6 ms·

“Deplatforming” is anti-freedom. It violates the free speech of the speaker, it violates freedom of assembly for the listeners, and it violates freedom of asso

“Deplatforming” is anti-freedom. It violates the free speech of the speaker, it violates freedom of assembly for the listeners, and it violates freedom of association for all of the parties involved. Showing up to shout someone down who had people voluntarily show up to hear them speak because you feel like you are empowered to unilaterally decide and enforce through aggression who is “allowed” to speak in your city or on your campus, is inherently an act against freedom of speech. It’s also the ultimate act of “entitlement”, getting away with it is the ultimate act of “privilege” to be allowed to so utterly disrespect another person’s rights. There is no other way to color this and very little nuance here. “Platforms” in the virtual space have more leeway as they’re mostly privately owned and extended as a privilege of access, not a right. Shouting down speakers in public (or paid and invited) venues though is unequivocally against freedom of speech.

ss108 5y ago
In making this argument, you should clarify that you think it's important to not limit "freedom of speech" to its legal definition. Currently, you only make an allusion to that distinction. To fully make your argument, you need to convince people that the overall philosophical point of "free speech" is worth societal value even beyond that which we have accorded it via law (assuming you're in the US). Coming from someone who doesn't agree with you, but who doesn't agree with your opponents either.
- lukifer 5y ago
  The First Amendment doesn't grant a right to free speech as such; such a right is assumed to be pre-existing and inalienable (whether one roots such rights in religious belief or secular humanism). Rather: the First Amendment restricts what laws Congress may pass, which might infringe on that right.
  - ss108 5y ago
    The "right" only exists insofar as it is legally protected.
    - lukifer 5y ago
      I half-agree: many who lean libertarian like to contrast "positive rights" with "negative rights"; and while it's an interesting academic distinction, in my view a purely negative right is indistinguishable from not having a right at all. Perhaps the state cannot proactively ensure my survival with 100% certainty, but a "right to life" is meaningless without some kind of proactive deterrent against violence. Where I disagree is the "legal" qualifier: while legal protections have an important role to play, so do civil institutions and social norms. Many forms of suppressing free expression are entirely compatible with the First Amendment (economic and social sanctions), and instead have to be defended in civil society, and the court of public opinion.
      - ss108 5y ago
        I see where you're coming from. I just think that if we have to resort to civil institutions beyond courts to enforce something, it's not really a "right". It's some other kind of good or value. So maybe my definition of "right" is too narrow or legalistic--but it is ofc widespread.
        lukifer 5y ago
        I don't disagree, my position here is "yes, and". However one construes "rights" (it's a thorny topic both morally and empirically!), in my view, legal defenses and civil defenses are each necessary, but not sufficient.
    - Karrot_Kream 5y ago
      The Constitution uses "inalienable rights" for a reason. An individual (and c.f. Citizens United and Hobby Lobby, corporations) is accorded all rights not explicitly circumscribed by a higher form of federal government
      - ss108 5y ago
        That phrase is from the Declaration of Independence, not the Constitution. The way the Constitution works is that the Federal government only has those powers it is granted, which are limited by items such as the First Amendment, which does not generally restrict individuals (including corporations--there is no "cf" here; corporations are simply people, though they are not 'natural persons", where that distinction matters).
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > In making this argument, you should clarify that you think it's important to not limit "freedom of speech" to its legal definition More specifically, to shrink “free speech” smaller than it's legal definition, and erase both part of what is legally protected and the fundamental premise of the legal protection, in that you want it prohibit private exercise of free speech rights essential to forcing ideas to complete in the marketplace of ideas by compelling private actors to actively participate in relaying speech that they find repugnant.
  - ss108 5y ago
    This is a good point as well.
godelski 5y ago
> “Deplatforming” is anti-freedom. It violates the free speech of the speaker, it violates freedom of assembly for the listeners, and it violates freedom of association for all of the parties involved. Is it though? And to what extent? We don't have unlimited freedom of speech in the US constitution because we agreed that there are limits and realize that words do mean things (like a threat). But on a platform let's be nuanced. Some people believe that saying a racist word and having their comment removed is deplatforming. Some think they can promote violence. Others think getting down voted is deplatforming. There's a lot of people getting grouped together here and many making claims of being deplatformed are not acting in good faith. So unfortunately we need to define what deplatforming means otherwise we'll just be arguing and making assumptions because many people will be working off of many different definitions pretending that we all agree on the definition (or that we hold the true definition and others are dumb).
