Why do you host offensive content?(nearlyfreespeech.net) |
Why do you host offensive content?(nearlyfreespeech.net) |
To 80% of the population? Wouldn't that be the Book of Mormon?
To 60%? The Quran?
I think this part of their answer is a great response: "Of course, the simplest reason is that it's not up to us to decide what the rest of the world should or shouldn't see. Bad news, it's not up to you either. Worse news, it's still true even when we agree. Which is probably most of the time."
This is exactly the comment I clicked through to add. Without someone to be offended, nothing is offensive. When a service provider crosses the line and polices a piece of media, they are now responsible for defining that line moving forward. That's an insanely hard task.
Most people who want "offensive" content taken down do not understand the complexity of what they are asking for.
Offensive to those, who can make enough noise about it.
> "Why do you host harmful content?"
To which your returned question would be similarly open-ended: Harmful to whom? Define harmless content. Etc.
... but probably a little more "down to earth" in terms of discussing the bounds of such definitions.
The root of being "offended" may often be grounded in an agenda to silence and control, but it's typically defended by referencing potential harm. So that's usually a good place to start overturning such arguments.
It's just funny to see the same old argument brought up the thousandth time with maybe a slight context change to the last.
If it is not posted then folks will not know how to refute it when it crops up again -- and it will.
Free Speech for bad ideas is as important as free speech for good ideas.
Don't be offended. That's your choice.
P.S. This doesn't mean that everything offensive must be posted -- there is stuff that should be illegal to post because of the harm it can cause.
Edit: downvote within 15 seconds of posting ... you are speedy in your thoughtlessness.
You mean "promotes." People are free to judge. However, by granting discovery/virality selectively, rather than going by pure interest and numbers, YouTube is exercising editorial judgement. This makes them into a publisher, not a platform. People are free to urge YouTube to become a publisher. YouTube is free to follow suit or not and take the rewards and consequences of their actions.
Says who? "Publisher" and "Platform" are not mutually exclusive identities.
I've used them before and they offer a great service for a good price and I support their general philosophy in regards to privacy and free speech.
This isn't true. A few examples.
If I post your naked photos online and they are censored, that isn't bad.
If I post your address online next to a photo of your house and it is censored, that isn't bad.
If I post the source code of your personal project online and it is censored, that isn't bad.
If I post the contents of your diary online and it is censored, that isn't bad.
If I post the contents of a heated argument between you and your spouse online and it is censored, that isn't bad.
If I post a photoshopped picture of your kid online and it is censored, that isn't bad.
Not everything deserves to see the light of day and actually, we do get to make that decision. This idea that "free speech" means everyone has to agree to let everything appear on the internet is false. "Free speech" also means "I have the freedom not to support someone else's speech".
I believe I do, and so I think there should be a platform for free speech. I believe this even though I largely do not wish to consume much of what people might term offensive.
I appreciate platforms which curate and moderate content as a form of customer service. What I don't appreciate is entities (governments or corporations) taking a moralistic stance as if it is their duty to stamp out bad ideas from existence.
https://www.nearlyfreespeech.net/about/faq#BecauseFuckNazisT...
I couldn't find any, but I'm also not familiar with the site.
There's "offensive" as in thinks I don't like, or even hateful statements ... but to me threats of violence and etc fall into another area.
This sort of thing came up a long time ago:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialist_Party_of_Am...
It's censorship if a government suppresses information, if a company decides not to business with you, it's contract law.
This isn't that difficult to grasp.
> Finally, censorship is always bad, for a variety of well understood reasons that we don't need to repeat here. But in the case of some types of content, it has special dangers. When you censor a web site based on the extreme or dangerous views of its creator(s), you haven't stopped those people from thinking that way.
Why? The problem is that I've seen someone who was very close to me repost propaganda on Facebook that looks like it's following the Nazi propaganda playbook. Stuff against immigrants, against religious minorities, ect. Just take some classic Nazi propaganda, swap out "jew", and that's this person reposts.
(Or used to, as this person recently complained that Facebook is blocking their posts.)
Anyway, I don't think that this person really thinks this way; instead I think this person's thinking is manipulated to push a political agenda.
Since when the fuck is that how the internet works?
If Stormfront hosts a site on NFS.net, who do you think visits that site? Bright young progressives valiantly carrying a banner of social justice?
No. Fucking neo-Nazis visit the Stormfront website, because, and this is important, _it's a platform for fucking neo-Nazis_.
Christchurch. Charlottesville. Numerous terrorists have indicated very clearly that they were radicalized online. Why the fuck is it somehow your responsibility to provide these people a platform to spread their poison?
To end my rant, here's that ridiculous quote that always gets tossed around in these discussions:
> "Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants; electric light the most efficient policeman."
