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Nowhere did I say Government should be able to throw out free speech. I am just acknowledging what I have observed. If you think my observations are incorrect,

Nowhere did I say Government should be able to throw out free speech. I am just acknowledging what I have observed. If you think my observations are incorrect, please feel free to go through the relevant HN threads (e.g, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19414591 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19414591) You will find a lot of comments saying such censorship is needed. I agree with you that free speech is important, and I think this contradiction between free speech and society trying to prevent the spread of radicalisation is an important question of our times.

stcredzero 8y ago
Suppressing Free Speech creates more radicalization. If certain radicals are really bad, then more Free Speech ultimately gets rid of them. Suppression just gives them more ammunition. This is the lesson from across just about all of history. In 2019, governments and big tech have essentially been tricked into replacing societal backlash against nonsense with societal backlash against suppression. What governments and big tech should be doing is protecting the integrity of speech. On a level playing field, Bad Actors will reveal themselves. It's on a tilted playing field where things dysfunction, and the crowd cries foul and declares the game invalid. In short, in 2019, for governments and big tech to have the Bad Actors fail, they need to stop doing end-runs around the law and principles of Human Rights. They need to stop giving ammunition to Bad Actors by being bad actors themselves.
- ABCLAW 8y ago
  >Suppressing Free Speech creates more radicalization. Most quantitative reviews on deplatforming and and other social moderation efforts have shown the opposite. Maybe in the long-term social view of the issue you're right but on a platform by platform basis this doesn't seem to be the case.
  - BigBlueBanjo 8y ago
    Sure, censoring racists on YouTube means less racists on YouTube. But it does NOT mean less racists in the world.
    - ABCLAW 8y ago
      >But it does NOT mean less racists in the world. I don't think we have the data to make a conclusion on this point, but why is the lack of success in respect of the second point sufficient to make us want to stop the first point?
      - Mirioron 8y ago
        Because it creates echochambers and it weaponizes the term hate speech. Label everyone you disagree with a nazi and then demand platforms ban them. If the platforms do that, then people will slowly move on to other platforms. It's not going to change their beliefs one bit.
        ABCLAW 8y ago
        >Because it creates echochambers and it weaponizes the term hate speech. Okay, so that's the downside of curating your platform. You need to contrast that downside with the upside of taking action. Reasonable limits on Free Speech are plentiful, and there's an easy false dichotomy in believing that you can either censor everything or censor nothing. Is there a middle ground where we establish a solid rule set where we get most of the beneficial effects are retained, but a plurality of voices remain? Also a note: >It's not going to change their beliefs one bit. This isn't supported by research and it's antithetical to your first line. If platforming isn't going to change beliefs, then why care about it? Just move over to Gab, Voat or any of the other offshoots created for deplatformed groups. Have you visited them? They're cesspools. Overt changes in social acceptability and norms cause populations to reconsider their views, which is why people are upset by being deplatformed in the first place.
  - stcredzero 8y ago
    Most quantitative reviews on deplatforming and and other social moderation efforts have shown the opposite. If certain vile people were still on YouTube, then they could be demolished by argument. By deplatforming people off YouTube, you actually manage to give the bad people moral ammunition (the people you'd think the least likely to achieve that) and reduce the legitimacy of the platform. What's been accomplished is merely to create even viler, even more insular groupthink.
    - vkou 8y ago
      > If certain vile people were still on YouTube, then they could be demolished by argument. If arguments actually demolished positions, we'd see a lot fewer fools, and their adherents. People broadcasting outright lies don't care about arguments. They care about exposure. When they are deplatformed, they quantitatively lose exposure. They get moral outrage, but it's hard to turn moral outrage into viewers... Especially when your views are unsympathetic.
