...
I don't understand this. There are well-known arguments for not tolerating intolerant people. Do those who advocate for tolerating intolerant people act in good faith, or are they simply part of them?
This article is confusing or confused. It conflates the people and companies that use the internet with the network itself, and then supports its argument that the internet is splitting by talking about what's going on with TV networks. There's a lot of division going on in America, but I think they've failed to see its shape.
Agreed. I think the premise is sound. I feel like the US needs to incorporate a new right, similar to the separation of church and state but instead focused on the separation of politics and companies. I have no idea how politics would be defined or how it would be enforced. However similar to the premise of this article I think the one thing both sides can agree on is all of this became worse and jaded when companie…
At a government level, you can not banish politics without infringing on speech. Your proposal directly conflicts with the first amendment.
If Disinformation was simply promoting outdated chauvinism, it wouldn't be perceived as such a threat to society. But that's not what's happening. Disinformation campaigns are convincing people that the election was rigged and the current government is illegitimate.
Even your "present all sides" idea has flaws because it's a tactic used in propaganda. You ostensibly take two "experts" and hold a mock debate. One of those experts is going to take a dive, looking like a fool, and as a result, your chosen side appears to prevail.
I don't understand this. There are well-known arguments for not tolerating intolerant people. Do those who advocate for tolerating intolerant people act in good faith, or are they simply part of them?
I accept the right of others to say things I find absolutely abhorrent because I recognize that I sometimes say things I believe to be perfectly rational and someone else finds intolerable. Fighting disagreeable speech with more free speech is harder than just banning it, but generations that follow will be better off for it. Just seeing the Russia v Ukraine conflict and seeing how one country can enforce a narrative…
>Just seeing the Russia v Ukraine conflict and seeing how one country can enforce a narrative by law and arrest people as being sympathizers of an “intolerant” regime should be enough to make people aware that regulating verbal “intolerance” is a bad idea.
The fun bit here is understanding that there's no way to tell which country you're talking about
There was a time when most papers in Norway were party papers. And it was totally fine! The reason for it being totally fine was because you'd already know where the paper stood on a certain topic, and with whom. And so when you read an article from that sender, with that very clear affiliation, you could ironically also trust them more, because you would be weary of any attempts of manipulation beforehand, and perhaps you'd even know their "tribal language" as it were. And so it would be much easier to decide for yourself whether it was something you'd believe in, or concern yourself with, or react to. Those who were hardcore "tribalists" would of course only read "their" party's papers, but those who wanted a more balanced view, would simply buy papers from the other parties. For that reason most households would hold several papers from different, and often opposing parties in order to stay up to date. So if the USA's web pages are tribalizing, that isn't necessarily a bad thing, because you can always just peek at the competition to get a more even view on things. With that said, it still is a bad thing if our collective "town squares" are monopolized by just one side. That's why I remain positive to Elon Musk's majority buy-up of Twitter stocks, knowing that he's a free speech absolutist. Whether it'll be "good for Twitter" remains to be seen, however I remain hopeful.
> If it's illegal, the governments should take care to punish the reponsible ones via the court system if it's abusive of the people patience and potentially dangerous, the government can and should shut it down. it's not illegal to carry arms in most of the US, but in some places they can ban you if you carry one, because they don't want to deal with you or be responsible for what you could do with it. it's not ille…
Yes, and some parents influence the schools to ban harry potter, because of anti-god magic, and those parents then organize book burnings (yes, this year - https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/feb/04/book-burning... ) Some of us consider this a bad thing, even though it's still done in some societies (eg. USA). If someone starts a harry potter microbloging platform, and the content there is legal, and the technol…
> Some of us consider this a bad thing, even though it's still done in some societies (eg. USA).
it's not good or bad.
it's the price of freedom.
what's the alternative?
having the police to beat those people burning the books?
silence them?
kick them out the society/country?
> Internet services and payment processors should be treated the same as other utilities
I'm of the opinion that depending on the service they should have much more responsibilities than service providers.
For example social networks that algorithmically propose content should be considered editors/publishers and be treated as such, including being responsible for the content they publish.
The split is as much of (or more) a reaction to Big Tech and Big Media collusion than it is political. If truth and discourse weren't censored there would be no need for this.
Customers should boycott products they disagree with or that are opposed to their beliefs. New companies springing up to meet the market demand is capitalism working as expected. A monopoly of companies controlling public free speech is not.
This article is confusing or confused. It conflates the people and companies that use the internet with the network itself, and then supports its argument that the internet is splitting by talking about what's going on with TV networks. There's a lot of division going on in America, but I think they've failed to see its shape.
Agreed. I think the premise is sound. I feel like the US needs to incorporate a new right, similar to the separation of church and state but instead focused on the separation of politics and companies. I have no idea how politics would be defined or how it would be enforced. However similar to the premise of this article I think the one thing both sides can agree on is all of this became worse and jaded when companie…
Even if crazy earl wants to talk about the “good old days” where women stayed home and cooked all day why does a company need to take a stand on eliminating that post?
Um, because those women buy a crap-ton of product. Depending on your business, probably a lot more than men. If they boycott you, (which incidentally happens to be a right guaranteed to them by the 1st restricting the government from decreeing its denial), there goes your bottom line.
I'm always the big, bad, Halliburton capitalist in my social circle, but I'm actually not the jackhole people think I am when they see the suit coming. What happens is that liberals and conservatives have ideas that are detrimental to the efficient function of market capitalism and I point that fact out. Why should a business owner and his employees suffer to ensure the right of some beer gutted unemployed Bubba to offend women who probably worked their posteriors off to be able to afford your product?
If you want to keep politics out of business, then keep the politicians out of my businesses.
> You are labeled 'absolutist' if you argue against censorship. It is fascinating really what's fascinating is that you are writing it on a website that "censors" opinions, based on your definition.
There are degrees of difference between moderation and censorship. At one end of the spectrum, it makes Keanu Reeves not exist in China and books banned in former USSR republics; at another, it makes 4chan look like reasonable chaps by comparison. I am saying it is fascinating, because the label implies fervor of sorts that irrationality disliked on HN. The term was designed to work in HN. What is fascinating to me t…
> What is fascinating to me that even here, propaganda spreads well.
of course it does.
even the "freedom of speech should be absolute" is propaganda.