Actually, as it happens, the best disinfectant is a harsh chemical, and the most efficient policeman is a fucking policeman. The internet is not a place of light and exposure. It is a place where disgusting ideologies can hide, quietly attract followers, and conspire to murder people.
Consider how powerful that sunlight was the next time a right-wing terrorist screams about blood and soil while brandishing an AR.
I'm sorry the tone of this is so angry. NFS is a great service -- I just can't stand this pitiful justification for aiding radicalization and eventual violence. There is a line you can draw. It is up to you to draw it.
I no longer believe this, when cesspits of alt-right, racist assholes use such grandiose ideals to spread their hatred, which then bubbles out into the real world.
The idea that good ideas will win, and that common sense and rationality will take the day, are not really supported by what we see around the net. Instead the greater internet fuckwad theorem holds more true, and the spread of vile, violent ideologies is enabled.
Freedom of speech is a protection from government, but I think those providing speech platforms, such as hosting companies, should probably take more responsibility for what they propagate.
that's the public market of ideas at work for you
What stuff? Using this logic, why should anything be off-limits to the "public market of ideas"? e.g. libel should be perfectly acceptable speech — that way it can be exposed and refuted!
This is a particularly insidious point of view because it frames its own line between acceptable and unacceptable speech as some sort of natural law, when really it's just as arbitrary as any other line.
I would argue that it's more important.
> Phillip DeFranco
Edit regarding your edit: Complaining about downvotes is cringe inducing.
It's a good idea to be wary of the sneaking-in of bad ideas by packaging them with good ideas. In 2019, this applies to even some of the most reprehensible ones. (For example: Politics through intimidation and violent assault.) Ideologies and movements aren't monoliths. The bad parts of them can be teased apart and criticized, without making you an opponent of all of the overarching ideas and principles. Anyone who tries to sell you on the "all or nothing" idea is (perhaps unwittingly) engaging in this packaging of bad ideas.
downvote within 15 seconds of posting ... you are speedy in your thoughtlessness.
Here is the pattern that I often see around that: 2 or 3 rapid, thoughtless downvotes, followed by more upvotes. Be courageous, and take the long view. (Also, we're not supposed to talk about this meta stuff around here, according to the guidelines, but I'm giving you a heads up.)
Of course no one mentioned perhaps the most important reason for non censorship of ideas.
The censors and public at large can be wrong. Imagine living in a society where racism was the norm and the censors did not allow speech that argued for the equality of races. Instead of "hate speech" they called it "unnatural speech" or some such twisted label.
In fact, our society could be very wrong about some popular ideas. In fact, I don't think we are new or different than many societies that proceeded us -- we have been here before. We can't be so myopic that we are the generation that has discovered all the ideal points of view. Let views stand up to the test.
Also censorship is fear based. Buck up. Take on the challenge. Make sure the positive voices are heard. Don't protect adults with "safe spaces" where they will never be challenged. You are just setting them up for a fall later.
The reasons racism is wrong needs to be constantly reposted -- we forget and repeat our mistakes too often. That is why we have holocaust museums. In fact the dangers of racism become more obvious when you let the racists speak! Let them. Teach your children from them. Show them the effect.
Defamation against private individual (including libel and slander)
Child pornography
Blackmail
Incitement to imminent violence
Solicitations to commit crimes
You can't simply turn your emotions on and off unless you are a sociopath.
If you have to resort to extreme examples, then it shows the weakness of your position. Those examples are mostly illegal. It's not "censorship" in the context of Free Speech if one is counteracting illegal activity. The serious societal problems come in when there is censorship on an ideological basis.
This idea that "free speech" means everyone has to agree to let everything appear on the internet is false.
If Free Speech applies to the Internet, then it means precisely that everyone has to agree to let everything appear on the Internet. In 2019, saying that people can have Free Speech, just not on the Internet, is like saying people can have Free Speech, just not with mechanized printing. In 2019, publishing has to include the Internet, and suppressing publishing on an ideological basis is suppressing the principle of Free Speech.
What is extreme about them? An example of an extreme would be "child porn" or "your credit card number" or "the password to your email". The examples I listed are pretty mundane and actually quite common. Either way, you haven't actually explained why any of the examples I listed would be "bad".
> Those examples are mostly illegal
None of those examples are illegal except the naked photos and not even that in all states (but most, and not even just "naked photos" in and of themselves necessarily, i.e. naked photos in the context of "revenge porn"). But even if they were, so what? If it's illegal does that mean it's not censorship to remove it?
> If Free Speech applies to the Internet, then it means precisely that everyone has to agree to let everything appear on the Internet
This is obviously wrong. Based on that logic you should never be able to delete a comment from your personal blog because you're censoring the critics.
