4 ms·

Jesus this is terrible. People are quick to point out that First Ammendment doesn't apply, but Freedom of Speech isn't just that, it's the principle - "I disapp

by tomp 8y ago

Jesus this is terrible. People are quick to point out that First Ammendment doesn't apply, but Freedom of Speech isn't just that, it's the principle - "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it". Discussion is what makes peaceful progress possible, otherwise you get revolutions!

lghh 8y ago
Discussions that change someone's racism or the penchant to mock the disabled generally don't happen on the internet. In person, with friends perhaps, but not on faceless forums where people are more likely to double down on opinions in the face of criticism when they are as extreme as racism.
- geezerjay 8y ago
  Moderating discriminatory statements is fundamentally different than censoring a political oponent. More importantly, these utter idiots don't even realize they are creating such profoundly anti-democratic precedents targetting a political rival that is actually contributing to their cause, as now they have very real and very specific examples of how they are being targettend and persecuted for their political views.
  - pjc50 8y ago
    The argument is that in this case support for Trump is support for discrimination, in a way that's very distinct from "normal" conservativism.
    - lghh 8y ago
      Exactly. Saying "I like the recently passed tax cuts" is different than saying "I support President Trump." The first is supporting a conservative policy decision, the second is supporting a person who would be banned from the forums themselves if they talked the way they do in real life as comments on the site.
      - ameister14 8y ago
        I like George Carlin. He'd be banned from most forums - should I be banned for saying I supported his career?
      - geezerjay 8y ago
        > The first is supporting a conservative policy decision, the second is supporting a person who would be banned from the forums themselves No, actually the second is punishing a person just because he presented an opinion on a president that you don't share and for some reason you feel it constitutes grounds to persecute and punish him. This sort of attitude is the hallmark of proper fascist parties and their militants, the kind that goes around wearing matching shirts persecuting those who don't fall in line or god forbid have opposite opinions.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - geezerjay 8y ago
      > The argument is that The argument means shit. It's the action that counts, and these idiots decided it was a good idea to atively persecute and censor anything related to a political movement. These morons don't even realize they're setting totalitarian precedents and are so full of themselves to the point they even boast their totalitarian leanings to have any moral basis, just like the textbook fascists from half a century ago did.
      - slazaro 8y ago
        You might find that people are more receptive to your statements if you didn't use insults along with them.
        geezerjay 8y ago
        You have a point. However, my point is that the people behind this persecution and censorship campaign did not thought their plan through or at all, and this sort of persecution will obviously backfire by legitimizing the perception that Trump supporters are actually and inequivocally being targetted just for the crime of supporting a different candidate.
  - lghh 8y ago
    What if a political opponent's main platform position and primary rhetorical tactic is to make discriminatory statements? You can't just turn around and say "don't ban me, it's just politics!".
    - geezerjay 8y ago
      > What if a political opponent's main platform position and primary rhetorical tactic is to make discriminatory statements? Censorship is never the solution. Censorship is the problem. Keep censoring idiots instead of demonstrating they are idiots and you end up making them out to be poor democratic martyrs instead. Have they learned nothing from the history of fascist europe?
      - badwolf 8y ago
        A privately owned and operated web forum isn't exactly comparable to fascist Europe. Don't be disingenuous.
      - zimpenfish 8y ago
        > Keep censoring idiots instead of demonstrating they are idiots and you end up making them out to be poor democratic martyrs instead. Trump got far and away the majority of news coverage in the run up to the 2016 election. Everything he said was breathlessly reported, fact checked, and sometimes mocked for its inanity. That did not work out well.
  - grigjd3 8y ago
    Referring to these people as "utter idiots" sure does make you sound reasonable and level headed.
    - geezerjay 8y ago
      These morons have in fact presented themselves as utter idiots. Brazil just elected a racist cunt because an utter idiot decided that assaulting the candidate was a brilliant idea, but instead made him out to be a persecuted victim. These morons are making the exact same mistake and making Trump supporters to be the persecuted helpless victims of the story. Don't you understand the impact of this sort of idiocy? These morons are making Trump supporters to be the innocent victims that are persecuted by their political views and for supporting a candidate. How is this not a massive blunder?
