4 ms·

It's totally reasonable to be sad about this. It pattern matches to a loss of free speech, and when society sees free speech being violated, it should evoke str

It's totally reasonable to be sad about this. It pattern matches to a loss of free speech, and when society sees free speech being violated, it should evoke strong emotions (hopefully even more severe than sadness). This is not, however, a violation of free speech, even if you believe in the general concept that a private company should allow dissenting opinions on its platform. This user has violated the "yelling fire in a crowded theatre" exception to free speech, which even the most ardent supporters of the concept admit is important to protect. These private institutions aren't perfect, and judging if speech breaks the one exception to the moral concept of "free speech" is hard. We'll get it wrong. The alternative, however, is to let the panic incited to occur unabated, which seems substantially worse.

sneak 6y ago
I don't agree. I think that the harm caused by these loud demagogues (is that redundant?) is massively overblown. The US president, perhaps the one with the most platform and audience and reach, couldn't even summon a properly armed militia, it was only a small group of mostly unarmed rioters. Their best efforts achieved precisely nothing: they did not seize any power, they did not hold any territory. It wasn't even a battle. Far from an insurrection, it was just some smashed windows and an instagram moment and now they're all in jail. Calling what happened an armed insurrection is factually inaccurate, even if a few of the rioters brought weapons. If platform and reach are proportional to messaging effectiveness (the presumption that this sort of censorship makes) then everyone else's efforts along these lines (who isn't the president of the United States) will be substantially less effective than even this massively ineffective display in DC. Let them squawk. Misinformation and lies simply aren't that dangerous, otherwise we would have had to ban the church centuries ago. Americans are inundated constantly with bullshit messaging from large, powerful organizations. They aren't nearly as malleable as the pro-censorship people seem to think they are.
- TameAntelope 6y ago
  To take it away from this political moment for a second, do you believe it's acceptable to allow someone to yell, "Fire!" in a crowded theater, or do you think these people aren't actually yelling, "Fire!", and when we determine someone is yelling, "Fire!", those private institutions should still stop them?
  - sneak 6y ago
    I don't think private institutions, especially when there are a small number of extremely powerful ones that exert control over publishing, should be applying or enforcing subjective standards on publishing. This isn't a legal opinion but a personal one: people who decide unilaterally for other adults what they should be allowed to read or see are assholes. My web host is in many senses like my ISP: I don't pay them to editorialize. In the US there is already a huge and well- (and perhaps over-)funded machinery for investigating and enforcing the law. If the laws are being broken, why not let them handle it? (This has the added benefit of applying the existing body of legal wisdom regarding state censorship.) If the laws aren't being broken, what's the problem?
    - TameAntelope 6y ago
      Does, "This won't make us any money, and could further result in the company going under or otherwise severely being hindered in the market due to the negative backlash and resulting decline in business." count as a subjective standard that you believe a private institution should not be applying? What are corporations allowed to do then, in your mind?
      - sneak 6y ago
        Allow me to dodge answering directly: If gigantic multinationals and infrastructure providers stop hosting anything that might be unpopular or generate bad PR, then we quickly approach a world where the tyranny of sheep logic[1] (not what people think, but what people think other people think) will dictate the very narrow range of what products, services, media, literature, and art are available. That world sucks and we should avoid it. This has already mostly happened for concert venues in the US, as well as video hosting. Already we've made a world where the basic human unclothed form is all but outlawed except in clinical (or apparently yoga) settings online. I don't think there's any upper bound to what a culture can contort into believing is unacceptable. [1]: https://www.epsilontheory.com/sheep-logic/ https://www.epsilontheory.com/sheep-logic/
        6y ago
- woah 6y ago
  The real insurrection was not the rioters. They were, as you say, very disorganized and barely missed their opportunity to massacre the Senate when they chased a security guard down a hallway, past the open doors to the senate chamber. President Trump, however, played his role well. He refused to call in the military to end the insurrection, giving the rioters several hours to run rampant though the Capitol of the world’s biggest military power.
raxxorrax 6y ago
This is still a violation of free speech. Some people abused that right for their own purposes. You will always have such people. To compromise is the reaction any troll by original definition aims for. And it didn't even work to achieve any goal. So, you have banned some controversial users. What now?
- TameAntelope 6y ago
  The part this argument is forgetting is what agency a person has over how people use the stuff they've made. The issue is that if Twitter can't qualify how people use their site, then they're losing agency over a resource they spend a lot of time and effort maintaining. They'd have to operate at a loss for the good of the people who use it. Should the US government run a public version of Twitter? Maybe the UN, even?
winston_smith 6y ago
The Atlantic: It's Time to Stop Using the 'Fire in a Crowded Theater' Quote https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/11/its-time-to-stop-using-the-fire-in-a-crowded-theater-quote/264449/ https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/11/its-tim...

