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On the other hand, putting those views out there to be seen by others also has the effect of encouraging others to either subscribe to those viewpoints or to fe

On the other hand, putting those views out there to be seen by others also has the effect of encouraging others to either subscribe to those viewpoints or to feel comfortable expressing those viewpoints as well. If it's allowed on SOCIAL_MEDIA_X, it's implicitly socially acceptable. If SOCIAL_MEDIA_X shuts it down, it sends a message that it's not socially acceptable. The rate of cigarette smoking among young people has dropped dramatically over the past few decades. This isn't because of any change in scientific finding, we've known cigarettes are harmful and cause cancer for decades prior to that. What changed is we stopped advertising them on TV and putting cigarettes in kids cartoons and movies. We stopped letting people smoke them in restaurants/airplanes/schools/hospitals/etc. Cigarettes became uncool, became socially unacceptable. In one generation, smoking went from the coolest thing you could do to one of the least cool things you could do. Because it was made abundantly clear that it wasn't socially acceptable anymore, and that message was sent by banning smoking from public view.

oldsklgdfth 8y ago
>> If SOCIAL_MEDIA_X shuts it down, it sends a message that it's not socially acceptable. If you are the one being censored it sends the message that you are not welcome here, so you find another outlet. I hadn't hear of Gab until yesterday and my initial impression that it was a cool idea to have a social media platform that is pro free-speech, but obviously the community is very polarized and not very diverse in non-hate ideas (still don't have a complete picture of that site). >>smoking went from the coolest thing you could do to one of the least cool things you could do That's the power of marketing you're referring to. I was thinking about an individuals freedom to say what's on their mind. And if someone has super confused ideas, I would like for them to be able to express them so they can be addressed.
- freehunter 8y ago
  I would encourage you to go to reddit.com/r/the_donald and try to "address" their "super confused" ideas. Or find Alex Jones and see if your words can change his opinion. Or taking it to the farthest extremes imaginable, maybe even fly to Syria and see if you can talk some sense into ISIS. I'm sure their "super confused ideas" can be "addressed" if they're allowed to continue. It's not censorship to shut down hate speech any more than it's censorship when `dang tells me I'm not allowed to call someone an idiot on Hacker News. It sets the tone for the conversation we're all having, and you know, after I got warned a few times I stopped calling people idiots because I know that kind of behavior doesn't fly here. If people have to leave Twitter and go to Gab in order to spread their message of hate, that's fantastic. Because everyone knows Twitter, everyone uses Twitter, but no one's ever heard of Gab. And then when they visit Gab, they find it's full of hate speech and extreme opinions and never visit again. Bad business model for Gab, but a huge win for everyone else.
  - oldsklgdfth 8y ago
    Obviously I don't think I'd be able to convert a member of ISIS. But I engage my trump-voter friends all the time. Most of the time, we both benefit from such discussions by gaining insight into each others' positions. At the very least you could gain perspective and understand how these distorted ideas originated, which helps prevent and address it in the future. Online censoring is the equivalent of ostracizing members of society for things they say. Sure you can do that, but at some point that becomes totalitarian. Not calling someone an idiot, sets the tone of a conversation. You can have a civilized conversation that contains very twisted ideas. The same ideas can be expressed eloquently , i.e. eugenics, but that doesn't change what they are.
    - freehunter 8y ago
      There is something very wrong with the conversation if Twitter says they want to fight hate speech and immediately people jump to the assumption that anyone who voted for President Trump will be censored. If I say "hate speech" and Trump voters think I'm talking about them, that is a very big problem. Is there no nuance between "Trump voter" and "person who spreads hate speech"? Somewhere in the minds of the people who are afraid of Twitter's hate speech rules, they themselves believe they are engaging in hate speech whether it's true or not. And since the US doesn't have any legal definition of hate speech, it's up to society to create and enforce its own rules. Twitter banning Alex Jones and Roger Stone is just society's way of saying that the message they're spreading is not acceptable in society. Like you said, two opposing viewpoints can benefit from having a reasoned discussion. But hate speech is not a reasoned discussion, it's a one-way communication, generally against people who cannot defend themselves. Conservative or liberal viewpoints are one thing. Hate speech is something completely different. Again, if I say "hate speech" and you immediately think "Trump supporter", we're having two very different conversations. At any rate I don't think either of us are getting anything productive from this conversation, so I'm going to back out. Have a nice day.
leereeves 8y ago
> In one generation, smoking went from the coolest thing you could do to one of the least cool things you could do...that message was sent by banning smoking from public view Being made illegal or banned only makes things cooler. Marijuana is cool now despite being illegal. Attitudes toward tobacco changed because of the power of advertising. There's a certain justice in that, since advertising made it popular in the first place.
- freehunter 8y ago
  No one said anything about illegal. A ban on smoking in restaurants is not the same thing as making smoking illegal. You can still walk into any gas station and buy cigarettes, you can smoke them in your house and your car and on the sidewalk and in public parks and even right in front of a police officer. My university banned smoking on campus years back, and no one said "aww man smoking is so cool now that I can't do it on campus". It's just so inconvenient to smoke now that fewer people bother to do so. It's not cool to have to put on your coat and walk three blocks to go have a smoke every hour.
  - leereeves 8y ago
    All of that applies equally to marijuana. Yet the public image of one is improving while the other is declining, for reasons other than your explanation.
    - freehunter 8y ago
      To be socially unacceptable, society has to agree that it's unacceptable. But the process works both ways, and something that was socially unacceptable can also become socially acceptable over time. Right now it seems society is rejecting the notion that marijuana is unacceptable, which is leading to it become more socially acceptable and more legally accessible. The realities of the drug seem to have failed to live up to the picture painted by anti-marijuana marketing and so the marketing failed. For a long time being homosexual was illegal and socially unacceptable, but that has changed over the years after the expected social harm from homosexuality had not been realized. It's the same process, just in reverse. Society is attempting to minimize harm to itself, whether that's rejecting ideas that are socially harmful or demanding the decriminalization of activities that are not socially harmful.

