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I just watched it, in its entirety. Some quotes that stuck with me: Freedom of speech is not freedom of reach. There is such a thing as objective truth.

by daenz 7y ago

I just watched it, in its entirety. Some quotes that stuck with me: Freedom of speech is not freedom of reach. There is such a thing as objective truth. They could fix these problems, if they wanted to. I've said this before, but we need the government to step in and provide a "free speech" public platform for people to say whatever they'd like, uncensored. The new public space is the internet, but currently it is only managed by private entities. We need to carve out a government-protected space if free speech is going to survive online. It's clear we can't depend on private businesses to do it. Half of the arguments I see that are pro private-platform censorship revolve around the idea that "private businesses can censor who they want." Fine, that's fair. If you believe that, then also you shouldn't have any problem with a public space online being uncensorable. But pro-censorship people will have a problem, because that's the true issue, isn't it? What they really want to stop is the spreading of ideas that they cannot control. People arguing for pro-censorship under the facade of supporting the rights of private businesses are only doing it because it's a convenient tool. Take that out of the equation and you'll see that it's not about the rights of private businesses at all. But we need that public space online and we need it fast.

kyralis 7y ago
Why? This is a real question. This is not a thing that has existed in the past; why is it necessary that it exist now? If you look back to the founding of the US, political discourse was done frequently through pamphlets. The government didn't provide some "uncensored" pamphlet distribution service, and I find it unlikely that print shops of the time did not occasional reject orders that they didn't like.
- afthonos 7y ago
  Ironically, the one time I know of a government guaranteeing freedom of expression, down to the right to be provided with printing presses if needed was … the Soviet constitution. (Source: a memory of a comparative politics lecture in college, where the professor used it as an example of what’s written and what’s implemented being sometimes a little different...)
- daenz 7y ago
  Notice I said "space" and not "website." A pamphlet is to public physical space as a website is to online virtual space.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
GhettoMaestro 7y ago
What's the line? There always is one. Example: Child pornography. The banning of child pornography is legally sanctioned censorship. The legal argument being that the content is "Child Abuse Material" (CAM), which is audio-video evidence of a crime, which in that legal argument is not protected free-speech. Obviously child pornography is horrible and should NOT be permitted to be spread due to a variety of negative consequences associated with it, namely for the victims involved. I am highlighting that censorship is a tricky issue. That said, political speech should always be permitted in the public sphere, even if what is being advocated for is horrific. I believe in allowing people to make complete fools of themselves ("give them a long enough rope"). Sure, Neo-Nazis might gain a few followers by allowing them to stomp around the streets, but I'd wager that 95% of the people who see them immediately classify them as complete assholes and fucking degenerates. While I'm not a fan of folks being "doxxed" online for holding dumb-ass views, I do have a mental line where if you are actively meeting and assembling physically to advance immoral and un-American causes, I think you should be prepared to stand behind your association with said movement under your real identity. And that will have an impact on your friends, family, employment, social standing, etc. That is not a bug, that is a feature. It creates self-harmonizing communities where horrible behavior (actions) has social consequences, especially when the viewpoints or behaviors are not actually illegal, but still equally shitty.
abstractbarista 7y ago
What I've realized is most people don't believe in freedom of speech. They believe in freedom of speech that they agree with or enjoy. It's really a shame, from the perspective of someone who seriously does not care what others speak. It's like most people lack the ability to simply ignore what they find distasteful. They instead feel compelled to destroy it. These tendencies are at the core of our current online reality. It's a scary world out there!
- bilbo0s 7y ago
  I think you are being really kind. If we're really talking about "most" people? As in, the majority? Then the fact is, they do believe in free speech. It's just that they don't care about free speech. At all. Whether they agree with it or are interested in it or any other thing means absolutely nothing to them because they feel they have more important things to do. Let me give you a fairly realistic for instance of what the great unwashed masses think about free speech when compared to even something trivial like college football: Member of great unwashed mass: "What the hell is this f'in free speech debate doing on my tv when LSU is about to play Georgia!?!?!?!" Young, idealistic, activist: "Well, um, I thought maybe everyone would like to see how their rights are being eroded by increasingly powerful concentrations of industrial and technological weal..." Member of great unwashed mass: "Shut the F up!!! Put the Ohio State/Wisconsin game back on so I can catch the last little bit of that before LSU/Georgia kicks dick head!" This is what we're fighting against, and we need to be far more realistic about how powerful apathy is in shaping policy. At least in the US.
- JustSomeNobody 7y ago
  > It's like most people lack the ability to simply ignore what they find distasteful. Because sometimes it really is about the children.
- DonaldPShimoda 7y ago
