4 ms·

Wordpress are a private company and don't have to respect anyone's freedom of speech. Would you require them to host Der Sturmer? This is no different.

dcolkitt 6y ago
Question: If Wordpress received a large investment from the Saudis, and in response removed all of its LGBT content, would you feel the same way?
- dibujante 6y ago
  Is the content untruthful and promoting harmful conspiracy theories?
  - dcolkitt 6y ago
    How would you feel about Wordpress deleting all the blogs of a specific religion, based on the fact that there is no evidence for God? Because we're not talking about fringe conspiracy theories here. At least 30% of Americans holds opinions similar to CTH. You may disagree with them, but Wordpress is unilaterally claiming the ability to silence a huge chunk of the American political spectrum. I don't really see how that's any different than them deciding to unilaterally discriminate against, say all Catholics.
    - dibujante 6y ago
      Yes, I struggle with what the right response is when very large numbers of people believe things that are obviously both false and damaging. You're proposing complete relativism and the inability for anyone to know anything; if anti-semitism were a popular belief among 30% of the population, you'd defend it and being equal to any other belief?
- cortesoft 6y ago
  No, I would not feel the same way... I would likely boycott the company. I don't think there would be a legal issue, though. I always hate this part of these comment threads; there is always a lot of conflation between legal and moral responsibilities.... I hate that people who think this sort of censorship is ok (and I am actually one of them) try to argue from a legal standpoint.... I am pretty sure almost everyone agrees that Wordpress isn't breaking the law here, so why argue that point? As for the moral argument, I don't think I am being hypocritical to say it is morally ok to censor some things but not others. Not everything is the same. In fact, I think even the most die hard free speech absolutists are ok with anti-fraud laws. No one is arguing that is ok to host a typo-squatting website pretending I am amazon and harvest login credentials. No one would say we can't take down that site because of free speech. So, what we are really arguing about is degree; how fraudulent does something have to be in order for it to be ok to censor? Personally, I think the decision should be made on a combination of the certainty that the content is false, along with the harm the content can cause. Fake amazon site is clearly false and clearly harmful; automatic censoring. Flat earth society? Clearly false, but depending on what the site is advocating, it might be mostly harmless. Part of the harm determination is also going to be based on evidence; how many people have we seen be tricked by the false information? Basically, I don't think this is one of those issues that you can have a clear rule for, which is probably why programmers have such a hard time with the concept and default to saying we shouldn't even try.

dcolkitt 6y ago

Question: If Wordpress received a large investment from the Saudis, and in response removed all of its LGBT content, would you feel the same way?

dibujante 6y ago
Is the content untruthful and promoting harmful conspiracy theories?
- dcolkitt 6y ago
  How would you feel about Wordpress deleting all the blogs of a specific religion, based on the fact that there is no evidence for God? Because we're not talking about fringe conspiracy theories here. At least 30% of Americans holds opinions similar to CTH. You may disagree with them, but Wordpress is unilaterally claiming the ability to silence a huge chunk of the American political spectrum. I don't really see how that's any different than them deciding to unilaterally discriminate against, say all Catholics.
  - dibujante 6y ago
    Yes, I struggle with what the right response is when very large numbers of people believe things that are obviously both false and damaging. You're proposing complete relativism and the inability for anyone to know anything; if anti-semitism were a popular belief among 30% of the population, you'd defend it and being equal to any other belief?
cortesoft 6y ago
No, I would not feel the same way... I would likely boycott the company. I don't think there would be a legal issue, though. I always hate this part of these comment threads; there is always a lot of conflation between legal and moral responsibilities.... I hate that people who think this sort of censorship is ok (and I am actually one of them) try to argue from a legal standpoint.... I am pretty sure almost everyone agrees that Wordpress isn't breaking the law here, so why argue that point? As for the moral argument, I don't think I am being hypocritical to say it is morally ok to censor some things but not others. Not everything is the same. In fact, I think even the most die hard free speech absolutists are ok with anti-fraud laws. No one is arguing that is ok to host a typo-squatting website pretending I am amazon and harvest login credentials. No one would say we can't take down that site because of free speech. So, what we are really arguing about is degree; how fraudulent does something have to be in order for it to be ok to censor? Personally, I think the decision should be made on a combination of the certainty that the content is false, along with the harm the content can cause. Fake amazon site is clearly false and clearly harmful; automatic censoring. Flat earth society? Clearly false, but depending on what the site is advocating, it might be mostly harmless. Part of the harm determination is also going to be based on evidence; how many people have we seen be tricked by the false information? Basically, I don't think this is one of those issues that you can have a clear rule for, which is probably why programmers have such a hard time with the concept and default to saying we shouldn't even try.