      - stcredzero 8y ago
        If arguments actually demolished positions, we'd see a lot fewer fools, and their adherents. We've seen precisely this happen on YouTube. "Unfortunately," from their point of view, the way it worked out went against the political narratives of the people who run YouTube. People broadcasting outright lies don't care about arguments. But onlookers who are normal, sensible people do. They care about exposure. When they are deplatformed, they quantitatively lose exposure. This is the POV of people who don't believe in objective truth or meritocracy. They think everything is a rigged game, and they think to win, it's just that they have to rig the game their own way. What you call "exposure" is actually discovery. Biasing discovery by refusing it to certain people is tantamount to censorship in this day and age. They get moral outrage, but it's hard to turn moral outrage into viewers... Especially when your views are unsympathetic. Actually, it's very easy to turn Moral Outrage into viewers. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE3j_RHkqJc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE3j_RHkqJc It's funny, but here you are actually precisely describing some of the groups who were discredited and saw their engagement drop on YouTube -- in exactly the opposite situation to people like Sargon of Akkad. His opponents in the "SJW skeptic" circles dropped off, while people like him prospered. Then, instead of arguing, the SJW crowd resorted to namecalling, mis-characterizing what was actually said, and de-platforming. YouTube is losing credibility to the people who are paying attention, precisely by deplatforming people who are popular (whose political views they don't like, even though they are not extreme and fairly mainstream) and by trying to pick and promote their own "winners" that people do not like. In the end, it just amounts to dishonesty. In the end, people will be able to see this, and I hope YouTube eventually pays the price for it.
  - Mirioron 8y ago
    >Most quantitative reviews on deplatforming and and other social moderation efforts have shown the opposite. Does it though? You don't have to look at social media to get a sense of this to know what has happened in the world. You can look at the Soviet Union and GDR instead. Did censorship there end up killing ideas of capitalism and democracy? Because I can assure you that the Soviet Union's censorship was much more thorough than Twitter or YouTube will ever be. In fact, you could even move away from censorship and ask yourself how effective banning things that people want to do is in general. Bans on alcohol, drugs, books, movies, porn etc have all failed to get rid of them. In cases such as alcohol, it seems that it only increased the consumption of it.
- danans 8y ago
  "Free speech" as you are using that term (vs. it's actual meaning as a guard against government suppression of speech) was suppressed for decades by the media industry. You couldn't publish the extreme content you see on the internet today in traditional newspapers and television. Mass radicalization didn't occur for all those decades. The freedom to publish anything you want over a mass medium is something that is only as old as the internet has been generally available to the public, and the tools to amplify and target its reach are only as old as social media. Whatever right to publish on mass social media that you think is threatened today is only a few decades old at best, but really only since lay people figured out how to use the technological tools of amplification. You can still shout whatever you want in the town square, but you aren't entitled to the audience of any particular publisher. If those who want to see your content are displeased with that publisher's editorial decisions, they can move to a publisher that has content they want. If there are enough of them to matter, the publisher will either have to change its tactics or lose relevance.
  - stcredzero 8y ago
    (vs. it's actual meaning as a guard against government suppression of speech) False, False, False! This is not how it works in US jurisprudence. Freedom of speech has to do with fundamental human rights and society. Government, being an important part of this, therefore must abide by Free Speech. However, private parties are also subject to it as well. Free Speech is fundamental, and even supersedes other rights, like property rights. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsh_v._Alabama https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsh_v._Alabama You can still shout whatever you want in the town square, This is such a dishonest conceit. It's like some dictatorship declaring they have freedom of speech, because while they control the radio, TV, and newspapers, the opposition can still post pamphlets. No, I'm sorry, but the scales of relative power just don't work in a practical sense, either in my examples, or in the one you just proposed! In 2019, it's like a farmer trying to assert property rights against airplanes overhead. Sorry, but laws do have to change in response to new technological realities. but you aren't entitled to the audience of any particular publisher. This is a conceit. The audience relationship is not with people and YouTube. It's with people and a particular creator. It's not the publisher refusing access to its audience. It's the publisher throwing up barriers to the audience. If there were a monopoly on printing presses, the printing press company wouldn't be allowed to say, "It's my audience, you have no right to it. No Pro Democrat words get printed!" There was a monopoly on telephone wires. It's not as if they would have been allowed to say, "The people connected to my network are my audience! You are not entitled! No Democrat communications over my network!" What you're defending is just a technological end-run around freedom of speech, which you support because it's your side that would hold all the power.