  > It's like most people lack the ability to simply ignore what they find distasteful. I don't think that's really it. First, I will say that I'm not wholly decided on the issue. I think free speech is important, but I also think there are reasonable limitations on that freedom (as with any freedom). I actively encourage debate. I truly enjoy hearing other people's perspectives and considering things from opposing views. I often find myself changing positions on things because I realize I hadn't thought about an issue in a particular way before. People like me are not so rare, I think (so long as you approach the discussion politely and with manners). But I believe Facebook (to pick one example) is problematic. That they don't vet political advertisements prior to running them is problematic. That they experiment on people's psyches by manipulating their news feeds is also problematic. That they encourage the formation of echo chambers (for all people) is — you guessed it — problematic. These factors have contributed to an atmosphere of hostility and a lessened desire to listen to opposing view points. People want to hear from other people who think like them, and that's exactly what they get. It radicalizes people (to use a perhaps slightly dramatic term) by exposing them only to notions with which they already agree. Now getting back to the part of your comment that I quoted. I do not lack the ability to ignore things I find "distasteful". I ignore Alex Jones and all his conspiracy theories about Sandy Hook. I ignore Flat Earthers, and 911 conspiracists, and other people like them. Interacting with them is not worth my time, and reading their positions never leaves me feeling more enlightened than before I went in. But I am privileged to not be subjected to some of the things that others are. To pick another specific example: semi-recent discourse online has contributed to an atmosphere of hostility towards non-white people (at least here in the US where I am). This has real consequences for such people. They find themselves subjected to everything from mild harassment to actual murder. Suggesting that they should just "ignore" things online which are "distasteful" in this manner is 100% missing the forest for the trees. There is a problem with the fact that people that are violently racist (and I mean "violent" literally) are able to organize and find a platform in the same space as other people. This creates a culture that is unwelcoming and dangerous in a very real sense. I do believe there is a need for some form of regulation, not because I am unable to ignore things that I do not agree with, but because there are groups of people who must be deprived of their platforms for the benefit of the physical and emotional well-being of others. I do not want everything to be sugar-coated or covered in bubble-wrap, but I do want public platforms to be devoid of open hostility. I don't think that's so much to ask.
badrequest 7y ago
The platform provided by the government for the exercise of free speech is the public space. Anybody is free to go outside and tell other people exactly what they believe if they choose to do so. The notion that the government has some obligation to platform bigots and their ilk is farcical.
account73466 7y ago
If you want to win against a view, select a leader from your pocket, make him look plausible and make him take control of the whole view. At any point you desire, let that person discredit himself and take the whole view down. Here, your view "to provide a free speech public platform" is under attack because such platforms would give people freedom and power. We are about to separate people from freedom. So-called "white" people will go first (they still have some power), the others will follow. Technological evolution is brutal.
bilbo0s 7y ago
Woah. I'm completely against that. The last thing we need is the government to step in and say, "This is our brand new Free Speech site! Come on in to post whatever you like and pay no attention to the lady in the blue FBI windbreaker behind the curtain." Such a site could trap many an unfortunate idealist who actually believed they could put whatever they wanted on that site. To me free speech is, you can put whatever you want up, and the government can't stop you in any way. Including potentially, you putting the information up there completely anonymously. A government controlled space will not allow that.
sixstringtheory 7y ago
I think the idea of a pure free speech space is great in theory, but probably impracticable. Could I post as much as I want? Do bots that I authored, posting on my behalf, count as my own speech? What if I effectively DDoS the system, will I be censored then? Preventing DDoS is essentially censorship, even though the DDoS is also essentially censorship of others by preventing them from being heard at all. It’s like the paradox of tolerance. It reminds me of a “free speech wall” in a city I used to live in. At some point all writing on that wall becomes unreadable due to volume. It was also regularly wiped clean. With FB we’re talking about psychological DDoS of truth, instead of infrastructural DDoS of information.
LMYahooTFY 7y ago
>I've said this before, but we need the government to step in and provide a "free speech" public platform for people to say whatever they'd like, uncensored No. We need people to say whatever they like, and we need the government to prevent anyone from silencing them by force, potentially meaning we need the government to prevent domination of media.
- Mangalor 7y ago
  A C-SPAN for social media isn't such a bad idea though.
mnm1 7y ago
Why? It'd just be a government sponsored 4chan. Do we then blame the government for having a platform that the next shooter is going to use to murder 50 or 100 people? What's the point of such a platform? Why would we waste government money on it just to have it filled with hate speech? Why would we, as the people who control the government want such a platform? If people want to publish in such a way, there is already a platform: the Internet. Start a website. Nothing prevents people from doing that. If they're too lazy, they can go to 4chan, etc. The rest of us shouldn't have to subsidize a cesspool of shit that has no positive uses.
agumonkey 7y ago
I'd change Freedom of speech is not freedom of reach. to Freedom of speech. Duty of thinking.
- fouc 7y ago
  freedom of reach is a reference to the platform that the speech is being disseminated on.

