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Unless people are inciting violence or organizing systematic discrimination, I think people should be free to say whatever they want. I understand why some peop

by afpx 5y ago

Unless people are inciting violence or organizing systematic discrimination, I think people should be free to say whatever they want. I understand why some people want to ban such speech, and there will always be those people, and there will always be ignorance and bigotry. It’s a slippery slope to give a subset of people control over what is allowed to be said. Maybe someone will point out my ignorance, too.

nickthegreek 5y ago
People are free to say what they want. People are not free to say whatever they want on another person's infrastructure. Those people are free to limit what they want to host.
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FinanceAnon 5y ago
I completely support freedom of speech. But what if there are people or companies who are making money from spreading complete lies which are very harmful to the society? I am happy for them to say what they want to small groups of people, but should they be allowed access to public platforms with millions of people?
- nailer 5y ago
  It sounds like you don’t completely support freedom on speech.
  - FinanceAnon 5y ago
    I think it depends on your definition of freedom of speech. I don't support providing a platform for harmful lies to spread e.g. QAnon In my opinion, internet and social media changed the game. Freedom of speech now is not the same as freedom of speech 200 years ago. The spread of information now is massive and instanteneous, and people are up against ML models which are being trained to grab their attention. For example, Cambridge Analytica - were their actions an exercise of freedom of speech or exploitation of social media?
    - ticviking 5y ago
      They were both.
fighterpilot 5y ago
> It’s a slippery slope to give a subset of people control over what is allowed to be said. Hate speech is also a slippery slope, as the Rwandan genocide and many other genocides/massacres attest to. For those arguing for unfettered speech on social media, if you're going to convince me of your argument, you at least need to acknowledge that this history exists. If you're focused only on the risks associated with clamping down on free speech (which I agree are very real risks) and ignore the flip side of that coin, then it's hard to take the argument seriously. The best I've heard from people making your argument is hand-wavy sloganeering of tired, unoriginal memes like "the best disinfectant is sunlight" or "the solution to bad speech is more speech", with at most one small anecdote provided in support of this idea.
- salawat 5y ago
  The Rwandan genocide happened in 1994. What makes you think the Internet or unconstrained speech on the Web had anything to do with it? Social Media wasn't even a thing by that point. You're still in pervasive dial-up and chatroom territory. If you're talking one of the more recent ones, (last decade or so) that Facebook shoulders some of the blame for, you'd literally have to surveill Every. Last. Communique. Which everyone with any sense should recognize as an Orwellian Dystopian nightmare, and a fruitless moving target, because as soon as groups of interest realize they are being monitored, arms races and coded communique come into play. So it isn't moving goalposts. It's a simple statement that the individual's desire for a hate-speech free Internet is not so great it warrants laying the technical foundation and infrastructure which in the wrong hands will absolutely be abused. Certainty factor of 1. Technology empowers everyone equally, especially those already in a position of power that we really don't want to make exercising control practical for. That's the people problem that no application of technology can fundamentally solve for.
  - fighterpilot 5y ago
    > What makes you think the Internet or unconstrained speech on the Web had anything to do with it? That is not what I think. Hate speech is the causal factor that I'm talking about, not the medium. People used the most effective tools that were available to them at the time. Before it was radio, print or film. Now it's social media. > Orwellian Dystopian nightmare I agree that speech restrictions can progress into an Orwellian nightmare. But, again, you've ignored the flip side. Hate speech can also progress into an Orwellian nightmare. It's happened throughout history. So we have two opposing things that can each potentially lead to an Orwellian nightmare. Yet in your argument you've ignored the latter, only focusing on the risks of the former. That's why I am unconvinced by this line of argumentation. It is ahistorical in the way that it downplays the causal factors that lead to genocides and massacres. To convince me, you'll have to explain why the former is more likely to lead to a bad outcome than the latter, while keeping true to history.
NaturalPhallacy 5y ago
>Unless people are inciting violence or organizing systematic discrimination, The whole purpose of the first and second amendments are so that - when, not if - our own government becomes tyrannical we can organize, and violently overthrow it. Inciting violence (particularly against the government) is literally the whole point of the first two. The US government is not supposed to rule, it's supposed to serve. A lot of people seem to have forgotten that. It's not only our right, specifically protected by the Bill of Rights, it's our duty and we can't even begin to do that if "inciting violence" is prohibited speech. >It’s a slippery slope to give a subset of people control over what is allowed to be said. The issue isn't even control, it's that there exists no person or organization that can be trusted with this power.

