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Reddit’s About page doesn't include Aaron Swartz as a founder

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Re: Reddit’s About page doesn't include Aaron Swartz as a founder

#91

Post by 34679 »

xevrem wrote: post #50
sebmellen wrote: post #4

Reddit is very clearly not in favour of free speech: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/reddit-bans-thedonald-and-... . Aaron Swartz was very clearly in favour of free speech: http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/becausewecan . I think the reasons for this are self-evident.

honestly, i would say the banning of thedonald is clearly a response to The Paradox of Tolerance rather than not supporting free-speech. you cannot be tolerant of the intolerant if you want free speech to survive.

"Your intolerance will not be tolerated!"

Re: Reddit’s About page doesn't include Aaron Swartz as a founder

#92

Post by cies »

voldacar wrote: post #58
xevrem wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

honestly, i would say the banning of thedonald is clearly a response to The Paradox of Tolerance rather than not supporting free-speech. you cannot be tolerant of the intolerant if you want free speech to survive.

Thedonald existed on reddit for quite some time and during that period, free speech survived relatively intact. Since the banning of thedonald along with hundreds of other subs, free speech has suffered, not improved, inconsistent with your hypothesis. Also, "the paradox of tolerance" can be trotted out to justify just about any banning or censoring of someone you don't like

Nope, it specifically covers "preaching of intolerance", that's not "just someone's speech you dont like".

Lets say I speak about gardening without pesticides, and someone with a pesticide factory does not like that speech. How do you think the "the paradox of tolerance" can be used to shut me up in this case? You can't. Case closed.

Re: Reddit’s About page doesn't include Aaron Swartz as a founder

#93

Post by pwdisswordfish4 »

valvar wrote: post #60
xevrem wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

honestly, i would say the banning of thedonald is clearly a response to The Paradox of Tolerance rather than not supporting free-speech. you cannot be tolerant of the intolerant if you want free speech to survive.

No, the utterly ridiculous "paradox of tolerance" is just a bad cope for people who truly do not believe in free speech. "Free speech" which only applies to your predefined set of approved speech is not free speech, but a monstrous parody of it. The purpose of free speech is to enable dissent, not to affirm the status quo.

Affirm the status quo, as in the currently elected US president?

Re: Reddit’s About page doesn't include Aaron Swartz as a founder

#94

Post by cies »

34679 wrote: post #91
xevrem wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

honestly, i would say the banning of thedonald is clearly a response to The Paradox of Tolerance rather than not supporting free-speech. you cannot be tolerant of the intolerant if you want free speech to survive.

"Your intolerance will not be tolerated!"

Exactly. Sometimes this is needed.

Re: Reddit’s About page doesn't include Aaron Swartz as a founder

#95

Post by sgt »

mdonahoe wrote: post #44
sebmellen wrote: post #4

Reddit is very clearly not in favour of free speech: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/reddit-bans-thedonald-and-... . Aaron Swartz was very clearly in favour of free speech: http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/becausewecan . I think the reasons for this are self-evident.

HN isn’t exactly a bastion of free speech either

How so ? I can't recall any major free speech issues on HN. Being downvoted and having your comment hidden is not exactly something HN can do much about, seeing that it is up to the users.

Re: Reddit’s About page doesn't include Aaron Swartz as a founder

#96

Post by nhylated »

squarefoot wrote: post #26

Just the one question: alternatives? Not necessarily already established and crowded platform, but also free and open, privacy friendly ones that can be slowly brought to self sustaining levels by enthusiasts, so that they can attract normal users.

http://voat.co/

Re: Reddit’s About page doesn't include Aaron Swartz as a founder

#97

Post by watwut »

valvar wrote: post #65
raverbashing wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Shutting down platforms for discussion is quite literally restricting free speech In the same way as "anti-maskers" take wearing one as being choked by the neck and are feigning fainting, taking the trash out of your platform, be it T_D or CTH does not make it "restricting free speech"

Do you have an actual argument, or is your view simply that it's not restricting free speech if it's bad speech?

It is the frequent brigading by the Donald sub that makes free speech argument sound hollow. That sub was not banned for supporting president or discussing politics, it was banned because it became nuisance too people who wanted to discuss their own things.

Re: Reddit’s About page doesn't include Aaron Swartz as a founder

#98

Post by sebmellen »

gameswithgo wrote: post #85
sebmellen wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To piggyback on this, here is a quote from Karl Popper (the "discoverer" of the Paradox of Tolerance): > I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be unwise.

>as long as we can counter them by rational argument I don't know if y'all are new to the internet, but I've been here since around 1990 and we ration argument hasn't done any good. I feel like a lot of these ideas around speech are ones that came from people who were used to arguing with other intelligent people. When the unwashed masses are involved, rational argument doesn't work at all. Some people understand thi…

I strongly disagree with you on one point:

> When the unwashed masses are involved, rational argument doesn't work at all

I believe this is an extremely illiberal viewpoint. Someone who can make this argument could well be a monarchist, fascist, or totalitarian at heart. The foundation of a democracy is the belief that the "unwashed masses" can hold informed views on politics, and at the very least should have the right to.

Also, the average person DOES care what a rational argument is. A significant amount of Trump's 2016 voter base understood him to be a populist to the left of Hillary. His campaign rhetoric of isolationism and ending the wars spoke to large swaths of the population, which swept him into office.

Now, all the issues you point out are important, and must be tackled, but I don't think the right way to tackle them is to label groups of people with a broad brush.

If we understand that people are capable of being informed, we should ask: "how can people be informed>", and "what can we do to make sure that informing people in an unbiased way is possible?". I don't think social media companies like Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit have asked themselves these questions, at least not with any sincerity.

I think HN is a great example of the principles of (nearly) free speech in action. Look at the discussion we're having now!

Re: Reddit’s About page doesn't include Aaron Swartz as a founder

#99

Post by watwut »

sgt wrote: post #95
mdonahoe wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN isn’t exactly a bastion of free speech either

How so ? I can't recall any major free speech issues on HN. Being downvoted and having your comment hidden is not exactly something HN can do much about, seeing that it is up to the users.

HN is heavily moderated and posts that cross lines are quickly removed. It is not even secret and HN does not pretend it is not so.

The reddit rules are much more loose. The subs that were banned on reddit would not even had achange to start here.

Re: Reddit’s About page doesn't include Aaron Swartz as a founder

#100

Post by ceilingcorner »

gameswithgo wrote: post #85
sebmellen wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To piggyback on this, here is a quote from Karl Popper (the "discoverer" of the Paradox of Tolerance): > I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be unwise.

>as long as we can counter them by rational argument I don't know if y'all are new to the internet, but I've been here since around 1990 and we ration argument hasn't done any good. I feel like a lot of these ideas around speech are ones that came from people who were used to arguing with other intelligent people. When the unwashed masses are involved, rational argument doesn't work at all. Some people understand thi…

You can start by not referring to the public at large as ‘unwashed masses.’ With rhetoric like that commonplace among the media elite, are you really surprised Trump won?
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