ryanmercer 8y ago
>People are quick to point out that First Ammendment doesn't apply, but Freedom of Speech isn't just that, it's the principle - "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it". I'm sorry, if I'm paying for hosting and you come to a page I run and start saying stuff I don't care for yeahhhh I'm removing it. That's my right. It's not a public venue, domain names are usually handled as real-property as far as taxation and hosting fees are a real thing. If you come into my house and start spouting stuff I don't approve of, I'm showing you the door. I'm all for free speech, and being allowed to support who and what you believe in but not on any given website. If you use a website, you have to play by the owner's rules. If you don't want to do that, go make your own... it's pretty easy and affordable.
- ameister14 8y ago
  As I've pointed out elsewhere, this argument implies ownership and content control beyond what we've traditionally held forum owners/operators responsible for. By claiming such control, do you think forum owners should be liable for the content posted on their websites?
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    > As I've pointed out elsewhere, this argument implies ownership and content control beyond what we've traditionally held forum owners/operators responsible for. This is false, and appears based on both narrowing consideration of accountability mechanisms to legal mechanisms and a faulty understanding of the reason for certain online exceptions to the general traditional legal liability of publishers, which is not lack of responsibility (otherwise they would apply to publishers more generally) but balancing of social costs/benefits of imposing legal liability.
    - ameister14 8y ago
      >a faulty understanding of the reason for certain online exceptions to the general traditional legal liability of publishers, which is not lack of responsibility (otherwise they would apply to publishers more generally) Are you saying that they aren't exempted from responsibility because they are not responsible, but because it's better that they not be held responsible? Why would they apply to publishers more generally if it was about lack of responsibility? If you recall the decisions about the Communications Decency Act, it states that - "No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider." This means that people that own or operate forums are not treated as publishers of the content on forums, and removes the responsibilities of being such a publisher. The act was passed in part because providers said it was injurious to force them to regulate all content - they shouldn't be responsible because they couldn't regulate content without massive cost. Now you're saying that they should regulate all content - ok, but if that's the case then they should be treated as publishers of said content, since they can decide on a case-by-case basis what is and is not published on their platform.
dragonwriter 8y ago
> People are quick to point out that First Ammendment doesn't apply, but Freedom of Speech isn't just that But it is at least that, and so includes, as does the first Amendment, the right to choose what speech to support with one's own resources, including the platform one owns. The freedom of speech not only does not obligate anyone else to expend their resources to relay your speech, it absolutely protects their right to decline to do so. > Discussion is what makes peaceful progress possible, RPG.net is a site dedicated to discussion of roleplaying games; it is not necessary for “peacefuk progress” for it to provide a platform for all (or even any) support or opposition to political candidates.
- ameister14 8y ago
  >But it is at least that, and so includes, as does the first Amendment, the right to choose what speech to support with one's own resources, including the platform one owns...The freedom of speech not only does not obligate anyone else to expend their resources to relay your speech, it absolutely protects their right to decline to do so. This is an interesting argument and implies that forum owners are responsible for the content that they publish. Is that what you believe?
  - lordCarbonFiber 8y ago
    You've posted that talking point several times in this thread, I don't think that means what you think it means. A web host's right to exercise their speech by moderating the forum they pay for has absolutely nothing to do with the safe harbor laws you're alluding you. Just the same as kicking someone out of your house party for being an ass, you can be removed from internet spaces in the same way. Just because the interaction is digital doesn't grant you some higher set of ~rights~.
    - ameister14 8y ago
      Ah, but that's exactly it - a web host's right to exercise their speech DOES have to do with the safe harbor laws, because the safe harbor laws make it clear that a host is not treated a publisher or a writer of content. The reason behind this is because removing content is an 'impossible burden.' You are saying it is not an impossible burden, but definitely doable. That means that you don't have the same logical basis for legal protections. http://www.dmlp.org/sites/dmlp.org/files/gov.uscourts.tnmd.53480.45.0.pdf http://www.dmlp.org/sites/dmlp.org/files/gov.uscourts.tnmd.5...