by daenz 7y ago

kyralis 7y ago

Why? This is a real question. This is not a thing that has existed in the past; why is it necessary that it exist now? If you look back to the founding of the US, political discourse was done frequently through pamphlets. The government didn't provide some "uncensored" pamphlet distribution service, and I find it unlikely that print shops of the time did not occasional reject orders that they didn't like.

afthonos 7y ago
Ironically, the one time I know of a government guaranteeing freedom of expression, down to the right to be provided with printing presses if needed was … the Soviet constitution. (Source: a memory of a comparative politics lecture in college, where the professor used it as an example of what’s written and what’s implemented being sometimes a little different...)
daenz 7y ago
Notice I said "space" and not "website." A pamphlet is to public physical space as a website is to online virtual space.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

GhettoMaestro 7y ago

What's the line? There always is one. Example: Child pornography. The banning of child pornography is legally sanctioned censorship. The legal argument being that the content is "Child Abuse Material" (CAM), which is audio-video evidence of a crime, which in that legal argument is not protected free-speech. Obviously child pornography is horrible and should NOT be permitted to be spread due to a variety of negative consequences associated with it, namely for the victims involved. I am highlighting that censorship is a tricky issue. That said, political speech should always be permitted in the public sphere, even if what is being advocated for is horrific. I believe in allowing people to make complete fools of themselves ("give them a long enough rope"). Sure, Neo-Nazis might gain a few followers by allowing them to stomp around the streets, but I'd wager that 95% of the people who see them immediately classify them as complete assholes and fucking degenerates. While I'm not a fan of folks being "doxxed" online for holding dumb-ass views, I do have a mental line where if you are actively meeting and assembling physically to advance immoral and un-American causes, I think you should be prepared to stand behind your association with said movement under your real identity. And that will have an impact on your friends, family, employment, social standing, etc. That is not a bug, that is a feature. It creates self-harmonizing communities where horrible behavior (actions) has social consequences, especially when the viewpoints or behaviors are not actually illegal, but still equally shitty.

abstractbarista 7y ago

What I've realized is most people don't believe in freedom of speech. They believe in freedom of speech that they agree with or enjoy. It's really a shame, from the perspective of someone who seriously does not care what others speak. It's like most people lack the ability to simply ignore what they find distasteful. They instead feel compelled to destroy it. These tendencies are at the core of our current online reality. It's a scary world out there!

