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Sigh. I am unbelievably tired of people setting this up as "pro free speech" vs "anti free speech". It's inflammatory (who proudly calls themselves "anti-free s

Sigh. I am unbelievably tired of people setting this up as "pro free speech" vs "anti free speech". It's inflammatory (who proudly calls themselves "anti-free speech"? It's bad faith just to say that. Anyway.) and it's misleading. Most critically, almost everyone fundamentally agrees that censorship is a good thing, in principle. Even the most extreme "free speech" oriented websites remove spam, illegal pornography, and deliberate impersonation. Therefore, we both agree with the proposition that sometimes website operators should exercise their discretion and remove content. We are now discussing what should be in the set of things it is acceptable to remove and what is not. But we are not having a disagreement about the concept of censorship. Another thing to think about: Is a website operator that uses their discretion to remove content not, by that action, exercising their free speech? Would you have the government require website operators to host content they don't want to host? Because that is definitely a First Amendment violation.

MichaelRazum 6y ago
I think the discussion shouldn't be about what should be censorship but rather who decides it. So if you put, lets say illegal pornography, on your page, then there is a law that forbids it. Especially in a good system the person who posted it gets prosecuted. On the other hand if companies act like judge and low, it can lead to bad things I think.
- jeromegv 6y ago
  Inciting violence and overthrowing a government is already as illegal as child pornography is. Would you rather have all child pornography kept online up until a judge has declared that person guilty?
  - ng12 6y ago
    > Inciting violence and overthrowing a government is already as illegal as child pornography is Doing it is illegal, advocating for it is explicitly legal. Most of this discussion is about the latter.
    - NationalPark 6y ago
      No, that's not right. See Brandenburg v. Ohio - incitement is explicitly not legal, per the Supreme Court. The classic qualifying line is "imminent lawless action".
      - ng12 6y ago
        The Supreme Court found that Brandenburg's 1A rights were violated. The "imminent lawless action" doctrine was protecting his ability to advocate for violence.
- ogre_codes 6y ago
  Amazon has terms of service. As does Apple and Google. Parler has lawyers who can read this kind of thing. Parler violated those terms of service. Pretty much across the board. In the case of Amazon, they had 7 weeks of advance notification. This isn't about censorship. It's not about "Free Speech", it's about a company breeching contract and suffering the consequences for it.
ThrowawayR2 6y ago
> "spam, illegal pornography, and deliberate impersonation" Please stop repeating this tired meme. All of things in that list are off-topic or outright against the law; nobody wants to receive those things. The topic is and always was removal of unpopular speech that is 1) on-topic 2) between consenting parties who consciously wanted to send and receive those messages 3) mostly not illegal. (Yes, of course, the illegal parts should have been prosecuted.) The fact that the discussion being deplatformed is unpopular or deplorable still doesn't justify a uninvolved third-party stepping in to disrupt it.
- NationalPark 6y ago
  If your position is genuinely that you believe website operators should be mandated by law to host content they do not want to host except when that content has been specifically determined to be illegal, then we simply disagree on that point - I think that would make the world a worse place and I prefer the world where that rule is not in effect. But if you believe in allowing the tiniest ounce of operator discretion, you believe in censorship, in principle. Just think about the absolutist argument for a moment and it becomes incoherent: am I infringing on your free speech if I downvote you? What if I upvote you? If someone reads my comment, then decides not to read your comment, aren't I censoring you just as much as if I gave my friend a browser extension that blocks only your comments?
  - ThrowawayR2 6y ago
    > "If your position is genuinely that you believe website operators should be mandated by law to host content they do not want to host except when that content has been specifically determined to be illegal, then we simply disagree on that point." That's another meme I see repeated a lot. If we go back before 1950, the same argument you are making was used justify businesses refusing to provide service to women, minorities, LGBT people, etc. It's funny to see people supposedly on the left recycling discredited arguments from the bigoted right to justify their behavior today. Society had to create protected classes, making something illegal that was already intrinsically immoral, to make clear that the argument you are trying to make is bogus. Perhaps it's time for liberals (and I mean actual liberals, not the left) to campaign to make political affiliation a protected class too.

MichaelRazum 6y ago

I think the discussion shouldn't be about what should be censorship but rather who decides it. So if you put, lets say illegal pornography, on your page, then there is a law that forbids it. Especially in a good system the person who posted it gets prosecuted. On the other hand if companies act like judge and low, it can lead to bad things I think.

jeromegv 6y ago
Inciting violence and overthrowing a government is already as illegal as child pornography is. Would you rather have all child pornography kept online up until a judge has declared that person guilty?
- ng12 6y ago
  > Inciting violence and overthrowing a government is already as illegal as child pornography is Doing it is illegal, advocating for it is explicitly legal. Most of this discussion is about the latter.
  - NationalPark 6y ago
    No, that's not right. See Brandenburg v. Ohio - incitement is explicitly not legal, per the Supreme Court. The classic qualifying line is "imminent lawless action".
    - ng12 6y ago
      The Supreme Court found that Brandenburg's 1A rights were violated. The "imminent lawless action" doctrine was protecting his ability to advocate for violence.
ogre_codes 6y ago
Amazon has terms of service. As does Apple and Google. Parler has lawyers who can read this kind of thing. Parler violated those terms of service. Pretty much across the board. In the case of Amazon, they had 7 weeks of advance notification. This isn't about censorship. It's not about "Free Speech", it's about a company breeching contract and suffering the consequences for it.

ThrowawayR2 6y ago

> "spam, illegal pornography, and deliberate impersonation" Please stop repeating this tired meme. All of things in that list are off-topic or outright against the law; nobody wants to receive those things. The topic is and always was removal of unpopular speech that is 1) on-topic 2) between consenting parties who consciously wanted to send and receive those messages 3) mostly not illegal. (Yes, of course, the illegal parts should have been prosecuted.) The fact that the discussion being deplatformed is unpopular or deplorable still doesn't justify a uninvolved third-party stepping in to disrupt it.

NationalPark 6y ago
If your position is genuinely that you believe website operators should be mandated by law to host content they do not want to host except when that content has been specifically determined to be illegal, then we simply disagree on that point - I think that would make the world a worse place and I prefer the world where that rule is not in effect. But if you believe in allowing the tiniest ounce of operator discretion, you believe in censorship, in principle. Just think about the absolutist argument for a moment and it becomes incoherent: am I infringing on your free speech if I downvote you? What if I upvote you? If someone reads my comment, then decides not to read your comment, aren't I censoring you just as much as if I gave my friend a browser extension that blocks only your comments?
- ThrowawayR2 6y ago
  > "If your position is genuinely that you believe website operators should be mandated by law to host content they do not want to host except when that content has been specifically determined to be illegal, then we simply disagree on that point." That's another meme I see repeated a lot. If we go back before 1950, the same argument you are making was used justify businesses refusing to provide service to women, minorities, LGBT people, etc. It's funny to see people supposedly on the left recycling discredited arguments from the bigoted right to justify their behavior today. Society had to create protected classes, making something illegal that was already intrinsically immoral, to make clear that the argument you are trying to make is bogus. Perhaps it's time for liberals (and I mean actual liberals, not the left) to campaign to make political affiliation a protected class too.