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Take what you support and imagine it used against you in the worst possible ways. Do you still support it? If yes, then it is worth supporting. If it's not, the

• betterunix2 5y ago
  ...which is exactly how I concluded that the censorship we see online is basically necessary. The worst possible ways that online speech can be used against me include being murdered by a lone-wolf terrorist who received instruction online. The worst that can happen to me from censorship being imposed is that I will not be allowed to say certain things online or challenge those in power, or possibly that I will be excluded from these social networks entirely because the people in power do not like what I said -- which is certainly bad, but not quite as bad as being dead. The unfortunate truth is that terrorist organizations use mainstream social networking sites to recruit and radicalize. We are sitting here talking about how power has been concentrated and how everyone is subject to censorship -- as if we did not just spend a decade watching ISIS and violent white nationalist groups amplify their messages by evading the controls that existed in legacy media outlets. "This is why we can't have nice things" is the expression that comes to mind...
  • AlexTWithBeard 5y ago
    You certainly must love the way things are going in Belarus then.
    • betterunix2 5y ago
      I prefer the way things are run in countries like France and Germany, where people understand the value of free speech in debating politics and spreading new ideas while also recognizing that some limits are necessary (e.g. limits on speech that promotes a resurgence of nazism).
      • AlexTWithBeard 5y ago
        Every startup wants to be a new Facebook. Every modern society wants to be a new Sweden. Turns out that replicating successfully run communities - with their traditions, history and lifestyle - is extremely difficult, if ever possible.
      • isaacremuant 5y ago
        The problem is, that the sentiment of "limits speech that promotes resurgence of X" is the same that dictatorships like Argentina used against the "subversives" that would promote and bring about communism. When you allow the powerful to define "dangerous speech". Criticism of the government very quickly becomes dangerous when it's successful. We've seen it with everything related to covid where in some countries people get arrested for "misinformation". The slippery slope many warned about is very real, and very damaging.
        • betterunix2 5y ago
          That is an absolutist argument. Sure, some countries have used censorship in abusive ways, but I very specifically mentioned Germany. It was widely recognized after World War II that a resurgence of nazism would have been disastrous for Germany, and censorship was imposed to prevent the hundreds of thousands of committed nazi party members from trying to reestablish nazism. Censorship was absolutely necessary because propaganda had been so important in the rise of nazism in the first place, and because nazi ideas and the nazi world view did not simply die when Germany surrendered. Despite very strict censorship laws related to nazi propaganda, nazi symbolism, and Holocaust denial, Germany ranks much higher than the United States in terms of press freedom and has ranked higher for many years. There is no serious argument that (modern, reunified) Germany is not a free society where people are free to criticize the government. Yes, there are limits to the ideas that are allowed to be publicly promoted or debated, because the same concerns about a resurgence of nazism remain relevant today (it has actually become worse in recent years). The abuse of censorship laws on the part of dictatorships is not an argument against all censorship, any more than the abuse of the courts by dictatorships is an argument against the rule of law. Expansive censorship is a problem that works against the interests of a free society, but limited censorship is sometimes necessary to promote the interests of a free society.
  • eloff 5y ago
    Benjamin Franklin once said: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." I will not sacrifice free speech for added protection from terrorists.
    • sbuk 5y ago
      This quote is taken out of context - see https://www.npr.org/2015/03/02/390245038/ben-franklins-famous-liberty-safety-quote-lost-its-context-in-21st-century?t=1626633566782 https://www.npr.org/2015/03/02/390245038/ben-franklins-famou...
      • eloff 5y ago
        Interesting. So he wasn't saying what people today think he was saying. Let me fix it: Those who would sacrifice freedom for temporary security will eventually lose both and deserve neither. - me, 2021 Doesn't quite carry the same weight with my name behind it, but I stand by it nonetheless.
        • renewiltord 5y ago
          I suppose it is somewhat natural that “abolish the police” would be a stance a freedom-lover such as yourself would take.
        • sbuk 5y ago
          I agree with your sentiment, in part, but I see this quote used in this context so often, that I felt that it's worth pointing out.
          • eloff 5y ago
            Yes, it was interesting to read about the historical context, thanks for pointing it out. I also think the contemporary interpretation of literature, or a quote in this case, often matters more than what the author originally intended - it can take on a life of its own.
      • 5y ago
  • cortesoft 5y ago
    > which is certainly bad, but not quite as bad as being dead. This sort of reductionist argument doesn't work. If you start from the premise "any chance of dying is not worth it", then you won't do much of anything. Driving to the store could kill you, so now you can't go to the store? You have to look at probability when assessing risk. Is a 0.0000001% reduction in your risk of death worth sacrificing all your personal freedom? I think most people would say no.
