A tolerant society can not tolerate intolerance.
Sure, but there’s an lot of people classifying disagreement as hatred and using that to stamp out the discourse we need to have as a society.
Take positive discrimination. Some see it as corrective action for historical injustices. Some see it as newspeak it for just another form of discrimination and two wrongs don’t make a right. There’s a societal discourse that needs to happen there.
Nobody is preaching hatred, but I expect I’ll get shit for even suggesting there’s a ethical argument against DEI.
It would help if you re-thought your argument from the perspective of a person with the intelligence to understand the difference between discourse and intolerant hate speech. Yes. We are discussing hatred.
No, don’t drag DEI into this. There is no equivalency in this discussion. It just shows your biases to even remotely associate it.
You are proving the parent’s point and you don’t even realize it.
It is intolerant hate speech targeted at people who are specifically targeted by racist, genderist, ableist, and sexist double standards, going against the very pillars of democracy and modern science, to serve a religious and corporatist agenda. What was your point, mfer?
You’re talking about equality vs equity. DEI is equitable.
Removed by mod
DEI, when applied in the real life, usually means if there’s two people with similar enough skillsets, one hires the more disadvataged one. Some programs use a scoring system, where being marginalized grants you extra scores on top of what you get on the tests, sure, but it’s usually pretty low (10-20 max for a 450+ max score system). It also involves training for the HR, so their prejudices can be overwritten with actual fact.
However, when I first heard about DEI in 2012 (!), it was that people told me I could get fired for being white just so the workplace can expand its “diversity”, while the guy telling me its existence told me how can I help Fidesz to win the next elections, and that I should become a hardcore conservative ASAP because I would grow out of leftism.
Running a company with people who are all exactly the same is such a stupid idea that it doesn’t even merit a discussion. How are you going to understand your market, your demographics, cultural changes? Dumbest shit I’ve heard in awhile.
And society != government.
The law should tolerate intolerance, outside of credible threats of violance/restrictions of others’ rights. However, society shouldn’t tolerate intolerance, meaning we should shut down intolerance in all privately controlled spaces, and confront intolerance in all public spaces.
This is extremely wrong. The government is most definitely our society. Trying to pretend the government is not made up of us is ridiculous and reeks of othering.
I have read several of your posts and they all rely on government bad private sector good methodology. It reminds me of good old fashioned anti-government propaganda pushed by corpo bootlickers.
The government is and always will be a tool of society. I can certainly appreciate your apprehension with our current government in the US. I also appreciate your diligence in defining the difference between public and private spaces.
Trying to pretend the government is not made up of us is ridiculous and reeks of othering.
Oh, the incoming US government is made up of us? There is no “us” that includes both me and those thieving, murderous, lying pieces of shit.
And as the man said, if my thought-dreams could be seen, they’d probably put my head in a guillotine.
Yup it is, you must understand the incoming administration is just a fraction of the actual government.
I totally agree with you that Aotus and his handlers along with a lot of our representatives are pieces of shit. We definitely need to vote them out. Hopefully we will still be able to when it is all said and done.
Really though we need some serious reforms to restore our confidence.
The government is most definitely our society.
That’s absolutely not true. To use a sports analogy (any sport), the government is the referees, and society is the culture around the game (cheers, rituals, etc). If nobody shows up to the stadium, the refs have nothing to referee, yet society carries on.
We try to set up rules that match the values we hold (i.e. no dangerous tackles), but if we try to rig the game in our favor, the other team will use those same rules against us. If we give the referees too much leeway in interpreting the rules, we open ourselves up to bribery and unfair game calling.
As you rightly said, government is a tool of society, but it’s also a dangerous tool. The same tool can guarantee equal protection under the law like the civil rights movement in the US, or it can guarantee unequal protection like in Nazi Germany. The difference comes down to what powers we let the government have.
First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
You can throw “fascists” (general term for the right wing these days it seems) in there as well. Once you give the government power to regulate speech, it becomes very easy to abuse. If you can control the narrative, you can hold on to power.
they all rely on government bad private sector good methodology
While I do most closely align with libertarians than either major party (who are stereotypically pro-private sector), I don’t think this is a good summary. I think government is a dangerous tool and we should be very careful in using it to solve problems. However, I also think large corporations are also dangerous, and we should have tools to keep them in check. For example:
- rescind corporate protections for larger orgs - if a company is worth more than a certain amount, it no longer needs public protection and should be expected to carry insurance for any debts
- expose executives to criminal prosecution
- set strict limits on election interference, and get money out of elections
- I believe in NIT, a formulation of UBI that has less sticker shock, so people can walk way with confidence from bad employment situations
We absolutely need checks on both the private and public sectors, the first to prevent any one individual or group from having an outsized influence, and the second to prevent weaponization of the state’s monopoly on force. I believe government should be decentralized, but powerful in the limited roles it has.
I know people who have ran for office and been successful on the city/county level. They made a difference in our communities. The people in government are not any different than you or I.
On a local level there is not even a doubt that we have a lot of control. I have “lobbied” local, state level, and federal level and I can tell you we have less control over the federal side. This does not mean we have no control though.
We are literally the government. The government has the power to regulate speech and exercises it’s authority regularly. The judicial branch is well known for regulating free speech in the public sector. We have a lot of laws for things like broadcasting or radio in the private sector.
Unfortunately our government never really caught up with the Internet age quite yet. The regulations they have wrote heavily favor corporate interests. Concepts like Net Neutrality were politicized instead of embraced. We still lack basic privacy protections. We gave hundreds of billions of dollars to telecom to provide fiber throughout the country and they squandered it.
We are forced to use shitty private companies for communication. We have to go through third parties for all our banking needs. Meanwhile these companies lie, cheat, and decieves us. Truly a libertarian hellscape where private interests control everything.
The very reason you dislike the government is the very reason we are here today. Our government is so ineffective it has basically given into private interests. This is particularly noticeable in the Tech sector.
I think it is past time to write a new constitution that actually works for everyone. We need to shed the “for the rich by the rich” part of our government and basically grow up. Governing should be highly regulated and designed to resist corruption.
The people in government are not any different than you or I.
Yup, and I’ve thought of challenging my state rep because he always runs unopposed. I honestly don’t have time for the job, but my rep is such an idiot that maybe it’s worth risking the very remote chance that I’ll win. I doubt I’d get >20%, and that’s including all the protest and pity votes in my district.
