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>It is worth noting that the platforms most flamboyantly dedicated to a borrowed idea of free speech and assembly are the same ones that have struggled most int
by djflutt3rshy 9y ago
>It is worth noting that the platforms most flamboyantly dedicated to a borrowed idea of free speech and assembly are the same ones that have struggled most intensely with groups of users who seek to organize and disrupt their platforms.
THIS is what ultimately changed my mind about whether Internet companies should offer "free speech" as a positive. I used to believe that the antidote to hateful speech was simply more speech. But every site that's been tried on, fell to more and more hateful speech, pushing and bending and breaking the norms, until sane people left out of disgust or were relegated to their own, more moderated, parts of the site.
Germany and other European countries with anti-Nazi laws have it right (and no, they haven't descended into totalitarian regimes, the slippery slope simply stopped at "Don't be a Nazi".)
- jquery 9y agoThe laws against hate speech are great until suddenly they aren't. Germany's laws are making it criminal for citizens to engage in honest debate about the refugee crisis. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2017/06/30/germany-passes-law-against-online-hate-speech/442031001/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2017/06/30/germany...
- ameister14 9y agoGermany's and Austria's anti-nazi laws don't seem to be very effective at preventing Nazis, though. A bunch of the Austrian lower and upper houses of parliament are members of a party started by a former SS officer and Germany sent a member of the NPD to the European Parliament.