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Kanye West is buying Parler

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Re: Kanye West is buying Parler

#701

Post by AlexandrB »

bondarchuk wrote: post #683
AlexandrB wrote: post #677

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By that token, the same wariness should be applied to calling someone a "Communist" thanks to McCarthyism. I think this might be a valid point if US government officials were calling Kanye mentally ill, but a bunch of people on the internet?

Strictly speaking nothing matters cuz we're all just rando's typing on the internet. But since we were having a discussion I thought I'd chime in with some vaguely relevant points... Btw I think it would've been quite dangerous indeed to call someone a communist during mccarthy era, and indeed one should've been wary of that back then.

I think the parallel stands. A lot of the egregious political abuse of mental illness in the US dates back to 50-100 years ago[1]. You don't hear about public figures being involuntarily committed over accusations of mental illness in recent years. The worst you get is accusations of senility against some of America's older politicians.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_abuse_of_psychiatry#...

Re: Kanye West is buying Parler

#702

Post by stale2002 »

tgv wrote: post #34
mrtksn wrote: post #11

Musk and everyone else is right that we do need a platform with free speech. The only problem is that all those free speech advocates are actually NIMBY's when it comes to free speech. I have been following self proclaimed free speech absolutists(because I too, believe in free speech but don't believe it exists) and they are totally not the kind of people that say "I hate what you say but I will die defending your ri…

Why do we need an absolute free speech platform? What good does it do? > The only somewhat free place I've seen is 4Chan but it contains so much toxicity, that's its barely bearable. Sounds like a hint to me. There are more free speech sites, e.g. saidit.net. I would wholeheartedly recommend staying away from it: it's a cesspool, like the other reddit wannabes. Voat also comes to mind. Freedom of speech on such sites…

> Why do we need an absolute free speech platform?

To ensure that ideas that people want to be censored or deplatformed can be evaluated by others who want to see what they are.

If people are not able to read oposing viewpoints, it makes them less able to understand them, and why they are wrong.

Re: Kanye West is buying Parler

#703

Post by mariusor »

seanw444 wrote: post #397
mariusor wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Freedom of speech is not a buzzword, it has a pretty good definition in the declaration of human rights and on Wikipedia: > Freedom of speech and expression, therefore, may not be recognized as being absolute, and common limitations or boundaries to freedom of speech relate to libel, slander, obscenity, pornography, sedition, incitement, fighting words, hate speech, classified information, copyright violation, trade…

You're right. Companies have the right to censor things they don't like on their platforms. That's why people should stop using platforms that are frequently censored if they really care about "free speech." Just like how people can't "free loiter" on my personal property if I want them out of it. I don't care about an arbitrary definition of two strung-together words, whose definitions individually, are absolute. Wh…

> I don't care about an arbitrary definition of two strung-together words, whose definitions individually, are absolute. When combined, their definition is just as absolute.

This feels like a deeper debate than I'm capable of having, but all language is a string of strung-together words with meanings. These meanings have reached a high enough degree of consensus to exist in a dictionary or semiotic treatise. I think that clinging to your own meaning of absolute free speech when faced with not an arbitrary definition, but one which was reached through a social and cultural consensus, is naive or willfully contrarian.

Re: Kanye West is buying Parler

#704

Post by filoleg »

AzzieElbab wrote: post #482
tptacek wrote: post #117

This is really a story about a celebrity's mental illness and public breakdown. If you haven't been following the news, West has spent the week saying increasingly unhinged things, not just about politics but about Pete Davidson, his wife, and (if I'm remembering right) his kids and the fake actor children that have been installed in his former home to corrupt them. He was interviewed for a show on Fox and a big chun…

Do you think there would be same level of uproar if he decided to donate x millions to blm all of a sudden?

Well, around 2 years ago, he made a $2 million direct donation to support the families of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor[0].

0. https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/04/entertainment/kanye-west-two-...

Re: Kanye West is buying Parler

#705

Post by BeFlatXIII »

mc32 wrote: post #590
wk_end wrote: post #536

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's complicated - that's Free Speech as a right , but Free Speech as a virtue has a history in liberal thought that goes deeper than just protection from the government - most notably, Mill in On Liberty. There's an unfortunate but understandable tendency to conflate these two things.

It gets further complicated so that if you tell a joke in poor taste or in haste without considering the future and other implications you can get retroactively "cancelled". So today you say something that is acceptable. But maybe tomorrow, after you turn 18, someone discovers your statement and they cancel you using today's judgements.

The solution is for the metaphorical adults in the room to stand up and proclaim "cool story; we don't care" when someone comes knocking at their door with evidence of misdoings of one of their employees. Just claim it's a faked screenshot and your internal review processes do not act on false information.

Re: Kanye West is buying Parler

#706

Post by klyrs »

_gabe_ wrote: post #673
klyrs wrote: post #513

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dude's been blasting antisemitism on social media, in violation of long-standing, well-understood policies. Shutting down his accounts is the opposite of persecution.

