3 ms·

It is not a gotcha question, you talk in absolute terms of "free speech", because you know it is less acceptable to say "I want to call LGBT people a disease",

by olliej 5y ago

It is not a gotcha question, you talk in absolute terms of "free speech", because you know it is less acceptable to say "I want to call LGBT people a disease", "I want to be able to blame minorities". What I am trying to say, is that I am sick of pandering to that bullshit deflection. If you hate some minority, and think that you are in the right for doing so, you should just be saying that. You shouldn't be claiming other stuff is being censored, and that's what you're correcting, as a cover to get back to bigotry, attacking minorities, and of course that other favorite: trying to overthrow elections. Because that's the only significant censorship that twitter has added, and even that is fairly minimal.

AnimalMuppet 5y ago
Your attempt to guess my motives is a total failure. You are also violating the site guidelines, specifically the part about "charitable interpretation". No, I want free speech because I actually believe in free speech.
blagie 5y ago
The classic quote is: "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." You're trying to assign incorrect motives to people on this thread. That's dishonest. I absolutely agree that if people hate some minority, they should be able to say it outright. That should carry social stigma, but not a prison sentence, public shaming, or economic ruin. Censoring people isn't effective. If people feel oppressed, they dig in. I live in one of the wokest parts of the US, and it's also probably the most racist place I've been. You can't have open conversations with people. All the racism and bigotry is just closeted and hidden. I used to live in a part of the US where a few people were openly racist, and it was a million times better. Most people weren't racist. The ones who were, you could avoid. You could also talk to people about their beliefs, and you know something? People got less racist over time. Open conversations also meant you could explore reasons for achievement gaps and employment gaps, and there was slow and steady progress. Free society is prerequisite to addressing prejudice, not the other way around. The only thing that has changed since the classic quote are market dynamics: Platforms can generate ad clicks by lying, polarizing people and promoting hate. That, we ought to address. But we ought to address it without outright cancelling / censoring / banning / ostracizing people. Technically, that's not even hard to do; if people post crap, The Algorithm shouldn't bump it up. From a market perspective, that's impossible without regulation; if Twitter/Facebook/etc. don't promote hate, lies, and polarization, a new platform which does will take over.

by olliej 5y ago

AnimalMuppet 5y ago

Your attempt to guess my motives is a total failure. You are also violating the site guidelines, specifically the part about "charitable interpretation". No, I want free speech because I actually believe in free speech.

blagie 5y ago

The classic quote is: "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." You're trying to assign incorrect motives to people on this thread. That's dishonest. I absolutely agree that if people hate some minority, they should be able to say it outright. That should carry social stigma, but not a prison sentence, public shaming, or economic ruin. Censoring people isn't effective. If people feel oppressed, they dig in. I live in one of the wokest parts of the US, and it's also probably the most racist place I've been. You can't have open conversations with people. All the racism and bigotry is just closeted and hidden. I used to live in a part of the US where a few people were openly racist, and it was a million times better. Most people weren't racist. The ones who were, you could avoid. You could also talk to people about their beliefs, and you know something? People got less racist over time. Open conversations also meant you could explore reasons for achievement gaps and employment gaps, and there was slow and steady progress. Free society is prerequisite to addressing prejudice, not the other way around. The only thing that has changed since the classic quote are market dynamics: Platforms can generate ad clicks by lying, polarizing people and promoting hate. That, we ought to address. But we ought to address it without outright cancelling / censoring / banning / ostracizing people. Technically, that's not even hard to do; if people post crap, The Algorithm shouldn't bump it up. From a market perspective, that's impossible without regulation; if Twitter/Facebook/etc. don't promote hate, lies, and polarization, a new platform which does will take over.