People can also be radicalized in person. Rallies, meetings, one-on-one conversations.
Does that mean we have to police everyone's personal lives and invade their privacy?
If "progressives" aren't visiting the website or doing anything to speak out against the website and it's content, it must not be important enough for them to warrant doing it.
Also, it's not a pitiful justification. It's a really good business move on their part. I assume NFS has seen in the past that larger webhosts don't/won't allow this type of content on their platform and are removing it because it's easier for their legal team/marketing/PR/etc.
NFS has filled the hole saying "hey, we'll support your right to free speech, even if you're offensive as all hell. We're just letting everyone know (including you) that we're donating all of the profits plus some to charities that actively fight against this type of culture since we don't agree with it."
They get good PR, they get the "woe is me, we're beaten and downtrodden from censorship" customers that keep getting removed from other platforms, and they can still be on their moral/ethical high horse by donating the proceeds to charity. NFS shouldn't be responsible for who goes to their website or the content on it. NFS's job is to host websites, not police them.
You can't ensure that! At all! Which sucks! But that doesn't mean we should wring our hands and worry about "what if?" -- in fact, it only makes it MORE important that we resoundingly reject ideologies that would seek to abuse a line for nefarious, censorship-y purposes.
Maybe we make that part of our line...
Translate the Bible into a barbaric language like German or English? That caused great offense. People were excommunicated and even killed for that (like Wycliffe).
The book "The Coddling of the American Mind" goes into this concept that ideas and speech are not violent. We do a huge disservice to young people today by teaching them to fear ideas and block speakers at Universities they don't agree with. Listening to other viewpoints and challenging them makes us better thinkers. By banning speech is to say, "I agree people are too stupid to make their own decisions. Let's make the world 'safe' for them and ban ideas I don't agree with."
I highly recommend Brendan O'Neill's video on offensiveness:
1. People are stupid. Really, really stupid. Especially when given the means to surround and reinforce themselves with other idiots. See for example - antivax and alt-med in general, chemtrails any number of ridiculous conspiracy theories that propagate through the web.
2. These people are not thinkers, they are not open to having their viewpoints challenged and reason will not move them from their course.
I agree, this whole area is massively subjective, I'm not saying I have a solution. But this black and white idea that censorship is always bad, and the notion that we have a functional marketplace of ideas which people re-evaluate based on reason is ... well it's a fantasy.
When you catch a cold, it is because viruses have used a bunch of subtle hacks to convince some of your cells to stop being part of you and start making more viruses instead. Your immune system comes in and stops them from doing this. Sometimes it makes mistakes, sometimes it can be co-opted and used as a viral host itself (see HIV for instance), but on the whole it keeps your cells busy being a part of you rather than striking out on their own agenda, whether it's one they arrived at by random mutations like most cancers, or one that crawled in under their normal defenses like a virus.
Running a platform that gives a voice to anyone and everyone, up to the limits of "whatever gets the platform-runner hauled into court and fined for more money than they make off of spreading the view that got them in trouble", is like actively providing places for diseases to grow.
Just because someone thinks the world is flat, doesn't mean I have to disagree with them on most issues, except MAYBE on space exploration, and certain academic fields connected to it. Believing the earth was flat takes nothing at all away from their ability to judge humans, celebrate traditions and reciprocate favors. I do not buy into "getting spooked" by ideas I don't identify with, because if I draw a line in the sand that keeps moving towards me, maybe it indeed moves because of my own bad reasoning.
It began with Alex Jones and that kinda made sense but now the same people and institutions are asking for the head of individuals like Phillip DeFranco.
The thing about censorship is that it never stops where you think it should.
Friendly reminder that "slippery slope" is a fallacy.
100% censorship is obviously bad. It remains to be shown that 0.1% censorship inevitably leads to it.
I'm fairly lefty, and haven't heard of this Phillip DeFranco before. Surely if I consult my biased google bubble, it will show me the dirt on him? Well, not really:
> “Hey, writer here,” Roose responded. “This collage is just a sample from his viewing history. Some far-right, some not.” [1]
And reading the original NYT article... they aren't asking for anybody's head. And this is where it gets really interesting from a free speech perspective. Phillip got offended because he was in a collage of somebody's viewing history. He might have been a step along somebody's slippery slope, whose politics are/were too extreme for his comfort -- or it might just be correlation without causation. The article didn't dig into Phillip and denounce him.
In fact, the thrust of the NYT article is that YouTube's recommendations take folks from moderate content, and send them on a spiral to more extreme content.
You're free to describe all of that as 'asking for heads,' but that really doesn't seem to be the case here.
