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I often hear this argument, but the US is currently on a much clearer trajectory towards increased authoritarianism than most EU countries/CANZUK despite all of

by Bakary 4y ago

I often hear this argument, but the US is currently on a much clearer trajectory towards increased authoritarianism than most EU countries/CANZUK despite all of this freedom. The situation is more complicated than just straightforward definitions of what freedom is. What really matters is not edge cases where some forum or other is banned, but whether your society is populated with authoritarian ideologies and to what extent these ideologies are present in the institutions. It's not that freedom of speech is not important, just that it's only one facet of everything and tends to be trotted out as the absolute barometer. It's a circular argument where the US is defined as the freest country at the start and thus its particular mixture of authoritarianism and libertarianism is defined as the gold standard despite having the highest prisoner per capita ratio and other such problems.

UncleEntity 4y ago
> What really matters is not edge cases… That’s what 100% matters. I’ve seen multiple civil rights attorneys say this because that’s who they go after to set the precedent to erode everyone’s rights. So they have to defend kiddypornographers and neo-nazis and everyone else common people don’t care if the government tramples all over their rights. Like the iPhone hacking thing the fbi was trying to force apple to do, literally no one cared about some dead terrorist so they chose that case to set the precedent that they could force a company to defeat the security of their product. Nobody gives a shit about Kiwi Farms and everyone has sympathy for Keffals but that’s not what any of this is about.
- Bakary 4y ago
  I understand this concept, but that's not the point. The GP was condescendingly referring to people outside of the US as being unable to understand freedom of speech or slippery legal slopes. We do in fact understand it, it's just that we don't all agree that the American cultural model is conducive to freedom overall, as evidenced by the current state of the country. It's like a person smugly telling you their hydrangeas are better watered than yours while you are trying to get them to notice that there is clearly a house fire starting in one of their bedrooms.
raxxorraxor 4y ago
In the US the government just ask corporations to censor content and they comply. Activists will spout their usual XKCD-interpretations of free speech, which is legally correct, but heavily fails to see the larger picture.
- shadowgovt 4y ago
  The internet was founded on very laissez-faire speech attitudes. We've been living the larger picture for decades; it's how we got where we are. Does the old laissez-faire approach continue to work when more than half the living population is online?
- Bakary 4y ago
  There's an even larger picture than this, which is that the argumentation around speech is gamed by people who have no interest in preserving it overall. What truly matters is which speech ends up being successful and adopted in the broader society. This is why the focus is placed on the availability of platforms rather than the presence of free speech on its own. The argument is never just to let people speak without arrest or restraint, but to let them speak AND give them access to a convenient platform that will help their speech be more successful. The next step is to force platforms to host them and give them an algorithmic pipeline of views. If freedom of speech is the key ingredient on its own, why is the US on an steeper authoritarian slide compared to the rest of the West despite more robust speech protections? Largely because authoritarian elements there are extremely adept at using speech rules for their own ends, and will then be able to discard most freedoms of any type once they solidify their grip on the institutions.

by Bakary 4y ago

UncleEntity 4y ago

> What really matters is not edge cases… That’s what 100% matters. I’ve seen multiple civil rights attorneys say this because that’s who they go after to set the precedent to erode everyone’s rights. So they have to defend kiddypornographers and neo-nazis and everyone else common people don’t care if the government tramples all over their rights. Like the iPhone hacking thing the fbi was trying to force apple to do, literally no one cared about some dead terrorist so they chose that case to set the precedent that they could force a company to defeat the security of their product. Nobody gives a shit about Kiwi Farms and everyone has sympathy for Keffals but that’s not what any of this is about.

Bakary 4y ago
I understand this concept, but that's not the point. The GP was condescendingly referring to people outside of the US as being unable to understand freedom of speech or slippery legal slopes. We do in fact understand it, it's just that we don't all agree that the American cultural model is conducive to freedom overall, as evidenced by the current state of the country. It's like a person smugly telling you their hydrangeas are better watered than yours while you are trying to get them to notice that there is clearly a house fire starting in one of their bedrooms.

raxxorraxor 4y ago

In the US the government just ask corporations to censor content and they comply. Activists will spout their usual XKCD-interpretations of free speech, which is legally correct, but heavily fails to see the larger picture.

shadowgovt 4y ago
The internet was founded on very laissez-faire speech attitudes. We've been living the larger picture for decades; it's how we got where we are. Does the old laissez-faire approach continue to work when more than half the living population is online?
Bakary 4y ago
There's an even larger picture than this, which is that the argumentation around speech is gamed by people who have no interest in preserving it overall. What truly matters is which speech ends up being successful and adopted in the broader society. This is why the focus is placed on the availability of platforms rather than the presence of free speech on its own. The argument is never just to let people speak without arrest or restraint, but to let them speak AND give them access to a convenient platform that will help their speech be more successful. The next step is to force platforms to host them and give them an algorithmic pipeline of views. If freedom of speech is the key ingredient on its own, why is the US on an steeper authoritarian slide compared to the rest of the West despite more robust speech protections? Largely because authoritarian elements there are extremely adept at using speech rules for their own ends, and will then be able to discard most freedoms of any type once they solidify their grip on the institutions.