6 ms·

the article is an example of orientalism, presenting the case as if there is no urgency on the matter in the Western world. Cancel culture, de-platforming, alg

the article is an example of orientalism, presenting the case as if there is no urgency on the matter in the Western world. Cancel culture, de-platforming, algorithmic dampening, account mislabelling, brigading on-platform, account suspension and deletion - all of these things are happening in the Western world, on US platforms. I used to have sympathy with the the argument that 'private company's can do what they like', especially when they banned people I don't like but I have come to realise that this can be understood as the outsourcing of the suppression of free expression to the private sector. The fight for freedom of expression is here, not Myanmar

hexator 4y ago
There's quite a bit of difference between the government banning free expression and a private company deciding that they don't want intolerable people on their platform — which itself is an example of their free expression.
- ClumsyPilot 4y ago
  Step 1 - governments privatises /sells all public squares and large streets in your city Step 2 - private companies that own them hire private security firms Step 3 - if anyone protests, stands with a banner or says anything in convenient anywhere in the city, they get violently removed. Step 4 - folks like you yourself defend it under the guide of 'but it's not a government!' Vioala, no free speech to worry about! You think this is far fetched? It's happening as we speak, thousands of public spaces across Uk were sold and you can;t protest there anymore. https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/mar/05/great-british-sell-off-how-desperate-councils-sold-91bn-of-public-assets https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/mar/05/great-british...
  - hexator 4y ago
    This seems like a false comparison
    - drc500free 4y ago
      The only difference I see is that the virtual speech zones were private in the first place, rather than initially public squares and then privatized. I'm not sure if the path we took to get there is that relevant, though.
  - russdill 4y ago
    I mean, this is already the case and most people seem ok with it and it seems to be working out. If I go to the mall which is a very public space where people congregate there are limitations that can be put there by the owner of the facility on speech. They can cancel me, deplatform me, ban me, etc.
    - russdill 4y ago
      Just to make clear I'm not advocating for this solution, excessive private ownership of public spaces is a problem that's been known for quite some time and there's a number of laws in place to limit it.
- vnchr 4y ago
  I think it’s the definition of “intolerable” in the above statement where there’s a problem. Who decides the basis for intolerance? More importantly, who would influence the definition of intolerance for their own ends? How do we coexist when my intolerance is different than your intolerance? What do I do when you decide I’m intolerable?
  - angst_ridden 4y ago
    Exactly. That's a problem. For example, I'm in favor of banning speech exhorting folks to violence against people of any specific race/religion/ethnicity/orientation/belief. That seems like a simple enough restriction. But then, in the event of a law like that being passed, the advocates of violence switch their tactic to explaining why said target group is subhuman, or resort to apophasis, or develop coded language. The solution often proposed is to consider purely verbal instigators of violence to be innocent of any crime, and consider the individuals who physically enact the violence as bearing all responsibility. Unfortunately, having personally witnessed mobs getting worked up and seeing firsthand the collapse of individual thought, I fear this approach is based on an over-generous analysis of the rationality (and individuation) of the human brain. I don't have any solution to propose.
- Georgelemental 4y ago
  That logic relies on the fact any single private corporation controls at most a small part of public discourse, so no single platform can impose speech codes on all of society. But modern tech monopolies benefit from network effects and actively collude with and lobby government to crush would-be competitors. So the old rules no longer apply to them
