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Speech didn't cause the violence, violent people did. If you think people will become violent merely due to speech, you are very naive. The tensions which led t

by t-3 5y ago

Speech didn't cause the violence, violent people did. If you think people will become violent merely due to speech, you are very naive. The tensions which led to those conflicts were not newly spawned by social media, that's just where the organizing took place. Those ethnic conflicts have far longer histories than social media...

dredmorbius 5y ago
This is actually testable based on media environments and effects. Evidence is that inflammatory speech does in fact matter. Among the better cases of this was in Rwanda, where ethnic violence was directly proportional to radio reception. Stronger effects were noted where radio reception of the RTLM network was greater in the country, showing a dose-response and epidemiological behaviour, as well as timing around specific broadcasts. Your objection also raises another curious paradox: - If speech has no power over people, and does not change behaviour, then not only does censorship in the name of public safety and avoiding tyranny not make sense, but the principles of free speech are themselves largely meaningless --- protecting a right which has no civic impact ... can't be that important. - But on the other hand, if speech is significant, if it can change minds and attitudes and behaviours, then the deliberate misuse of it to sow discord, to attack democratic principles, and to influence a population from some oligarchic internal minority or by some external power, should also be considered. Either way, the objection raised faces a paradox.
- t-3 4y ago
  There is no paradox. Ideas have power, and ideas are spread through speech. However, speech does not provide the ground in which ideas grow - environment and society does that. Prohibiting speech cannot prevent the manifestation of ideas, and cannot even really prevent their spread, but is instead an indicator of broader conditions being unfavorable to those ideas. Popular ideas cannot be effectively repressed, only unpopular ones.
  - dredmorbius 4y ago
    Again, your argument directly contradicts evidence. It doesn't matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn't matter how smart you are. If it doesn't agree with experiment, it's wrong. -- Richard P. Feynman
    - t-3 4y ago
      Really? In the Soviet Union, prohibited ideas still spread. In China and modern Russia, dissidents still exist. The spread of ideas cannot be stopped unless people don't want to hear them in the first place.

by t-3 5y ago

dredmorbius 5y ago

This is actually testable based on media environments and effects. Evidence is that inflammatory speech does in fact matter. Among the better cases of this was in Rwanda, where ethnic violence was directly proportional to radio reception. Stronger effects were noted where radio reception of the RTLM network was greater in the country, showing a dose-response and epidemiological behaviour, as well as timing around specific broadcasts. Your objection also raises another curious paradox: - If speech has no power over people, and does not change behaviour, then not only does censorship in the name of public safety and avoiding tyranny not make sense, but the principles of free speech are themselves largely meaningless --- protecting a right which has no civic impact ... can't be that important. - But on the other hand, if speech is significant, if it can change minds and attitudes and behaviours, then the deliberate misuse of it to sow discord, to attack democratic principles, and to influence a population from some oligarchic internal minority or by some external power, should also be considered. Either way, the objection raised faces a paradox.

t-3 4y ago
There is no paradox. Ideas have power, and ideas are spread through speech. However, speech does not provide the ground in which ideas grow - environment and society does that. Prohibiting speech cannot prevent the manifestation of ideas, and cannot even really prevent their spread, but is instead an indicator of broader conditions being unfavorable to those ideas. Popular ideas cannot be effectively repressed, only unpopular ones.
- dredmorbius 4y ago
  Again, your argument directly contradicts evidence. It doesn't matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn't matter how smart you are. If it doesn't agree with experiment, it's wrong. -- Richard P. Feynman
  - t-3 4y ago
    Really? In the Soviet Union, prohibited ideas still spread. In China and modern Russia, dissidents still exist. The spread of ideas cannot be stopped unless people don't want to hear them in the first place.