7 ms·

It's interesting how polemic Greenwald has become, bringing with it the same magnitude of reality denial as the actors he is going after. A title like "The Jou

It's interesting how polemic Greenwald has become, bringing with it the same magnitude of reality denial as the actors he is going after. A title like "The Journalistic Tattletale and Censorship Industry Suffers Several Well-Deserved Blows" coming from an investigative journalist like himself really sounds like a sore loser's version of "investigative journalism needs to die if it doesn't share my narrative and political opinion." I used to be a free speech absolutist myself back in Snowden times, but having seeing the flip side of anonymous, unverified, amplified and maliciously orchestrated communication of lies by unknown actors myself over the past few years, his ad-hominem attacks and inexact comparisons surely lack the subtleness this topic demands.

vippy 6y ago
It fascinates me how we've gone from the web as a tool for resisting censorship to the point where we recognize the need for guardrails because of how dangerous information tools can be made in the wrong hands.
- vippy 6y ago
  Downvote me all you want, I'm not wrong: information defenses are a matter of national security. https://www.hsdl.org/c/tactics-and-tropes-of-the-internet-research-agency/ https://www.hsdl.org/c/tactics-and-tropes-of-the-internet-re...
neonate 6y ago
He's always been that way, having started out as a polemical blogger, and before that as a litigator.
LMYahooTFY 6y ago
Become? As far as I can tell Greenwald has been writing polemics since his journalistic genesis, and it's not clear why this is negative. What made you withdraw from an absolute position on free speech?
tootie 6y ago
He has absolutely always been like this. His rambling screeds used to be posted to reddit pretty constantly long before he published Snowden. This NYT reporter made a mistake and posted an incorrect accusation on her twitter, that she later corrected. Big mistake, but she owned it. And here he is calling the situation "Stasi-like".
- 93po 6y ago
  There's a difference between making a mistake and not having journalistic integrity
  - tootie 6y ago
    Yeah, and I'm pretty sure this was squarely a mistake. I'm not sure you can even assign journalistic quality controls to a personal twitter.
    - throwaway894345 6y ago
      It's hard to trust a reporter when they behave abhorrently on Twitter, especially when their Twitter persona is based on their occupation as a journalist.
      - tootie 6y ago
        I don't see how this rates as abhorrent.
        throwaway894345 6y ago
        I thought it sufficed to say that overt defamation is abhorrent, at least when one is a journalist at the newspaper of record.
        tootie 6y ago
        Defamation implies intent.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
xoa 6y ago
>I used to be a free speech absolutist myself back in Snowden times FWIW, there is no reason you shouldn't still be a Free Speech absolutist (I still am) so long as you don't fall for the disinformation that Free Speech means freedom from social consequences. When individuals or other fully private entities decide they don't like someone's speech and choose to not associate or support that person/entity any longer, that's not censorship, that's Free Speech too! Freedom of association, the freedom not just to say things but not to say things is integral to the entire concept. The whole point of Free Speech is to allow arguments/counter arguments and social repercussions and so forth to go round and round to try to inch towards truth without the boot of physical force freezing it all. That doesn't mean anyone is owed others private property. Greenwald in this piece is, plain and simple, actively opposed to Free Speech. He's dishonestly equating social criticism and Freedom of Association with censorship, which is unsurprisingly a frequent logical fallacy (false equivalency) employed by actual authoritarian regimes. "Sure Russia/China/whever may actively poison, shoot, beat, imprison, and otherwise suppress dissidents, but meanwhile in America Twitter bans people or the NY Times refuses to publish literally anything anyone sends so they're censoring too!"
- jacquesm 6y ago
  Spot on.
- macspoofing 6y ago
  >there is no reason you shouldn't still be a Free Speech absolutist (I still am) so long as you don't fall for the disinformation that Free Speech means freedom from social consequences. That's your definition of free speech and censorship. Others use those terms in a more broad sense. But even if you don't like that they do that, you should invoke the principle of charity and actually argue the point that is being made ... Namely, malevolent self-serving actors, sometimes represented by major journalistic institutions, are whipping up the social media mob, during the time of mass hysteria, to destroy the lives of political and cultural opponents, as well as anyone that gets caught up in that drag net. Is that a problem? Are we OK with that? Do we have permission from you to talk about this as a problem? The article in question demonstrates examples of this. "Just take a second to ponder how infantile and despotic, in equal parts, all of this is. This NYT reporter used her platform to virtually jump out of her desk to run to the teacher and exclaim: he used the r word! This is what she tried for months to accomplish: to catch people in private communications using words that are prohibited or ideas that are banned to tell on them to the public" We know why she did that and what her aims were. Is that OK for a NY Times reporter to do? Is that something to highlight as an issue? Or are you still stuck arguing semantics and definitions of words while missing the entire point.
throwaway894345 6y ago
> I used to be a free speech absolutist myself back in Snowden times, but having seeing the flip side of anonymous, unverified, amplified and maliciously orchestrated communication of lies by unknown actors myself over the past few years This is a strange lesson to take away, not least of all because we've seen a lot of egregious, potent, and dangerous lies from credible, verified institutions including the former POTUS, prominent newspapers, and other important cultural institutions. Further, it seems strange to suggest that "anonymous lies" are somehow more dangerous than lies by verified parties--pretty much by definition this is incorrect since a lie by some credible institution does more damage than a lie by someone with no credibility at all. I don't know how someone can look at American politics and politicians (never mind cultural institutions) over the last ~decade and conclude that these people are fit to regulate Americans' speech. Indeed, how can anyone praise democracy without also valuing its prerequisite: free speech. I suspect people don't want a democracy, they want their own candidate to be elected--hardly a noble or democratic sentiment.
- AnimalMuppet 6y ago
  To paraphrase C. S. Lewis: They say that unregulated speech is destructive. I do not contradict them. But I oppose speech regulation because I see nobody fit to be trusted with regulating it.
- thesteamboat 6y ago
  I think this is missing the point of the no-longer-free-speach-absolutist sentiment (henceforth NLFSA). You note, correctly I think, that > we've seen a lot of egregious, potent, and dangerous lies from credible, verified institutions including the former POTUS, prominent newspapers, and other important cultural institutions. The NLFSA notes that we've been seeing a new attack on free speech and free thought emerge, namely Steven Bannon 'flood the zone with shit' approach. The classical free speech position is to fight bad ideas with better ideas, fight bad speech with good. We're running into largely unprecedented problems (in the anglosphere, at least) where bad speech is drowning out the good. There are many things we can point as possible causes (say the internet changing communication patterns, information siloing, propaganda, etc.) and there aren't clear solutions. Conventional free speech absolutism prevents you from being muzzled -- but that's it. Acknowledging you can be silenced by a chorus of people shouting over you requires a new position. > I don't know how someone can look at American politics and politicians (never mind cultural institutions) over the last ~decade and conclude that these people are fit to regulate Americans' speech. The NLFSA doesn't necessarily want speech regulated, or regulated by the government, or by corporations. They may not have any particular solution in mind (though some might think they have one). The NLFSA sees a problem without necessarily seeing a solution. I think it's reasonable to see all this, and despite our problems double down on convention free speech absolutism -- that being muzzled is the most dangerous form of intervention, that better speech will ultimately win out over bad ideas. But I don't fault someone for changing their mind to try to combat rampant conspiracy theories.