stcredzero 8y ago

Suppressing Free Speech creates more radicalization. If certain radicals are really bad, then more Free Speech ultimately gets rid of them. Suppression just gives them more ammunition. This is the lesson from across just about all of history. In 2019, governments and big tech have essentially been tricked into replacing societal backlash against nonsense with societal backlash against suppression. What governments and big tech should be doing is protecting the integrity of speech. On a level playing field, Bad Actors will reveal themselves. It's on a tilted playing field where things dysfunction, and the crowd cries foul and declares the game invalid. In short, in 2019, for governments and big tech to have the Bad Actors fail, they need to stop doing end-runs around the law and principles of Human Rights. They need to stop giving ammunition to Bad Actors by being bad actors themselves.

ABCLAW 8y ago
>Suppressing Free Speech creates more radicalization. Most quantitative reviews on deplatforming and and other social moderation efforts have shown the opposite. Maybe in the long-term social view of the issue you're right but on a platform by platform basis this doesn't seem to be the case.
- BigBlueBanjo 8y ago
  Sure, censoring racists on YouTube means less racists on YouTube. But it does NOT mean less racists in the world.
  - ABCLAW 8y ago
    >But it does NOT mean less racists in the world. I don't think we have the data to make a conclusion on this point, but why is the lack of success in respect of the second point sufficient to make us want to stop the first point?
    - Mirioron 8y ago
      Because it creates echochambers and it weaponizes the term hate speech. Label everyone you disagree with a nazi and then demand platforms ban them. If the platforms do that, then people will slowly move on to other platforms. It's not going to change their beliefs one bit.
      - ABCLAW 8y ago
        >Because it creates echochambers and it weaponizes the term hate speech. Okay, so that's the downside of curating your platform. You need to contrast that downside with the upside of taking action. Reasonable limits on Free Speech are plentiful, and there's an easy false dichotomy in believing that you can either censor everything or censor nothing. Is there a middle ground where we establish a solid rule set where we get most of the beneficial effects are retained, but a plurality of voices remain? Also a note: >It's not going to change their beliefs one bit. This isn't supported by research and it's antithetical to your first line. If platforming isn't going to change beliefs, then why care about it? Just move over to Gab, Voat or any of the other offshoots created for deplatformed groups. Have you visited them? They're cesspools. Overt changes in social acceptability and norms cause populations to reconsider their views, which is why people are upset by being deplatformed in the first place.
- stcredzero 8y ago
  Most quantitative reviews on deplatforming and and other social moderation efforts have shown the opposite. If certain vile people were still on YouTube, then they could be demolished by argument. By deplatforming people off YouTube, you actually manage to give the bad people moral ammunition (the people you'd think the least likely to achieve that) and reduce the legitimacy of the platform. What's been accomplished is merely to create even viler, even more insular groupthink.
  - vkou 8y ago
    > If certain vile people were still on YouTube, then they could be demolished by argument. If arguments actually demolished positions, we'd see a lot fewer fools, and their adherents. People broadcasting outright lies don't care about arguments. They care about exposure. When they are deplatformed, they quantitatively lose exposure. They get moral outrage, but it's hard to turn moral outrage into viewers... Especially when your views are unsympathetic.