sneak 6y ago

I don't agree. I think that the harm caused by these loud demagogues (is that redundant?) is massively overblown. The US president, perhaps the one with the most platform and audience and reach, couldn't even summon a properly armed militia, it was only a small group of mostly unarmed rioters. Their best efforts achieved precisely nothing: they did not seize any power, they did not hold any territory. It wasn't even a battle. Far from an insurrection, it was just some smashed windows and an instagram moment and now they're all in jail. Calling what happened an armed insurrection is factually inaccurate, even if a few of the rioters brought weapons. If platform and reach are proportional to messaging effectiveness (the presumption that this sort of censorship makes) then everyone else's efforts along these lines (who isn't the president of the United States) will be substantially less effective than even this massively ineffective display in DC. Let them squawk. Misinformation and lies simply aren't that dangerous, otherwise we would have had to ban the church centuries ago. Americans are inundated constantly with bullshit messaging from large, powerful organizations. They aren't nearly as malleable as the pro-censorship people seem to think they are.

TameAntelope 6y ago
To take it away from this political moment for a second, do you believe it's acceptable to allow someone to yell, "Fire!" in a crowded theater, or do you think these people aren't actually yelling, "Fire!", and when we determine someone is yelling, "Fire!", those private institutions should still stop them?
- sneak 6y ago
  I don't think private institutions, especially when there are a small number of extremely powerful ones that exert control over publishing, should be applying or enforcing subjective standards on publishing. This isn't a legal opinion but a personal one: people who decide unilaterally for other adults what they should be allowed to read or see are assholes. My web host is in many senses like my ISP: I don't pay them to editorialize. In the US there is already a huge and well- (and perhaps over-)funded machinery for investigating and enforcing the law. If the laws are being broken, why not let them handle it? (This has the added benefit of applying the existing body of legal wisdom regarding state censorship.) If the laws aren't being broken, what's the problem?
  - TameAntelope 6y ago
    Does, "This won't make us any money, and could further result in the company going under or otherwise severely being hindered in the market due to the negative backlash and resulting decline in business." count as a subjective standard that you believe a private institution should not be applying? What are corporations allowed to do then, in your mind?
    - sneak 6y ago
      Allow me to dodge answering directly: If gigantic multinationals and infrastructure providers stop hosting anything that might be unpopular or generate bad PR, then we quickly approach a world where the tyranny of sheep logic[1] (not what people think, but what people think other people think) will dictate the very narrow range of what products, services, media, literature, and art are available. That world sucks and we should avoid it. This has already mostly happened for concert venues in the US, as well as video hosting. Already we've made a world where the basic human unclothed form is all but outlawed except in clinical (or apparently yoga) settings online. I don't think there's any upper bound to what a culture can contort into believing is unacceptable. [1]: https://www.epsilontheory.com/sheep-logic/ https://www.epsilontheory.com/sheep-logic/
      - 6y ago
woah 6y ago
The real insurrection was not the rioters. They were, as you say, very disorganized and barely missed their opportunity to massacre the Senate when they chased a security guard down a hallway, past the open doors to the senate chamber. President Trump, however, played his role well. He refused to call in the military to end the insurrection, giving the rioters several hours to run rampant though the Capitol of the world’s biggest military power.

raxxorrax 6y ago

This is still a violation of free speech. Some people abused that right for their own purposes. You will always have such people. To compromise is the reaction any troll by original definition aims for. And it didn't even work to achieve any goal. So, you have banned some controversial users. What now?

TameAntelope 6y ago
The part this argument is forgetting is what agency a person has over how people use the stuff they've made. The issue is that if Twitter can't qualify how people use their site, then they're losing agency over a resource they spend a lot of time and effort maintaining. They'd have to operate at a loss for the good of the people who use it. Should the US government run a public version of Twitter? Maybe the UN, even?

winston_smith 6y ago

The Atlantic: It's Time to Stop Using the 'Fire in a Crowded Theater' Quote https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/11/its-time-to-stop-using-the-fire-in-a-crowded-theater-quote/264449/ https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/11/its-tim...