[1] https://www.dexerto.com/entertainment/youtuber-philip-defran...
I agree that uncensored speech is good, but when I read this I knew it would come up as problematic. I think we've all seen a lot of bad arguments sneak their axioms into the conversation with a line like this (but again, I agree with what's written here). Does uncensored speech fall into the category of "it goes without saying"? Perhaps I should learn more about censorship so I can effectively advocate against it, just like the article says.
Maybe you’re wrong?
I find NearlyFreeSpeech.Net's position on hosting "really offensive content" to be well-reasoned and thoughtful. I'm just not convinced it's ultimately true. The web has brought unparalleled good to the world in the mere quarter century it's been with us. It's also arguably been the prime mover in bringing back flat earthers, Nazis, and measles. When you ask "don't the anti-vaxxers, climate change denialists, and white supremacists deserve great web hosting, too?", maybe the answer is "no, not really."
I'm not saying censorship is good, let's go full-on NewSpeak here, or even that I have any sort of solution to propose.
I just don't think this ideal, that censorship is necessarily always bad and that the best, only way to fight evil ideas is with discussion and better ideas ... I don't think holds up to scrutiny in the face of reality.
The anti-vax movement and climate change deniers are better examples of this than Nazis and similar shitheads, IMO. There's easily accessible, scientifically sound evidence that both these groups are completely wrong. It's not at all open to debate. If the "free marketplace of ideas" worked then these groups would have disappeared long ago, yet the former group has led to almost ten thousand preventable deaths and the latter may result in far more. Maybe the truth will eventually reign supreme and both groups will become a footnote in history, but there are real consequences in letting groups like these spread their views online.
There's a good Contrapoints video on the limits of free speech, which you will probably enjoy (NSFW): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBUuBd5VRbY
The Anti-Vax movement is a prime example of the Free Marketplace of Ideas working!
https://slate.com/technology/2019/06/measles-outbreak-anti-v...
Nazis and similar shitheads are in the same boat. I would agree that Climate Change Deniers are an example of the Free Marketplace of Ideas not having worked yet. However, suppressing them just gives them ammunition. Best to just keep debunking: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugwqXKHLrGk
(Re: The potholer54 video: If you dislike Steven Crowder, you should be glad he's a Climate Change Denier. That's just about the biggest hole in his hull!)
There is a pretty direct line drawn between speech and violence against out-groups; anyone who says otherwise would do well to read about the Rwandan genocide and their 200 days of public radio broadcasting demonizing the Tutsis prior to the genocide itself.
After all, if there wasn't power in speech, none of this would matter; there would be no restrictions on speech anywhere if it didn't threaten someone.
Even in free-speech absolutists, there's often agreement that direct incitements to violence should be off-limits, and why? Because speech moves people to act.
I haven't often seen the position that incitements to violence should also be protected speech, though I'm sure those people are there -- the question to them for me would be, what are you trying to advance or protect against with that position?
The question I'd also ask is: if you want to say that speech such as calls to genocide should also be protected, how is that advancing society, especially for the targets of that? The marketplace of ideas doesn't seem to do a good job protecting them, so...what's the solution there?
Free speech is a tool for reducing need for violence. That's why direct incitement to violence is usually not protected -- it goes against the whole point.
If you want a tech solution to misleading speech and outright lies though, then mandate all publications of debunked speech to publish links to rebuttals, without having to remove original content.
"Those Three Shocking Ways Vaccines Cause Mice Tails To Fall Off Will Shock You!!! [Five Factual Claims This Article Gets Wrong <link>]"
If you're concerned about the "pretty direct line drawn between speech and violence against out-groups" then you should be paying keen attention to the normalization of political intimidation and violence in the past several years.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aC4u1zo6OpQ
The fact that the media have been giving groups tacit support, by not or minimally covering their assaults and vandalism, while even giving them positive spin, should raise some concern.
I haven't often seen the position that incitements to violence should also be protected speech
They should not be. "Punch a Nazi" -- despite the vileness of the purported targets -- shouldn't be allowed. "Milkshaking" is incitement to assault. The fact that Twitter allows those to continue shows a groupthink bias at operation there.
We don't have a "marketplace of ideas" for alternatives for the conservation of mass. We teach kids one thing in school and move on. Why do we behave differently for other topics?
If someone calls me a "fag", it will bother me whether I pretend it does or not. I'll be offended and it will probably play back in my head for a bit. I can try to let it not bother me, but it probably will at least a little.
"Words can't hurt me" is a fine personal mantra/goal/ideal but you can't apply it to everybody in every case.