Concepts like Net Neutrality were politicized instead of embraced.
It’s also not at all what it says on the tin.
Ideally, something like that wouldn’t be necessary at all because nobody owns the internet. Yet for some reason everyone wants to regulate it. If I pay for service, I should get the advertised speed, regardless of what I’m accessing. If someone like Netflix wants to host a cache at my ISP, go for it, but it should only be hit if my DNS resolves to that cache (and I control my DNS).
Yet ISPs, governments, and big tech companies all think they own it. Just back off.
Truly a libertarian hellscape where private interests control everything.
More like a nightmare for libertarians. Everywhere I look there’s cronyism, and that’s distinctly anti-libertarian. Banks get bailed out when they get caught with their hand in the cookie jar instead of the execs serving jail time. ISPs violate their contracts and nobody holds them to task.
Our government is so ineffective it has basically given into private interests.
I think the opposite is true. Our government is so effective that special interests rarely need to lobby, because our reps sell us out on their own. If you want to see who representatives are loyal to, look no further than their campaign contributions.
The problem is that we keep expecting government to solve our problems without ensuring that they’re actually loyal to us, the people. And why should they? It’s not like we’re going to vote them out next time, we’ll keep voting with our tribe because maybe this time they’ll listen (they won’t).
No, for government to actually be worth trusting, we need massive reforms to realign the federal government with the interests of the people. State governments are often better (esp in smaller states) because there’s less to get from buying those reps, though that’s not exactly true in my area (Utah, where the predominant church largely calls the shots on important legislation). Some options:
- eliminate what campaign funds can be spent on, and largely eliminate rallys (candidates can host one town hall in each state), political ads, etc
- replace House districts with proportional representation in each state
- replace FPTP with something like STAR or Approval voting
In general, get money out of politics as much as possible, and attack the two party duopoly. That probably won’t fix it, but it’s a start.
write a new constitution
Maybe. I’m not sure what I’d change that couldn’t be fixed with an amendment or two though, and that’s likely way easier than replacing the Constitution (which I largely like).
If they’d come for the Nazis first, the remainder of that over-repeated list would not matter.
Nobody has a problem censoring hateful and harmful content, so long as they’re the ones that get to decide what that means.
Misinformation and violent rhetoric about minorities is hate. It has no place in society and allowing it achieves nothing expect the proliferation of bigotry.
Sure, but should it be illegal? Unless it’s causing direct harm, I think the answer is no, regardless of how disgusting and hurtful it is.
For example, I can stand on the corner with a sign saying something disgusting like, “all Jews must die” or “all GOP members must die,” and as long as it’s not seen as an actual, credible threat, it’s not and shouldn’t be illegal. Should we, as a society, tolerate it? No, I fully expect people to confront me about it, I expect to lose friends, and I also expect businesses to choose to not serve me due to my speech. However, I also don’t think there should be any legal opposition.
The same is true for platforms, they should absolutely be allowed to tolerate or moderate speech however they choose. That’s their right as the platform owner, and it’s a violation of free speech to restrict that right. However, people also have the right to leave platforms they disagree with, other entities have the right to not boost that content, etc. That’s how free speech works, you have the freedom to say whatever you want, and others have the right to ignore you and not let you onto their platforms.
Okay, but are Jewish people supposed to just accept that you’re walking around calling for the mass murder of their communities?
Weimar Germany was a society that was governed on this principle of a “marketplace of ideas” where “unacceptable evil beliefs will naturally be rejected”, so is the modern united states. You can see two pretty clear examples of how this does not work and just allows fascists to promote their view points.
Say in you’re example you’re not just some guy on the street corner. Say you’re a media executive. Say you’re a politician. Say you’re a billionaire. Is it still permissible? Say you make a new political party called the “kill all the jews” party, and you make friends with all the major media executives to promote your views non-stop all day every day on the air. Is it still permissible? Say you buy out social media websites, and make it against the TOS for those websites to say anything denouncing of the “kill all the jews” party. Then you flood those websites with indoctrination material and fabricated news stories. Is it still permissible?
Hate speech can and should be faced with legal prosecution. You should face legal repercussions for calling for all Jewish people to be murdered. Freedom of speech should not protect violent bigotry. The goal of government should be to provide the greatest quality of life for all. That is incompatible with allowing people to spread violent hate speech and indotrinate others into violent bigotry. This mistake has been made time and again. Fascists are the ones who fight the absolute hardest for “freedom to say nazi shit”. Because of course they want it to be legal for them to do that, they’re nazis. Protecting them from legal consequences for being Nazis literally only benefits Nazis.
And it’s not just calling for mass murder, but providing the framework to organize it. There’s a point where a threat becomes specific and actionable, and at that point, it’s not protected speech any more, it’s incitement. the problem is that the courts have so far failed to recognize that the technique of stochastic terrorism is actionable, just as a more traditional threat is.
Protecting them from legal consequences for being Nazis literally only benefits Nazis.
Yep, it’s going to be cold comfort for the absolutists when they’re being mass-murdered. This is not genteel debate we’re talking about, it’s crimes against humanity, and I’m quite willing to sacrifice a few absolutist principles to prevent even more of such crimes being committed.
I’m looking forward to whenever someone decides that your beliefs are “hate speech” and suddenly you’ll be the one supporting free speech.
“Free speech” is a morally neutral thing. Most leftists don’t go on about “free speech” because it’s not a value we hold. We value tolerance of people of different races, genders, sexualities, and so on. The issue is not speech in general – it’s the content of speech that matters. “Free speech” sidesteps the issue of what is actually being said.
Well, at least you’re honest about being against free speech.
Fascism isn’t the only form of authoritarianism, and authoritarianism in general wants to control speech. If you can frame your opponents’ speech as “hate speech,” you can use the law to silence them, even if their speech has no chance of actually causing any harm. If becomes a political tool to maintain power.
The examples I gave are fairly extreme and most would consider them hate speech, but as soon as we allow silencing people over hate speech, we open the door to abuse for political purposes. The charges don’t even need to stick, you just need to tie someone up in the courts so they can’t properly campaign.
Look at less free countries like Venezuela or Russia, they go after speech first (e.g. journalists). That alone should give you serious pause when you hear any attempt to regulate speech.
We don’t have to, there’s no rule saying either we have Nazis or no one can say anything. I don’t agree that “saying nazi stuff” is nebulous enough that it could be construed to mean “saying not nazi stuff”.
