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There are no easy answers like 'just allow everything'. Should Facebook be sending embeds to 'legalize child porn' groups to help them focus their ads? What if

There are no easy answers like 'just allow everything'. Should Facebook be sending embeds to 'legalize child porn' groups to help them focus their ads? What if they call themselves 'remove the restrictive and undemocratic age of consent laws' groups? Embeds to 'make the US a purely Christian nation' groups, if they call themselves 'allow "traditional" values in the court room' groups? You can't just wave your hands and say second order effects don't happen. There's not a slippery slope, just one long slog of difficult moral decisions, and we'll get some wrong and some right according to our inheritors, but you still have to engage and try to find the actual balance.

KGIII 9y ago
I fall on the side of allowing all speech that is not expressly illegal. It relies on the reader taking the time to educate themselves but it also allows for greater freedom of expression. Yes, I'm well aware that deplorable people would be given a platform. I'm okay with that. I don't agree with them, but I can't justify not allowing them a platform to express themselves. No, Facebook is not legally obligated to provide that platform. If it isn't expressly illegal in the host country, allow it. Speech we approve of needs no defense. It was once offensive to suggest women should be allowed to vote. To think we are the apex of morality is hubris. So, I default to allowing everything that is not expressly illegal - as a moral view. I don't actually control the choices at the media giants or anything.
splintercell 9y ago
> Should Facebook be sending embeds to 'legalize child porn' groups to help them focus their ads? Why not? I know it sounds horrible, but unless the ads explicitly serve child porn, a platform for legalizing child porn is merely a political position and covered under the first amendment. You can go to a city hall, and start making your case for legalizing child porn and they can't do anything to prevent you from doing that (legally). I know you're using this example as a rhetoric, but in US simulated child porn (like anime) is already legal and protected under the first amendment. > Embeds to 'make the US a purely Christian nation' groups, if they call themselves 'allow "traditional" values in the court room' groups? Either you don't live in America (or recently moved here) or you live in a deep bubble. I have seen ads about making America a Christian nation, similarly ads about putting traditional values in the courtrooms (check out the whole ten commandments in courtroom controversy).
- coffee9 9y ago
  It confuses the idea of child porn with literal child porn, similar to hate speech/depictions of violence with literal violence, neo-Nazis with literal 1940 Nazis, historical statues with racists. Free speech makes on sense in this regressive mindset.
  - drewbuschhorn 9y ago
    A simpler way to say your accusation is that 'it confuses the sign with the signified', and I didn't.
- drewbuschhorn 9y ago
  I feel like this thread got a little lost. There's a difference between something being legal and being societally encouraged. The original article is about companies working actively to help groups. I think 'age of consent' people should be allowed to shout it from the street corner of their choice, but I don't believe we as a society have to then applaud or patronize people who make a business out of selling them bullhorns. "Some people say" Google refusing to run your ads or host your site (which I guess we've now slipped to from 'sending employees to help grow your business') is censorship, but that's only the case if you're a protected class. And nope, born and raised in the good old midwest, and in fact had write essays on the ten commandments controversy in grade school.

KGIII 9y ago

I fall on the side of allowing all speech that is not expressly illegal. It relies on the reader taking the time to educate themselves but it also allows for greater freedom of expression. Yes, I'm well aware that deplorable people would be given a platform. I'm okay with that. I don't agree with them, but I can't justify not allowing them a platform to express themselves. No, Facebook is not legally obligated to provide that platform. If it isn't expressly illegal in the host country, allow it. Speech we approve of needs no defense. It was once offensive to suggest women should be allowed to vote. To think we are the apex of morality is hubris. So, I default to allowing everything that is not expressly illegal - as a moral view. I don't actually control the choices at the media giants or anything.

splintercell 9y ago

> Should Facebook be sending embeds to 'legalize child porn' groups to help them focus their ads? Why not? I know it sounds horrible, but unless the ads explicitly serve child porn, a platform for legalizing child porn is merely a political position and covered under the first amendment. You can go to a city hall, and start making your case for legalizing child porn and they can't do anything to prevent you from doing that (legally). I know you're using this example as a rhetoric, but in US simulated child porn (like anime) is already legal and protected under the first amendment. > Embeds to 'make the US a purely Christian nation' groups, if they call themselves 'allow "traditional" values in the court room' groups? Either you don't live in America (or recently moved here) or you live in a deep bubble. I have seen ads about making America a Christian nation, similarly ads about putting traditional values in the courtrooms (check out the whole ten commandments in courtroom controversy).

coffee9 9y ago
It confuses the idea of child porn with literal child porn, similar to hate speech/depictions of violence with literal violence, neo-Nazis with literal 1940 Nazis, historical statues with racists. Free speech makes on sense in this regressive mindset.
- drewbuschhorn 9y ago
  A simpler way to say your accusation is that 'it confuses the sign with the signified', and I didn't.
drewbuschhorn 9y ago
I feel like this thread got a little lost. There's a difference between something being legal and being societally encouraged. The original article is about companies working actively to help groups. I think 'age of consent' people should be allowed to shout it from the street corner of their choice, but I don't believe we as a society have to then applaud or patronize people who make a business out of selling them bullhorns. "Some people say" Google refusing to run your ads or host your site (which I guess we've now slipped to from 'sending employees to help grow your business') is censorship, but that's only the case if you're a protected class. And nope, born and raised in the good old midwest, and in fact had write essays on the ten commandments controversy in grade school.