It's a staple of the Far Left in 2019, to vilify purely through association. For example, every time I've asked for proof that Tim Pool is "Alt-Right," I've only ever received vilification through association as "proof." The same pseudo logic is used to claim that Ben Shapiro (a devout yamaka wearing adherent of Judaism and arguably a top target of the Alt Right) is "Alt-Right."
In fact, the thrust of the NYT article is that YouTube's recommendations take folks from moderate content, and send them on a spiral to more extreme content.
As far as I can tell, this is just more of the tactic of moving the Overton Window left, by re-labeling the center as "Far Right." It's dishonest and manipulative. I say this as a lifelong Democratic voter and someone who tests center-left on the Political Compass test.
It's a fallacy when there isn't a plausible mechanism that allows each step along a path to make future steps easier. Lots of things actually are slippery slopes. Censorship is almost certainly one of those things. From a comment I made last week regarding YouTube's "let's ban hacking videos" decision:
> ... "slippery slope" holds when each change makes it easier to enact further change in the same direction, and that seems to be the case here. "censor CP" + "censor porn" is an easier sell than the original "censor CP" step was, thanks to infrastructure already being in place. Adding copyright on top of that was easier still. And then violent content, and then aid to terrorism, and then politics we don't like, and gun repair videos, and ammo reloading, and...
Waving your hand and declaring "Fallacy!" isn't really a refutation. It's a cheap way to avoid actually addressing the argument.
For anything else, it may quickly become problematic if those that get scared or upset the most over news stories are in charge of declaring when to quarantine people, neighborhoods or states.
I just think debating the former is meaningless (even if two parties agreed, their shared conclusion wouldn't be useful as offending someone isn't implicitly harmful).
Whereas debating what's harmful, while similarly arbitrary and subjective, at least has the implied goal of actual harm reduction.
Ooops, I think I replied to the wrong comment
Directly advocating for sexual violence against another group.
A computer owned by the government is a different story since government property is paid for by the tax-payer, so it should not be able to act unilaterally in matters of removing content.
People just take it as an axiom that forcing ideas underground makes things worse but that seems like an idea that requires some support.
Racism is a security vulnerability in our brains. These ideas aren't propagated through reason. They are propagated by exploiting cognitive loopholes. Sitting down with your kid and showing them a whole bunch of fascist propaganda and then having a rational discussion with them isn't going to have the effect you want.
"Sunlight is the best disinfectant," according to Justice Louis Brandeis's
famous case for freedom of thought and expression. If an idea really is false,
only by examining it openly can we determine that it is false. At that point we
will be in a better position to convince others that it is false than if we had
let it fester in private, since our very avoidance of the issue serves as a
tacit acknowledgment that it may be true.
https://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/dangerous07/dangerous07_index.htmlWhat of ideas that we have already determined to be false? Genocidal racism is garbage. It has been known to be garbage for a long time. Yet it persists. Must we continue having public discussions about the merits of genocidal racism? Can we stop in 10 years? 100 years? 1000 years?
Many of them are illegal.
An example of an extreme would be "child porn" or "your credit card number" or "the password to your email".
Also illegal.
None of those examples are illegal
Most of those examples would constitute evidence of illegal activity.
If it's illegal does that mean it's not censorship to remove it?
If it's illegal, then it's no longer protected by the principle of Free Speech. The issue isn't censorship. It's the principle of Free Speech.
Based on that logic you should never be able to delete a comment from your personal blog because you're censoring the critics.
No. Ethically, that would be wrong. So too, would not taking down a dox or an illegally obtained naked photo. Neither taking down a dox or an illegally obtained naked photo would be examples of the suppression of Free Speech.
Basically, you're engaging in the dishonest conceit of equating Free Speech and censorship. They are not the same thing. At issue is the subset of censorship which abrogates Free Speech.
No they aren't. Point me to a law stating that any of those are illegal besides the "revenge porn" example that I outlined.
> If it's illegal, then it's no longer protected by the principle of Free Speech
So are you saying that anything the government deems illegal doesn't fall under the "principle of Free Speech"?
> No. Ethically, that would be wrong
Sorry, I'm not understand what you mean here. Are you saying it would be ethically wrong to delete comments from your personal blog? I'm not being snarky, just not sure if you're referring to something else when you say "ethically wrong".
No they aren't. Point me to a law stating that any of those are illegal besides the "revenge porn" example that I outlined.
That's dishonest quoting. The last quote should include my assertion that many of those would be evidence of illegal activity.