I also don’t feel you adequately responded to my pointing out that protecting the rights of Nazis to be Nazis only benefits Nazis at the expense of literally everyone else and allowing Nazis to make political parties and manipulate society.
Your society has fundamentally failed to protect the rights of its citizens if Nazis can exist within it. They should face legal action for their views.
Allowing Nazis to say Nazi stuff doesn’t in any way limit your ability to say anti-Nazi stuff. Banning Nazi stuff enables law enforcement and courts to determine how broadly to interpret that. If Nazi simps (or actual Nazis) get into power, maybe they’ll decide your speech counts as “Nazi stuff.”
Your society has fundamentally failed to protect the rights of its citizens if Nazis can exist within it. They should face legal action for their views.
I strongly disagree. They should face social ostracization and be rejected by the public because their views carry no weight.
If Nazis exist in your society but only at the fringes because people have rejected their ideas, you’ve won. If the only way you can defeat dangerous ideas is by getting the “right people” in power to create laws, you’re on very dangerous ground.
Nazis will limit my speech if they get into power one way or the other, what are you talking about lol. If they get into power they will literally kill me, that’s their stated goal.
Okay, well, in FreeSpeechAbsolutismLand the nazis will now run around convincing everyone that being a Nazi is totally cool and you should do it too, fast forward and congratulations Hitler just got elected because the Nazis bought out the major media organizations and indoctrinated everyone into Nazism. Now, let’s review. Is there anywhere along the way that the government could have done something to prevent Nazis from taking over the country?
Like, come on, this is so ridiculous. You’ve been so convinced by conservatism that restricting the right to say literally anything immediately turns your country into Soviet Russia that you’re here protecting Nazis. It’s just foolish. You’re acting like it’s absolutely impossible to have any laws at all because inevitably they will be misinterpreted to their extreme. It’s like “should murder be illegal because what if people in power decide fetuses count as people and are therefore murder-able” like no we can actually restrict specific things. I don’t see many people advocating the legalization of murder so as to prevent abortion rights from being restricted by advocates of fetal personhood.
Yeah, it’s quite the marketplace of ideas when some asshole is out in the street hitting you in the head with a lead pipe.
And excluding from power those who should never hold it seems an an entirely reasonable feature of a legitimate polity.
Why is this just about “minorities” and what is a “minority”? Who is going to define this definition? Why is this not also for hate of any kind such as calls for violence to “non-minorities”?
the law shouldn’t dictate this because that would require rigid definitions of misinformation and minorities. are Nazis minorities? What about Israelis? Or Palestinians?
is spreading a rumor misinformation? What if it is later found out to be true?
Fascist speech is not hard to point out. Advocating for the removal of the human rights of minority groups should result in legal punishment. Advocating for violence against minorities should result in legal punishment.
No one is born a Nazi. You should not be able to exist in society as a Nazi. You should face legal action for being a Nazi. We hung people at Nuremberg over this. We have already long since had established definitions of what inciting genocide is, of what spreading fascism is.
What is tiring about this conversation is that you have to balance real historically documented dangers of tolerating fascists, versus the theoretical dangers of whatever some internet person thinks might happen in an imaginary future.
I mean, it’s a tough call, right? “Regulating food sounds nice in theory but what if it gives some future government the power to ban pizza haha gotcha”.
Nobody is born a Muslim either, yet pointing out the hatefulness of Islam is considered racism.
the main problem I have with the government doing this is that they would be the ones to define who the minoritys are. If I remember correctly the US consider veterans to be a protected class, what if a government decided to extend minority status to those that themselves (as part of their “culture”) codified intolerance to existing protected minorities (such as certain religions with respect to homosexuality)?
I mean I’m not advocating for that though. I don’t think it’s impossible to restrict specifically fascist rhetoric. I don’t think it’s impossible to make it illegal to advocate for genocide of racial and gender minorities.
if the (US and many others) governments weren’t run by fascists I might agree, but I know that politics change and facist, homophobic, racists are always going to have a chance to be elected in a democratic (republic) system.
If this is already true then how does making it illegal to be a Nazi change that? If Nazis will already get into power (and then restrict non-nazi or anti-nazi speech), then what exactly is the risk of making it illegal to espouse Nazi ideology?
I have a problem with idea of gov sayimg what goes. Whatever gov. If it’s your site - whatever goes, goes. You set the rules. Sheesh.
But I admit I am nos so sure when it comes to giants like FB or X. If they were like that from the get go, sure, but sudden switch is iffy as hell.
“iffy” isn’t the same as “illegal.” They can change their policies whenever they want, provided that doesn’t violate any contracts, express or implied, with their customers. If they do violate a contract, they need to make fair restitution as per whatever the enforceable terms of the agreement are.
Contracts are only meaningful between parties with more or less equal power. When the power asymmetry is extreme, contracts are just a form of coercion. Consider the case of binding arbitration clauses.
I 100% agree, and there’s a very good chance those binding arbitration agreements will be thrown out by a court. In law, there’s a concept of equal compensation, and if a contract heavily favors one party over another, it is treated as null and void.
For example, at my last job, I pissed off my boss for standing up for myself, but my boss knew I was indespensible, so he transitioned me to a full remote contractor from a salary position. My job was the same, and I was expected to join regular team meetings, but I no longer had my benefits. Anyway, when COVID happened, they “eliminated my position” (probably cost cutting), so I applied for unemployment. It’s not available for contract employees, but they said it would be if I was a de-facto employee (I think that’s the right term). They investigated, my employer fought it, and they determined that I was, in fact, a de-facto employee because of how I and they saw the agreement. In other words, our contract was voided because it was one-sided and only benefitted the company, and they were forced to backpay my unemployment.
That said, many people don’t realize that and are “chilled” (pretty sure that’s the legal term) from taking action about it.
I believe we should change contract law to actively push back on this. Contracts should be as simple as possible, understandable by someone with an 8th grade education, and only include terms necessary to provide the service. I shouldn’t have to scroll through 30 pages of technical jargon to find out if my rights are being violated, that’s unreasonable and should invalidate the entire contract.
Nobody has a problem with getting a malignant tumor removed, so long as they’re the ones who decide whether they believe the diagnosis or not.
Censorship or not, tolerance is a social contract, and those who want to undo this system must be stopped by any means possible. Content moderation is actually the compromise.