vippy 6y ago

It fascinates me how we've gone from the web as a tool for resisting censorship to the point where we recognize the need for guardrails because of how dangerous information tools can be made in the wrong hands.

vippy 6y ago
Downvote me all you want, I'm not wrong: information defenses are a matter of national security. https://www.hsdl.org/c/tactics-and-tropes-of-the-internet-research-agency/ https://www.hsdl.org/c/tactics-and-tropes-of-the-internet-re...

neonate 6y ago

He's always been that way, having started out as a polemical blogger, and before that as a litigator.

LMYahooTFY 6y ago

Become? As far as I can tell Greenwald has been writing polemics since his journalistic genesis, and it's not clear why this is negative. What made you withdraw from an absolute position on free speech?

tootie 6y ago

He has absolutely always been like this. His rambling screeds used to be posted to reddit pretty constantly long before he published Snowden. This NYT reporter made a mistake and posted an incorrect accusation on her twitter, that she later corrected. Big mistake, but she owned it. And here he is calling the situation "Stasi-like".

93po 6y ago
There's a difference between making a mistake and not having journalistic integrity
- tootie 6y ago
  Yeah, and I'm pretty sure this was squarely a mistake. I'm not sure you can even assign journalistic quality controls to a personal twitter.
  - throwaway894345 6y ago
    It's hard to trust a reporter when they behave abhorrently on Twitter, especially when their Twitter persona is based on their occupation as a journalist.
    - tootie 6y ago
      I don't see how this rates as abhorrent.
      - throwaway894345 6y ago
        I thought it sufficed to say that overt defamation is abhorrent, at least when one is a journalist at the newspaper of record.
        tootie 6y ago
        Defamation implies intent.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

