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How each pillar of the First Amendment is under attack

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Re: How each pillar of the First Amendment is under attack

#971

Post by TOMDM »

harry8 wrote: post #951
TOMDM wrote: post #939

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that's not what happened in the Twitter files. Requests were made, no threats. Some were complied with when Twitter agreed, some were denied. There were no consequences for the refusals. Please, cite a specific threat. A lawsuit, a link, a source, a quote, anything. And if you link the Twitter files themselves, let's make sure we actually run their sources to ground, because what they present them as and what the…

One example of plenty. https://twitterfiles.substack.com/p/how-twitter-let-the-inte... From no. 20 but you should really read all of it. The cynic in me expects the goalposts to move and more smear. 20. “Were Twitter a contractor for the FSB… they could not have built a more effective disinformation platform,” Johns Hopkins Professor (and Intel Committee “expert”) Thomas Rid told Politico. "Were Twitter a contractor…

Non of that is incompatible with what I've said though.

Looming legislation and contracting alone are not a problem.

With all this scrutiny there is no evidence of a quid pro quo.

This is what I was getting at above, that there is room in the Twitter files for a chilling effect on speech when it comes to these competing interests, but what you're comparing it to is so far beyond the pale as to be absurd.

Look at this without the vitriol. There's a lot of stuff that looks weird, but it's been heavily investigated and so far no one has found anything deeper.

When you compare that to measurable harm, I think it's right that people take issue

Re: How each pillar of the First Amendment is under attack

#972

Post by soheil »

tptacek wrote: post #905
slowhadoken wrote: post #814

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

You're wrong. It's explicitly against the rules, as Kasey said. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

Pretty sure he's following the rules and besides what business do you have imposing on this thread when you have nothing to contribute in terms of the conversation?

To say biggest "private equities" in the world own large portions of each other is absolutely correct. It's nitpicking to resort to technicalities of what arm of Blackrock owns what arm of Vanguard, not at all the point and it only distracts from the main point about conflicts of interest when it comes to the control of publicly traded media, NBC, CNN, newscorp (almost all media that matters) and thus suppression of free speech.

You're wrong.

Re: How each pillar of the First Amendment is under attack

#973

Post by Conscat »

anal_reactor wrote: post #916
Conscat wrote: post #877

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please refrain from trolling on Hacker News.

I'm just trying to express the idea that "it's obviously us who are the good guys and them who are the bad guys" applies equally to both sides.

You haven't attempted to do that. You asked us to imagine a rational fear of queer people, but there isn't one. You've simply asserted a dogma without substantiating it.

Re: How each pillar of the First Amendment is under attack

#974

Post by protocolture »

acidmath wrote: post #969
protocolture wrote: post #959

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with spam isnt the content, its the quantity. Lots of spam emails are for genuine services. But its generally accepted that because the speech is unwanted and the quanity of it lowers the quality of the platform, that its fine to filter it off. Free Speech absolutism should incorporate it, but doesnt. (Which sort of indicates its mostly about broadcasting their opinions rather than being in favour of all…

> people I do not align with and have fundamental disagreements with with should adopt this absurd viewpoint I am presenting as their own. *honk honk*

They are welcome to change their moniker to "Free Speech Marginalist" otherwise, if they continue to advertise as absolutist I will continue to insist they live up to it.

Re: How each pillar of the First Amendment is under attack

#975

Post by acidmath »

protocolture wrote: post #974
acidmath wrote: post #969

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> people I do not align with and have fundamental disagreements with with should adopt this absurd viewpoint I am presenting as their own. *honk honk*

They are welcome to change their moniker to "Free Speech Marginalist" otherwise, if they continue to advertise as absolutist I will continue to insist they live up to it.

Spam is far too obviously not speech is the thing. They will continue to use the moniker "Free Speech absolutist", and ignore you. But keep campaigning as the one lone voice with that, I'll still continue cheering you on while the rest of the world ignores your funny viewpoint that isn't believable for you to actually even have.

I'm a 3/4 black partially Jewish gay man, so you can imagine where I stand on "Free Speech absolutism". While I am for the most part on your "side", I want to stick to arguments that are persuasive.

Re: How each pillar of the First Amendment is under attack

#976

Post by bodiekane »

PartiallyTyped wrote: post #716
leovingi wrote: post #690

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My entire life, professional and otherwise, DEI has ultimately stood for nothing other than "less white people". Of course it's dressed up in definitions that sound beautiful and moral to the supporters of DEI, but at the end of the day whenever someone uses the term "diverse" they are talking about "less white people". When the company John Lewis was criticized for a lack of diversity [1], it was because they had to…

And here I was talking about consequential stuff, like helping impoverished communities, adding guardrails to prevent old-boys clubs and enable skilled individuals to enter fields without prejudice for “being black” or “being gay”. Who cares about criticism over inconsequential stuff? Is it that difficult to care about impoverished people? The meals for kids at schools is a “dei” program, and republicans axed it, wel…

> The meals for kids at schools is a “dei” program

I have never heard of such a thing, can you link to where such a program existed?

Free or reduced cost school lunch is a very common program, but it's based entirely on income, not race, gender or sexuality, which is what everyone means when they talk about "dei programs".

Re: How each pillar of the First Amendment is under attack

#977

Post by ImPostingOnHN »

throwawaymaths wrote: post #967
ImPostingOnHN wrote: post #855

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if FOIA protects a current constitutional right, it is at best the tenth amendment, not the first. This article is about the entire first amendment, not just FOIA or transparency in general. > to the point where the right to redress is abrogated? Certainly to the point where it requires a higher standard than "the rest of us".