> Dude's been blasting antisemitism on social media, in violation of long-standing, well-understood policies. Can you give specific examples? I just looked this up because I was interested. This very long winded Vice article only seems to point out a few "antisemitic" statements he makes[0]. Here's the first two: > Ye used a strange metaphor when talking about Black people judging one another, telling Carlson, “Think…

First off, his name is Ye, and I actually like his music (though, let's be honest, Donda was never gonna live up to the hype). This isn't about me not liking the guy.

> Show me where Kanye is advocating for the annihilation of the Jews before you go citing baseless claims.

Now, I didn't say he's been advocating for the annihilation of Jewish people, I said "blasting antisemitism." Antisemitism exists on a spectrum, and advocating for the annihilation of Jewish people is one point very far along that spectrum. If that's your actual threshold, you're definitely going to miss a lot of dogwhistles. But he's gotten pretty alarmingly close to exactly that:

> I'm a bit sleepy tonight but when I wake up I'm going death con 3 On JEWISH PEOPLE.

In case you're not familiar, defcon 3 is an elevated state of military readiness -- that the US hasn't seen since 9/11.

Re: Kanye West is buying Parler

#707

Post by stale2002 »

mariusor wrote: post #352
seanw444 wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then it's not free speech. The whole point is that there are not restrictions. If it's restricted, it is by definition not free. "Free speech" is a cool buzzword people think they can qualify for (or wish to), without the ramifications of true free speech (hurt feelings, bad ideologies being discussed in a positive light).

Freedom of speech is not a buzzword, it has a pretty good definition in the declaration of human rights and on Wikipedia: > Freedom of speech and expression, therefore, may not be recognized as being absolute, and common limitations or boundaries to freedom of speech relate to libel, slander, obscenity, pornography, sedition, incitement, fighting words, hate speech, classified information, copyright violation, trade…

> Free speech only applies in the relationship between citizens and the state.

That is a pretty silly definition.

Imagine if a corporate owned mafia was going around murdering everyone who supports increasing taxes.

Surely, you would recognize that this has a chilling effect on speech, and could be said to control people's free speech rights, even though it is not the government doing it.

Re: Kanye West is buying Parler

#708

Post by BeFlatXIII »

Joeri wrote: post #256
mrtksn wrote: post #11

Musk and everyone else is right that we do need a platform with free speech. The only problem is that all those free speech advocates are actually NIMBY's when it comes to free speech. I have been following self proclaimed free speech absolutists(because I too, believe in free speech but don't believe it exists) and they are totally not the kind of people that say "I hate what you say but I will die defending your ri…

I used to be free speech absolutist, but I am not any longer, especially when it comes to social media. The argument in favor of absolute free speech for me was basically “let everyone hear everything and make up their own mind”. This presumes that people are swayed by the content of an argument. This is a false assumption, people are mostly swayed by the volume of the argument. This is well documented in psychologic…

> This presumes that people are swayed by the content of an argument. This is a false assumption, people are mostly swayed by the volume of the argument.

That's only half the story. The other half is tone. I have been persuaded against several beliefs that should have won me over if volume were the only consideration due to the quality of the writing. "These people type like morons, it's probably a belief primarily found amidst the stupid", as it were.

Re: Kanye West is buying Parler

#709

Post by bheadmaster »

errantmind wrote: post #695

Absolute free speech platforms don't work for the majority of people because they have no way of constraining participants to the Overton Window. It may be hard to understand for some, but there are topics that make people highly uncomfortable. These people prefer an environment that 'protects' them from fringe ideas. The issue is, the 'Overton Enforcement' doesn't work when a large minority (say, 30% of users) has i…

It seems that the main problem is trying to force everyone into the same enironment and searching for a one-size-fits-all solution, leading to censorship of almost any topic for which there is a vocal enough group that wants it censored.

A simple solution would be federation - let people build and choose their own bubbles instead of forcing everyone into a one giant bubble. That's how it works in real-life.

Re: Kanye West is buying Parler

#710

Post by diceduckmonk »

breck wrote: post #618
citilife wrote: post #615

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is really a story about a celebrity's mental illness and public breakdown. I find this take interesting -- Kanye is insanely successful in multiple categories. He is very eccentric and always has been. > Kanye is now a Black Hebrew Israelite That said, calling him mentally ill or having a breakdown is a bit... odd. There are tens of thousands of "Black Hebrews", there are MANY more Scientologists. Is Tom Cruis…

I think you aren't being hard enough on Kanye. I just signed up for Parler ( https://parler.com/breckyunits ) and there are barely any ads on that site—he clearly doesn't know what he's doing.

> there are barely any ads on that site—he clearly doesn't know what he's doing.

There are no ads on HackerNews. What’s the point ?

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