9 ms·

Just more online censorship. What happened to the absolutism of free speech? It feels like the USA is closer to the CCP every day.

swirepe 6y ago
Make your own twitch.
- jonfw 6y ago
  Facebook, Google, and Microsoft have all demonstrated how difficult it is to break into this market... Amazon thought it was cheaper to spend a billion dollars on Twitch than to build a competitor itself You either have to be the first mover or a mega-corp to make this happen. It's clearly not something you can do as an individual at this point.
  - chewmieser 6y ago
    Support anti-trust laws to prevent massive conglomerates form smothering all forms of competition then? That being said, just because it's hard doesn't mean it's not possible. Parler is a recent example of this.
- FruityCoconut 6y ago
  I hope this is a wry joke. Recently we've seen DNS providers, CDNs, payment gateways, and even banks shut down services for wrong-thinkers. Accelerationists are cheering these actions. That should tell you all you need to know about the likely outcome.
  - Pfhreak 6y ago
    Recently? No, services have always been at risk for out groups. It was only a few decades ago that minority and lgbtq folks could lose access to services. Except now it's not normal people, it's hate groups that are being pushed out. This seems like a material change for the better. If you think this is a recent phenomena or if you think it's somehow only being aimed one way, I suggest you read a bit more American history.
    - FruityCoconut 6y ago
      There are an awful lot of "normal people" who want an ethnically homogeneous, harmonious home for their children, while those advocating abortion, transsexuality, homosexuality, childhood sex education, etc are the epitome of evil "hate groups". Implying that this is a black-and-white issue or that the current status is objectively superior is disingenuous or ignorant. Fifty years ago it would have been unthinkable that the fringe groups being violently censored and oppressed would now be in power. Where might we be fifty years from now...
onewhonknocks 6y ago
Free speech as it is enshrined in the Constitution only applies to censorship by the government.
- fennecfoxen 6y ago
  For what it’s worth, grandparent post’s poorly qualified and marginally coherent rant addressed a lived reality independent of the Constitution, which is still a thing people get to worry about. You’re the one who brought up the Constitution.
- throwaway0a5e 6y ago
  It's a value so important to society it is included in our most authoritative laws. While individuals and private entities are not obligated to follow that law because it is direct at the government people can rightly complain that it is in bad taste when they stray too far from holding themselves to the same standard. A private entity banning confederate flags and nazi symbols in avatars is palatable enough on its own. But it is decently close to having to censor those sorts of things in legitimate historical contexts. See for example all the genuinely historically centered youtube channels that have to censor those symbols because otherwise the algo will bury them. I think we can all agree that that latter case is not ok and is the kind of censorship that should be complained about. Considering how many historically themed video games there are out there and how strongly people believe in free speech it's understandable why more than a few people do not like this move by Twitch.
  - TameAntelope 6y ago
    What are your (or anyone's) thoughts on why 1A was written to be limited to the government in the first place? Why didn't the author (James Madison) of the Bill of Rights write it more broadly, preventing even private entities from limiting speech, et. al.?
    - inopinatus 6y ago
      So that one private entity can tell another that they are talking out of their hat, and show them the door. You have a right to free speech. You don’t have a right to force everyone to listen. What a fucking awful world that would be.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
moonbug 6y ago
grow up, kid.
chewmieser 6y ago
Twitch does not represent the US government. It's just a private entity doing business in the USA. Completely free speech has never existed on internet platforms. E.g. we ban and remove spam comments all the time from forums, blogs and other forms of online discussion. We've also constantly banned bad behavior too (death threats, racism, brigading... etc). I don't know why you're upset about this particular incident?
- prepend 6y ago
  > Twitch does not represent the US government. It's just a private entity doing business in the USA. This is funny. Do you think someone confused Twitch with the US government? Do you think only the government should be concerned with free speech? Do you think corporate censorship isn’t important? I see comments like yours frequently and get confused. Of course government censorship is more dangerous than corporate censorship. But saying that Twitch isn’t government is like responding to BLM with “well, technically all lives matter.” Of course it is true, but not really relevant. The issue here is that Twitch doesn’t seem to respect free speech and build it into their services. Legally, they are allowed to do this. Ethically, that’s bad. Ethically, companies not supporting and building and fostering free speech leads us to some sort of Disney hellscape where all video calls must include smiles or people get booted, etc etc Slippery slope hyperbole aside, I think it seems pretty fundamental to me that private communication platforms for the general public need to have free speech as an ideal and apply restrictions carefully. Making blanket band without considering context seems like it will make the experience less useful for communication. That being said, I’m surprised there was even a confederate flag emoji ever available and surprised took this long to remove.
  - chewmieser 6y ago
    Did you see the second part of my comment? > Completely free speech has never existed on internet platforms
    - verroq 6y ago
      Ah but it didn’t used to be like this.
_ZeD_ 6y ago
obligatory xkcd: https://xkcd.com/1357/ https://xkcd.com/1357/
gameswithgo 6y ago
in america companies are free to decide what content they will store on their servers, unlike a communist society
bryanlarsen 6y ago
Forcing Twitch to host stuff they don't want to host is an infringement on their freedom. You're able to host your stuff elsewhere so their freedom trumps the free speech argument. Network effects make Twitch a natural monopoly. Which means that a little bit of regulation to combat that might be a good idea.
pojntfx 6y ago
No right is absolute, and free speech is no exception. To quote Popper: "In order to maintain a tolerant society, the society must be intolerant of intolerance." [0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
- yostrovs 6y ago
  Shouldn't you then be intolerant to the intolerance of the new twitch policy?
  - bryanlarsen 6y ago
    A paradox is defined as a well-founded but self-contradictory statement. The existence of this paradox means that absolute freedom of speech is impossible, it's not a rule you can follow.
  - user-the-name 6y ago
    No.
bdcravens 6y ago
Do you run an ad blocker in your browser?
lkxijlewlf 6y ago
That's what is so great about capitalism; if you don't like what one company is doing, go do business with another.

