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No one is forcing us to follow these figures on Twitter or vote for their party. Let the party members say what they like within the law. Debunk if it need be,

by cbeach 4y ago

No one is forcing us to follow these figures on Twitter or vote for their party. Let the party members say what they like within the law. Debunk if it need be, and let adults decide for themselves what the truth is. If authoritarians try to stop us hearing from a political party, they remove our agency. And we don’t like that. Ever heard of the Streisand Effect?

soared 4y ago
This is one side of the argument. The other is that with social media, echo chambers, algos, etc we face a new risk of extremism that can cause cases like below. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_2018_United_States_mail_bombing_attempts https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_2018_United_States_m... I haven’t really defined my opinion on this topic one way or the other. But in general I look at seatbelts in cars - they are required by law because if not, many people would save the $500 to buy a new car without seatbelts. We need some regulation for the good of the people. What that looks like for politics and the internet, I don’t know.
- Chris2048 4y ago
  > with social media, echo chambers, algos, etc we face a new risk of extremism so when is /r/politics going to be banned? There seems to be a strong bias as to which echo chambers are "dangerous".
- amadeuspagel 4y ago
  Imagine your comment, but with the link replaced with this one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congressional_baseball_shooting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congressional_baseball_shootin... What would your reaction to this be? Would you maybe be a bit concerned about how easy it might be to claim that some speech you see as important in some way leads to violence, and must therefore be censored?
  - soared 4y ago
    My comment would remain the same - there is extremist media on both sides.
    - tablespoon 4y ago
      > My comment would remain the same - there is extremist media on both sides. But "extremist" and "extremism" aren't really neutral terms anymore. They're now also euphemisms coded to mean conservative/right-wing extremists.
      - JSchmoe 4y ago
        Perhaps it's because right wing extremists are significantly more likely to use violence? I think it's understandable that the default image of a terrorist is someone who espouses right wing values in that case. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/sep/08/post-911-domestic-terror https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/sep/08/post-911-dom... I might be in a bubble but I very, very rarely learn about left wing attacks, while right wing ones pop up here and there. Edit: Also, about that link GP posted above about the Congressional baseball shooting: The perpetrator attacked Republican lawmakers, who have the most power to implement right-wing policies. In contrast, the attacks mentioned in my link mostly affected random people who probably did not have much political power, and were just members of groups that are often disliked by right wing extremists.
    - felix_n 4y ago
      Yo Tucker Carlson, glad to see you popped over here!
koof 4y ago
Paradox of tolerance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
- atdrummond 4y ago
  The paradox is used as an argumentative device for judging whether a tolerant and democratic society is possible (with liberal institutions ensuring intolerance doesn’t emerge) or if maintenance of tolerance would require an autocratic philosopher-king. The continual application of it to the online censorship debate makes little sense in light of its original rhetorical context. It is also constantly cited in policy prescription proposals of which I would be shocked if Popper agreed with.
  - koof 4y ago
    See the "Tolerance and freedom of speech" section in the Wikipedia link for further discussion of how the idea applies to speech.
    - atdrummond 4y ago
      I’ve read the Wikipedia page. I also own the copy of the book where it is mentioned, which I’ve also read. People are paying it way more attention than Popper himself did (it’s not even mentioned in the original text proper) and further treating it as some sort of immutable law, when that completely ignores the purposes for which the argument was created and that it was never a formal observation of how society actually operated.
      - koof 4y ago
        Sometimes I like a remixed version of a song better than the original.
  - kibwen 4y ago
    The paradox of tolerance is not some narrow tool, it can be used in many contexts. In particular, it can be used to demonstrate that, if you want to exist in a society that has a coherent notion of "self-defense" in general, you must admit the existence of the paradox and the necessity of judging actions in the context of aggression or defense. To wit: killing someone is against the law, but killing someone who's trying to kill you may be permitted, but even in that case, the aggressor still isn't allowed to kill you just because you tried to kill them in self-defense; they forfeit the right to self-defense by being the aggressor.
mikrl 4y ago
> Debunk if it need be Fascists are very good at subverting this process so I wouldn’t count on it. I do believe visibility is good though re: the Streisand effect, and, of course, making them more visible to anti-fascists is good praxis ;)
- kibwen 4y ago
  "Debunking" requires people to be operating in good faith (where a "good faith argument" is an argument where both sides are legitimately trying to advance their own knowledge, rather than "win an argument" for its own sake). You can't "debunk" someone who isn't even playing by the rules of the game, and fascists have always exploited this. "Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past."
black_13 4y ago
[dead]
prirun 4y ago
Ever heard of the Illusory truth effect? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_truth_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_truth_effect
- amadeuspagel 4y ago
  Perhaps something that should make you more skeptical of your beliefs, in the name of which you want to censor other beliefs.
  - cbeach 4y ago
    Quality counter-argument. Kudos.
  - prirun 4y ago