by afpx 5y ago

nickthegreek 5y ago

People are free to say what they want. People are not free to say whatever they want on another person's infrastructure. Those people are free to limit what they want to host.

deleted 5y ago
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deleted 5y ago

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FinanceAnon 5y ago

I completely support freedom of speech. But what if there are people or companies who are making money from spreading complete lies which are very harmful to the society? I am happy for them to say what they want to small groups of people, but should they be allowed access to public platforms with millions of people?

nailer 5y ago
It sounds like you don’t completely support freedom on speech.
- FinanceAnon 5y ago
  I think it depends on your definition of freedom of speech. I don't support providing a platform for harmful lies to spread e.g. QAnon In my opinion, internet and social media changed the game. Freedom of speech now is not the same as freedom of speech 200 years ago. The spread of information now is massive and instanteneous, and people are up against ML models which are being trained to grab their attention. For example, Cambridge Analytica - were their actions an exercise of freedom of speech or exploitation of social media?
  - ticviking 5y ago
    They were both.

fighterpilot 5y ago

> It’s a slippery slope to give a subset of people control over what is allowed to be said. Hate speech is also a slippery slope, as the Rwandan genocide and many other genocides/massacres attest to. For those arguing for unfettered speech on social media, if you're going to convince me of your argument, you at least need to acknowledge that this history exists. If you're focused only on the risks associated with clamping down on free speech (which I agree are very real risks) and ignore the flip side of that coin, then it's hard to take the argument seriously. The best I've heard from people making your argument is hand-wavy sloganeering of tired, unoriginal memes like "the best disinfectant is sunlight" or "the solution to bad speech is more speech", with at most one small anecdote provided in support of this idea.

salawat 5y ago
The Rwandan genocide happened in 1994. What makes you think the Internet or unconstrained speech on the Web had anything to do with it? Social Media wasn't even a thing by that point. You're still in pervasive dial-up and chatroom territory. If you're talking one of the more recent ones, (last decade or so) that Facebook shoulders some of the blame for, you'd literally have to surveill Every. Last. Communique. Which everyone with any sense should recognize as an Orwellian Dystopian nightmare, and a fruitless moving target, because as soon as groups of interest realize they are being monitored, arms races and coded communique come into play. So it isn't moving goalposts. It's a simple statement that the individual's desire for a hate-speech free Internet is not so great it warrants laying the technical foundation and infrastructure which in the wrong hands will absolutely be abused. Certainty factor of 1. Technology empowers everyone equally, especially those already in a position of power that we really don't want to make exercising control practical for. That's the people problem that no application of technology can fundamentally solve for.
- fighterpilot 5y ago
  > What makes you think the Internet or unconstrained speech on the Web had anything to do with it? That is not what I think. Hate speech is the causal factor that I'm talking about, not the medium. People used the most effective tools that were available to them at the time. Before it was radio, print or film. Now it's social media. > Orwellian Dystopian nightmare I agree that speech restrictions can progress into an Orwellian nightmare. But, again, you've ignored the flip side. Hate speech can also progress into an Orwellian nightmare. It's happened throughout history. So we have two opposing things that can each potentially lead to an Orwellian nightmare. Yet in your argument you've ignored the latter, only focusing on the risks of the former. That's why I am unconvinced by this line of argumentation. It is ahistorical in the way that it downplays the causal factors that lead to genocides and massacres. To convince me, you'll have to explain why the former is more likely to lead to a bad outcome than the latter, while keeping true to history.

NaturalPhallacy 5y ago

>Unless people are inciting violence or organizing systematic discrimination, The whole purpose of the first and second amendments are so that - when, not if - our own government becomes tyrannical we can organize, and violently overthrow it. Inciting violence (particularly against the government) is literally the whole point of the first two. The US government is not supposed to rule, it's supposed to serve. A lot of people seem to have forgotten that. It's not only our right, specifically protected by the Bill of Rights, it's our duty and we can't even begin to do that if "inciting violence" is prohibited speech. >It’s a slippery slope to give a subset of people control over what is allowed to be said. The issue isn't even control, it's that there exists no person or organization that can be trusted with this power.