- ethbr0 5y ago
  "Censoring future speech" seems like a decent working definition. I.e. anything that restrains an individual's ability to make future speech in a manner equal to that of their peers Another useful distinction in the argument would be between "commons platforms" and smaller ones. It feels like past time that we recognized market realities and codified them into law to distinguish rights and regulations. If you are Google, Facebook, Twitter, Apple, Microsoft, Snap, or ByteDance (or any subsequent arising entity with a large enough market share in some public/social market) then you the public should have different access rights to your platforms, on the sole basis of their public ubiquity.
  - godelski 5y ago
    So you clarify, you are okay with down voting and removing comments but are not okay withbanning accounts? Bans, even temporary, are crossing the line?
    - ethbr0 5y ago
      My feelings on the above are likely contingent of the nuances of implementation. Do downvotes ultimately censor posts? Are votes equal weight? Etc. From a higher level, I'd grant that (a) platforms have a fundamental right to try to realize their vision, which may include promoting and demoting various types of content & (b) spam and astroturfing is a constant reality in any social platform (and users are better served by less of both). So I think there are justifiable reasons for censoring, or at least decreasing visibility. I've been on forums long enough and have too low an opinion of the average internet denizen to think otherwise. :-) Hence, to me, the emphasis on ad vs post hoc restraint. If I allow you to make speech, and then, on the basis of that piece of speech and NOT on your identity as its speaker, decrease its virality in a way that's still fair (e.g. yank it from feed promotion but still allow direct linking) and then (in rare cases) absolutely censor it, that feels fair. To me. If I proactively identify you, godelski, as someone likely to say *ist things and consequently ban you or pre-censor everything you post, irregardless of the individual pieces of content, that does not feel fair. To me. As well, and I should have punched this more in my comment, as emphasizing "individual." Which is to say "1 human person, 1 share of public speech rights." IMHO, if free speech is a right that flows from our existence as sentient beings then it's difficult to get from there to "you deserve more / less free speech than I do." --- And finally, because I know I'll get this response eventually, yes, I know playing whack-a-mole with bad actors on a public platform is a nigh impossible task. I've done it. Maybe actually impossible. Tough. Uber skirted labor laws in pursuit of profit. Social media platforms are doing the exact same in terms of nuanced moderation in pursuit of profit. "It's difficult" or "It costs a lot to employ and train the headcount required to do it" isn't an acceptable defense, and we shouldn't accept it.
sangnoir 5y ago
Deplatforming does not violate freedom of association for all parties: you seem to be forgetting that the platform also has the right to freedom of association, and would be exercising that right by refusing to associate with the individual(s) being deplatformed. I'm yet to see a convincing argument that broadly, one person's free speech right always trumps other's freedom of association when the other doesn't like your speech, for any reason.
- ethbr0 5y ago
  Because one party is human (the individual) and the other party is corporate (the platform). Individuals are inherently endowed with inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Corporations are explicitly allowed whatever rights we choose to afford them, in pursuit of profit and maximizing their ability to put capital to productive ends. Saying "an individual speaks" is very different than saying "Facebook speaks." What opinions would Facebook have? And what fundamental desires would Facebook's opinions stem from?
  - etchalon 5y ago
    All of the parties in your equation are human. Facebook is run by a collection of humans. Those humans make choices, as humans, that collectively we think of as "Facebook".
  - sangnoir 5y ago
    ...and yet the Citizens United and Hobby Lobby rulings are a thing. There is no basis (or case law) to say biological people's free speech rights overrides legal people's freedom of association right everytime - but I've seen the "free speech absolutists" take this as a given.
    - ethbr0 5y ago
      They are absolutely a thing, and are the current law, but I can and do disagree with them from first principles. A group of individual persons, associated for a specific purpose, are not equivalent to an individual person in matters of fundamentally-owed rights.
fumar 5y ago
What I don’t understand is the nuance between freedom of speech in public spaces versus privately owned spaces. If the US government had a public social network, then people would have the right to shout ZYX. It is not the same on Facebook or TikTok right? Those are privately owned spaces. That would be like you coming into my property to shout XYS and I could remove you from my land. Am I understanding this correctly?
- bzbarsky 5y ago
  There are privately owned spaces (shopping malls, some towns) that have been treated as public spaces for free speech purposes in US court cases, as I understand it. Basically, if a privately owned space is promoted as a "commons" and acts as one, some of the rules about speech start changing.