    • betterunix2 5y ago
      Except that it is not a miniscule chance of some violence occasionally being committed. ISIS nearly succeeded in establishing a new country in the territory they captured and it is absurd to pretend that they had not exploited poor moderation on major websites to recruit large numbers of people to their cause. White nationalists and neo-nazis have been equally effective in their use of social media to recruit members and to spread their propaganda. We are not talking about isolated incidents or hypothetical scenarios. Extremists in the US and Europe are becoming part of the political mainstream because so many people believe the extremist propaganda they are reading on social media platforms. Those same extremists have inspired an increasing number of terrorist attacks as their propaganda has spread. For someone like me, someone who is part of a minority group that is frequently targeted by those terrorists, that represents an immediate and growing danger. Really though, this entire debate is poisoned by extreme positions on free speech. I remember watching as unmoderated Usenet groups were overrun by neonazis; everyone fled to moderated newsgroups or off of Usenet altogether to some better-moderated platform. Free speech absolutism has never worked well and it is juvenile to pretend that the choice is between "sacrificing all your personal freedom" or taking an absolutist approach to free speech.
  • BurningFrog 5y ago
    > The worst that can happen to me from censorship being imposed is that I will not be allowed to say certain things online or challenge those in power, or possibly that I will be excluded from these social networks entirely because the people in power do not like what I said -- which is certainly bad, but not quite as bad as being dead. In the censored system, people in power can kill you, censor any talk about it, and no one will ever know.
  • stale2002 5y ago
    > The unfortunate truth is that terrorist organizations use mainstream social networking sites to recruit and radicalize If an actual terrorist organization is doing this, as defined by the FBI, then our government should be in charge of handling that. Terrorist is already illegal, and we already have government organizations, in charge of tracking that stuff down. And those government organizations have checks and balances, and judges, and have to follow certain rules. These checks and balances do not exist, with other forms of moderation.
• radley 5y ago
  This makes the false assumption that authoritarians won't abuse the system simply because non-authoritarians didn't. Authoritarians gonna make up their own authority regardless.
  • prepend 5y ago
    > Authoritarians gonna make up their own authority regardless. I think they’ll try to, but not always succeed. They will definitely use and abuse any existing powers. So I think it’s logically unsound, and quite sad to me, to argue that it’s pointless to resist allowing powers that can be exploited because authoritarians will do it anyway.
    • radley 5y ago
      > They will definitely use and abuse any existing powers. They'll also abuse new powers, particularly known-but-unused powers. My point is that it's better to make the best rules you can for now, rather than limit yourself simply because a bad guy will someday make it worse. They'll make it worse regardless.
      • musingsole 5y ago
        I really appreciate your points on this. I've come to believe it's impossible to create an incorruptible system. People have choice and can change anything. The harder you fight it, the more subtly it happens. The best system is one that continually generates a numbered and capable enough cohort unified in a common enough purpose to shepherd it long enough to create yet another generation of shepherds.
      • SV_BubbleTime 5y ago
        > They'll also abuse new powers, particularly known-but-unused powers. Sounds recently familiar. I watched my state, city, ward, public health office and everyone in between or associated to “discover” new powers as a result of Covid. My state did not do comparatively well over 2020. All we had to do we what was logical and we could have made these decisions early.
• pjc50 5y ago
  This applies to policing in general of all kinds? Isn't this literally an "abolish the police" argument? After all, imagine the police used against you in the worst possible way ..
  • pueblito 5y ago
    Surely one can conceive of effective ways to limit to damage the police can do to people short of abolishing the police. For example, disarm the police and they can’t shoot you.
    • ipaddr 5y ago
      You still are paying the same under your plan. You abolish them and then move that money/power into some other entity like social services until the power / money corrupt them.
    • deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    • pjc50 5y ago
      Well, yes, that's kind of my point; strawmanning all sorts of scenarios distracts from taking a look at what's actually happening and creating meaningful checks and balances.
    • TheFalun 5y ago
      Or just have public audits of police forces and provide accountability and transparency into cases as necessary. In addition good policing should be rewarded with significant bonuses. Incentivizing good behavior will always Trump criticizing "bad" (often never defined) behavior.
      • Smeevy 5y ago
        I personally would rather see disciplinary action akin to what's done in the military. Not that that isn't without its issues, but the machinery that makes it work is larger and more independent from the people being disciplined than what you get at the state and local law enforcement level.