  - andsoitis 4y ago
    What’s your proposed solution?
    - Georgelemental 4y ago
      - Mandate interoperability to break network effects - Possibly (more extreme measure, not certain about this one) "common carrier" laws that treat the biggest platforms like public utilities (can't moderate at all). This might make Facebook & co. unviable in their current guises, but would that really be such a bad thing?
- RobotToaster 4y ago
  Why is corporate censorship more tolerable than government censorship? Why is censorship by the bourgeoisie more tolerable than censorship by the government bureaucrat? When corporations control de-facto monopoly platforms by nature of the network effect, they become censors, this shouldn't be a controversial statement. (not to mention the idea that corporations are people is one of the dumbest legal constructs since the divine right of kings)
  - mikkergp 4y ago
    Corporations don't have a monopoly on violence, the article discusses governments killing people.
  - phillipcarter 4y ago
    > Why is corporate censorship more tolerable than government censorship? Because that's the free market? Places like YouTube or whatever being a de facto place for expression only exist because they've been remarkably balanced (as per how the market sees it) in how they handle speech on their platforms. As we've seen with how new social networks pop up so quickly, it doesn't take very long for a company/product to lose market relevance for serious strategic missteps.
    - throwayyy479087 4y ago
      I'd buy this argument so much more if the people making it didn't _also_ dislike the free market. That just seems like a short-circuit way of avoiding that they don't want that speech to exist at all, because they believe it's equivalent to violence.
- angio 4y ago
  One issue is that the entrepreneurial class and politicians are not separated, but interconnected.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
hotpotamus 4y ago
I see these complaints (generally from the right wing), and I think... so what? No one ever seems to have any action tied to resolve their complaints, presumably because it would ironically require creating laws that restrict speech - what is cancel culture other than a reflection of free speech in its own right after all? Of course, if you start talking about boycotting Israel, they'll be happy to send the law after you (in some states at least). https://www.texastribune.org/2022/01/31/texas-boycott-israel-lawsuit/ https://www.texastribune.org/2022/01/31/texas-boycott-israel...
- russdill 4y ago
  No action? There's been plenty of laws written and even passed in red states to address these complaints. https://www.npr.org/2022/05/23/1100831545/appeals-court-florida-social-media-law-unconstitutional-desantis https://www.npr.org/2022/05/23/1100831545/appeals-court-flor... https://www.texastribune.org/2022/05/31/texas-social-media-law-blocked/ https://www.texastribune.org/2022/05/31/texas-social-media-l...
- commandlinefan 4y ago
  > require creating laws that restrict speech Actually, you don't have to - you just have to create laws that protect entities that support it. Explicitly indemnifying online discussion portals from being held responsible for any (alleged) harm caused by discussions on their platform would go a LONG way toward supporting organizations that actually believe in free expression. Twitter can go on banning everybody who opposes communism, but Parler can't be legally shut down for allowing them.
  - hotpotamus 4y ago
    I don't understand what you're saying - has Parler been legally shutdown for banning anti-communists?
    - commandlinefan 4y ago
      No, but only because they're being very careful what they allow to be posted.
mikkergp 4y ago
None of those examples are explicitly violent. Although vigorous we are still having that debate. You're not entirely wrong, but heads of state start assassinating journalists is a different spectra.
- debacle 4y ago
  It took 40 years for growing antisemitism in Europe to lead to the Holocaust.
  - mikkergp 4y ago
