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>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 lo

• 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.
  • deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  • xoa 6y ago
    >That's your definition of free speech and censorship. It's both the US legal definition and the correct definition, because anything else becomes self-contradicting. Forcing someone to say or support another person's speech is never Free Speech. And that's what denying them the right to not speak, not help, and not associate with someone else means. >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. What a load of hooey. This is just you having a pathetic meltdown over other people's exercise of their freedom to not like people being gigantic assholes. >Is that a problem? Are we OK with that? Do we have permission from you to talk about this as a problem? Of course you don't need my permission to be a snowflake and spout garbage, that's your Freedom of Speech after all. And in nobody needs yours to call you out on it, dislike it, refuse to support you, refuse to have anything to do with you, and encourage others to do the same. And you can do the same, and try to rally others to your point. And they can counter. And around and around it goes, that's the point. >We know why she did that and what her aims were. Do we now? Do we know about Greenwalds anti-speech agenda too? >Is that OK for a NY Times reporter to do? Is that something to highlight as an issue? It's her freedom of speech to do so, so long as it's actually true as opposed to defamation. It's ours to criticize should we wish it, to shame the reporter, to refuse to further support the NYT, or of course merely to dismiss it as silly. Or for that matter some people may honesty think the reporter has a point. But to believe in Free Speech is believe this is all a process that should play out without anyone being shot. >Or are you still stuck arguing semantics and definitions of words while missing the entire point. I think that's your projection. This is a matter of fundamental principle and the application or not of hard power, not semantics. It is you who are running away from that.
    • macspoofing 6y ago
      This is not a free speech issue under your (one true and only correct) definition of free speech. Imagine a bully goes up to a citizen and tells them to be quiet about, say, potholes on their street because if they don't "it would be unfortunate should you and your spouse lose your jobs and your professional reputations destroyed". In this analogy, there is no threat of violence. Nothing the bully said was illegal as far as I can tell. But when a bystander looks at this and says it's wrong and unethical for a bully to do that, guys like you crawl out of the woodwork and start yelling about Free Speech rights of the bully. But we're not talking about Free Speech rights. We're talking about the ethics of mobilizing the social media mob to destroy people's lives, frequently over nothing other than vague innuendo. As far as I know in any of these situations, no laws are broken, and yet, there is something deeply wrong here. Here's another example: Because we are living through a kind of a mass hysteria moment, the similarity to 'Salem witch trials' is quite striking. In that case, teenage girls accused hundreds of people of witchcraft and consequently those people would be ostracized and their lives destroyed (for the sake of argument, let's ignore the small number of people who were put to death because we would both agree that is wrong on another level). If someone highlights this as a major issue, do you go out, frothing at the mouth, and yell about free speech rights of the teenage girls? Isn't that missing the entire point? >It's her freedom of speech to do so, so long as it's actually true as opposed to defamation. The irony in all this is you didn't even bother reading the article ... or the HN headline. She did defame Andreessen because she maliciously and malevolently asserted something that he said, that he didn't say (when called out about it she fell back on 'well, it was male voice' which was another lie). But even if he said this 'r-word' in context of explaining the WSB phenomena, this malevolent 'reporter' is doing the same thing as the Salem teenage girls did when they accused others of witchcraft. In this case, she's accusing Andreessen of blaspheming against holy tenants of wokeism in order to paint him as a bigot so the mob will do the rest. Why? So that his public image and professional reputation would be destroyed and maybe she gets a higher profile and a raise. When people point out this is wrong, you yell about Free Speech.
• throwaway894345 6y ago
  > other fully private entities While I agree, I think it's possible for those entities to become so massive that they become de facto public entities and ought to be regulated as such. The prominent example being social media: such a tiny handful of companies are responsible for such an enormous portion of our collective speech that they are de facto public squares. In such cases, these technically-private entities should be broken up or regulated appropriately. This social media example is particularly relevant since since it's often the subject of "freedom of association for private institution" arguments.