• buu700 5y ago
  That's a great approach. I like the concise way of stating it. I'll apply it to a couple things that are popular topics right now. --- Automated fact checking: The negative consequences are pretty obvious. It's easy to cheer when the target is neo-Nazis who want to overthrow the government. Well what if the shoe were on the other foot, and Republicans had been able to compel social media companies to flag posts disputing Trump's claims of election fraud as misinformation? It's not exactly censorship, but it's a ridiculously powerful lever for manipulating public opinion. On a more mundane level, clamping down on non-mainstream opinions could cause a lot of low-level chronic harm. For example, it's not hard to imagine social media "fact checking" disrupting discussions on fitness and/or nutritional science to promote the food pyramid and the importance of a low-fat diet for heart health, or to shut down conversations about medical uses of cannabis because the DEA still has it listed as schedule 1. Maybe there's a reasonable middle ground, but it's dicey either way. --- Killing or reforming the filibuster: The obvious negative consequence (from a center-right to left-wing perspective) is that Republicans will regain a trifecta of power and find themselves with carte blanche to pass all sorts of wildly unpopular laws eviscerating civil liberties. Even so, I say do it. The filibuster is massively advantageous to Republicans because it gives them the ability to complain about problems while offering few or no solutions. I say we call their bluff, and risk giving them the opportunity to pass their agenda. Either they'd still do nothing (in which case they'd lose a lot of single-issue voters), or they would do the things that they claim to want to do (in which case they would lose the next election in a landslide and never hold power again). As-is, they're stuck in between a rock and a hard place trying to appeal to: * Pro-life Christians * Gun owners * Right-leaning libertarians * "Selfish"/anti-tax rich people * The alt-right / neo-Nazi / Q cultist crowd * Populists (who may not necessarily be conservative, as evidenced by the overlap in support for Trump and Bernie) * People with conservative social/cultural values * Typical center-right conservatives (to the extent that they still vote Republican consistently, or at all) That's just what I can think of off the cuff, but even that is a pretty diverse coalition. All they really have in common is that they oppose (or, in some cases, believe they oppose) various parts of the Democratic agenda (both real and imagined). Their continued unity depends on the GOP remaining a superposition of all the different values they each independently project onto it. The second the GOP actually gets a chance to pass a major law along partisan lines, whether they choose to do it or not, the superposition collapses and shoes will start to drop. What do you think will happen if they take power and proceed to ban all abortions, remove every form of gun control, repeal the Affordable Care Act, take federal action against vaccine development/distribution during a pandemic, pass or shoot down a relief bill during a pandemic, escalate or deescalate the Drug War, dramatically increase or decrease environmental regulations while a climate disaster affects a red state, and/or dramatically alter regulations on the Internet / social media / E2EE / cryptocurrency? What if, with a legislative majority and in the absence of the filibuster, they don't do any of those things? I suggest that any action or lack thereof would be a huge blow to their support in some of those groups; they would have to pick their poison. The wildcard here is if they were to use such a trifecta combined with their current dominance of the Supreme Court to enact anti-democratic reforms to prevent any further transfer of power. However, seeing as this is already the direction we're heading in, I would say that it's vitally important to override the filibuster and pass voting rights legislation now so that we have a stronger chance at remaining a democracy, rather than accept the massive gamble of doing nothing. The greatest threat facing humanity today isn't climate change. It's the current Republican Party, and the prospect of world's most powerful military and nuclear arsenal ending up in the hands of a hypothetical future theofascist America.
• UncleMeat 5y ago
  This approach only works if you expect other people to do the same. I don't want to be thrown in prison for my beliefs. I'm not certain that "hey, we let you march in public" is going to stop fascists from throwing me in prison or outright killing me.
  • robertlagrant 5y ago
    That can only happen if you gave government the ability to throw you in prison for that, and then somehow a tiny minority got into government and abused the power you gave them.
    • UncleMeat 5y ago
      > That can only happen if you gave government the ability to throw you in prison for that Why? The universe won't stop anybody from doing that just because laws exist. Authoritarians will not be halted by existing laws or norms. That's what I'm worried about. And that's why things like preventing fascists from organizing in public has merit.
      • robertlagrant 5y ago
        > Authoritarians will not be halted by existing laws or norms I think this is exactly what they will be halted by. 1930s Germany was full of propaganda against Jewish people and other countries. Why bother doing that if authoritarians can just snap their fingers and force people to do things?
    • toomanyducks 5y ago
      The Liberal state has a monopoly on violence: whatever their violence is, like throwing someone into prison, is by nature justified in the eyes of the state.
• isaacremuant 5y ago
  I thought this would finally help many rabid anti Trump people realize giving so much power to the gov was a bad idea but since the major media outlets and tech companies seemed to be part of the "resistance" this association of "limiting power" for the WCS never actually transpired. I don't expect people to be persuaded by your argument. They'll just demand and increase of power to further their idelogies that they deemed objective and righteouss truth.
• anonytrary 5y ago
  This is very insightful. I've seen too many employees in big tech continue to shill their products and services because it helps their CEO or it helps their immediate team -- without thinking about who is being hurt (e.g. end users consuming snake oil) or how the product can be weaponized against the people it is supposed to be helping. This is as true for small startups as it is for companies with millions of end users.
• echelon 5y ago
  I support preventing Roko's Basilisk.