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>it may be that we incorrectly solved a "problem" that turned out to be a feature keeping humanity from harming itself with its own speech OK. Explaining ruins

>it may be that we incorrectly solved a "problem" that turned out to be a feature keeping humanity from harming itself with its own speech OK. Explaining ruins the humor but I'll explain. The pithy point I was making is that a bunch of words on a comment thread is not likely to harm humanity any more than the printing press did. Or the writing on a toilet stall wall for that matter, now that I think about it. The larger point I was alluding to is that the people who would call for the banning of text from a printing press are probably the people we should really be worried about.

floatingatoll 7y ago
Should anyone be permitted to skywrite anything they want on the sky? Free speech says “yes”, but if you find a way to stably write sentences on the sky, you will quickly discover that the majority of people do not agree that free speech applies to writing in the sky. There’s a nuance that we as tech haven’t explored properly between “you have the right to speak unhindered by the government” and “you have the right to impose your speech upon an unwilling audience”, which relates to why street speech generally can’t use PAs or bullhorns without triggering a local government response. Similarly, this is why coordinated protests must be super careful to block their rowdier elements. Setting up a system of global commentary that “grafts”, “appends”, “overlays”, “applies” a collection of third-party uncontrolled speech onto a non-consenting website — so, literally, the addon linked by this post — could very well be considered “coordinating and imposing your speech on an unwilling audience”. This, then, is the ethical and social policy question. Does this addon hinder free speech by encouraging and enabling unwanted, uncontrolled speech to be inserted into - using DOM overlays or browser sidebars - someone else’s controlled private forum? For whatever reason, tech in general seems absolutely terrified to consider this question. I suspect that’s partly because it is a nuanced consideration that violates two popular tech precepts: 1) “uncontrolled speech is an inalienable right” 2) “anything that can be done technically must be permitted to be done” Neither of those principles is true in general society, and so I hope someday tech confronts this dissonance and resolves it - rather than simply pretending that “this addon isn’t illegal” is sufficient to defend ignoring the wider ethical issues of its effects.
- brokenmachine 7y ago
  It's a separate website that discusses content on another website. You have to explicitly opt-in by going to a separate site to read it. It's ridiculous to consider that to be "imposing your speech on an unwilling audience". Your sky writing argument is also ridiculous as the difference between sky writing and a website should be obvious. The internet is not the real world. You are being illogical and I'm done explaining.

floatingatoll 7y ago

Should anyone be permitted to skywrite anything they want on the sky? Free speech says “yes”, but if you find a way to stably write sentences on the sky, you will quickly discover that the majority of people do not agree that free speech applies to writing in the sky. There’s a nuance that we as tech haven’t explored properly between “you have the right to speak unhindered by the government” and “you have the right to impose your speech upon an unwilling audience”, which relates to why street speech generally can’t use PAs or bullhorns without triggering a local government response. Similarly, this is why coordinated protests must be super careful to block their rowdier elements. Setting up a system of global commentary that “grafts”, “appends”, “overlays”, “applies” a collection of third-party uncontrolled speech onto a non-consenting website — so, literally, the addon linked by this post — could very well be considered “coordinating and imposing your speech on an unwilling audience”. This, then, is the ethical and social policy question. Does this addon hinder free speech by encouraging and enabling unwanted, uncontrolled speech to be inserted into - using DOM overlays or browser sidebars - someone else’s controlled private forum? For whatever reason, tech in general seems absolutely terrified to consider this question. I suspect that’s partly because it is a nuanced consideration that violates two popular tech precepts: 1) “uncontrolled speech is an inalienable right” 2) “anything that can be done technically must be permitted to be done” Neither of those principles is true in general society, and so I hope someday tech confronts this dissonance and resolves it - rather than simply pretending that “this addon isn’t illegal” is sufficient to defend ignoring the wider ethical issues of its effects.

brokenmachine 7y ago
It's a separate website that discusses content on another website. You have to explicitly opt-in by going to a separate site to read it. It's ridiculous to consider that to be "imposing your speech on an unwilling audience". Your sky writing argument is also ridiculous as the difference between sky writing and a website should be obvious. The internet is not the real world. You are being illogical and I'm done explaining.