  • xoa 6y ago
    >While I agree, I think it's possible for those entities to become so massive that they become de facto public entities and ought to be regulated as such. FWIW I said "fully private" specifically with organization "quasi-government power" in mind since there is none of that involved here and I didn't think it worth getting into there. That said, I disagree with you that mere size at all makes a company quasi-governmental, and in particular disagree with your chosen example of social media. That's actually a really weird one to choose compared to classic natural monopolies like physical utilities, particularly when they are in fact directly leaning on government power (like wireless telecoms that have a government force backed monopoly on sections of the limited useful electromagnetic spectrum). >such a tiny handful of companies are responsible for such an enormous portion of our collective speech "Responsible"? Every single method of speech we had in 1791, 1891, or 1991 is still with us, far easier and cheaper than ever, along with a host more. I don't agree that expanding the venues of speech in a positive-sum way somehow turns a place into a public square at all. The TOS limits are very, very loose, but even if they weren't why should that be a matter for government to step in? Why should people not have to put a few bucks where their mouths are if they want to break other people's rules on other people's property? I do think that quasi-government power is a thing, and agree with some of the older SCOTUS cases vs their more recent pruning back. But my concern would be more at the level of physical fiber connections or access to payment systems. With skill, effort and money people should be able to get put up their message without threat of violence, but I'm not at all convinced that needs to be in any specific private venue (disclaimer, I don't actually have a twitter, facebook, or any other such service account at all, never did, which may bias my view on how necessary they are).
• kansface 6y ago
  > but meanwhile in America Twitter bans people or the NY Times refuses to publish literally anything anyone sends so they're censoring too!" more realistically, a Twitter mob harasses your employer until you are fired, unemployable in your industry, and lose all of your friends. > so long as you don't fall for the disinformation that Free Speech means freedom from social consequences. There are consequences, like correcting someone or mild social opprobrium, and then there is the current endeavor of removing people from society for saying the wrong thing. I'd argue the later is almost always completely disproportionate to the offense. The accused have no recourse - they are judged by a jury of the most outraged people on the Internet and then destroyed for sport. No, Twitter does not literally shoot or beat would be dissidents, but it is routinely and purposefully weaponized to merely ruin peoples lives. That's certainly better than China... but regardless of the definition of Free Speech, lets not do that?
  • mbg721 6y ago
    There's also the question of why employers think that caving to Twitter outrage is good or necessary for business.
    • dnissley 6y ago
      I think that's obvious: because such outrage is infectious and is liable to spread from employee to employer.
      • mbg721 6y ago
        Except that the general public seems to care much less about the outrage than these businesses do. They're behaving like socially insecure teenagers, trying to prove to the bullies that they're cool. My theory is that it's an extension of the problems of online advertising--companies know there's a lot of money at stake, but still aren't good at measuring it.
    • meowfly 6y ago
      You touch on a good point. The irony here is that "cancel culture" only works because labor's power is poor. If it is expensive (e.g Joe Rogan - Spotify deal) or difficult (e.g Steven Pinker - tenured) to fire people it seems much more difficult to cancel someone.
• slibhb 6y ago
  Greenwald's argument is that the repercussions being discussed are not the result of genuine freedom of association. He thinks that there exists a powerful ideological movement in the media that is using its power to get people fired (or banned but at least punished) for reasons that are 1. unreasonable 2. have nothing to do with anything the general public cares about. You seem to not understand (or not care) about that latter point and, as a result, I find your worldview shockingly amoral. To you, apparently the whole point of discourse is to destroy your ideological opponent in whatever ways are available. The only restrictions are legal. To regular people, it's simply below the belt to try to get someone fired because they said the word "retard". You might decline a dinner invitation over something like that but not e-mail the offender's boss. > 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. "Social repercussions" is doing a lot of work here. Is it just a coincidence that the "social repercussions" under discussion so often involve the targeted parties being less able to express their views? Also, your creepy use of "social repercussions" is certainly not any part of any defense of Free Speech I've ever heard.