That depends on who’s doing the moderation. If it’s a government entity, that’s censorship, and the only time I’m willing to accept it is if it’s somehow actively harmful (i.e. terrorist plots and whatnot). If it’s merely disgusting, that’s for private entities to work out, and private entities absolutely have the right to moderate content they host however they choose.
Why is a private entity significantly different from a government entity? If a coalition of private entities (say, facebook, twitter, youtube, … ) controls most of the commons, they have the power to dictate everything beyond the fringes. We can already see this kind of collusion in mass media to the extent that it’s labeled a propaganda model. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_model
I just don’t think the private/gov dichotomy is enough to decide when censorship and moderation is valid.
The government is supposed to be representing voters’ best interests and have a monopoly on force to enforce rules. We can’t trust anyone to decide for us what speech we can listen to. A government should have no say on restricting speech (sadly, even if that speech does cause harm to people in our LGBT family).
A business should not have power comparable to a government. You probably have to interact with the government to some degree, you shouldn’t have to interact with a specific business at all.
These points both make sense given ideal conditions. People and businesses should have liberty over themselves, with the government serving as a neutral foundation representing the interest of voters.
Unfortunately, these ideal conditions don’t exist. The government isn’t neutral, but that’s not because of themselves or a democratic decision, but because businesses have more power to influence politics than you and me. Look at the major shareholders of mass media and social media, look at fundraisers for political parties, look at the laws made to bias the system. The government is evidently not a neutral foundation or a representative of the common people, but a dictatorship of the owning class (I’m using the term dictatorship not to imply one person ruling, but rather, that business owners as a class dictate the actions of politicians and therefore the government). And while it’s easy to consider this a crony capitalism or corporatocracy, it’s ultimately just capitalism itself taking its logical course, as business owners generally have a common class interest and the government cannot work without the complicity of business owners. We see this consistently in capitalist states, all the way back to the first ones. It’s not a fluke, it’s the power of capital.
We also see the trend of monopolization emerge - more money makes more money, more resources makes more resources, so small businesses are generally muscled out or incorporated into larger companies unless the government can force them to stop. So while you technically don’t have to interact with a specific business at all, there are many industries where you are effectively forced to interact with a small collection of the most powerful businesses or even a duopoly, even more so if you don’t have enough money to be picky.
So, while I agree, the government is supposed to be representing voters’ best interests, and business should not have power comparable to governance, they don’t represent us and businesses do govern, and history shows this won’t be changed through the electoral system they control. It has only changed when the worker class, as opposed to the businesses, has become the class directing the government.
It’s because of the power imbalance. If a private entity decides LGBT content is inappropriate for kids, you can find something on the fringe because someone will fill that gap. If a government makes the same decision, they can prosecute any service that doesn’t follow the law, which chills smaller services from offering it.
On the flipside, if a large tech company does it, it affects nearly everyone on the planet, whereas if a government does it, it should only impact people in that country. However, with larger countries, impacts often bleed into other countries (e.g. I see EU cookie banners in the US).
Likewise, it’s less likely for a government to rescind a bad law, whereas a bad policy can be easily reversed if it hurts profits.
the only time I’m willing to accept it is if it’s somehow actively harmful
Oh, like the dissemination of propaganda originating from the troll farms of hostile powers? Good idea.
Harmful meaning things like harassment (defined as continued and targeted use of speech intended to harass an individual) or credible threats of violence (i.e. a threat to kill a specific individual, attack an area, etc).
Harmful doesn’t mean “ideas I don’t like.”
Just to put some perspective over here:
Pretty much the exact same thing in pretty much the exact words is being said on the other (right wing) side of things. Its just the things being tolerated are different
I honestly think that the bigger issue here isn’t so much tolerance but certain parties that keep pointing out relatively small things to the common people (mostly on the right side of the political spectrum) and go “ooohhg my God can you believe these evil fuckers and they will do that to children too and won’t anyone think of the children”. Basically I’m talking trump, musk, Fox news, that sort of shit.
I’ve long held the believe that Trump did untold damage and harm to millions, but the biggest harm he has done is the division he’s sown. There has always been a rather steep divide in the US, but that divide has grown into a fucking ocean between the two sides.
I think most people in the US, when receiving the actual proper facts, would really not think and feel that different. Nobody would rage against universal healthcare, why would they? You only do that when you’re misinformed.
Not trying to excuse anyone, not trying to say that most trump supporters aren’t insufferable assholes, but the vast majority of them wouldn’t be as bad had they have access to actual news sources, had they not been constantly lied to.
Now with what you said, please understand that there are loads of highly armed militia groups out there in the US that would love to go into detail of that “any means necessary”. Were this to happen, you’re basically talking civil war. once that happens, everyone loses, you will too.
I think that the only way to repair this divide is to keep building bridges, keep talking, keep listening, because once it gets too far, then that’s it. One only has to look at Yugoslavia as an example of what happens when neighbor starts massacring neighbors. There is no winning for anyone.
The biggest issue is, those who divide us make those people untrusting of said bridges.
We don’t have a social contract. It’s everyone for themselves.
Tolerance is tolerance and it can break any time. You just keep tolerating until you can’t anymore, as simple as that. Its artificial.
Delete the data on my device and let me in control of the sliders and ban words. Make the defaults reasonnable to stop hate. This would not be censorship anymore, just deamplification and no one is a martyr now.
Simple as. Why censor when you can just let the users have the power to see what they want to see? In voyager I have all of the annoying headline keywords filtered. Makes browsing the fediverse much more pleasant.
The reason to say not but will not admit. This strips the owner class for the power to shape discourse and control the means of communication. This dynamic also exists on open source communication platforms such as lemmy and mastodon.
Imagine if we could simply subscribe to the content filters of fellow users. If I could just click your username, see you filter keyword list and click to add to mine the ones I like or subscribe to your named filters and their future changes.
Advertising is hateful content. Ban the entire marketing industry now please.
The majority of advertising we see in the US should be banned for sure. It is just thinly veiled psychological fuckery designed to manipulate us. Not cool.
Agreed. Let everyone be free to decide. I don’t want something shoved to my face 24x7, its inorganic and harmful.
Lemmy was created because Desaulines(sp?) got “censored” on reddit. Now he famously over-censors his darling instance lemmy.ml.
My point is just that nobody really thinks it should be a free for all. Everyone is human and doesn’t want to hear anything that they consider egregious, or in the case of lemmy.ml “against rule 2”.
