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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

#51

Post by guelo »

gnicholas wrote: post #42
biophysboy wrote: post #34

Posting online consists of an individual speaking and a platform publishing it. Social media is not a passive medium like a telephone; it acts as an editor, albeit algorithmically. In my opinion, the fact that speech online has this dual nature is why there is so much debate about it. Here's a mock interaction... Individual: "You shadowbanned me. Why?" Platform: "We don't want to publish you 1 billion times on the in…

This is perhaps true for social media in general, but less so for twitter. For example, twitter doesn't "publish you 1 billion times on the internet" unless you have a million followers. It's less convincing to say "because we don't want to transmit your message to the 1 billion people who actively chose to follow you". How does this argument fare when it comes to email? Should I expect gmail to inspect my messages a…

The default algorithmic twitter feed is filled with tweets from people you don't follow. Plus there's all the "trending" and other engagement features that boost tweets.

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

#52

Post by biophysboy »

gnicholas wrote: post #42
biophysboy wrote: post #34

Posting online consists of an individual speaking and a platform publishing it. Social media is not a passive medium like a telephone; it acts as an editor, albeit algorithmically. In my opinion, the fact that speech online has this dual nature is why there is so much debate about it. Here's a mock interaction... Individual: "You shadowbanned me. Why?" Platform: "We don't want to publish you 1 billion times on the in…

This is perhaps true for social media in general, but less so for twitter. For example, twitter doesn't "publish you 1 billion times on the internet" unless you have a million followers. It's less convincing to say "because we don't want to transmit your message to the 1 billion people who actively chose to follow you". How does this argument fare when it comes to email? Should I expect gmail to inspect my messages a…

First, I'm not on team platform; apologies if my message implied this.

Most of the controversial decisions by platforms have been about people with millions of followers. I also exaggerate when saying "billions"; it can be thousands.

I think email is different because it is a much more passive technology. It doesn't have a news feed, just things like spam filters, etc

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

#53

Post by mistermann »

macintux wrote: post #37
autoexec wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think he and the Cato Institute want to create a world where their funders can tell lies with impunity. Free speech only makes it harder for people to tell lies with impunity since people are then free to discuss your lies and call them out for what they are. "Sunlight is the best disinfectant". By all means, get those lies out in the open so we can publicly tear them to shreds, even better when online platforms…

When everyone’s shouting disinformation, fact checking often falls on deaf ears. There’s no evidence that sunlight is actually the best disinfectant; if anything, making it easier for conspiracy theorists to find each other has just expanded their echo chamber.

How do you think the conspiracy theory community would rank in terms of who produces the most misinformation?

There are many different metrics that could be considered, so maybe that would be the best place to start if we were interested in having an actually serious discussion on the topic.

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

#54

Post by sokoloff »

anonyme-honteux wrote: post #35

Freedom of speech exists in dozen of countries but "Free Speech (TM)" is a very US specific thing that seemingly generate an infinite amount of non-sense. People get lost in abstraction and start to think that giving a megaphone to fascists like Twitter did even before Musk is somehow good because the best way to defeat fascism, when you live on planet Mars, is on the "marketplace of ideas". On planet Earth this is n…

Political speech, especially unpopular political speech, is among the speech that I think is most deserving of free speech protections.

I specifically want the political speech of the people most ideologically opposed to my point of view to be able to make their speech, free from government intrusion on it. I will almost surely not like it, but I will defend vigorously their right to say it.

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

#55

Post by gnicholas »

guelo wrote: post #51
gnicholas wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is perhaps true for social media in general, but less so for twitter. For example, twitter doesn't "publish you 1 billion times on the internet" unless you have a million followers. It's less convincing to say "because we don't want to transmit your message to the 1 billion people who actively chose to follow you". How does this argument fare when it comes to email? Should I expect gmail to inspect my messages a…

The default algorithmic twitter feed is filled with tweets from people you don't follow. Plus there's all the "trending" and other engagement features that boost tweets.

Sure, and I don't think anyone would say "shadowbanning" is when your tweets don't show up in the timelines of people who don't follow you, or in the trending section. It's about down-weighting in the feeds of people who do follow you.

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

#56

Post by autoexec »

macintux wrote: post #37
autoexec wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think he and the Cato Institute want to create a world where their funders can tell lies with impunity. Free speech only makes it harder for people to tell lies with impunity since people are then free to discuss your lies and call them out for what they are. "Sunlight is the best disinfectant". By all means, get those lies out in the open so we can publicly tear them to shreds, even better when online platforms…

When everyone’s shouting disinformation, fact checking often falls on deaf ears. There’s no evidence that sunlight is actually the best disinfectant; if anything, making it easier for conspiracy theorists to find each other has just expanded their echo chamber.

> There’s no evidence that sunlight is actually the best disinfectant;

We've never found anything that works better. For any given idea discussing and examining the positions for and against it is still the best way to get to the truth. The more transparent that process is, the better.

Conspiracy theorists don't care about facts or truth. They will act as they do regardless, but free speech ideals make it very difficult for echo chambers to exist because all ideas can be publicly challenged.

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

#57

Post by GauntletWizard »

whateveracct wrote: post #49
throwawaydad12 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

Are you implying Balenciaga is .. trafficking children or making child porn or something? Not sure what you mean by "the person we should be worried about." My understanding is they made an offensive photoshoot using children but I wasn't aware of any sexual abuse allegations. I'm aware of the court opinion on the blanket and the sexually suggestive stuffed animals. It's inflammatory, sure, but there's definitely a c…

And this gets to the heart of the problem. Twitter users think that because it was parody, the photoshoot was neither child pornography nor sexually abusive. Human beings recognize that it may have been parody but it was still child pornography and sexually abusive. It introduced, nay, immersed children in those scenes and behaviors.

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

#58

Post by autoexec »

actionfromafar wrote: post #48
autoexec wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think he and the Cato Institute want to create a world where their funders can tell lies with impunity. Free speech only makes it harder for people to tell lies with impunity since people are then free to discuss your lies and call them out for what they are. "Sunlight is the best disinfectant". By all means, get those lies out in the open so we can publicly tear them to shreds, even better when online platforms…

Like HN without moderation!

moderation is still important, but it too shouldn't be excessive.

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

#59

Post by guelo »

The "sides" of this argument have flipped. The pre-Musk arguments about Twitter's responsibility as a "public square" are now about how Twitter can do whatever they want as a private actor. And vice versa on the other side.

I wonder if the left will be able to take advantage of Texas' social media law[1] now that leftists accounts are being banned[2].

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/09/technology/texas-social-m...

[2] https://theintercept.com/2022/11/29/elon-musk-twitter-andy-n...

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

#60

Post by curtisblaine »

mech765 wrote: post #5

Freedom of association captures the idea of freedom of speech better than freedom of speech itself, I think. Private parties are (with some number of government constraints) free to pick who to work with, who to play with, and who to talk with, and who they don't want to do anything with.

Unless you choose to not bake a cake for a gay marriage. Freedom of association applies both ways.
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