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> The ideal is that better ideas, not power, are the best response to ideas someone doesn't like. But what does that actually mean in terms of how we structure

> The ideal is that better ideas, not power, are the best response to ideas someone doesn't like. But what does that actually mean in terms of how we structure discourse? "Better ideas" will do nothing if people are never exposed to them, so presumably we would like to structure things so they are. Obviously we can't just identify the "better" ideas and amplify them, because the point is that people should identify them themselves. But if we don't amplify anything, it's likely people will not be exposed to them at all. So perhaps we want to amplify things such that people are exposed to lots of different ideas? But everyone's ideas are slightly different, and we can't amplify all of them equally. Should we choose a selection of ideas, and amplify the best examples of them? How do we decide which ideas, and which are the best examples? Or perhaps you have some other idea? I'm not trying to dismiss all the possibilities here, I'm just pointing out that statements like "better ideas, not power" get treated as simple and obviously correct, but are actually extremely complex when you get into details. And we quickly find that people understand these supposedly guiding principles in very different ways.

chillwaves 9y ago
It makes sense when you use the term censorship to apply to something like the government, which has a monopoly on violence and can literally jail or kill the people being censored and can apply that standard universally. It does not make sense to apply it to someone's private property, especially when people are free to continue their speech somewhere else. Summed up elsewhere, they are not being denied the right to say a certain thing, just the right to say it in a specific place (Reddit or Youtube). What these people call 'censorship' is more accurately described as 'house rules'.
- humanrebar 9y ago
  > It does not make sense to apply it to someone's private property, especially when people are free to continue their speech somewhere else. The Supreme Court has held that effective bans on rights are also unconstitutional. And I think that's a fair standard to apply in a broader ethical context. You can say "go somewhere else to share your views", but if the only real places you can speak are in places you own, that's not much of a consolation. "Free speech" implies conversations where everyone can hear. It's not "free speech" to write yourself notes on your own napkin or to scream into your own pillow. I think its entirely possible to have a public discussion in a privately maintained and owned forum. And the principle of free speech would have us, as much as possible, set up free discussions where the all ideas can be heard so the best ideas can be adopted.
- sheepmullet 9y ago
  > Summed up elsewhere, they are not being denied the right to say a certain thing, just the right to say it in a specific place (Reddit or Youtube). YouTube has been running at a loss for over a decade. This has allowed it to become a monopoly and have undue influence on policing speech. Censorship like this is an abuse of their monopoly privilege. The most appropriate free market solution is for the government to forcibly split YouTube off into a seperate company and let it compete in the marketplace. In addition we can remove safe harbor provisions and start holding them responsible for the shady other content they don't remove.
  - chillwaves 9y ago
    The most compelling argument is that Reddit and Youtube cannot pretend to be content agnostic hosts if they are actively censoring. Either they take responsibility for their content or not.

chillwaves 9y ago

It makes sense when you use the term censorship to apply to something like the government, which has a monopoly on violence and can literally jail or kill the people being censored and can apply that standard universally. It does not make sense to apply it to someone's private property, especially when people are free to continue their speech somewhere else. Summed up elsewhere, they are not being denied the right to say a certain thing, just the right to say it in a specific place (Reddit or Youtube). What these people call 'censorship' is more accurately described as 'house rules'.

humanrebar 9y ago
> It does not make sense to apply it to someone's private property, especially when people are free to continue their speech somewhere else. The Supreme Court has held that effective bans on rights are also unconstitutional. And I think that's a fair standard to apply in a broader ethical context. You can say "go somewhere else to share your views", but if the only real places you can speak are in places you own, that's not much of a consolation. "Free speech" implies conversations where everyone can hear. It's not "free speech" to write yourself notes on your own napkin or to scream into your own pillow. I think its entirely possible to have a public discussion in a privately maintained and owned forum. And the principle of free speech would have us, as much as possible, set up free discussions where the all ideas can be heard so the best ideas can be adopted.
sheepmullet 9y ago
> Summed up elsewhere, they are not being denied the right to say a certain thing, just the right to say it in a specific place (Reddit or Youtube). YouTube has been running at a loss for over a decade. This has allowed it to become a monopoly and have undue influence on policing speech. Censorship like this is an abuse of their monopoly privilege. The most appropriate free market solution is for the government to forcibly split YouTube off into a seperate company and let it compete in the marketplace. In addition we can remove safe harbor provisions and start holding them responsible for the shady other content they don't remove.
- chillwaves 9y ago
  The most compelling argument is that Reddit and Youtube cannot pretend to be content agnostic hosts if they are actively censoring. Either they take responsibility for their content or not.