    In a former life I ran a company that had forums for our customers that could be viewed by the public. Our policy was to never delete or edit posts. It was great until we had about 2000 customers. Then we got a handful of about 10 nutjobs who formed a small clique to cause trouble. They disagreed with some of our policies & fees, which is fine - we let them have their say about it. The problem was, instead of just leaving our service after posting their disagreements, they stayed, because they were actually making money from their business with us. But they were so bitter about fee changes, they couldn't let it go. They came to dominate the forum discussion, not because they had anything useful to contribute other than their original disagreements, but because they had a lot of energy to post the same thing over and over. It devolved into death threats against us, believe it or not, on a forum that we were publishing. How would you handle that in a censor-free environment?
    - amadeuspagel 4y ago
      There's a difference between forums, where everyone sees the same posts, and platforms, such as twitter, where everyone chooses who to follow and block. How should Elon Musk deal with irrate Tesla customers on twitter? If necessary, by blocking them, but not by banning them from twitter. (Death threats of course are an extreme case, in which even banning someone from a platform can be justified.)
fragmede 4y ago
Who's gonna do that debunking though? You? For every young man that manages to receive the message that the Holocaust didn't happen and it's all lies, and decides to hear that garbage as gospel; you're volunteering to deprogram each and every one of them? Because that's the issue, the lack of debunking. We couldn't even get people to hear there aren't microchips in the vaccine, or that we've been to the moon. More stupid ideas, some of which lead kids to shoot up schools, are out there. Given the mass-media effect, Twitter and YouTube bans are the answer. I wish there was a better one, but we've yet to come up with it, so here we are.
- vinyl7 4y ago
  People hold views, so what? Why can't we just accept that people have differing views, and just agree to disagree? Why do we have to force everyone to have the same belief system? People get angry when religious people proselytize, but other topics are okay to force on people? I have differing political/social/economic opinions than other people, but I have no desire to force my opinion on other people are make them see things from my point of view, because it's stupid and pointless. Just point and laugh at the tin-foil-hatter and move on. By seeing them as a legitimate problem, you give them value and authority. But just forgetting it, whatever they say loses all power and value.
  - boston_clone 4y ago
    "People hold views that other beings should be enslaved or exterminated, so what?" The kind of sentiment you're expressing often comes from people who are either ignorant of fascism / authoritarianism and how it affects societies, or are apathetic towards those outcomes. You must understand that there are people out there primarily driven by fear and hatred, that, once given positions of power, will use that power to denigrate or otherwise erode the humanity of people they simply don't like. It's not enough to just not be racist, you must be anti-racist. It's not enough to just not be fascist, you must be anti-fascist.
    - qull 4y ago
      Thats a grade school level strawman. You may not be wrong but your argument is.
brnt 4y ago
Advertisers force us to eat shite, that's the business model. Microtargetting means (relatively) micro budgets are all that's needed to reach particular audiences. In practice, it's all about finding the cheapest way to amplify, that's the business model of particular strains of politics. Memes meant something before the internet, and rapid distribution on so called social media means well engineered strains will spread fast and far on small budgets; mostly others' energy. There is nothing good about this. There are no upsides to some free speech being able to drown out other free speech. I wish people would read a tiny bit of literature on the subject and stop spreading that incorrect and harmful meme.
- errantmind 4y ago
  Advertisers force us to do nothing at all. Memes similarly force nothing. This is a bastardization of the word 'force'. Either people have rights or they don't. We don't need the government to pick and choose how individuals express themselves in order to protect others, not because it doesn't make sense, but because there is no way to do it without a Ministry of Truth, which is arguably even worse. Remember, freedom of speech is freedom from governmental oppression first and foremost, the kind that arises when authoritarians get to tell people what and how to think.
  - brnt 4y ago
    Nothing is black and white. People being rational is fiction. Advertisers force us to eat shit: the very existence of mass media depends on it. In functioning democracies, the government represents the people and thus anything it enforces is by order of its people. Only in crypto dictatorships does your argument hold. My solution then is to either evacuate or improve the quality of your representation.
    - errantmind 4y ago
      Many people being gullible and herd-oriented doesn't equate to them being forced to consume products. I'm not forced to eat shit. Neither are you. If you disagree please reference the shit I'm being forced to eat, or products I'm being forced to buy. I'll then point out whether or not your statements have any standing.
mola 4y ago
Ever heard of Hitler? They let him talk, and talk and talk, it ended up with most of my ancestors dead. Some speech calls for violence and dehumanization against minorities, it should be banned.
- cbeach 4y ago
  Indeed, and Musk wants to ensure that such illegal speech is banned on Twitter. He has made a clear distinction that the limits of free speech should be governed by law as opposed to by opaque private interests.
  - mola 4y ago
    He should tell that to his good friend Kanye. Or Trump with his lovely dance with antisemites. Musk doesn't want to ensure anything but his ego and his ability to influence. He cares naught for consequences on anything else.

by cbeach 4y ago

soared 4y ago

This is one side of the argument. The other is that with social media, echo chambers, algos, etc we face a new risk of extremism that can cause cases like below. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_2018_United_States_mail_bombing_attempts https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_2018_United_States_m... I haven’t really defined my opinion on this topic one way or the other. But in general I look at seatbelts in cars - they are required by law because if not, many people would save the $500 to buy a new car without seatbelts. We need some regulation for the good of the people. What that looks like for politics and the internet, I don’t know.