> This article is about the entire first amendment, not just FOIA or transparency in general. yes, i read the whole thing. as a general strategy in a persuasive essay you shouldn't include an argument with such a weak association, much less lead with it, because it makes me question the author's judgement and devalues the arguments downpage. if i were less patient i would have quit after the FOIA part. > Certainly to…

> as a general strategy in a persuasive essay you shouldn't include an argument with such a weak association, much less lead with it

I've never found that to be true, because most people recognize that the essay was once in which any of the points individually being correct would make for a persuasive essay. The addition of N examples only reinforces the point N times over.

Thus, any single argument being unconvincing to somebody isn't a huge issue, since all the points would have to be false for the essay to not ring true.

> curtailing the right to redress (the right to initiate the complaining suit) is problematic

That may be so (indeed, we see so in donald's ongoing efforts to limit others' right to redress), but imposing a higher standard for libel of public figures vs. private individuals isn't problematic.

> eventually someone will extend the curtailment to people with less power.

This strikes me as a slippery slope fallacy, and one that isn't very convincing in this case. The higher threshold for public figures than private individuals (which is the topic, not curtailment) already exists and has for a while, and the worst thing we've seen is the most public and powerful person in the world still trying to exploit libel law to attack political opponents. So the concern doesn't seem borne out in the data.

Re: How each pillar of the First Amendment is under attack

#978

Post by raxxorraxor »

spiderfarmer wrote: post #968
raxxorraxor wrote: post #965

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it is and this is projection again. We had years with arguments "they are a private company", "free speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences", etc. pp. Perhaps integrity would demand that people speak up and in my experience they indeed still do. But you shouldn't be surprised if the criticism is quite a bit less loud if it concerns speech from a politicized crowd that demanded more content control and cens…

Listen up, because this needs to be crystal clear: there is absolutely NOTHING wrong with revoking someone’s platform when they violate terms and conditions that are no stricter than the rules you’d set for your own kids. On the flip side, there is something profoundly, undeniably wrong — practically evil — when a government detains peaceful people not for breaking laws but for virally posting about their wish for an…

There is nothing wrong with it, that is your right.

Since the composition of the net is what it is a free speech culture protected people from being removed from platforms because of commercial interests. This protection has been removed because some people were too sensitive about the opinions of others and demanded their removal until more and more platforms gave in to those demands. This broke the prevailing culture and more and more views got removed. Plain and simple.

The conflict in the middle east is of no relevance here. Government already found a neat little trick and let commercial entities do their dirty work to remove non-sanctioned voices. Indirectly to not violate any laws. This has been abused by any political party already and in most other countries as well. Many just waited for a precedent that was promptly delivered.

> virally posting about their wish for an immediate cease-fire

How virally? Virally hateful? Yes, that pretty much qualifies for content removals as a direct consequence of these content controls.

Re: How each pillar of the First Amendment is under attack

#979

Post by PartiallyTyped »

bodiekane wrote: post #976
PartiallyTyped wrote: post #716

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And here I was talking about consequential stuff, like helping impoverished communities, adding guardrails to prevent old-boys clubs and enable skilled individuals to enter fields without prejudice for “being black” or “being gay”. Who cares about criticism over inconsequential stuff? Is it that difficult to care about impoverished people? The meals for kids at schools is a “dei” program, and republicans axed it, wel…

> The meals for kids at schools is a “dei” program I have never heard of such a thing, can you link to where such a program existed? Free or reduced cost school lunch is a very common program, but it's based entirely on income, not race, gender or sexuality, which is what everyone means when they talk about "dei programs".

If that’s what they mean it’s because they have been played like a fiddle.

If I were to offer lunches for kids in an impoverished community that happens to be predominantly X race, the sensationalists will say “RACE” “DISCRIMINATION”, while the program is simply addressing one region.

Now the funny thing is that the Democratic Party has repeatedly pushed for universally free lunches to take any potential concerns over race out of the picture and the republic party keeps voting those down.

Re: How each pillar of the First Amendment is under attack

#980

Post by leovingi »

latentcall wrote: post #963
leovingi wrote: post #690

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My entire life, professional and otherwise, DEI has ultimately stood for nothing other than "less white people". Of course it's dressed up in definitions that sound beautiful and moral to the supporters of DEI, but at the end of the day whenever someone uses the term "diverse" they are talking about "less white people". When the company John Lewis was criticized for a lack of diversity [1], it was because they had to…

When you have privilege, equality feels like oppression. I don’t know where I saw that quote from but I feel this summarizes your points. Punish who for what? Can you demonstrably prove white people were harmed by DEIA? White people ran the last administration and this one too. What more do you want? Do you get upset if you see a black person drive a nicer car than you? This anti-DEIA stuff is just cooked up to distr…

>Can you demonstrably prove white people were harmed by DEIA?

Sure, here you go. This is just one example, but it's been widely covered in tech circles as well as here on HN and I chose it simply because it's one of the most egregious and shockingly honest account of how DEI works in practice as opposed to nice-sounding social theories

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38634647

Things like this have been covered and talked about on HN for years, I am surprised you missed it, with a lot of commenters speaking out about their own experience which more often than not paints the same story each time - a company needs to reach a certain quota based on race or gender to avoid potential discrimination lawsuits, their hiring pipeline does not support that quota so the only options they have is to discriminate against the only group it is socially OK to discriminate against - white men. And on some level - asians - as is mentioned directly by the CEO of IBM in the leaked video posted above.

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