If I post the source code of your personal project online
If that was done without permission, if that information was obtained illegally, then that would be illegal. This would indeed be the case with my personal project under its current copyright, licensing terms, and repository disposition. That such a circumstance could be illegal is part of the intended shock value of your extreme example. If you didn't intend such an illegal scenario, it's still reprehensible and extreme. (see below)
If I post the contents of your diary online
Again, if that was done without permission, if that information was obtained illegally, then that would be illegal. Again, if you didn't intend such an illegal scenario, it's still reprehensible and extreme. (see below)
If I post the contents of a heated argument between you and your spouse online
If the contents were recorded from a private conversation in a home here in California, that information was obtained illegally, then that would be illegal. Again, if you didn't intend such an illegal scenario, it's still reprehensible and extreme. (see below)
The following two aren't illegal, but they're just morally reprehensible in a way which even transcends ideology. As such, the following examples are certainly "extreme."
Doxxing: If I post your address online next to a photo of your house
If I post a photoshopped picture of your kid online
But in any case, your position isn't defensible, because you're dishonestly or mistakenly conflating censorship and the principle of Free Speech. They are not equivalent. Again, the issue is the subset of censorship which interferes with Free Speech.
To be fair, there could be scenarios crafted for all of your examples of concerning activity which would make them Free Speech. If the information had a purpose to further the transparency of organizations, public figures, or shed light on legal matters, those would be covered by Free Speech. On the other hand, if the purpose is purely to hurt or humiliate someone for views, then this is reprehensible, and it doesn't fit the purpose of Free Speech.
Say you walk into a store and are followed or stopped quite often for a receipt check. If you're black in certain parts of the world, this is quite common, but much more rare if you're not black.
The privilege is a result of a system. You cannot say x people have privilege, and likewise people get offended when people yell at them for having privilege saying, "It's not something I choose." Is one person from one ethnic group responsible for all the ills cast upon others? Are we responsible for the debts of our fathers?
Privilege is a result of a system, and it is a system that grants privilege and socialite (and often subconscious) level, and that system of beliefs is what needs to be changed. So fighting against privilege involves changing the narrative of the system we live in. It takes time and it takes diligence and it takes careful and critical thought. It's not as easy as throwing a word or blame around.
I don't know. If you have the power to shut down a whole product line for a trans-national corporation with a single complaint, isn't that a kind of privilege? I certainly can't do it, you probably neither. But some people can. If you have a power to decide what is allowed to be spoken and what gets you removed from the platform, who is allowed to speak and who should be met with violence if only they dare to show up - isn't that a kind of privilege? If you can riot, destroy property, assault people and send them to the hospital - with full impunity and vocal support of major parts of the press and community, that would loudly denounce this conduct in everybody else - isn't that a kind of privilege? Some people seem to enjoy it.
We are all responsible for the debts of our fathers, except the bill comes in the form of the physical world we inhabit. Who thinks they exist away from the past, except as rhetorical play about conquering old challenges?
This is a distinction without a difference. The Principle of Charity applies and we can easily understand that "You have privilege X" is being used to mean "You are accorded privilege X by the dominant social system in which we both exist".
The bailey, the sneaky definition used to push a political point once people have agreed to the motte, is that privilege is a one-dimensional axis such that for any two people, one has privilege over the other, and that first person has it better in every single way, and that second person has it worse in every single way.
This is of course the thing everyone swears they don’t mean when they use the word privilege, which is of course how the motte-and-bailey fallacy works. But as soon as they are not being explicitly challenged about the definition, this is the way they revert back to using the word."
This was one fucked up Australian, from a country of over 30 million; and the first Aussie to commit a mass shooting since 1996.
I do not think it's right to place the blame on a bunch of random people saying things. They didn't murder all those people. Speech is not violence. Violence is violence, and that one guy decided to take it off the computer, hop across the pond, somehow get a ton of firearms in a country where they are heavily restricted, and then shoot up a bunch of innocent civilians.
There are millions of other Aussies and Kiwis who probably chat on the same networks he was on, and never take up violence. They may speak up against things they think are wrong or that they don't like, either online or in public spaces, but there is a big difference between speech/saying things and murder.
Do I 'blame' 4chan? Not in any absolute sense, especially as he did his live broadcast to 8chan. But I'm willing to say that I think participation in these online communities contributed, yes.
If the Hutus hadn't been broadcasting anti-Tutsi sentiment for a few hundred days before the violence, it's tough to say that the Hutus would've suddenly risen up to kill about 70% of the Tutsi population there all of a sudden.
What about The American Revolution? or unions/strikes? There are times in history where speech lead people to push through those tipping points, and sometimes they resulted in violent revolution and others in non-violent revolution. (and we're generally okay with the violent revolutions, so long as the 'right' side wins).
Even in your Hutus/Tutsi example, you're suggesting the Hutus used speech to persuade their people to commit violence? It's still the choice of the individuals, and eventually the group, to act violently.
Unless you're saying that with enough advertising, you remove peoples' agency. That in the face of constant advertising, individuals have less of a choice and subscribe more to group think.