    I don't really see what your point has to do with mine. OP seems mad that an article might talk about active violence vs potential violence. The article can't cover everything and to my original point we are still able to have those discussions. I wouldn't object to a different article discussing issues here and how they may result in violence in the future, there are hundreds of those and I would happily read and debate them -- but I also don't object to an article that talks about active organized violence against the media around the world, and how that is a different issue.
  - shadowgovt 4y ago
    Good thing forum moderation can help nip such antisemitism in the bud by deplatforming those trying to normalize it in the 21st century.
    - immibis 4y ago
      Which is a loss of freedom of expression, hence the whole debate. Plus, don't be so naive as to think anti-semites will directly say "we should gas the Jews". They won't say that, because they know they'll get banned. They'll say the closest thing they're allowed to say.
      - shadowgovt 4y ago
        Don't need to tell me twice, because I watch them say it. And when forum moderators catch savvy to the new lingo, they get banned. Hate mutates and the tools we use to combat it mutate too. Like any fight against malicious users, it's measure-countermeasure. And yes, people absolutely lose the freedom to express that other people aren't people using someone else's tools. That shouldn't be a debate because it's not up for debate; we already danced this tango nearly a hundred years ago and after that as well. Dehumanizing people is not tolerable, as axiom.
salt-thrower 4y ago
Freedom of speech is literally just “the government can’t throw you in jail for expressing an opinion.” It’s always been only that. Media companies (TV, newspapers, radio, now social media) have always “deplatformed” people who they disagree with or consider dangerous. There is nothing new in any of your examples. If you agree with the views of deplatformed influencers, you can start your own blog about it. That’s free speech. They get to live their lives as normal, and companies are not obligated to give them a louder megaphone.
- phillipcarter 4y ago
  There's an influx of right-wing people who are trying to rebrand "free speech" as being able to say reprehensible things with zero _social_ consequences. So you're unfortunately trying to reason with the wrong person. Their belief is that all speech in all forms should be free from any consequences, social, legal, or otherwise.
  - josephh 4y ago
    And what is your point? Let them face consequences. That is not a justification for suppressing such speech.
    - some-guy 4y ago
      What is "suppression" in this case? What are the "consequences" in this case?
    - angst_ridden 4y ago
      What a lot of people call "cancel culture" is exactly that, though. For example, when a comedian says something that insults a class of people who are customers of the comedian's sponsor and the sponsor projects lost revenue from that class of people, they stop funding that comedian's work. That's both "cancel culture" and the consequences of free speech.
      - josephh 4y ago
phillipcarter 4y ago
> The fight for freedom of expression is here, not Myanmar Boy that sure is spoken like someone who gets to live an extremely comfortable life, expressing what they want to express, without consequences.
lucideer 4y ago
Your first sentence started out being a very valid point (the West is certainly portrayed in a biased favourable fashion by this article). But then your 2nd paragraph descends into nonsense... those are not good examples.
cycomanic 4y ago
I find interesting the selective examples being used for the supposed raising threat to freedom in (and from) the US. At the same time the US has had one of the highest incarceration rates in the world (largely affecting one minority), has been extrajudically assassinating people all over the world, started wars and supported dictatorships when it suited economical interests for a long time and created the biggest worldwide surveillance net which has literally landed innocents in black torture cells. But somehow not being able to say that one thinks people of a different skin color are genetically inferior on someone else's platform is the threat to freedom. I wonder what a uighur working as a defacto slave would think about that, or one of the Guantanamo prisoners who have been detained without trial for close to 20 years.

