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Because being anti-LGBT is morally wrong, that's why. It has nothing to do with legality or with freedom of expression. I really don't understand how we can st

Because being anti-LGBT is morally wrong, that's why. It has nothing to do with legality or with freedom of expression. I really don't understand how we can start equating LGBT rights with outright hate speech.

AnimalMuppet 6y ago
Who gets to decide what definition of morals Facebook should use to answer these questions? Why should Facebook choose your particular moral framework to work with? Yeah, I know, you're right. Everybody else is sure that their moral framework is right, too. So why does yours get to rule? What is your basis for saying that yours is right and theirs is wrong? You may in fact be able to give a defense of your moral framework. That defense seems right to you, and to those who agree with you. But defenders of other moral frameworks can do that, too. Which self-consistent and defensible (per the adherents) moral framework should be the one to rule Facebook, and why?
- Tainnor 6y ago
  This is moral relativism. You can't build anything on moral relativism. By that same logic, there is no moral justification to freedom of speech either. (also we're talking about outrage here, not about lawsuits.)
  - AnimalMuppet 6y ago
    That totally fails to answer my question. You said being anti-LGBT is morally wrong. Here's some guy in Teheran. He's not a moral relativist. He's very much a moral absolutist, and he's dead certain that LGBT itself is what's morally wrong. Why do we believe you instead of the other guy? Why does Facebook believe you instead of the other guy? Because Facebook is in the US instead of Iran? Here's my position: I am a moral absolutist. Still, I don't want a moral absolutist deciding what Facebook thinks is appropriate content. There's too many systems of absolute morality, and too many of them differ from my own in important ways - ways that I'd like to be able to talk about.
    - Tainnor 6y ago
      Wait, I didn't say that I get to legally dictate what Facebook is allowed to do. However, I get to be morally outraged at their actions whenever it pleases me, and I get to get others to be outraged too and if we're enough people we may convince them to change course. In that sense, I don't care one bit about the guy in Teheran who thinks being LGBT is wrong and I don't have to.
      - AnimalMuppet 6y ago
        OK. I pretty much agree with that. I'm still worried about the guy who does get to dictate what Facebook will carry (namely, somebody at Facebook). I don't want that person to be very morally absolutist, and I worry that they are becoming increasingly so as time goes by.
        Tainnor 6y ago
        Well, it's not black or white. There are opinions that I don't agree with that I think are still completely legitimate and perfectly moral. There are opinions that I take serious issue with and may even find immoral but for which I'd still claim that it's worse to try to suppress them than to allow them. And then there's stuff like incitement to violence or the president of the USA spreading dangerous lies about an election ... tolerance can only go so far. Of course, it's a difficult call to make. Of course, no matter what you decide, someone is going to be angry. But you can't just not decide, you do have to take a stand and by refusing to do so, you have effectively already decided something (that's the whole point of Sartre's philosophy btw, which was inspired by WW2).
  - jedimind 6y ago
    > This is moral relativism. You can't build anything on moral relativism. So what exactly makes your morality absolute? Can you provide any evidence for it? Most people give hand wavy answers to this question, mumbling something along lines of intuition etc, which is not evidence, but as arbitrary and relative as some random choice of initial values for some random moral framework.
    - Tainnor 6y ago
      I'm not arguing for moral absolutism. Both that and moral relativism are deeply flawed. It's a fact that different people have different perceptions of morality, but that alone is not a sufficient argument to shut down any debate about ethics. It is our duty as moral individuals to fight for what we think is morally right. And sometimes we will have to compromise. But I'm tired of having to argue for why LGBT rights are important (something that I really would have hoped would be understood by now), since that is not the point. The point is that OP gave an example of a decision that "would spark an outrage" and I contended that that would be the case because it would be seen by the outraged as an immoral decision. You can't take people's rights to be morally outraged away from them. You can, at the most, try to argue with those people why the supposedly immoral thing is not actually immoral, but I haven't seen anyone here doing that: only people defending the truism that "everyone has different moral standards". Which... yeah.
      - jedimind 6y ago