swirepe 6y ago

Make your own twitch.

jonfw 6y ago
Facebook, Google, and Microsoft have all demonstrated how difficult it is to break into this market... Amazon thought it was cheaper to spend a billion dollars on Twitch than to build a competitor itself You either have to be the first mover or a mega-corp to make this happen. It's clearly not something you can do as an individual at this point.
- chewmieser 6y ago
  Support anti-trust laws to prevent massive conglomerates form smothering all forms of competition then? That being said, just because it's hard doesn't mean it's not possible. Parler is a recent example of this.
FruityCoconut 6y ago
I hope this is a wry joke. Recently we've seen DNS providers, CDNs, payment gateways, and even banks shut down services for wrong-thinkers. Accelerationists are cheering these actions. That should tell you all you need to know about the likely outcome.
- Pfhreak 6y ago
  Recently? No, services have always been at risk for out groups. It was only a few decades ago that minority and lgbtq folks could lose access to services. Except now it's not normal people, it's hate groups that are being pushed out. This seems like a material change for the better. If you think this is a recent phenomena or if you think it's somehow only being aimed one way, I suggest you read a bit more American history.
  - FruityCoconut 6y ago
    There are an awful lot of "normal people" who want an ethnically homogeneous, harmonious home for their children, while those advocating abortion, transsexuality, homosexuality, childhood sex education, etc are the epitome of evil "hate groups". Implying that this is a black-and-white issue or that the current status is objectively superior is disingenuous or ignorant. Fifty years ago it would have been unthinkable that the fringe groups being violently censored and oppressed would now be in power. Where might we be fifty years from now...

onewhonknocks 6y ago

Free speech as it is enshrined in the Constitution only applies to censorship by the government.