.ml is garbage lead by legit garbage people. But, open source means we can take lemmy code made by garbage people and repurpose it for good. Unfortunately it seems like Lemmy image is forever stained by those people and the network will never be adopted by normal people fully.
Lemmy is fine. It will blow up in the next 2-5, guaranteed. We will also learn new ways disinformation techniques will evolve in that time frame to adjust.
It will blow up in the next 2-5, guaranteed
Big doubt. People will flock to something like BlueSky before they flock to Lemmy.
Bigger doubt.
Unless the government outlaws federating/VPNs and forces ISPs to block instances.
We had the chance in the last five elections to secure net neutrality. What can I say, people are fucking stupid.
People don’t even understand what those two words even mean. The chronically stupid will stay stupid. My own mother is a prime example of this. Her brain is warped by whatever Fox News, Facebook, and health guru podcasts she listens to tell her how to think and feel. The majority in this country are just like her.
Unfortunately, yeah. It was remarkable that for some amount of time america was unique and maybe a decent place to live. All be it 10-20 years cumulatively, maybe. Best you can do now is look out for yourself; give the finger to your mom and people like her every chance you get; and hold tight while these idiots organizing leads to their idiotic demise.
Because we are the few, we can slip between the cracks and find plenty of places to live where the fasicists can’t breathe down our necks.
Thankfully my Mom and I still have a good relationship. I just don’t talk politics with her, however I am willing to sacrifice my privileged place in society to fight fascism if it comes down to a civil war.
.ml doesn’t do parma bans generally speaking…
While I still think their over zealous daddy sheepooh and pootin speech policing is rather clown, their mod style is more reasonable vis-a-vis.World mods who are just same as reddit lol
Poor reading comprehension and regime narrative weaving…
Never forget how they handled Saint Luigi
nobody really thinks it should be a free for all
Social media probably shouldn’t, but the law should allow for a free for all. I personally think we should be closer to “free for all” than “completely locked down,” but everyone has their preferred balance.
The creator of Lemmy is just one example. They remove a lot of content that isn’t hateful, just against their political ideology. I used that as an example of a private social media website which does a lot of censoring, even though the creators are sort of, somehow, outwardly against censoring? So everyone is human is my point.
The article in question is about hate speech, not political dissent. Hate speech is pretty widely moderated away on Lemmy, and I think a majority of people here are cool with that. Some here are arguing semantics which is fair. Censoring is censoring which is the definition of censoring. I’m in the camp that if someone online is threatening another person or group of people, that should be hidden/removed.
which does a lot of censoring, even though the creators are sort of, somehow, outwardly against censoring?
Another perspective on the Lemmy situation is that, for example, I can sincerely say I believe free speech has merits while creating a book club where political discussion isn’t allowed. Some would call that censorship, but restricting a certain community doesn’t mean I approve of unconditional societal censorship. “Censorship”, like many abstract concepts in the liberalist worldview, doesn’t make sense to think of as a universal value, but rather in contexts, like you pointed out with hate speech removal being in line with the beliefs of most people on the main Lemmy instances.
There are some concepts, for example, that I think are fine to discuss in an academic situation but should be censored in public spaces, especially when it comes to explicitly genocidal ideologies like Nazism, or bigoted hate speech.
The article in question is about hate speech, not political dissent.
It’s also by a politician with political power.
Do you know what the difference is between political dissent and hate speech? A clever application of the law, or a particularly persuasive lawyer. The law should be limited to prosecuting credible threats of violence or other speech intending to cause direct harm (e.g. repeated harassment, shouting “fire” in a crowded room, etc).
Overbearing private moderation is absolutely fine, since people can take their speech to another platform or create their own. Laws controlling speech is another matter entirely.
Lemmy devs are free to moderate their instances however they see fit, and I’m free to not engage with their instance.
It sounds like we agree, but I’m much less lawerly due to my lack of experience in that field.
No worries, I don’t have any direct experience either, just a strong interest.
As a kid, I wanted to be a lawyer, but I was quite introverted so litigation wasn’t appealing, so I decided to go into software patent law (I loved computers). While doing a CS undergrad, I learned how terrible software patents are, so I stuck to software dev.
I still really like the law, but now I’m more interested as a citizen knowing my rights instead of looking to prosecute the law.
Right, but they gave everyone their own platform which can compete with .ml in the same space
My point is just that nobody really thinks it should be a free for all.
Don’t made judgements about everybody based on one guy. I’m on an instance that doesn’t defederate lemmygrad or lemmy.ml, so I commonly see utterly insane tankie takes in popular, and of course also in various comments - and yet I don’t want those people to not have a platform. Because I trust just about noone to decide whether my opinions should be censored, and if that means also not censoring the opinions of people who I think are very wrong, I’m willing to take that trade.
There’s a big difference between utterly insane tankie takes and hateful content.
Well, it is censorship.
People just wake up to a realization that some censorship should exist, and it makes many uncomfortable.
Other than that, don’t be tolerant of the intolerant, and you’ll be fine.
I mean it is censorship. But not all censorship is bad.
There will be no protection under the social contract for those who wish to violate it.
Meta’s anti-LGBT rules are closely knit to their ending the fact-checking: It is science denialism and linked to racism and vaccine skepticism.
Homosexuality and gender identity are not considered mental illnesses, Sex is not a binary, and Race is not connected to intelligence.
Bigots never liked science on these three, and now they use political power to impose their narrative.
Meta never moderated such discourse. Nor reddit nor twitter nor youtube. There was no censorship to end here. What this is, it is a free pass to punch down trans and gay people. It is incitement to violence, and Zuckerberg and Musk must go to the gallows for it.
Don’t get me started on the toxic harassment these platforms have allowed against African and Carribean reparation activists, how they have destroyed the lives of feminists, and how they have named all Palestinians terrorists.
At this point race realists and gender essentialists have ensured political and technological control of the narrative.
There is no room for debating sealioning trolls on this one. If they don’t understand the social dynamics against gender/sex/minorities at this moment, they are no better than brownshirts.
It is permabans and hooks and jabs all the way, for every single weird freak that backs this deranged hateful shit.
Removed by mod
You really don’t have a clue what trans people are do you? The reason some of us require access to hormone replacement and surgical healthcare is specifically because of the way that our bodies are. Accepting trans people is not in any way illogical or unscientific. It is an acknowledgment that gender is not a simple binary option. We would expect gender to exist identically across the entire world if that were the case. It doesn’t. Western imperialists have a long history of enforcing a binary patriarchal view of gender onto conquered peoples. And people have always resisted that too, non-binary gender and trans gender people have always existed under differing names throughout human history.