        That's not even the point. You are throwing around with the word 'moral' around a lot and it seems to me that you don't even understand the basics of moral philosophy. Your usage of 'moral' seems to be merely a rhetoric device to give more weight to your opinion, but what does that even accomplish when you fail to deliver any evidence for your morality? You just make a lot of claims, but you fail to back them up, so they are and remain nothing but that, baseless claims. It's basically just your opinion, which you are trying to wrap in the garment of 'morality'. So if you are moral realist and your morality is easily discarded, why should they care? If you are a moral anti-realist and still make moral value judgments, which are also easily discarded without consequences, why should they care?
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > Who gets to decide what definition of morals Facebook should use to answer these questions? Everyone individually, and each can then express their opinion on Facebook’s moral status, and decide otherwise whether and how to engage with Facebook, based on whether and to what extent Facebook aligns with each individual’s moral standards.
ajsnigrutin 6y ago
Many, many religions find pro-LGBT to be morally wrong. Even evolutionary, everything that doesnt create more kids is useless. But we, as a western society usually stand by the rights to let adults do whatever they want (consentually), and don't care about it, if it doesnt affect us directly. And what does 'morally' even mean? We, as a western society, support kids seeing and sucking on boobs, until they're 1yo or 2 (or whatever), then for the next 10-12 years we hide (images of, and real) boobs from them, as if they were radioactive, and they don't know why, then they (approximately half of them) want to look at (real and images of) boobs, but we find that "wrong", a few years later we legally let them pay to see boobs (or find them online for free), and somewhere in the meantime, start bothering then, when are they going to find someone with boobs. Meanwhile mens boobs are ok. In some other cultures, women of all ages don't even cover their boobs in public. So basically something, that is a normal everyday thing in some cultures, for people of all ages, becomes morally wrong in our culture, and we censor it online, we also lock up people if those boobs are owned by a person younger than some arbitrary age, and even have wikipedia pages about that ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Bowl_XXXVIII_halftime_show_controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Bowl_XXXVIII_halftime_sh... ). So basically, for some other culture, what we do is morally wrong, but we, as a majority, get to ignore their morality and impose our own (even if it's stupid). TLDR: we (as a group) support social networks deleting photos of female nipples, because showing and seeing those is morally wrong in our culture, even though it's an issue that affects a lot more people than LGBT stuff.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > Many, many religions find pro-LGBT to be morally wrong So? They are as free to express and act on their opinion of private actors expressing pro-LGBT messages as people who believe otherwise are to express the opposite. > Even evolutionary, everything that doesnt create more kids is useless. Obviously false or such traits would be quickly weeded of it wherever they arise, and they are not.
  - ajsnigrutin 6y ago
    >So? They are as free to express and act on their opinion of private actors expressing pro-LGBT messages as people who believe otherwise are to express the opposite. The last time someone didn't want to bake a cake, they had to fight their way to supreme court... so yeah, expressing your beliefs is not an easy task to do. The problem with beliefs is, that they're arbitrary, and a tiny variable can make a good thing a bad thing. Rape in a movie? Bad thing. Crime, thriller, etc. Rape jokes, bad. But wait, if you just change the gender of the rape victim to a male, you've got a hollywood "satirical erotic romantic comedy" ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/40_Days_and_40_Nights https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/40_Days_and_40_Nights ). So, rape jokes are bad, and deleted ( https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-15641998 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-15641998 -here facebook even stood with free speech, but bent down soon after), but if the victim is a man, you can shoot a comedy and make $95M. And it's far from being the only movie with such cntent ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nheskbsU5g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nheskbsU5g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uc6QxD2_yQw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uc6QxD2_yQw ). Why is one (morally) ok, and the other isn't? Who decides that? If we censor one, shouldnt we also censor the other? Or if we let one online, why not let the other? Is it just a personal choice of a trigger happy moderator? Or is there a written, official moderation rule, where content with rape is ok, if the victim is a man?