ss108 5y ago

In making this argument, you should clarify that you think it's important to not limit "freedom of speech" to its legal definition. Currently, you only make an allusion to that distinction. To fully make your argument, you need to convince people that the overall philosophical point of "free speech" is worth societal value even beyond that which we have accorded it via law (assuming you're in the US). Coming from someone who doesn't agree with you, but who doesn't agree with your opponents either.

lukifer 5y ago
The First Amendment doesn't grant a right to free speech as such; such a right is assumed to be pre-existing and inalienable (whether one roots such rights in religious belief or secular humanism). Rather: the First Amendment restricts what laws Congress may pass, which might infringe on that right.
- ss108 5y ago
  The "right" only exists insofar as it is legally protected.
  - lukifer 5y ago
    I half-agree: many who lean libertarian like to contrast "positive rights" with "negative rights"; and while it's an interesting academic distinction, in my view a purely negative right is indistinguishable from not having a right at all. Perhaps the state cannot proactively ensure my survival with 100% certainty, but a "right to life" is meaningless without some kind of proactive deterrent against violence. Where I disagree is the "legal" qualifier: while legal protections have an important role to play, so do civil institutions and social norms. Many forms of suppressing free expression are entirely compatible with the First Amendment (economic and social sanctions), and instead have to be defended in civil society, and the court of public opinion.
    - ss108 5y ago
      I see where you're coming from. I just think that if we have to resort to civil institutions beyond courts to enforce something, it's not really a "right". It's some other kind of good or value. So maybe my definition of "right" is too narrow or legalistic--but it is ofc widespread.
      - lukifer 5y ago
        I don't disagree, my position here is "yes, and". However one construes "rights" (it's a thorny topic both morally and empirically!), in my view, legal defenses and civil defenses are each necessary, but not sufficient.
  - Karrot_Kream 5y ago
    The Constitution uses "inalienable rights" for a reason. An individual (and c.f. Citizens United and Hobby Lobby, corporations) is accorded all rights not explicitly circumscribed by a higher form of federal government
    - ss108 5y ago
      That phrase is from the Declaration of Independence, not the Constitution. The way the Constitution works is that the Federal government only has those powers it is granted, which are limited by items such as the First Amendment, which does not generally restrict individuals (including corporations--there is no "cf" here; corporations are simply people, though they are not 'natural persons", where that distinction matters).
dragonwriter 5y ago
> In making this argument, you should clarify that you think it's important to not limit "freedom of speech" to its legal definition More specifically, to shrink “free speech” smaller than it's legal definition, and erase both part of what is legally protected and the fundamental premise of the legal protection, in that you want it prohibit private exercise of free speech rights essential to forcing ideas to complete in the marketplace of ideas by compelling private actors to actively participate in relaying speech that they find repugnant.
- ss108 5y ago
  This is a good point as well.

godelski 5y ago

> “Deplatforming” is anti-freedom. It violates the free speech of the speaker, it violates freedom of assembly for the listeners, and it violates freedom of association for all of the parties involved. Is it though? And to what extent? We don't have unlimited freedom of speech in the US constitution because we agreed that there are limits and realize that words do mean things (like a threat). But on a platform let's be nuanced. Some people believe that saying a racist word and having their comment removed is deplatforming. Some think they can promote violence. Others think getting down voted is deplatforming. There's a lot of people getting grouped together here and many making claims of being deplatformed are not acting in good faith. So unfortunately we need to define what deplatforming means otherwise we'll just be arguing and making assumptions because many people will be working off of many different definitions pretending that we all agree on the definition (or that we hold the true definition and others are dumb).

