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Sometimes there’s a bit more nuance, but it does tend to come down to this. Often flagging mechanics are pointed to as censorship, or anything which falls short
by Semirhage 8y ago
Sometimes there’s a bit more nuance, but it does tend to come down to this. Often flagging mechanics are pointed to as censorship, or anything which falls short of engaging with someone in debate is censorship. In most cases there’s a lack of understanding that just as they have a right to say something, other people have a right to respond with a flag, or not respond at all. Freedom of expression doesn’t imply an obligation to debate everyone on every point. I’m not censoring an anti-vaxxer by flagging and moving on, I don’t owe them a debate. The government isn’t allowed to interfere in the right of anti-vaxxers to spew, and also in my right to call them morons, or a social media site’s right shut the whole conversation down.
Too often “free speech” is a messy and conflated concept used to basically argue against anyone being told to shut up. Various arguments about the size or dominance of a social media platform are often used to try and get them covered like the government under the 1st amendment. Then if all that fails, the argument switches to free speech as a vague principle rather than a legal right.
To be fair, it isn’t just conservatives who seem to feel this way either. Americans in general just seem, on average, not to understand this issue as well as they think they do.
- IGI-111 8y agoIt is a core tenet of Liberalism (in the actual sense of the word) that yes, free speech does mean that you have a right for your ideas to be engaged. Moreover people like Mill or Popper would argue people have a duty to engage every idea, because that's how the open society works. The reduction of free speech to the first amendment and to State censorship is a modern american barbarism that is as absurd as it is baseless in either its historical roots or its application by any free judiciary, including the American one. Telling people to shut up because their ideas are unpopular is and always will be illiberal.
- Semirhage 8y agoPeople have a right to be illiberal, liberal, and everything in between. People have a right to hew to the thinking of Mill and Popper, or ignore it. That’s also an aspect of freedom of thought, and consequent expression. You’re also free not to like it, and I’m free not to care.
- IGI-111 8y agoCertainly. But free speech is an inherently liberal position by definition, construction and history. You're free to think that it's all bunk and tyranny of the majority is just fine. Many people do. I'd just like it to be clear to everyone that such an opinion is being against free speech. Because what greatly annoys me is when people try to claim that they advocate a "reasonable" version of free speech when they simply oppose it. Or indeed try to claim that their censorious position is a liberal one. Which I am not at all accusing you of incidentally.
- someguydave 8y agoMy perception (and apparently that of those asked in the survey) is that conservative opinion gets a disproportionate amount of "I just flag it and move on" treatment. I would wager a large sum of money that if left-wing opinion were treated in the same way there would be much whining about minority rights and the importance of an individual's free speech from the left.
- someguydave 8y agoThank you someone for giving me a downvote :)
- someguydave 8y ago> "I’m not censoring an anti-vaxxer by flagging and moving on, I don’t owe them a debate" Maybe not, but on some sites you are abusing your privileges as a moderator by behaving this way.