5 ms·

That’s just basic human decency right there.

by asutekku 5y ago

user-the-name 5y ago
You will find that a lot of people crying about free speech do not place much value on basic human decency.
- legostormtroopr 5y ago
  This is a really bad faith comment
  - user-the-name 5y ago
    Why? "Active moderation against racism, sexism and transphobia" is, indeed, just basic human decency. And people keep saying, over and over and over, that doing this is against "freedom of speech".
    - nsizx 5y ago
      It is, actually. Once you restrict what others can say there's no freedom of speech anymore. It's like China saying you can't talk about the regime - I'm sure they consider that "basic human decency" as well.
      - M2Ys4U 5y ago
        >Once you restrict what others can say there's no freedom of speech anymore. If you go by that definition then there is no country on Earth that has freedom of speech. And that's a good thing because that definition is completely and utterly insane; Absolute freedom of speech would be a catastrophe.
      - Kaze404 5y ago
        Freedom of speech isn't freedom to be a bigot. You can say whatever you want, but that doesn't mean the rest of the world has to listen.
        JadeNB 5y ago
        > Freedom of speech isn't freedom to be a bigot. You can say whatever you want, but that doesn't mean the rest of the world has to listen. To be clear, it is freedom to be a bigot, or at least to say bigoted things, just not freedom to have anyone else listen to those things (or, as hopefully goes without saying, for any action based on those bigoted things that goes beyond words).
        wizzwizz4 5y ago
        > just not freedom to have anyone else listen to those things This implies freedom to remember you say bigoted things and proactively avoid you.
        JadeNB 5y ago
        > This implies freedom to remember you say bigoted things and proactively avoid you. Certainly. Freedom of speech, not freedom from consequences, as they say.
        dane-pgp 5y ago
        “There is freedom of speech, but I cannot guarantee freedom after speech.” ― Idi Amin https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/9082497-there-is-freedom-of-speech-but-i-cannot-guarantee-freedom https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/9082497-there-is-freedom-of...
        JadeNB 5y ago
        That's not the company into which I'd prefer to be lumped as a believer in free speech with consequences. I'm not sure whether or not that was your point ….
        dane-pgp 5y ago
        I'm saying that unless you're really careful to specify what sort of "consequences" you're talking about, it's hard to separate your beliefs from his.
      - dgb23 5y ago
        It's not a restriction of freedom of speech. This is just exercising freedom of association. "If you're an asshole, I won't broadcast your stuff." People are still free to be assholes, but the platform is free to not associate themselves with the assholes. Very simple.
        Kye 5y ago
        It's even open source. Anyone who disagrees with the project's listing policy can make their own list. https://source.joinmastodon.org/mastodon/joinmastodon https://source.joinmastodon.org/mastodon/joinmastodon
    - stjohnswarts 5y ago
      Exactly there is nothing stopping them from taking mastodon source code and making their own little hate parade off in another niche of the internet. Basically "your rights end at the tip of your nose" when it comes to what I want on my own network.
- FeepingCreature 5y ago
  You are correct - as a person who cares deeply about free speech, I certainly place less value on basic decency. To my mind, the correct response to violations of decency is giving people strong tools to screen and filter out content they don't like. The wrong response is centralized enforcement. Inasmuch as centralized enforcement would be better at enforcing "basic decency", I will confirm that I place its priority at a lower level than avoiding centralized enforcement. I hold this view because in my opinion, I am far more likely to be harmed by attempts to enforce some unilateral definition of "basic decency" than the very indecency they aim to prevent. (I believe this is called the "paradox of tolerance", though few know it in that formulation.)
  - wizzwizz4 5y ago
    Then you'll like the Fediverse, then. (Though the tools aren't particularly good, yet… perhaps you could help?)
    - FeepingCreature 5y ago
      Not sure - I think federation and defederation is the wrong approach. I think a network should decouple routing and moderation, and make both independently subscribable.
      - wizzwizz4 5y ago
        It does, for the most part! Defederation is the last resort, when you've got an instance that nobody wants to deal with (e.g. the people there are tracking down and harassing your users, and you want them to “win” and therefore stop). User-level moderation tools are much more common, though they're currently a bit lacking.
sneak 5y ago
Human decency involves not telling other adults what they are allowed to peaceably publish or read. I find imposing censorship on others a denial of their basic rights to free expression, and is itself an indecent act.
- Kye 5y ago
  >> "Human decency involves not telling other adults what they are allowed to peaceably publish or read." So you agree the Mastodon project should be able to decide not to publish certain instances in the list it maintains. Cool. Freedom is not meaningful without the freedom to not do something. If they're compelled to publish things they don't agree with, then they don't really have free speech.
  - sneak 5y ago
    Yes, I do. I also believe in my right to criticize them for appointing themselves censors. This need to paternalistically protect other adults from online content "for their own good" is authoritarian and rude and I hope it goes out of fashion right soon. It's extra bothersome when instance admins (unrelated to the mastodon project) decide for their users what they should be allowed to read. Imagine if your email service decided you couldn't send or receive email to certain domains they decided were "bad people".
    - cortesoft 5y ago
      > Imagine if your email service decided you couldn't send or receive email to certain domains they decided were "bad people". Almost every email provider does something like this - it is called a spam filter. If email of a certain type comes in, it doesn’t go into your inbox. Is that censorship? Sure, you can go into your spam folder and see it, just like mastodon users can connect to an instance not listed on the main mastodon list. Curating content is not a sin.
      - novok 5y ago
        You can turn off your spam filter if you want to, you can't turn off the defederation disconnect. One is opt-in curation, the other is not. I hope we get smart opt-in curation on a user by user basis soon, and you could subscribe to certain curators as you want.