ethbr0 5y ago
"Censoring future speech" seems like a decent working definition. I.e. anything that restrains an individual's ability to make future speech in a manner equal to that of their peers Another useful distinction in the argument would be between "commons platforms" and smaller ones. It feels like past time that we recognized market realities and codified them into law to distinguish rights and regulations. If you are Google, Facebook, Twitter, Apple, Microsoft, Snap, or ByteDance (or any subsequent arising entity with a large enough market share in some public/social market) then you the public should have different access rights to your platforms, on the sole basis of their public ubiquity.
- godelski 5y ago
  So you clarify, you are okay with down voting and removing comments but are not okay withbanning accounts? Bans, even temporary, are crossing the line?
  - ethbr0 5y ago
    My feelings on the above are likely contingent of the nuances of implementation. Do downvotes ultimately censor posts? Are votes equal weight? Etc. From a higher level, I'd grant that (a) platforms have a fundamental right to try to realize their vision, which may include promoting and demoting various types of content & (b) spam and astroturfing is a constant reality in any social platform (and users are better served by less of both). So I think there are justifiable reasons for censoring, or at least decreasing visibility. I've been on forums long enough and have too low an opinion of the average internet denizen to think otherwise. :-) Hence, to me, the emphasis on ad vs post hoc restraint. If I allow you to make speech, and then, on the basis of that piece of speech and NOT on your identity as its speaker, decrease its virality in a way that's still fair (e.g. yank it from feed promotion but still allow direct linking) and then (in rare cases) absolutely censor it, that feels fair. To me. If I proactively identify you, godelski, as someone likely to say *ist things and consequently ban you or pre-censor everything you post, irregardless of the individual pieces of content, that does not feel fair. To me. As well, and I should have punched this more in my comment, as emphasizing "individual." Which is to say "1 human person, 1 share of public speech rights." IMHO, if free speech is a right that flows from our existence as sentient beings then it's difficult to get from there to "you deserve more / less free speech than I do." --- And finally, because I know I'll get this response eventually, yes, I know playing whack-a-mole with bad actors on a public platform is a nigh impossible task. I've done it. Maybe actually impossible. Tough. Uber skirted labor laws in pursuit of profit. Social media platforms are doing the exact same in terms of nuanced moderation in pursuit of profit. "It's difficult" or "It costs a lot to employ and train the headcount required to do it" isn't an acceptable defense, and we shouldn't accept it.

sangnoir 5y ago

Deplatforming does not violate freedom of association for all parties: you seem to be forgetting that the platform also has the right to freedom of association, and would be exercising that right by refusing to associate with the individual(s) being deplatformed. I'm yet to see a convincing argument that broadly, one person's free speech right always trumps other's freedom of association when the other doesn't like your speech, for any reason.

ethbr0 5y ago
Because one party is human (the individual) and the other party is corporate (the platform). Individuals are inherently endowed with inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Corporations are explicitly allowed whatever rights we choose to afford them, in pursuit of profit and maximizing their ability to put capital to productive ends. Saying "an individual speaks" is very different than saying "Facebook speaks." What opinions would Facebook have? And what fundamental desires would Facebook's opinions stem from?
- etchalon 5y ago
  All of the parties in your equation are human. Facebook is run by a collection of humans. Those humans make choices, as humans, that collectively we think of as "Facebook".
- sangnoir 5y ago
  ...and yet the Citizens United and Hobby Lobby rulings are a thing. There is no basis (or case law) to say biological people's free speech rights overrides legal people's freedom of association right everytime - but I've seen the "free speech absolutists" take this as a given.
  - ethbr0 5y ago
    They are absolutely a thing, and are the current law, but I can and do disagree with them from first principles. A group of individual persons, associated for a specific purpose, are not equivalent to an individual person in matters of fundamentally-owed rights.

fumar 5y ago

What I don’t understand is the nuance between freedom of speech in public spaces versus privately owned spaces. If the US government had a public social network, then people would have the right to shout ZYX. It is not the same on Facebook or TikTok right? Those are privately owned spaces. That would be like you coming into my property to shout XYS and I could remove you from my land. Am I understanding this correctly?

bzbarsky 5y ago
There are privately owned spaces (shopping malls, some towns) that have been treated as public spaces for free speech purposes in US court cases, as I understand it. Basically, if a privately owned space is promoted as a "commons" and acts as one, some of the rules about speech start changing.