fennecfoxen 6y ago
For what it’s worth, grandparent post’s poorly qualified and marginally coherent rant addressed a lived reality independent of the Constitution, which is still a thing people get to worry about. You’re the one who brought up the Constitution.
throwaway0a5e 6y ago
It's a value so important to society it is included in our most authoritative laws. While individuals and private entities are not obligated to follow that law because it is direct at the government people can rightly complain that it is in bad taste when they stray too far from holding themselves to the same standard. A private entity banning confederate flags and nazi symbols in avatars is palatable enough on its own. But it is decently close to having to censor those sorts of things in legitimate historical contexts. See for example all the genuinely historically centered youtube channels that have to censor those symbols because otherwise the algo will bury them. I think we can all agree that that latter case is not ok and is the kind of censorship that should be complained about. Considering how many historically themed video games there are out there and how strongly people believe in free speech it's understandable why more than a few people do not like this move by Twitch.
- TameAntelope 6y ago
  What are your (or anyone's) thoughts on why 1A was written to be limited to the government in the first place? Why didn't the author (James Madison) of the Bill of Rights write it more broadly, preventing even private entities from limiting speech, et. al.?
  - inopinatus 6y ago
    So that one private entity can tell another that they are talking out of their hat, and show them the door. You have a right to free speech. You don’t have a right to force everyone to listen. What a fucking awful world that would be.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

moonbug 6y ago

grow up, kid.

chewmieser 6y ago

Twitch does not represent the US government. It's just a private entity doing business in the USA. Completely free speech has never existed on internet platforms. E.g. we ban and remove spam comments all the time from forums, blogs and other forms of online discussion. We've also constantly banned bad behavior too (death threats, racism, brigading... etc). I don't know why you're upset about this particular incident?

prepend 6y ago
> Twitch does not represent the US government. It's just a private entity doing business in the USA. This is funny. Do you think someone confused Twitch with the US government? Do you think only the government should be concerned with free speech? Do you think corporate censorship isn’t important? I see comments like yours frequently and get confused. Of course government censorship is more dangerous than corporate censorship. But saying that Twitch isn’t government is like responding to BLM with “well, technically all lives matter.” Of course it is true, but not really relevant. The issue here is that Twitch doesn’t seem to respect free speech and build it into their services. Legally, they are allowed to do this. Ethically, that’s bad. Ethically, companies not supporting and building and fostering free speech leads us to some sort of Disney hellscape where all video calls must include smiles or people get booted, etc etc Slippery slope hyperbole aside, I think it seems pretty fundamental to me that private communication platforms for the general public need to have free speech as an ideal and apply restrictions carefully. Making blanket band without considering context seems like it will make the experience less useful for communication. That being said, I’m surprised there was even a confederate flag emoji ever available and surprised took this long to remove.
- chewmieser 6y ago
  Did you see the second part of my comment? > Completely free speech has never existed on internet platforms
  - verroq 6y ago
    Ah but it didn’t used to be like this.

_ZeD_ 6y ago

obligatory xkcd: https://xkcd.com/1357/ https://xkcd.com/1357/

gameswithgo 6y ago

in america companies are free to decide what content they will store on their servers, unlike a communist society

bryanlarsen 6y ago

Forcing Twitch to host stuff they don't want to host is an infringement on their freedom. You're able to host your stuff elsewhere so their freedom trumps the free speech argument. Network effects make Twitch a natural monopoly. Which means that a little bit of regulation to combat that might be a good idea.

pojntfx 6y ago

No right is absolute, and free speech is no exception. To quote Popper: "In order to maintain a tolerant society, the society must be intolerant of intolerance." [0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

yostrovs 6y ago
Shouldn't you then be intolerant to the intolerance of the new twitch policy?
- bryanlarsen 6y ago
  A paradox is defined as a well-founded but self-contradictory statement. The existence of this paradox means that absolute freedom of speech is impossible, it's not a rule you can follow.
- user-the-name 6y ago
  No.

bdcravens 6y ago

Do you run an ad blocker in your browser?

lkxijlewlf 6y ago

That's what is so great about capitalism; if you don't like what one company is doing, go do business with another.