AnimalMuppet 6y ago

Who gets to decide what definition of morals Facebook should use to answer these questions? Why should Facebook choose your particular moral framework to work with? Yeah, I know, you're right. Everybody else is sure that their moral framework is right, too. So why does yours get to rule? What is your basis for saying that yours is right and theirs is wrong? You may in fact be able to give a defense of your moral framework. That defense seems right to you, and to those who agree with you. But defenders of other moral frameworks can do that, too. Which self-consistent and defensible (per the adherents) moral framework should be the one to rule Facebook, and why?

Tainnor 6y ago
This is moral relativism. You can't build anything on moral relativism. By that same logic, there is no moral justification to freedom of speech either. (also we're talking about outrage here, not about lawsuits.)
- AnimalMuppet 6y ago
  That totally fails to answer my question. You said being anti-LGBT is morally wrong. Here's some guy in Teheran. He's not a moral relativist. He's very much a moral absolutist, and he's dead certain that LGBT itself is what's morally wrong. Why do we believe you instead of the other guy? Why does Facebook believe you instead of the other guy? Because Facebook is in the US instead of Iran? Here's my position: I am a moral absolutist. Still, I don't want a moral absolutist deciding what Facebook thinks is appropriate content. There's too many systems of absolute morality, and too many of them differ from my own in important ways - ways that I'd like to be able to talk about.
  - Tainnor 6y ago
    Wait, I didn't say that I get to legally dictate what Facebook is allowed to do. However, I get to be morally outraged at their actions whenever it pleases me, and I get to get others to be outraged too and if we're enough people we may convince them to change course. In that sense, I don't care one bit about the guy in Teheran who thinks being LGBT is wrong and I don't have to.
    - AnimalMuppet 6y ago
      OK. I pretty much agree with that. I'm still worried about the guy who does get to dictate what Facebook will carry (namely, somebody at Facebook). I don't want that person to be very morally absolutist, and I worry that they are becoming increasingly so as time goes by.
      - Tainnor 6y ago
        Well, it's not black or white. There are opinions that I don't agree with that I think are still completely legitimate and perfectly moral. There are opinions that I take serious issue with and may even find immoral but for which I'd still claim that it's worse to try to suppress them than to allow them. And then there's stuff like incitement to violence or the president of the USA spreading dangerous lies about an election ... tolerance can only go so far. Of course, it's a difficult call to make. Of course, no matter what you decide, someone is going to be angry. But you can't just not decide, you do have to take a stand and by refusing to do so, you have effectively already decided something (that's the whole point of Sartre's philosophy btw, which was inspired by WW2).
- jedimind 6y ago
  > This is moral relativism. You can't build anything on moral relativism. So what exactly makes your morality absolute? Can you provide any evidence for it? Most people give hand wavy answers to this question, mumbling something along lines of intuition etc, which is not evidence, but as arbitrary and relative as some random choice of initial values for some random moral framework.
  - Tainnor 6y ago
    I'm not arguing for moral absolutism. Both that and moral relativism are deeply flawed. It's a fact that different people have different perceptions of morality, but that alone is not a sufficient argument to shut down any debate about ethics. It is our duty as moral individuals to fight for what we think is morally right. And sometimes we will have to compromise. But I'm tired of having to argue for why LGBT rights are important (something that I really would have hoped would be understood by now), since that is not the point. The point is that OP gave an example of a decision that "would spark an outrage" and I contended that that would be the case because it would be seen by the outraged as an immoral decision. You can't take people's rights to be morally outraged away from them. You can, at the most, try to argue with those people why the supposedly immoral thing is not actually immoral, but I haven't seen anyone here doing that: only people defending the truism that "everyone has different moral standards". Which... yeah.
    - jedimind 6y ago
      That's not even the point. You are throwing around with the word 'moral' around a lot and it seems to me that you don't even understand the basics of moral philosophy. Your usage of 'moral' seems to be merely a rhetoric device to give more weight to your opinion, but what does that even accomplish when you fail to deliver any evidence for your morality? You just make a lot of claims, but you fail to back them up, so they are and remain nothing but that, baseless claims. It's basically just your opinion, which you are trying to wrap in the garment of 'morality'. So if you are moral realist and your morality is easily discarded, why should they care? If you are a moral anti-realist and still make moral value judgments, which are also easily discarded without consequences, why should they care?
dragonwriter 6y ago
> Who gets to decide what definition of morals Facebook should use to answer these questions? Everyone individually, and each can then express their opinion on Facebook’s moral status, and decide otherwise whether and how to engage with Facebook, based on whether and to what extent Facebook aligns with each individual’s moral standards.

