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Oh how mighty are the righteous who now swiftly mount one of the galloping horses in the stampede against Facebook. How self-serving they are when the criticis

Oh how mighty are the righteous who now swiftly mount one of the galloping horses in the stampede against Facebook. How self-serving they are when the criticism comes from all directions and they take no risks in joining the chorus. How conveniently they point their finger to the to the west when a bit further to the east they’d rather the world’s gaze not firm into a stare and a squint.

fit2rule 7y ago
The West is not doing too well in the human rights department, yo. You have to actually work pretty hard to understand that, however, as the mass ignorance is by design. However, as long as we are free to speak to each other about our differences of opinion, we can avert catastrophe and build a diverse, and therefore stronger, civilisation. Those who would lecture the masses on what is and isn't free speech, don't seem to be getting the point. Words, in and of themselves, never kill. A world-wide, sudden enlightenment at the hands of celebrity figures in an attempt to create a godhead may .. or may not .. be the kind of solution to collective destruction .. we should be celebrating.
pmart123 7y ago
Politicians care about taking down Facebook’s or Twitter’s power mainly to leverage it for themselves or because they view it as an existential threat.
martin_a 7y ago
As long as children starve, we should not talk about free speech etc. at all! /sarcasm Whataboutism at its best from you.
andy_ppp 7y ago
What are you on about, he basically said democracy needs to police social networks and hold them to a high standard given their huge amounts of power. I particularly like the line about a restauranteur not having to serve an 8 course meal to a fascist. This is the correct way to look at freedom of speech - you can say what you want - but there is no requirement for me to provide services for you to reach billions of people with your statements.
- alfromspace 7y ago
  If normal people want to hear my message, and there's only one platform they can effectively locate it through, then I'd say you are required to provide services to me. At this point, it's like cutting off somebody's internet or phone service for their political views - the argument that Verizon isn't the government and is just "muh showing you the door" wears thin. There seems to be this underlying assumption that nationalism, paleoconservatism and various commonly-held views that are wrongly called "fascism" are actually things people want to hear, and if we allow them the same access to services as any other views, their popularity will overturn this entire neoliberal scheme that's being artificially propped up by organizations like the ADL rooting out free speech in every area they can legally do so. I sort of agree - this entire project would fail without censorship. And, if as Baron Cohen implies, we're really just a bunch of stupid hateful beasts always primed to commit another Holocaust as soon as the boot is off our neck, well...then we've got deeper problems in our society than a lack of social media censorship.
  - andy_ppp 7y ago
    Your Karma of -9 leads me to worry about the quality of your opinions, however your arguments are quite well put, so I'll do my best to address them. Firstly, I mean really hateful fascistic stuff not any of the things you mention - I don't agree with nationalism (or even patriotism, countries are a completely made up idea) but would defend your right to talk about it as you see fit on any platform, paleoconservartism is more than fine too or even talk about advocating gun laws or anti abortion stuff. All fine. The problem is the current climate is not a fact based discussion about issues on their merits, instead the system is being gamed by these platforms and people using these platforms to wield influence (and craft a society) that will allow much great abuses of power going forward. I think the Standford prison experiment and the smaller version Cohen ran in his film shows you that people are not good, we all can be riled up and lash out because of strong beliefs we might hold. I think having platforms that don't try to help tone down and instead encourage hateful thinking really is dangerous, especially when a lot of these opinions are based on lies.

fit2rule 7y ago

The West is not doing too well in the human rights department, yo. You have to actually work pretty hard to understand that, however, as the mass ignorance is by design. However, as long as we are free to speak to each other about our differences of opinion, we can avert catastrophe and build a diverse, and therefore stronger, civilisation. Those who would lecture the masses on what is and isn't free speech, don't seem to be getting the point. Words, in and of themselves, never kill. A world-wide, sudden enlightenment at the hands of celebrity figures in an attempt to create a godhead may .. or may not .. be the kind of solution to collective destruction .. we should be celebrating.

pmart123 7y ago

Politicians care about taking down Facebook’s or Twitter’s power mainly to leverage it for themselves or because they view it as an existential threat.

martin_a 7y ago

As long as children starve, we should not talk about free speech etc. at all! /sarcasm Whataboutism at its best from you.

andy_ppp 7y ago

What are you on about, he basically said democracy needs to police social networks and hold them to a high standard given their huge amounts of power. I particularly like the line about a restauranteur not having to serve an 8 course meal to a fascist. This is the correct way to look at freedom of speech - you can say what you want - but there is no requirement for me to provide services for you to reach billions of people with your statements.

alfromspace 7y ago
If normal people want to hear my message, and there's only one platform they can effectively locate it through, then I'd say you are required to provide services to me. At this point, it's like cutting off somebody's internet or phone service for their political views - the argument that Verizon isn't the government and is just "muh showing you the door" wears thin. There seems to be this underlying assumption that nationalism, paleoconservatism and various commonly-held views that are wrongly called "fascism" are actually things people want to hear, and if we allow them the same access to services as any other views, their popularity will overturn this entire neoliberal scheme that's being artificially propped up by organizations like the ADL rooting out free speech in every area they can legally do so. I sort of agree - this entire project would fail without censorship. And, if as Baron Cohen implies, we're really just a bunch of stupid hateful beasts always primed to commit another Holocaust as soon as the boot is off our neck, well...then we've got deeper problems in our society than a lack of social media censorship.
- andy_ppp 7y ago
  Your Karma of -9 leads me to worry about the quality of your opinions, however your arguments are quite well put, so I'll do my best to address them. Firstly, I mean really hateful fascistic stuff not any of the things you mention - I don't agree with nationalism (or even patriotism, countries are a completely made up idea) but would defend your right to talk about it as you see fit on any platform, paleoconservartism is more than fine too or even talk about advocating gun laws or anti abortion stuff. All fine. The problem is the current climate is not a fact based discussion about issues on their merits, instead the system is being gamed by these platforms and people using these platforms to wield influence (and craft a society) that will allow much great abuses of power going forward. I think the Standford prison experiment and the smaller version Cohen ran in his film shows you that people are not good, we all can be riled up and lash out because of strong beliefs we might hold. I think having platforms that don't try to help tone down and instead encourage hateful thinking really is dangerous, especially when a lot of these opinions are based on lies.