hexator 4y ago

There's quite a bit of difference between the government banning free expression and a private company deciding that they don't want intolerable people on their platform — which itself is an example of their free expression.

ClumsyPilot 4y ago
Step 1 - governments privatises /sells all public squares and large streets in your city Step 2 - private companies that own them hire private security firms Step 3 - if anyone protests, stands with a banner or says anything in convenient anywhere in the city, they get violently removed. Step 4 - folks like you yourself defend it under the guide of 'but it's not a government!' Vioala, no free speech to worry about! You think this is far fetched? It's happening as we speak, thousands of public spaces across Uk were sold and you can;t protest there anymore. https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/mar/05/great-british-sell-off-how-desperate-councils-sold-91bn-of-public-assets https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/mar/05/great-british...
- hexator 4y ago
  This seems like a false comparison
  - drc500free 4y ago
    The only difference I see is that the virtual speech zones were private in the first place, rather than initially public squares and then privatized. I'm not sure if the path we took to get there is that relevant, though.
- russdill 4y ago
  I mean, this is already the case and most people seem ok with it and it seems to be working out. If I go to the mall which is a very public space where people congregate there are limitations that can be put there by the owner of the facility on speech. They can cancel me, deplatform me, ban me, etc.
  - russdill 4y ago
    Just to make clear I'm not advocating for this solution, excessive private ownership of public spaces is a problem that's been known for quite some time and there's a number of laws in place to limit it.
vnchr 4y ago
I think it’s the definition of “intolerable” in the above statement where there’s a problem. Who decides the basis for intolerance? More importantly, who would influence the definition of intolerance for their own ends? How do we coexist when my intolerance is different than your intolerance? What do I do when you decide I’m intolerable?
- angst_ridden 4y ago
  Exactly. That's a problem. For example, I'm in favor of banning speech exhorting folks to violence against people of any specific race/religion/ethnicity/orientation/belief. That seems like a simple enough restriction. But then, in the event of a law like that being passed, the advocates of violence switch their tactic to explaining why said target group is subhuman, or resort to apophasis, or develop coded language. The solution often proposed is to consider purely verbal instigators of violence to be innocent of any crime, and consider the individuals who physically enact the violence as bearing all responsibility. Unfortunately, having personally witnessed mobs getting worked up and seeing firsthand the collapse of individual thought, I fear this approach is based on an over-generous analysis of the rationality (and individuation) of the human brain. I don't have any solution to propose.
Georgelemental 4y ago
That logic relies on the fact any single private corporation controls at most a small part of public discourse, so no single platform can impose speech codes on all of society. But modern tech monopolies benefit from network effects and actively collude with and lobby government to crush would-be competitors. So the old rules no longer apply to them
- andsoitis 4y ago
  What’s your proposed solution?
  - Georgelemental 4y ago
    - Mandate interoperability to break network effects - Possibly (more extreme measure, not certain about this one) "common carrier" laws that treat the biggest platforms like public utilities (can't moderate at all). This might make Facebook & co. unviable in their current guises, but would that really be such a bad thing?
RobotToaster 4y ago
Why is corporate censorship more tolerable than government censorship? Why is censorship by the bourgeoisie more tolerable than censorship by the government bureaucrat? When corporations control de-facto monopoly platforms by nature of the network effect, they become censors, this shouldn't be a controversial statement. (not to mention the idea that corporations are people is one of the dumbest legal constructs since the divine right of kings)
- mikkergp 4y ago
  Corporations don't have a monopoly on violence, the article discusses governments killing people.
- phillipcarter 4y ago
  > Why is corporate censorship more tolerable than government censorship? Because that's the free market? Places like YouTube or whatever being a de facto place for expression only exist because they've been remarkably balanced (as per how the market sees it) in how they handle speech on their platforms. As we've seen with how new social networks pop up so quickly, it doesn't take very long for a company/product to lose market relevance for serious strategic missteps.
  - throwayyy479087 4y ago
    I'd buy this argument so much more if the people making it didn't _also_ dislike the free market. That just seems like a short-circuit way of avoiding that they don't want that speech to exist at all, because they believe it's equivalent to violence.
angio 4y ago
One issue is that the entrepreneurial class and politicians are not separated, but interconnected.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

hotpotamus 4y ago

I see these complaints (generally from the right wing), and I think... so what? No one ever seems to have any action tied to resolve their complaints, presumably because it would ironically require creating laws that restrict speech - what is cancel culture other than a reflection of free speech in its own right after all? Of course, if you start talking about boycotting Israel, they'll be happy to send the law after you (in some states at least). https://www.texastribune.org/2022/01/31/texas-boycott-israel-lawsuit/ https://www.texastribune.org/2022/01/31/texas-boycott-israel...

russdill 4y ago
No action? There's been plenty of laws written and even passed in red states to address these complaints. https://www.npr.org/2022/05/23/1100831545/appeals-court-florida-social-media-law-unconstitutional-desantis https://www.npr.org/2022/05/23/1100831545/appeals-court-flor... https://www.texastribune.org/2022/05/31/texas-social-media-law-blocked/ https://www.texastribune.org/2022/05/31/texas-social-media-l...
commandlinefan 4y ago
> require creating laws that restrict speech Actually, you don't have to - you just have to create laws that protect entities that support it. Explicitly indemnifying online discussion portals from being held responsible for any (alleged) harm caused by discussions on their platform would go a LONG way toward supporting organizations that actually believe in free expression. Twitter can go on banning everybody who opposes communism, but Parler can't be legally shut down for allowing them.
- hotpotamus 4y ago
  I don't understand what you're saying - has Parler been legally shutdown for banning anti-communists?
  - commandlinefan 4y ago
    No, but only because they're being very careful what they allow to be posted.