  • xoa 6y ago
    So let's get down to brass tacks here: do you want to have people shot for thoughts you don't like? Because that's what it means to make something illegal. That's what's ultimately at the root of "law", cold hard power. It can have more or fewer layers of padding around the hard fist, but the fist is always there at the end. Freedom of Speech is about not having hard power directly or indirectly control speech in general unless there is an extreme overriding need and the use is as limited and transient as possible. How the people choose to exercise their speech is up to the private sphere, which can shift and reconsider over time. Because there is nothing better. There is no oracle we can consult. And when force comes into the equation, it's always ended up getting abused. Like democracy itself, "the worst system, except for all the others". >Greenwald's argument is that the repercussions being discussed are not the result of genuine freedom of association. Which is complete bullshit unless someone is getting forced. There is nothing "ungenuine" about it, he just doesn't like their choice. Which is his right, but denying their agency is him being an asshole anyway. >He thinks that there exists a powerful ideological movement in the media that is using its power to get people fired (or banned but at least punished) for reasons that are 1. unreasonable 2. have nothing to do with anything the general public cares about. Hah, "the general public doesn't care" and yet somehow all the social repercussions depend entirely on the general public caring. How very convenient! And we're supposed to what, just accept Greenwald's definition of what's "unreasonable"? Who made him king? >You seem to not understand (or not care) about that latter point and, as a result, I find your worldview shockingly amoral. And you seem to not understand (or not care) about people's rights to speak and associate as they please so long as it's not defamatory, as well as denial of agency. Which I find amoral, though sadly I cannot honestly say it's at all "shocking". Your view is well represented throughout human history I'm afraid. >To you, apparently the whole point of discourse is to destroy your ideological opponent in whatever ways are available. The only restrictions are legal. See, this is literally the opposite of everything I've said! The restrictions aren't legal, I've direct argued against legal restrictions! The restrictions are social, and speech. >You might decline a dinner invitation over something like that but not e-mail the offender's boss. Why shouldn't you email the offender's boss? I wouldn't over something like this, but there is perfectly legal speech (like glorifying slavery) that I would consider serious enough to potentially complain about. And what of the BOSS'S agency? Working at a higher level college tech position, for a medium business, a political campaign, and even front desk way way back in the day, I can remember plenty of crackpot messages that came in to me or others. We'd have a good laugh at the sillier ones and chuck 'em. If we just went along with them all that'd be on us, not the nuts who wrote in. Fortunately, because we have Freedom of Speech, you and I can in turn be upset over a company going overboard, or someone going after someone in ways we don't approve of. We too can email, expressing support for the person who said "retard", and trying to convince others, and threatening whatever social (including economic) consequences we can muster! And at no point will any of us be shot for it, or have to ask government permission. >"Social repercussions" is doing a lot of work here. Is it just a coincidence that the "social repercussions" under discussion so often involve the targeted parties being less able to express their views? "Less able to express their views" is doing a lot of work here. Are you asserting that you have a right to take someone else's money or property for your own speech against their will? That they must like you and chat with you or work with you or invite you along to social gatherings or the like no matter what you say? And how would that not be restricting their freedom of speech? I'd call that pretty creepy. >Also, your creepy use of "social repercussions" is certainly not any part of any defense of Free Speech I've ever heard. You need to get out of your bubble and read some history if you've never so much as heard phrases like "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" before. Both parts of that are important.
• claudiawerner 6y ago
  >WIW, 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. These days I see less and less (speaking in terms of justifications and arguments) going for the idea that free speech is an unfettered good in itself - especiall when it very clearly runs up against the principle of liberal egalitarian philosophy. I find it very hard - if not impossible - to be a liberal egalitarian in the context where hate speech and inegalitarian pornography (yes, we can talk about what those terms mean) are allowed free reign in the public discourse.