by tomp 8y ago

lghh 8y ago

Discussions that change someone's racism or the penchant to mock the disabled generally don't happen on the internet. In person, with friends perhaps, but not on faceless forums where people are more likely to double down on opinions in the face of criticism when they are as extreme as racism.

geezerjay 8y ago
Moderating discriminatory statements is fundamentally different than censoring a political oponent. More importantly, these utter idiots don't even realize they are creating such profoundly anti-democratic precedents targetting a political rival that is actually contributing to their cause, as now they have very real and very specific examples of how they are being targettend and persecuted for their political views.
- pjc50 8y ago
  The argument is that in this case support for Trump is support for discrimination, in a way that's very distinct from "normal" conservativism.
  - lghh 8y ago
    Exactly. Saying "I like the recently passed tax cuts" is different than saying "I support President Trump." The first is supporting a conservative policy decision, the second is supporting a person who would be banned from the forums themselves if they talked the way they do in real life as comments on the site.
    - ameister14 8y ago
      I like George Carlin. He'd be banned from most forums - should I be banned for saying I supported his career?
    - geezerjay 8y ago
      > The first is supporting a conservative policy decision, the second is supporting a person who would be banned from the forums themselves No, actually the second is punishing a person just because he presented an opinion on a president that you don't share and for some reason you feel it constitutes grounds to persecute and punish him. This sort of attitude is the hallmark of proper fascist parties and their militants, the kind that goes around wearing matching shirts persecuting those who don't fall in line or god forbid have opposite opinions.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - geezerjay 8y ago
    > The argument is that The argument means shit. It's the action that counts, and these idiots decided it was a good idea to atively persecute and censor anything related to a political movement. These morons don't even realize they're setting totalitarian precedents and are so full of themselves to the point they even boast their totalitarian leanings to have any moral basis, just like the textbook fascists from half a century ago did.
    - slazaro 8y ago
      You might find that people are more receptive to your statements if you didn't use insults along with them.
      - geezerjay 8y ago
        You have a point. However, my point is that the people behind this persecution and censorship campaign did not thought their plan through or at all, and this sort of persecution will obviously backfire by legitimizing the perception that Trump supporters are actually and inequivocally being targetted just for the crime of supporting a different candidate.
- lghh 8y ago
  What if a political opponent's main platform position and primary rhetorical tactic is to make discriminatory statements? You can't just turn around and say "don't ban me, it's just politics!".
  - geezerjay 8y ago
    > What if a political opponent's main platform position and primary rhetorical tactic is to make discriminatory statements? Censorship is never the solution. Censorship is the problem. Keep censoring idiots instead of demonstrating they are idiots and you end up making them out to be poor democratic martyrs instead. Have they learned nothing from the history of fascist europe?
    - badwolf 8y ago
      A privately owned and operated web forum isn't exactly comparable to fascist Europe. Don't be disingenuous.
    - zimpenfish 8y ago
      > Keep censoring idiots instead of demonstrating they are idiots and you end up making them out to be poor democratic martyrs instead. Trump got far and away the majority of news coverage in the run up to the 2016 election. Everything he said was breathlessly reported, fact checked, and sometimes mocked for its inanity. That did not work out well.
- grigjd3 8y ago
  Referring to these people as "utter idiots" sure does make you sound reasonable and level headed.
  - geezerjay 8y ago
    These morons have in fact presented themselves as utter idiots. Brazil just elected a racist cunt because an utter idiot decided that assaulting the candidate was a brilliant idea, but instead made him out to be a persecuted victim. These morons are making the exact same mistake and making Trump supporters to be the persecuted helpless victims of the story. Don't you understand the impact of this sort of idiocy? These morons are making Trump supporters to be the innocent victims that are persecuted by their political views and for supporting a candidate. How is this not a massive blunder?