oldsklgdfth 8y ago

>> If SOCIAL_MEDIA_X shuts it down, it sends a message that it's not socially acceptable. If you are the one being censored it sends the message that you are not welcome here, so you find another outlet. I hadn't hear of Gab until yesterday and my initial impression that it was a cool idea to have a social media platform that is pro free-speech, but obviously the community is very polarized and not very diverse in non-hate ideas (still don't have a complete picture of that site). >>smoking went from the coolest thing you could do to one of the least cool things you could do That's the power of marketing you're referring to. I was thinking about an individuals freedom to say what's on their mind. And if someone has super confused ideas, I would like for them to be able to express them so they can be addressed.

freehunter 8y ago
I would encourage you to go to reddit.com/r/the_donald and try to "address" their "super confused" ideas. Or find Alex Jones and see if your words can change his opinion. Or taking it to the farthest extremes imaginable, maybe even fly to Syria and see if you can talk some sense into ISIS. I'm sure their "super confused ideas" can be "addressed" if they're allowed to continue. It's not censorship to shut down hate speech any more than it's censorship when `dang tells me I'm not allowed to call someone an idiot on Hacker News. It sets the tone for the conversation we're all having, and you know, after I got warned a few times I stopped calling people idiots because I know that kind of behavior doesn't fly here. If people have to leave Twitter and go to Gab in order to spread their message of hate, that's fantastic. Because everyone knows Twitter, everyone uses Twitter, but no one's ever heard of Gab. And then when they visit Gab, they find it's full of hate speech and extreme opinions and never visit again. Bad business model for Gab, but a huge win for everyone else.
- oldsklgdfth 8y ago
  Obviously I don't think I'd be able to convert a member of ISIS. But I engage my trump-voter friends all the time. Most of the time, we both benefit from such discussions by gaining insight into each others' positions. At the very least you could gain perspective and understand how these distorted ideas originated, which helps prevent and address it in the future. Online censoring is the equivalent of ostracizing members of society for things they say. Sure you can do that, but at some point that becomes totalitarian. Not calling someone an idiot, sets the tone of a conversation. You can have a civilized conversation that contains very twisted ideas. The same ideas can be expressed eloquently , i.e. eugenics, but that doesn't change what they are.
  - freehunter 8y ago
    There is something very wrong with the conversation if Twitter says they want to fight hate speech and immediately people jump to the assumption that anyone who voted for President Trump will be censored. If I say "hate speech" and Trump voters think I'm talking about them, that is a very big problem. Is there no nuance between "Trump voter" and "person who spreads hate speech"? Somewhere in the minds of the people who are afraid of Twitter's hate speech rules, they themselves believe they are engaging in hate speech whether it's true or not. And since the US doesn't have any legal definition of hate speech, it's up to society to create and enforce its own rules. Twitter banning Alex Jones and Roger Stone is just society's way of saying that the message they're spreading is not acceptable in society. Like you said, two opposing viewpoints can benefit from having a reasoned discussion. But hate speech is not a reasoned discussion, it's a one-way communication, generally against people who cannot defend themselves. Conservative or liberal viewpoints are one thing. Hate speech is something completely different. Again, if I say "hate speech" and you immediately think "Trump supporter", we're having two very different conversations. At any rate I don't think either of us are getting anything productive from this conversation, so I'm going to back out. Have a nice day.

leereeves 8y ago

> In one generation, smoking went from the coolest thing you could do to one of the least cool things you could do...that message was sent by banning smoking from public view Being made illegal or banned only makes things cooler. Marijuana is cool now despite being illegal. Attitudes toward tobacco changed because of the power of advertising. There's a certain justice in that, since advertising made it popular in the first place.

freehunter 8y ago
No one said anything about illegal. A ban on smoking in restaurants is not the same thing as making smoking illegal. You can still walk into any gas station and buy cigarettes, you can smoke them in your house and your car and on the sidewalk and in public parks and even right in front of a police officer. My university banned smoking on campus years back, and no one said "aww man smoking is so cool now that I can't do it on campus". It's just so inconvenient to smoke now that fewer people bother to do so. It's not cool to have to put on your coat and walk three blocks to go have a smoke every hour.
- leereeves 8y ago
  All of that applies equally to marijuana. Yet the public image of one is improving while the other is declining, for reasons other than your explanation.
  - freehunter 8y ago
    To be socially unacceptable, society has to agree that it's unacceptable. But the process works both ways, and something that was socially unacceptable can also become socially acceptable over time. Right now it seems society is rejecting the notion that marijuana is unacceptable, which is leading to it become more socially acceptable and more legally accessible. The realities of the drug seem to have failed to live up to the picture painted by anti-marijuana marketing and so the marketing failed. For a long time being homosexual was illegal and socially unacceptable, but that has changed over the years after the expected social harm from homosexuality had not been realized. It's the same process, just in reverse. Society is attempting to minimize harm to itself, whether that's rejecting ideas that are socially harmful or demanding the decriminalization of activities that are not socially harmful.