bilbo0s 7y ago
I think you are being really kind. If we're really talking about "most" people? As in, the majority? Then the fact is, they do believe in free speech. It's just that they don't care about free speech. At all. Whether they agree with it or are interested in it or any other thing means absolutely nothing to them because they feel they have more important things to do. Let me give you a fairly realistic for instance of what the great unwashed masses think about free speech when compared to even something trivial like college football: Member of great unwashed mass: "What the hell is this f'in free speech debate doing on my tv when LSU is about to play Georgia!?!?!?!" Young, idealistic, activist: "Well, um, I thought maybe everyone would like to see how their rights are being eroded by increasingly powerful concentrations of industrial and technological weal..." Member of great unwashed mass: "Shut the F up!!! Put the Ohio State/Wisconsin game back on so I can catch the last little bit of that before LSU/Georgia kicks dick head!" This is what we're fighting against, and we need to be far more realistic about how powerful apathy is in shaping policy. At least in the US.
JustSomeNobody 7y ago
> It's like most people lack the ability to simply ignore what they find distasteful. Because sometimes it really is about the children.
DonaldPShimoda 7y ago
> It's like most people lack the ability to simply ignore what they find distasteful. I don't think that's really it. First, I will say that I'm not wholly decided on the issue. I think free speech is important, but I also think there are reasonable limitations on that freedom (as with any freedom). I actively encourage debate. I truly enjoy hearing other people's perspectives and considering things from opposing views. I often find myself changing positions on things because I realize I hadn't thought about an issue in a particular way before. People like me are not so rare, I think (so long as you approach the discussion politely and with manners). But I believe Facebook (to pick one example) is problematic. That they don't vet political advertisements prior to running them is problematic. That they experiment on people's psyches by manipulating their news feeds is also problematic. That they encourage the formation of echo chambers (for all people) is — you guessed it — problematic. These factors have contributed to an atmosphere of hostility and a lessened desire to listen to opposing view points. People want to hear from other people who think like them, and that's exactly what they get. It radicalizes people (to use a perhaps slightly dramatic term) by exposing them only to notions with which they already agree. Now getting back to the part of your comment that I quoted. I do not lack the ability to ignore things I find "distasteful". I ignore Alex Jones and all his conspiracy theories about Sandy Hook. I ignore Flat Earthers, and 911 conspiracists, and other people like them. Interacting with them is not worth my time, and reading their positions never leaves me feeling more enlightened than before I went in. But I am privileged to not be subjected to some of the things that others are. To pick another specific example: semi-recent discourse online has contributed to an atmosphere of hostility towards non-white people (at least here in the US where I am). This has real consequences for such people. They find themselves subjected to everything from mild harassment to actual murder. Suggesting that they should just "ignore" things online which are "distasteful" in this manner is 100% missing the forest for the trees. There is a problem with the fact that people that are violently racist (and I mean "violent" literally) are able to organize and find a platform in the same space as other people. This creates a culture that is unwelcoming and dangerous in a very real sense. I do believe there is a need for some form of regulation, not because I am unable to ignore things that I do not agree with, but because there are groups of people who must be deprived of their platforms for the benefit of the physical and emotional well-being of others. I do not want everything to be sugar-coated or covered in bubble-wrap, but I do want public platforms to be devoid of open hostility. I don't think that's so much to ask.

badrequest 7y ago

The platform provided by the government for the exercise of free speech is the public space. Anybody is free to go outside and tell other people exactly what they believe if they choose to do so. The notion that the government has some obligation to platform bigots and their ilk is farcical.

account73466 7y ago

If you want to win against a view, select a leader from your pocket, make him look plausible and make him take control of the whole view. At any point you desire, let that person discredit himself and take the whole view down. Here, your view "to provide a free speech public platform" is under attack because such platforms would give people freedom and power. We are about to separate people from freedom. So-called "white" people will go first (they still have some power), the others will follow. Technological evolution is brutal.

bilbo0s 7y ago

Woah. I'm completely against that. The last thing we need is the government to step in and say, "This is our brand new Free Speech site! Come on in to post whatever you like and pay no attention to the lady in the blue FBI windbreaker behind the curtain." Such a site could trap many an unfortunate idealist who actually believed they could put whatever they wanted on that site. To me free speech is, you can put whatever you want up, and the government can't stop you in any way. Including potentially, you putting the information up there completely anonymously. A government controlled space will not allow that.

sixstringtheory 7y ago

I think the idea of a pure free speech space is great in theory, but probably impracticable. Could I post as much as I want? Do bots that I authored, posting on my behalf, count as my own speech? What if I effectively DDoS the system, will I be censored then? Preventing DDoS is essentially censorship, even though the DDoS is also essentially censorship of others by preventing them from being heard at all. It’s like the paradox of tolerance. It reminds me of a “free speech wall” in a city I used to live in. At some point all writing on that wall becomes unreadable due to volume. It was also regularly wiped clean. With FB we’re talking about psychological DDoS of truth, instead of infrastructural DDoS of information.

LMYahooTFY 7y ago

>I've said this before, but we need the government to step in and provide a "free speech" public platform for people to say whatever they'd like, uncensored No. We need people to say whatever they like, and we need the government to prevent anyone from silencing them by force, potentially meaning we need the government to prevent domination of media.

Mangalor 7y ago
A C-SPAN for social media isn't such a bad idea though.

mnm1 7y ago

Why? It'd just be a government sponsored 4chan. Do we then blame the government for having a platform that the next shooter is going to use to murder 50 or 100 people? What's the point of such a platform? Why would we waste government money on it just to have it filled with hate speech? Why would we, as the people who control the government want such a platform? If people want to publish in such a way, there is already a platform: the Internet. Start a website. Nothing prevents people from doing that. If they're too lazy, they can go to 4chan, etc. The rest of us shouldn't have to subsidize a cesspool of shit that has no positive uses.

agumonkey 7y ago

I'd change Freedom of speech is not freedom of reach. to Freedom of speech. Duty of thinking.

fouc 7y ago
freedom of reach is a reference to the platform that the speech is being disseminated on.