ryanmercer 8y ago

>People are quick to point out that First Ammendment doesn't apply, but Freedom of Speech isn't just that, it's the principle - "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it". I'm sorry, if I'm paying for hosting and you come to a page I run and start saying stuff I don't care for yeahhhh I'm removing it. That's my right. It's not a public venue, domain names are usually handled as real-property as far as taxation and hosting fees are a real thing. If you come into my house and start spouting stuff I don't approve of, I'm showing you the door. I'm all for free speech, and being allowed to support who and what you believe in but not on any given website. If you use a website, you have to play by the owner's rules. If you don't want to do that, go make your own... it's pretty easy and affordable.

ameister14 8y ago
As I've pointed out elsewhere, this argument implies ownership and content control beyond what we've traditionally held forum owners/operators responsible for. By claiming such control, do you think forum owners should be liable for the content posted on their websites?
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > As I've pointed out elsewhere, this argument implies ownership and content control beyond what we've traditionally held forum owners/operators responsible for. This is false, and appears based on both narrowing consideration of accountability mechanisms to legal mechanisms and a faulty understanding of the reason for certain online exceptions to the general traditional legal liability of publishers, which is not lack of responsibility (otherwise they would apply to publishers more generally) but balancing of social costs/benefits of imposing legal liability.
  - ameister14 8y ago
    >a faulty understanding of the reason for certain online exceptions to the general traditional legal liability of publishers, which is not lack of responsibility (otherwise they would apply to publishers more generally) Are you saying that they aren't exempted from responsibility because they are not responsible, but because it's better that they not be held responsible? Why would they apply to publishers more generally if it was about lack of responsibility? If you recall the decisions about the Communications Decency Act, it states that - "No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider." This means that people that own or operate forums are not treated as publishers of the content on forums, and removes the responsibilities of being such a publisher. The act was passed in part because providers said it was injurious to force them to regulate all content - they shouldn't be responsible because they couldn't regulate content without massive cost. Now you're saying that they should regulate all content - ok, but if that's the case then they should be treated as publishers of said content, since they can decide on a case-by-case basis what is and is not published on their platform.

dragonwriter 8y ago

> People are quick to point out that First Ammendment doesn't apply, but Freedom of Speech isn't just that But it is at least that, and so includes, as does the first Amendment, the right to choose what speech to support with one's own resources, including the platform one owns. The freedom of speech not only does not obligate anyone else to expend their resources to relay your speech, it absolutely protects their right to decline to do so. > Discussion is what makes peaceful progress possible, RPG.net is a site dedicated to discussion of roleplaying games; it is not necessary for “peacefuk progress” for it to provide a platform for all (or even any) support or opposition to political candidates.

ameister14 8y ago
>But it is at least that, and so includes, as does the first Amendment, the right to choose what speech to support with one's own resources, including the platform one owns...The freedom of speech not only does not obligate anyone else to expend their resources to relay your speech, it absolutely protects their right to decline to do so. This is an interesting argument and implies that forum owners are responsible for the content that they publish. Is that what you believe?
- lordCarbonFiber 8y ago
  You've posted that talking point several times in this thread, I don't think that means what you think it means. A web host's right to exercise their speech by moderating the forum they pay for has absolutely nothing to do with the safe harbor laws you're alluding you. Just the same as kicking someone out of your house party for being an ass, you can be removed from internet spaces in the same way. Just because the interaction is digital doesn't grant you some higher set of ~rights~.
  - ameister14 8y ago
    Ah, but that's exactly it - a web host's right to exercise their speech DOES have to do with the safe harbor laws, because the safe harbor laws make it clear that a host is not treated a publisher or a writer of content. The reason behind this is because removing content is an 'impossible burden.' You are saying it is not an impossible burden, but definitely doable. That means that you don't have the same logical basis for legal protections. http://www.dmlp.org/sites/dmlp.org/files/gov.uscourts.tnmd.53480.45.0.pdf http://www.dmlp.org/sites/dmlp.org/files/gov.uscourts.tnmd.5...