That’s just basic human decency right there.

user-the-name 5y ago

You will find that a lot of people crying about free speech do not place much value on basic human decency.

legostormtroopr 5y ago
This is a really bad faith comment
- user-the-name 5y ago
  Why? "Active moderation against racism, sexism and transphobia" is, indeed, just basic human decency. And people keep saying, over and over and over, that doing this is against "freedom of speech".
  - nsizx 5y ago
    It is, actually. Once you restrict what others can say there's no freedom of speech anymore. It's like China saying you can't talk about the regime - I'm sure they consider that "basic human decency" as well.
    - M2Ys4U 5y ago
      >Once you restrict what others can say there's no freedom of speech anymore. If you go by that definition then there is no country on Earth that has freedom of speech. And that's a good thing because that definition is completely and utterly insane; Absolute freedom of speech would be a catastrophe.
    - Kaze404 5y ago
      Freedom of speech isn't freedom to be a bigot. You can say whatever you want, but that doesn't mean the rest of the world has to listen.
      - JadeNB 5y ago
        > Freedom of speech isn't freedom to be a bigot. You can say whatever you want, but that doesn't mean the rest of the world has to listen. To be clear, it is freedom to be a bigot, or at least to say bigoted things, just not freedom to have anyone else listen to those things (or, as hopefully goes without saying, for any action based on those bigoted things that goes beyond words).
        wizzwizz4 5y ago
        > just not freedom to have anyone else listen to those things This implies freedom to remember you say bigoted things and proactively avoid you.
        JadeNB 5y ago
        > This implies freedom to remember you say bigoted things and proactively avoid you. Certainly. Freedom of speech, not freedom from consequences, as they say.
        dane-pgp 5y ago
        “There is freedom of speech, but I cannot guarantee freedom after speech.” ― Idi Amin https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/9082497-there-is-freedom-of-speech-but-i-cannot-guarantee-freedom https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/9082497-there-is-freedom-of...
        JadeNB 5y ago
        That's not the company into which I'd prefer to be lumped as a believer in free speech with consequences. I'm not sure whether or not that was your point ….
        dane-pgp 5y ago
        I'm saying that unless you're really careful to specify what sort of "consequences" you're talking about, it's hard to separate your beliefs from his.
    - dgb23 5y ago
      It's not a restriction of freedom of speech. This is just exercising freedom of association. "If you're an asshole, I won't broadcast your stuff." People are still free to be assholes, but the platform is free to not associate themselves with the assholes. Very simple.
      - Kye 5y ago
        It's even open source. Anyone who disagrees with the project's listing policy can make their own list. https://source.joinmastodon.org/mastodon/joinmastodon https://source.joinmastodon.org/mastodon/joinmastodon
  - stjohnswarts 5y ago
    Exactly there is nothing stopping them from taking mastodon source code and making their own little hate parade off in another niche of the internet. Basically "your rights end at the tip of your nose" when it comes to what I want on my own network.
FeepingCreature 5y ago
You are correct - as a person who cares deeply about free speech, I certainly place less value on basic decency. To my mind, the correct response to violations of decency is giving people strong tools to screen and filter out content they don't like. The wrong response is centralized enforcement. Inasmuch as centralized enforcement would be better at enforcing "basic decency", I will confirm that I place its priority at a lower level than avoiding centralized enforcement. I hold this view because in my opinion, I am far more likely to be harmed by attempts to enforce some unilateral definition of "basic decency" than the very indecency they aim to prevent. (I believe this is called the "paradox of tolerance", though few know it in that formulation.)
- wizzwizz4 5y ago
  Then you'll like the Fediverse, then. (Though the tools aren't particularly good, yet… perhaps you could help?)
  - FeepingCreature 5y ago
    Not sure - I think federation and defederation is the wrong approach. I think a network should decouple routing and moderation, and make both independently subscribable.
    - wizzwizz4 5y ago
      It does, for the most part! Defederation is the last resort, when you've got an instance that nobody wants to deal with (e.g. the people there are tracking down and harassing your users, and you want them to “win” and therefore stop). User-level moderation tools are much more common, though they're currently a bit lacking.

sneak 5y ago

Human decency involves not telling other adults what they are allowed to peaceably publish or read. I find imposing censorship on others a denial of their basic rights to free expression, and is itself an indecent act.

Kye 5y ago
>> "Human decency involves not telling other adults what they are allowed to peaceably publish or read." So you agree the Mastodon project should be able to decide not to publish certain instances in the list it maintains. Cool. Freedom is not meaningful without the freedom to not do something. If they're compelled to publish things they don't agree with, then they don't really have free speech.
- sneak 5y ago
  Yes, I do. I also believe in my right to criticize them for appointing themselves censors. This need to paternalistically protect other adults from online content "for their own good" is authoritarian and rude and I hope it goes out of fashion right soon. It's extra bothersome when instance admins (unrelated to the mastodon project) decide for their users what they should be allowed to read. Imagine if your email service decided you couldn't send or receive email to certain domains they decided were "bad people".
  - cortesoft 5y ago
    > Imagine if your email service decided you couldn't send or receive email to certain domains they decided were "bad people". Almost every email provider does something like this - it is called a spam filter. If email of a certain type comes in, it doesn’t go into your inbox. Is that censorship? Sure, you can go into your spam folder and see it, just like mastodon users can connect to an instance not listed on the main mastodon list. Curating content is not a sin.
    - novok 5y ago
      You can turn off your spam filter if you want to, you can't turn off the defederation disconnect. One is opt-in curation, the other is not. I hope we get smart opt-in curation on a user by user basis soon, and you could subscribe to certain curators as you want.