Maybe freewill is an illusion and you can get people do do whatever you want with enough speech, propaganda and averts. But that's a much bigger issue of human will than speech.
I genuinely do have trouble unifying my instinct that nazi propaganda, for example, should be censored, against my understanding that what constitutes "solicitation to commit crimes" is relative to what a society considers "good" or "bad," which is (somewhat) arbitrary.
Take your list as an example. Any action that is damaging to the State could be considered Criminal - perhaps something as simple as developing good cryptography, for example. Some things are crimes that shouldn't be - smoking marijuana, an example. Simply saying "solicitations to commit crimes should be censored" thus doesn't jive with me.
I think the main problem is the human heart ... but that is a different discussion.
What if it's against a group of individuals?
Claims like this--and these are the tip of the iceberg--target groups of people and affect every individual within. It's like passive libel/slander that every member of the group has to contend with.
It can even affect people outside the group. I don't think I know of a straight man under 30 who isn't afraid someone will think they're gay if they do the wrong thing. And more than a few cisgender women get run out of bathrooms because they present in a more masculine way.
I'll add that I don't regard patents, regulation, or "inconsistent enforcement of existing laws" as a reason why a company or individual should forfeit the freedom to determine what they host on a computer they own.
But thank god you and I are smart - really, really smart. So smart, in fact, that we should take it upon ourselves to police the thoughts and words of the 'lessers'.
> I think those providing speech platforms [...] should probably take more responsibility for what they propagate.
Hmm... It seems like that's exactly what you said earlier. Walking it back now?
I'm not sure what group of people you just Other'd, but I am suggesting that you re-read your post and consider:
a) whether you still hold the view you espoused 13 minutes ago that some group of humans are non-thinking.
b) whether the message you're trying to make could be more clearly articulated.
to me, it reads like you're making really broad statements which you believe to be immune to any challenge or reasoning.
Then try re-reading my comment.
> a) whether you still hold the view you espoused 13 minutes ago that some group of humans are non-thinking.
I said they are not thinkers, and they aren't, they aren't interested in competing ideas or what's factual, and as such high ideals as the marketplace of ideas coming true in the end are at best naive.
> b) whether the message you're trying to make could be more clearly articulated.
I was pretty clear - a lot of people are very stupid. Look at how they hurt themselves and each other, look at reality tv, look at ... hell you don'[t have to look very far.
Again, I'm not claiming to be the smartest guy in the room, neither am I claiming to have a solution. I'm just trying to point out that these abstract ideals about ideas being allowed to propagate and compete, about allowing and supporting the dissemination of hatred from your platform in order to better fight it in the open, that when you do fight them with better arguments, people will listen... these ideas are pretty demonstrably flawed.
This doesn't mean that we shouldn't draw lines between speech we're okay with and speech we're not. Literally every human being on the planet does it! This is why I don't like "marketplace of ideas" arguments: the person making them always always always still thinks some speech should be somehow punished in the market.
Libel has a pretty narrow definition and clearly leaves the realm of opinions and ideas to a different realm of willfully lying about someone with the intent to harm them personally.
The fact that we remove libel protections from public figures including politicians already makes this an extremely narrow subset of speech.
Arguing that this is just another example of an arbitrary line within a grey area seems like a rhetorical device to overemphasize the subjectivity of speech protections in pursuit of making them no longer able to be consistently protected.
The fact that it's okay to libel a public figure (a fact I didn't know until now!) further underscores how arbitrary it is. At what level of renown are you a "public figure"? How is it measured?
We should be as stringent as possible in legal exceptions to freedom of speech. But there's no moral obligation to protect any given speech from social consequences (such as getting kicked from your web host). No one is actually a free speech absolutist.
I've never met an actual free speech absolutist. I've just met people who tolerate certain forms of hate speech.
This is where speech becomes a kind of action: misleading people in business, directing people to do harmful or illegal things. It’s actually pretty interesting how consistent the common thread is ... incitement to illegal acts or misrepresentation which results in tangible harm.
Therefore the United States libel definition is most directly relevant to the overall point here.
It's not dishonest, it's literally your exact quote, copy and pasted in whole, verbatim. Your "evidence of illegal activity comment" is written later in the post, and I didn't respond to it because it's completely irrelevant. You stated those things are illegal. I explained that they're not and asked you to point to some evidence that they are. The fact that you are now saying they're "evidence of illegal activity" is just you moving the goalpoasts.
Anything can be considered "evidence of illegal activity" IF it implicates one in a crime. Using your reasoning, a bloody knife is illegal because it's "evidence of illegal activity". Well... no, it could just as easily be evidence that I cut myself making dinner, so there is no reason for you to bring that up except to shoehorn my examples into the category of illegal activity even though they aren't actually illegal.