ajsnigrutin 6y ago

Many, many religions find pro-LGBT to be morally wrong. Even evolutionary, everything that doesnt create more kids is useless. But we, as a western society usually stand by the rights to let adults do whatever they want (consentually), and don't care about it, if it doesnt affect us directly. And what does 'morally' even mean? We, as a western society, support kids seeing and sucking on boobs, until they're 1yo or 2 (or whatever), then for the next 10-12 years we hide (images of, and real) boobs from them, as if they were radioactive, and they don't know why, then they (approximately half of them) want to look at (real and images of) boobs, but we find that "wrong", a few years later we legally let them pay to see boobs (or find them online for free), and somewhere in the meantime, start bothering then, when are they going to find someone with boobs. Meanwhile mens boobs are ok. In some other cultures, women of all ages don't even cover their boobs in public. So basically something, that is a normal everyday thing in some cultures, for people of all ages, becomes morally wrong in our culture, and we censor it online, we also lock up people if those boobs are owned by a person younger than some arbitrary age, and even have wikipedia pages about that ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Bowl_XXXVIII_halftime_show_controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Bowl_XXXVIII_halftime_sh... ). So basically, for some other culture, what we do is morally wrong, but we, as a majority, get to ignore their morality and impose our own (even if it's stupid). TLDR: we (as a group) support social networks deleting photos of female nipples, because showing and seeing those is morally wrong in our culture, even though it's an issue that affects a lot more people than LGBT stuff.

dragonwriter 6y ago
> Many, many religions find pro-LGBT to be morally wrong So? They are as free to express and act on their opinion of private actors expressing pro-LGBT messages as people who believe otherwise are to express the opposite. > Even evolutionary, everything that doesnt create more kids is useless. Obviously false or such traits would be quickly weeded of it wherever they arise, and they are not.
- ajsnigrutin 6y ago
  >So? They are as free to express and act on their opinion of private actors expressing pro-LGBT messages as people who believe otherwise are to express the opposite. The last time someone didn't want to bake a cake, they had to fight their way to supreme court... so yeah, expressing your beliefs is not an easy task to do. The problem with beliefs is, that they're arbitrary, and a tiny variable can make a good thing a bad thing. Rape in a movie? Bad thing. Crime, thriller, etc. Rape jokes, bad. But wait, if you just change the gender of the rape victim to a male, you've got a hollywood "satirical erotic romantic comedy" ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/40_Days_and_40_Nights https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/40_Days_and_40_Nights ). So, rape jokes are bad, and deleted ( https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-15641998 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-15641998 -here facebook even stood with free speech, but bent down soon after), but if the victim is a man, you can shoot a comedy and make $95M. And it's far from being the only movie with such cntent ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nheskbsU5g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nheskbsU5g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uc6QxD2_yQw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uc6QxD2_yQw ). Why is one (morally) ok, and the other isn't? Who decides that? If we censor one, shouldnt we also censor the other? Or if we let one online, why not let the other? Is it just a personal choice of a trigger happy moderator? Or is there a written, official moderation rule, where content with rape is ok, if the victim is a man?