mikkergp 4y ago

None of those examples are explicitly violent. Although vigorous we are still having that debate. You're not entirely wrong, but heads of state start assassinating journalists is a different spectra.

debacle 4y ago
It took 40 years for growing antisemitism in Europe to lead to the Holocaust.
- mikkergp 4y ago
  I don't really see what your point has to do with mine. OP seems mad that an article might talk about active violence vs potential violence. The article can't cover everything and to my original point we are still able to have those discussions. I wouldn't object to a different article discussing issues here and how they may result in violence in the future, there are hundreds of those and I would happily read and debate them -- but I also don't object to an article that talks about active organized violence against the media around the world, and how that is a different issue.
- shadowgovt 4y ago
  Good thing forum moderation can help nip such antisemitism in the bud by deplatforming those trying to normalize it in the 21st century.
  - immibis 4y ago
    Which is a loss of freedom of expression, hence the whole debate. Plus, don't be so naive as to think anti-semites will directly say "we should gas the Jews". They won't say that, because they know they'll get banned. They'll say the closest thing they're allowed to say.
    - shadowgovt 4y ago
      Don't need to tell me twice, because I watch them say it. And when forum moderators catch savvy to the new lingo, they get banned. Hate mutates and the tools we use to combat it mutate too. Like any fight against malicious users, it's measure-countermeasure. And yes, people absolutely lose the freedom to express that other people aren't people using someone else's tools. That shouldn't be a debate because it's not up for debate; we already danced this tango nearly a hundred years ago and after that as well. Dehumanizing people is not tolerable, as axiom.

salt-thrower 4y ago

Freedom of speech is literally just “the government can’t throw you in jail for expressing an opinion.” It’s always been only that. Media companies (TV, newspapers, radio, now social media) have always “deplatformed” people who they disagree with or consider dangerous. There is nothing new in any of your examples. If you agree with the views of deplatformed influencers, you can start your own blog about it. That’s free speech. They get to live their lives as normal, and companies are not obligated to give them a louder megaphone.

phillipcarter 4y ago
There's an influx of right-wing people who are trying to rebrand "free speech" as being able to say reprehensible things with zero _social_ consequences. So you're unfortunately trying to reason with the wrong person. Their belief is that all speech in all forms should be free from any consequences, social, legal, or otherwise.
- josephh 4y ago
  And what is your point? Let them face consequences. That is not a justification for suppressing such speech.
  - some-guy 4y ago
    What is "suppression" in this case? What are the "consequences" in this case?
  - angst_ridden 4y ago
    What a lot of people call "cancel culture" is exactly that, though. For example, when a comedian says something that insults a class of people who are customers of the comedian's sponsor and the sponsor projects lost revenue from that class of people, they stop funding that comedian's work. That's both "cancel culture" and the consequences of free speech.
    - josephh 4y ago

phillipcarter 4y ago

> The fight for freedom of expression is here, not Myanmar Boy that sure is spoken like someone who gets to live an extremely comfortable life, expressing what they want to express, without consequences.

lucideer 4y ago

Your first sentence started out being a very valid point (the West is certainly portrayed in a biased favourable fashion by this article). But then your 2nd paragraph descends into nonsense... those are not good examples.

cycomanic 4y ago

I find interesting the selective examples being used for the supposed raising threat to freedom in (and from) the US. At the same time the US has had one of the highest incarceration rates in the world (largely affecting one minority), has been extrajudically assassinating people all over the world, started wars and supported dictatorships when it suited economical interests for a long time and created the biggest worldwide surveillance net which has literally landed innocents in black torture cells. But somehow not being able to say that one thinks people of a different skin color are genetically inferior on someone else's platform is the threat to freedom. I wonder what a uighur working as a defacto slave would think about that, or one of the Guantanamo prisoners who have been detained without trial for close to 20 years.