Man and Woman are not and never have been determined by biology. When you choose what pronoun to use for a stranger, you do not need to first look at their blood tests or their genitals. If you gender a stranger wrong, and they correct you you generally just apologize and move on. When I was a young child and had long hair people frequently referred to me as a girl. It was never an issue when they would be corrected on that. They didn’t need to see my blood tests or my genitals to believe me when I corrected them. Because that’s not how gender works, it is not and never has been a product of biology. It is associated with different bodies, but that is not its basis.
Trans people are not denying reality, rather we are acknowledging it and saying people should have the choice of what gender is assigned to them. That instead of assigning it everyone should be free to state their own gender. That this process is not disruptive or damaging to any aspect of society (and it isn’t, there has never been one single legitimate peer-reviwed non-discredited study that showed that it is).
You might love having a cock and a flat chest and being a man but I absolutely hated it! It was the driving force behind multiple suicide attempts throughout my adolescence and early adulthood. I’ve been on hormones for a decade and it has made me a million times happier, I got reassignment surgery 2 years ago and I have never been a healthier person and never felt as good about my own body. It has had a very provably fantastic effect on my well-being. It is entirely scientific.
Hi LadyAutumn, thank you for writing this up. I’m really glad you’re here. Just wanted to say that since a sad troll is trying to make it seem like we’re not. But that guy doesn’t speak for me, and I’m so happy your transition has been healthy and life-affirming. Best wishes :)
Removed by mod
Do you need to see proof that someone is, has been, or can become pregnant before you can agree they are a girl or woman?
Removed by mod
I’ll ask again since you seemingly didn’t understand.
Before you can decide if someone you’re referring to or talking with is a girl or a woman, do you need to see proof that they are pregnant, have been pregnant, or can become pregnant? Do you put a hold on every social interaction you have until you are presented with such proof?
Removed by mod
you’re missing the point of being transgender.
the goal is not to claim that they were born a different gender. that would be delusional, and transgender people can be totally rational.
the point is simply to live as their preferred gender, and ideally be accepted as such.
when they live as their preferred gender, they are able to feel happy and content, just like everyone else. it’s not that difficult to consider how miserable we would feel if people misgendered us. it’s a common insult.
treating everyone as the gender they prefer is a simple act of kindness. you can choose to be an asshole about it, but you’re not standing up for the truth, you’re just choosing to be an asshole.
deleted by creator
I live on my own and support myself and my family with a full-time job in technology.
And yeah, people like you are very predictable in your arguments. Like how you didn’t even argue against anything I said. Because you can’t, there is no actual counterargument except to deny everything and assert God. Took me all of 10 minutes to type my response. This concerns my rights and freedoms, the rights and freedoms of my community, and the rights and freedoms of vulnerable people like trans youth and disabled trans people. I will never accept an attack on their rights.
I don’t live in the US, so I’ll have to ask 9 days until what exactly? Go off buddy you’re so cool spreading hate speech about minorities on the internet. Your ideological allies got shot by allied soldiers landing on the beaches of Normandy in June of 1944. That’s who the group of people with views and strategies most closely aligned with your own are. You should think a bit about what that says about you.
Here I am, going to get downvoted into oblivion, but you already speak about the topic so I want to ask.
Trans people have the cure for their condition - that being surgery. Why shouldn’t being trans (before actually transitioning!) considered being ill?
Sorry if I come as rude but in today’s hellscape there’s really no way to ask that without sounding like a douche.
First, surgery is not sth every trans person seeks, nor the first thing that they seek.
Equating trans with surgery shows that you know next to nothing about the topic.
Again, if you want to educate yourself here
Being trans is a reality not a condition. Like (some) veterans have PTSD, that does not mean being a veteran is mentally ill.
World Health Organization lists gender incongruence under “conditions related to reproductive health” not mental conditions. American Psychiatric Organization has “gender dysphoria” under mental conditions, but clearly states this is to get access to care, being trans in itself is not a mental condition.
Finally, the fact that there is a “cure”, does not mean there must necessarily be an illness, for example abortions are health care for unwanted pregnancy this does not mean pregnancy is an illness.
gender dysmorphia is the illness, and transitioning is the cure.
Removed by mod
Removed by mod
In what way do trans people hurt you?
But calling people moronic before having a conversation does seem mean. Matter of fact a trans person just did.
We see how cool headed are men when pay-gap is brought up.
Fucking cry-babies, they call everyone a snowflake and want to concern troll endlessly, but the moment sexism and racism comes up in a discussion they lose their shit.
Imagine when a trans person is perpetually punched down by the whole of society and still have to be nice because of strict tone policing.
To me, a trans person has every right to call you a moron when if you tried to debate their existence and rights, especially now that blatant transphobia is legitimized and normalized.
Did you just assume my gender?
It’s your responsibility to correct someone if they misgender you. It’s their responsibility to accept the correction and respect your identity after they have been corrected.
As I would do. You wanna be called a chick when you’re a dude? Cool fine. I can respect that. But the fact is playing extreme dress up doesn’t make you whatever it is you’re saying you are
You claim in your username you are a guy. I respect your pronouns, sorry if this is confusing.
Valid lol
Never said they did
You people bring up those arguments for years and years. Having a gender identity that mismatches your genitals is not a delusion. This is a hundreds or so medical organizations opinion. If you are willing to educate yourself, rather than being an ignorant piece of shit. This has been the case for YEARS, at this point if you have not gotten the message, you don’t want to be educated.
That link leads to no where
Switch invidious backend from the links on the top
I don’t know what to do from here
See where it says “switch backend” try one of those links. Or watch it on youtube if you are not concerned about privacy.
Alright hold on lemme give it a watch
Are we redefining words now?
“BAAAHHH!!! YOU’RE CENSORING MY HATE SPEECH, RACIST SLURS AND DEATH THREATS!!! WAAAAAAHHHHH!!!”
That CANNOT be the arguement you stand behind.
No one said it had to be platformed, but call a spade a spade
I mean, we do that. Just say it’s good to censor bad things. There’s nothing wrong with that, so don’t lie about what you’re doing.
Censorship will attract scrutiny, they prefer term “modding” and they do it as charity, boy, take off your pants…
The argument is the dictionary.
Which one?
I mean there has always been illegal speech, we just don’t usually call it censorship.