xoa 6y ago

>I used to be a free speech absolutist myself back in Snowden times FWIW, there is no reason you shouldn't still be a Free Speech absolutist (I still am) so long as you don't fall for the disinformation that Free Speech means freedom from social consequences. When individuals or other fully private entities decide they don't like someone's speech and choose to not associate or support that person/entity any longer, that's not censorship, that's Free Speech too! Freedom of association, the freedom not just to say things but not to say things is integral to the entire concept. The whole point of Free Speech is to allow arguments/counter arguments and social repercussions and so forth to go round and round to try to inch towards truth without the boot of physical force freezing it all. That doesn't mean anyone is owed others private property. Greenwald in this piece is, plain and simple, actively opposed to Free Speech. He's dishonestly equating social criticism and Freedom of Association with censorship, which is unsurprisingly a frequent logical fallacy (false equivalency) employed by actual authoritarian regimes. "Sure Russia/China/whever may actively poison, shoot, beat, imprison, and otherwise suppress dissidents, but meanwhile in America Twitter bans people or the NY Times refuses to publish literally anything anyone sends so they're censoring too!"

jacquesm 6y ago
Spot on.
macspoofing 6y ago
>there is no reason you shouldn't still be a Free Speech absolutist (I still am) so long as you don't fall for the disinformation that Free Speech means freedom from social consequences. That's your definition of free speech and censorship. Others use those terms in a more broad sense. But even if you don't like that they do that, you should invoke the principle of charity and actually argue the point that is being made ... Namely, malevolent self-serving actors, sometimes represented by major journalistic institutions, are whipping up the social media mob, during the time of mass hysteria, to destroy the lives of political and cultural opponents, as well as anyone that gets caught up in that drag net. Is that a problem? Are we OK with that? Do we have permission from you to talk about this as a problem? The article in question demonstrates examples of this. "Just take a second to ponder how infantile and despotic, in equal parts, all of this is. This NYT reporter used her platform to virtually jump out of her desk to run to the teacher and exclaim: he used the r word! This is what she tried for months to accomplish: to catch people in private communications using words that are prohibited or ideas that are banned to tell on them to the public" We know why she did that and what her aims were. Is that OK for a NY Times reporter to do? Is that something to highlight as an issue? Or are you still stuck arguing semantics and definitions of words while missing the entire point.

throwaway894345 6y ago

> I used to be a free speech absolutist myself back in Snowden times, but having seeing the flip side of anonymous, unverified, amplified and maliciously orchestrated communication of lies by unknown actors myself over the past few years This is a strange lesson to take away, not least of all because we've seen a lot of egregious, potent, and dangerous lies from credible, verified institutions including the former POTUS, prominent newspapers, and other important cultural institutions. Further, it seems strange to suggest that "anonymous lies" are somehow more dangerous than lies by verified parties--pretty much by definition this is incorrect since a lie by some credible institution does more damage than a lie by someone with no credibility at all. I don't know how someone can look at American politics and politicians (never mind cultural institutions) over the last ~decade and conclude that these people are fit to regulate Americans' speech. Indeed, how can anyone praise democracy without also valuing its prerequisite: free speech. I suspect people don't want a democracy, they want their own candidate to be elected--hardly a noble or democratic sentiment.

AnimalMuppet 6y ago
To paraphrase C. S. Lewis: They say that unregulated speech is destructive. I do not contradict them. But I oppose speech regulation because I see nobody fit to be trusted with regulating it.
thesteamboat 6y ago
I think this is missing the point of the no-longer-free-speach-absolutist sentiment (henceforth NLFSA). You note, correctly I think, that > we've seen a lot of egregious, potent, and dangerous lies from credible, verified institutions including the former POTUS, prominent newspapers, and other important cultural institutions. The NLFSA notes that we've been seeing a new attack on free speech and free thought emerge, namely Steven Bannon 'flood the zone with shit' approach. The classical free speech position is to fight bad ideas with better ideas, fight bad speech with good. We're running into largely unprecedented problems (in the anglosphere, at least) where bad speech is drowning out the good. There are many things we can point as possible causes (say the internet changing communication patterns, information siloing, propaganda, etc.) and there aren't clear solutions. Conventional free speech absolutism prevents you from being muzzled -- but that's it. Acknowledging you can be silenced by a chorus of people shouting over you requires a new position. > I don't know how someone can look at American politics and politicians (never mind cultural institutions) over the last ~decade and conclude that these people are fit to regulate Americans' speech. The NLFSA doesn't necessarily want speech regulated, or regulated by the government, or by corporations. They may not have any particular solution in mind (though some might think they have one). The NLFSA sees a problem without necessarily seeing a solution. I think it's reasonable to see all this, and despite our problems double down on convention free speech absolutism -- that being muzzled is the most dangerous form of intervention, that better speech will ultimately win out over bad ideas. But I don't fault someone for changing their mind to try to combat rampant conspiracy theories.