    - stcredzero 8y ago
      If arguments actually demolished positions, we'd see a lot fewer fools, and their adherents. We've seen precisely this happen on YouTube. "Unfortunately," from their point of view, the way it worked out went against the political narratives of the people who run YouTube. People broadcasting outright lies don't care about arguments. But onlookers who are normal, sensible people do. They care about exposure. When they are deplatformed, they quantitatively lose exposure. This is the POV of people who don't believe in objective truth or meritocracy. They think everything is a rigged game, and they think to win, it's just that they have to rig the game their own way. What you call "exposure" is actually discovery. Biasing discovery by refusing it to certain people is tantamount to censorship in this day and age. They get moral outrage, but it's hard to turn moral outrage into viewers... Especially when your views are unsympathetic. Actually, it's very easy to turn Moral Outrage into viewers. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE3j_RHkqJc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE3j_RHkqJc It's funny, but here you are actually precisely describing some of the groups who were discredited and saw their engagement drop on YouTube -- in exactly the opposite situation to people like Sargon of Akkad. His opponents in the "SJW skeptic" circles dropped off, while people like him prospered. Then, instead of arguing, the SJW crowd resorted to namecalling, mis-characterizing what was actually said, and de-platforming. YouTube is losing credibility to the people who are paying attention, precisely by deplatforming people who are popular (whose political views they don't like, even though they are not extreme and fairly mainstream) and by trying to pick and promote their own "winners" that people do not like. In the end, it just amounts to dishonesty. In the end, people will be able to see this, and I hope YouTube eventually pays the price for it.
- Mirioron 8y ago
  >Most quantitative reviews on deplatforming and and other social moderation efforts have shown the opposite. Does it though? You don't have to look at social media to get a sense of this to know what has happened in the world. You can look at the Soviet Union and GDR instead. Did censorship there end up killing ideas of capitalism and democracy? Because I can assure you that the Soviet Union's censorship was much more thorough than Twitter or YouTube will ever be. In fact, you could even move away from censorship and ask yourself how effective banning things that people want to do is in general. Bans on alcohol, drugs, books, movies, porn etc have all failed to get rid of them. In cases such as alcohol, it seems that it only increased the consumption of it.
danans 8y ago
"Free speech" as you are using that term (vs. it's actual meaning as a guard against government suppression of speech) was suppressed for decades by the media industry. You couldn't publish the extreme content you see on the internet today in traditional newspapers and television. Mass radicalization didn't occur for all those decades. The freedom to publish anything you want over a mass medium is something that is only as old as the internet has been generally available to the public, and the tools to amplify and target its reach are only as old as social media. Whatever right to publish on mass social media that you think is threatened today is only a few decades old at best, but really only since lay people figured out how to use the technological tools of amplification. You can still shout whatever you want in the town square, but you aren't entitled to the audience of any particular publisher. If those who want to see your content are displeased with that publisher's editorial decisions, they can move to a publisher that has content they want. If there are enough of them to matter, the publisher will either have to change its tactics or lose relevance.
- stcredzero 8y ago
  (vs. it's actual meaning as a guard against government suppression of speech) False, False, False! This is not how it works in US jurisprudence. Freedom of speech has to do with fundamental human rights and society. Government, being an important part of this, therefore must abide by Free Speech. However, private parties are also subject to it as well. Free Speech is fundamental, and even supersedes other rights, like property rights. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsh_v._Alabama https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsh_v._Alabama You can still shout whatever you want in the town square, This is such a dishonest conceit. It's like some dictatorship declaring they have freedom of speech, because while they control the radio, TV, and newspapers, the opposition can still post pamphlets. No, I'm sorry, but the scales of relative power just don't work in a practical sense, either in my examples, or in the one you just proposed! In 2019, it's like a farmer trying to assert property rights against airplanes overhead. Sorry, but laws do have to change in response to new technological realities. but you aren't entitled to the audience of any particular publisher. This is a conceit. The audience relationship is not with people and YouTube. It's with people and a particular creator. It's not the publisher refusing access to its audience. It's the publisher throwing up barriers to the audience. If there were a monopoly on printing presses, the printing press company wouldn't be allowed to say, "It's my audience, you have no right to it. No Pro Democrat words get printed!" There was a monopoly on telephone wires. It's not as if they would have been allowed to say, "The people connected to my network are my audience! You are not entitled! No Democrat communications over my network!" What you're defending is just a technological end-run around freedom of speech, which you support because it's your side that would hold all the power.