We’re always redefining words, that’s how language works. This isn’t even close to the most egregious within the last couple decades.
Language works when words have a common meaning between the speaker and the listener. When 2 parties have 2 different interpretations of the same word because 1 decided they were going to manipulate into meaning something different from the commonly understood one, language breaks down, and we get senseless arguments among people who otherwise agree outside of semantics.
So no, that’s not how language works.
Literally means figuratively now.
Yes, language changes, that is why you don’t rely solely on individual words to define your argument.
The reason people might argue despite agreeing outside semantics is that they never bothered to go beyond a very basic explanation of their argument. If your sole disagreement comes from a differing interpretation of a word… then do your best to define your argument better. Otherwise you’re just arguing for the sake of arguing.
Literally means figuratively now.
Which is an excellent example of how stupid this is because this word has literally lost all meaning, thank you.
then do your best to define your argument better.
My argument is that manipulating definitions to suit an agenda is stupid nonsense.
Yeah, “purchasing” movies or shows comes to mind. When streaming services revoke access and never grant a way to download them, did you ever really purchase the movie or did you just rent it?
An excellent example of the negative impact of the manipulation of definitions.
like how the right redefines free speech to mean hate speech
Which is absolutely disgusting, especially when they try to apply it to private platforms, where that right doesn’t exist.
Free speech means the government cannot arrest you purely for your speech. It doesn’t mean social media has to let you on your platform or retain your hateful posts.
It’s not a right to harass people, and you’re not entitled to others’ megaphones
I don’t disagree with you. But calling it anything other than what it is is disingenuous and misleading. Like when you buy a movie and it isn’t available to download and the streaming service takes away access, did you really purchase that movie or did you just rent it? Words have meaning is all I’m saying.
Words also have connotations.
Human rights violations aside The EFF and Techdirt have already said that it is hate speech and effectively suppresses the free speech of gay and trans. Do you know better than these sources? The latter is like the very person who states that anti-hate speech laws are First Amendment violations. He said it loud and clear: this is actual censorship of LGBT voices.
Is it not censorship to allow violent assholes to scare minorities into silence?
I’d say that censorship when enacted by governments is violence and there’s no smaller minority than the individual. That said, if the UN Rights Chief wants to censor certain things, he should just say it. Besides, I don’t put much faith in an org who puts Iran as the chair of the human rights council. Stances like this and the OP’s link are reasons why there’s a ground swelling in the US for withdrawing from the UN.
No they just have oppositional defiance disorder. Not recognizing that protecting every individual also means working against prejudiced hate means you’re going to fail every time.
No, that’s not what “censorship” means.
You have probably not heard of the heckler’s veto
Censorship means that some higher authority wants some information not to be seen by certain people. The target of censorship is therefore the readers/listeners and not primarily the person writing/speaking. Hence if the readers/listeners don’t actually want to read/hear the hateful drivel that some person shouts into the void, removing it isn’t censorship but content curation.
And what if 50% of people want to read what you consider hateful drivel?
They can go somewhere else and talk to each other there.
Also block the source of speech.
But they don’t care to block, the goal is to suppress the speech.
The problem with blocking is this. It’s not a communally accepted part of any website. Here’s what I mean by that. Lots of websites say they allow you to block people. What they mean is they allow you to mute people. This can mean something as simple as you can still see their posts but you can’t interact (but they can see and interact with your posts (upvote/downvote etc), but can’t talk to you. That’s problematic. I feel like a block should mean block. I. E. The web host or platform completely isolated you from one another so that it appears on the user side of things as if you never existed. But that’s problematic too. On Lemmy, if I block someone I lose all post history related to that section of the post where the interaction took place. I can’t go back to my own comments. I cannot see my own comments.
Then there’s the problem of block or mute lists having a finite number. If you have a ten year old account somewhere and you have been muting or blocking people for all ten of those years, eventually you will run out of available space on the block list and there’s no good way to purge the list. You very often can’t back it up, can’t auto purge accounts that are dead or no longer in use, can’t even generally see if the people you blocked are still active in a way that insulates and protects you.
If the goal is to suppress speech that implies that the person/entity doing the suppression is in a position of authority and not following the will of their constituency. So if a mod gets hundreds of reports about a post or comment, some action is warranted because the community is speaking out against it.
That’s important to what we’re talking about here.
It’s only censorship if it’s something I personally agree with.
Yes, but just deleting without comment, as if it never existed, isn’t the solution either.
Are you saying it should be required by law to have a comment regarding removal of content?
Law is per country, web is international, i don’t think that’s gonna work.
I mean it is, but it’s also not a bad thing in moderation (heh)
If we don’t believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don’t believe in it at all. —Noam Chomsky
I mean, sure, but does that mean people get to express themselves everywhere all the time?
I go to work and there’s always a couple fuckers who bring up their hateful opinions in a “I’m not racist but,” way.
It affects my productivity when I have to hear that bullshit all day while trying to get them to stop in a diplomatic way.
I can’t say it so directly, but it’s not censorship to say “shut up and let me work”
If they’re disturbing you from working, that’s an issue independent from the message they’re expressing, so freedom of expression does not apply.
Ok, now I argue that the constant bombardment of misinformation and hate speech we face online and through the media clearly affects people’s ability to live their lives, and is no different than the guy talking my ear off at work.
I’m not saying they can’t express themselves. I’m just saying that we don’t have to listen, but with the current state of things we’re being forced to listen.
Nobody is forcing you to read anyone’s comments on Facebook.
No, but we’re on the receiving end of the consequences of those comments.
When they come for you because they’re acting on some shit that Zuckerberg’s algorithm amplified, your shallow moralizing won’t make any difference.
By this logic they should ban all religious speech from every platform
It’s not just comments and I’m not talking just about me.
You and I and Mel Brooks all know that the common person is a moron.
Algorithms push misinformation. Bots push information. Are we limiting free speech by saying “you can’t use algorithms and bots to spread lies”?
Does lying count as free speech?
For example: I used to like Facebook for seeing what my friends are up to. It’s not that any more. I would be rid of it but I’m a freelancer and a lot of my clients insist on using it.
Now it’s a constant feed of shit I didn’t subscribe to designed to stoke the culture war. Even the shit I did follow way back when I still used it a lot now shows me posts designed to make people argue. It’s like 5 posts I didn’t ask for to every one that did. I’m smart enough to see it, but is everyone?
This is a stupid distinction to make. There is no speech that doesn’t affect people materially.