> if that was done without permission... if that information was obtained illegally... If the contents were recorded from a private conversation in a home here in California...
So only IF you qualify everything I wrote with examples I didn't use which are actually illegal. You've got some balls to lecture others on dishonest argumentation when you can't even honestly tackle the argument as I wrote it. Unless you decide to post some links to laws showing that those examples are illegal, I am just going to move on from this part of the discussion because you're objectively wrong here. They're NOT illegal.
> The following two aren't illegal, but they're just morally reprehensible in a way which even transcends ideology
So are you suggesting that things you deem as morally reprehensible should be exempt from your "principle of Free Speech?"
You also did not answer my question about whether or not it is "ethically wrong" to delete comments from your personal blog.
...You've got some balls to lecture others on dishonest argumentation when you can't even honestly tackle the argument as I wrote it.
One can cite or represent a bloody knife for shock value. In such cases, the implication is often clear. I suspect you're either misleading with the shocking implication, thereby having it both ways.
Perhaps I misread your intention. However, your scenarios don't really make sense if one applies the "not a big deal" interpretations. Sure, there are situations where it's not a big deal to post a diary entry. In that case, why would anyone care and why would there be any censorship which would be considered "good?" It doesn't make sense.
So are you suggesting that things you deem as morally reprehensible should be exempt from your "principle of Free Speech?"
There is indeed a problem with speech devoid of principle, meant only to hurt someone. This is understood by the law. The purpose of Free Speech is to let people express grievances or objects with regards to principles. Morally reprehensible speech should be allowed, but it's not the purpose of Free Speech. Some subset of morally reprehensible speech would even be illegal, and therefore it wouldn't be protected as Free Speech.
Again, it's you who brought up the nebulous extreme examples in the first place, with the purpose of having it both ways to justify censorship.
I am not making any implications. My point here is very clear: your statement that the scenarios I described are illegal is false. It's as simple as that. Either way, it doesn't matter to the point I'm making.
> your scenarios don't really make sense if one applies the "not a big deal" interpretations
Whether you regard the scenarios as "extreme" is a subjective characterization that has no impact on the argument. I am arguing that censorship isn't inherently bad or wrong. I don't agree that the examples are extreme or illegal, but even if they are, they are still examples of content that could inadvertently end up on the internet; the point is the same no matter how it got there.
Even if someone broke into the house of a politician, assaulted them at gunpoint, and then stole sensitive political documents before posting them on the internet, the argument is the same. The voluntary censorship of those materials by platform owners would not necessarily be bad or wrong. In that extreme and illegal example, platforms might have a legal obligation to censor the materials as well, but that doesn't change whether or not doing so is bad or wrong.
> There is indeed a problem with speech devoid of principle, meant only to hurt someone. This is understood by the law. The purpose of Free Speech is to let people express grievances or objects with regards to principles. Morally reprehensible speech should be allowed, but it's not the purpose of Free Speech. Some subset of morally reprehensible speech would even be illegal, and therefore it wouldn't be protected as Free Speech.
Descriptions like "devoid of principle and meant only to hurt someone" is a subjective determination the likes of which sit at the heart of every free speech debate. As you already stated, in the context of "what is understood by the law" the point is moot since "illegal speech" is not "free speech" by definition unless you're arguing that the law is wrong or misapplied. Either way, speech that is "devoid of principle and meant only to hurt someone" is also legally protected speech in most cases.
> Again, it's you who brought up the nebulous extreme examples in the first place, with the purpose of having it both ways to justify censorship.
I did not "justify censorship", I refuted the statement "censorship is always bad". To characterize that as justifying censorship is dishonest.
You forgot about the guidelines: Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize.
You did that by ignoring the context of the post.
> Anything can be considered "evidence of illegal activity" IF it implicates one in a crime. Using your reasoning, a bloody knife is illegal because it's "evidence of illegal activity". Well... no, it could just as easily be evidence that I cut myself making dinner, so there is no reason for you to bring that up except to shoehorn my examples into the category of illegal activity even though they aren't actually illegal.
Nope.
First one is in reference to government, I'm not suggesting that the government should have the power to shut people down, as I've said in multiple places, I'm not sure what a good solution looks like.
The second one is about platform owners, who are not governments, but should take some more responsibility for spreading (for instance) hate by providing their platform to people.
Not sure what your problem is here TBH.
More people are accidentally injured with knives than they are used to commit assault, but in the examples the probabilities are flipped.
You could say that under that reasoning, running over an old nun in the street is illegal because it's "evidence of illegal activity", Well... no, it could just as easily be evidence that you were stopping a mass shooting by a psychopathic old lady.