That’s not what the distinction is about. The important thing is whether you want to shut them down because of what opinion they’re expressing, or how they’re expressing it.
Less well known [than other paradoxes] is the paradox of tolerance: Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them. In this formulation, 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 most unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement to murder, or to kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave trade, as criminal.
- Sir Karl Raimund Popper, speaking on The Paradox Of Tolerance.
a belief held by most reasonable people and only opposed by Nazis
So the ACLU are Nazis now?
i mean they’ve historically defended nazis yes
That doesn’t make them Nazis. It makes them defenders of free speech.
Free speech protects unpopular speech. Popular speech doesn’t need to be protected.
This isn’t about free speech. This is about amplification and publication of speech.
You can say whatever you want, but we shouldn’t guarantee you a megaphone to say it.
The platform isn’t the megaphone. That’s the algorithm.
If you’re wanting their access to platforms limited, I’d like the know where you draw the line. Are they allowed to text hate speech to each other? Publish their own email or print newsletters? Should we ban them from access to printers (or printing press while we’re at it)? Should they be allowed to have hateful conversations with large groups of each other?
That’s up to the owner of the megaphone.
If the megaphone owner doesn’t want you to use it, create your own.
Barriers to entry and the first-mover advantage make that impossible.
And there’s the expected bootlicking. You went from complaining about who gets access to the megaphone, to openly praising government censorship coordination.
Maybe if you want more censorship so bad, you should take your own advice and start your own platform.
A social media site is not a publisher.
Why not?
They do not curate the content that’s posted there. Just because someone wrote something on Facebook does not mean Facebook endorses their opinion, just like sending someone an e-mail does not mean that your e-mail host endorses whatever you sent.
no it makes them defenders of nazis. if youre at a table with ten nazis, youre at a table of eleven nazis
So you’re an authoritarian bootlicker who can’t tell the difference between defending free speech vs spouting hateful speech.
I’ll defend a Nazi’s right to say their hateful shit. I’ll also gladly plead guilty to an assault charge over beating their ass for it.
They shouldn’t fear the government for their speech. They should fear physical retaliation from their community.
That’s the problem with the internet, really. You can’t punch these a-holes through your monitor or keyboard. The consequence here is moderation instead of physical violence. Removing these people from their platform is the punch in the nuts that they deserve. It’s still free speech because these are non-government websites.
Edit to make it less mean sounding.
Exactly, which is why this should be handled by the platforms as they choose instead of by government requirement. If you don’t like how a platform moderates content, don’t use that platform.
Considering this moderation is often done in cooperation with government censors, and the executives working at these platforms are often former government, the lines are blurred enough that I don’t support it.
We need more legal blocks to prevent the government from getting around the constitutional protections by coordinating with corporate third parties.
Like so many others, you’ve mixed up general society with law enforcement. We defend the right for the Nazis to say their piece without being imprisoned. Running a business profiting from letting Nazis publish their speech is a choice, and not a necessary one. Using and supporting the social relevance of a social network that voluntarily publishes hate speech for profit is a choice, and not a necessary one.
Sounds like you’re the one mixing it up.
And that’s exactly what the user you’re replying to has been saying all along.
This post is about the UN, as in, a governmental authority. The whole discussion here is that moderation isn’t something for the government to do (outside of prosecutable crimes), it’s for private entities to do. Meta can moderate its platforms however it chooses, and users can similarly choose to stop using the platform. Governments shouldn’t force Meta to moderate or not moderate, that’s completely outside its bailiwick.
A social site doesn’t publish anything, it’s just a medium for users to communicate.
And those that still think fReE sPEECh is an acceptable concept in the modern world?
Free speech without consequences is what fascists are after. Free speech is an action to which they want no reaction or even worse when there is a negative reaction (also a desired goal) they will use that to attack the structures attempting to uphold peace.
And it’ll only be their speech that’s free.
Yes that’s why the Chinese are such big proponents of free speech!
Post free speech. They have already finished their objective.
Ya know I never thought I’d see the day that a marginalized people would protest free speech fundamentally. This is just next level stupid.
The freedom to speak has nothing to do with being heard.
Free speech is absolutely an acceptable concept, but it’s merely a restriction on government.
Private platforms are free to drop you from their platform if they don’t like your speech, and you can be prosecuted if your speech violates a law (e.g. hate speech). Platforms can also restrict the types of speech allowed on their platforms. None of that is a violation of free speech.
Free speech is only violated if governments place a restriction on the speech itself, or force private entities to enforce restrictions.
but it’s merely a restriction on government.
It isn’t. Free speech is a right the gov can give you, but it’s also just a concept.
Governments don’t grant rights, they can only restrict them.
They can recognize them. But nice strawman.
It’s not a strawman, it’s literally what you wrote.
The Bill of Rights in the US only exists to prevent encroachment on individual rights, they’re not necessary in order for people to have them. Arguably, governments only have rights explicitly granted to them, because they only exist due to the people submitting themselves to them.
It’s an important distinction, and one so many seem to misunderstand. I’m not saying you do, I’m merely clarifying in case someone else does.
And, in reality, the only rights that remain are those that have been fought for. “Inalienable rights, granted by the Creator” is a lovely concept, but it’s not self-enforcing, and as we’ve seen, rights can be effectively nullified by a corrupt Supreme Court and a fascist legislature and executive branch. OK, you can pretend they still exist in the abstract, but they’re de facto gone if state institutions or people power don’t defend them.
It’s not a strawman, it’s literally what you wrote.
You ignored the point I was making to argue about semantics. Still are. That’s a strawman.
In what sense is algoritmically-amplified, targeted data transmission speech? It’s of a scale that makes it qualitatively vastly different, and its impact has nothing to do with human speech or the press before the time of the internet (with the exception of yellow journalism, and we all know how well that served us).
I defend the right for you to say what you want, with few restrictions. But that doesn’t mean you can set up a 250 kwatt PA system outside my bedroom window and 3 AM and shake me out of my bed with the subsonics. And that’s where we are with the oligopoly social media providers.
Suddenly they care. One dead CEao and a bunch of whiny scared Billionaires is enough to stop 10 years of hateful content. Interesting lesson right there. Censorship is only good if it protects the rich.
He just wants more censorship. They will ban “hateful” content, and then reclassify anything they don’t like as hateful. We’re already seeing a number of platforms and institutions labeling criticism of Israel as hate speech.