Chris2048 4y ago
> with social media, echo chambers, algos, etc we face a new risk of extremism so when is /r/politics going to be banned? There seems to be a strong bias as to which echo chambers are "dangerous".
amadeuspagel 4y ago
Imagine your comment, but with the link replaced with this one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congressional_baseball_shooting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congressional_baseball_shootin... What would your reaction to this be? Would you maybe be a bit concerned about how easy it might be to claim that some speech you see as important in some way leads to violence, and must therefore be censored?
- soared 4y ago
  My comment would remain the same - there is extremist media on both sides.
  - tablespoon 4y ago
    > My comment would remain the same - there is extremist media on both sides. But "extremist" and "extremism" aren't really neutral terms anymore. They're now also euphemisms coded to mean conservative/right-wing extremists.
    - JSchmoe 4y ago
      Perhaps it's because right wing extremists are significantly more likely to use violence? I think it's understandable that the default image of a terrorist is someone who espouses right wing values in that case. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/sep/08/post-911-domestic-terror https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/sep/08/post-911-dom... I might be in a bubble but I very, very rarely learn about left wing attacks, while right wing ones pop up here and there. Edit: Also, about that link GP posted above about the Congressional baseball shooting: The perpetrator attacked Republican lawmakers, who have the most power to implement right-wing policies. In contrast, the attacks mentioned in my link mostly affected random people who probably did not have much political power, and were just members of groups that are often disliked by right wing extremists.
  - felix_n 4y ago
    Yo Tucker Carlson, glad to see you popped over here!

koof 4y ago

Paradox of tolerance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

atdrummond 4y ago
The paradox is used as an argumentative device for judging whether a tolerant and democratic society is possible (with liberal institutions ensuring intolerance doesn’t emerge) or if maintenance of tolerance would require an autocratic philosopher-king. The continual application of it to the online censorship debate makes little sense in light of its original rhetorical context. It is also constantly cited in policy prescription proposals of which I would be shocked if Popper agreed with.
- koof 4y ago
  See the "Tolerance and freedom of speech" section in the Wikipedia link for further discussion of how the idea applies to speech.
  - atdrummond 4y ago
    I’ve read the Wikipedia page. I also own the copy of the book where it is mentioned, which I’ve also read. People are paying it way more attention than Popper himself did (it’s not even mentioned in the original text proper) and further treating it as some sort of immutable law, when that completely ignores the purposes for which the argument was created and that it was never a formal observation of how society actually operated.
    - koof 4y ago
      Sometimes I like a remixed version of a song better than the original.
- kibwen 4y ago
  The paradox of tolerance is not some narrow tool, it can be used in many contexts. In particular, it can be used to demonstrate that, if you want to exist in a society that has a coherent notion of "self-defense" in general, you must admit the existence of the paradox and the necessity of judging actions in the context of aggression or defense. To wit: killing someone is against the law, but killing someone who's trying to kill you may be permitted, but even in that case, the aggressor still isn't allowed to kill you just because you tried to kill them in self-defense; they forfeit the right to self-defense by being the aggressor.

mikrl 4y ago

> Debunk if it need be Fascists are very good at subverting this process so I wouldn’t count on it. I do believe visibility is good though re: the Streisand effect, and, of course, making them more visible to anti-fascists is good praxis ;)

kibwen 4y ago
"Debunking" requires people to be operating in good faith (where a "good faith argument" is an argument where both sides are legitimately trying to advance their own knowledge, rather than "win an argument" for its own sake). You can't "debunk" someone who isn't even playing by the rules of the game, and fascists have always exploited this. "Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past."

black_13 4y ago

[dead]

prirun 4y ago

Ever heard of the Illusory truth effect? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_truth_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_truth_effect

amadeuspagel 4y ago
Perhaps something that should make you more skeptical of your beliefs, in the name of which you want to censor other beliefs.
- cbeach 4y ago
  Quality counter-argument. Kudos.
- prirun 4y ago
  In a former life I ran a company that had forums for our customers that could be viewed by the public. Our policy was to never delete or edit posts. It was great until we had about 2000 customers. Then we got a handful of about 10 nutjobs who formed a small clique to cause trouble. They disagreed with some of our policies & fees, which is fine - we let them have their say about it. The problem was, instead of just leaving our service after posting their disagreements, they stayed, because they were actually making money from their business with us. But they were so bitter about fee changes, they couldn't let it go. They came to dominate the forum discussion, not because they had anything useful to contribute other than their original disagreements, but because they had a lot of energy to post the same thing over and over. It devolved into death threats against us, believe it or not, on a forum that we were publishing. How would you handle that in a censor-free environment?
  - amadeuspagel 4y ago
    There's a difference between forums, where everyone sees the same posts, and platforms, such as twitter, where everyone chooses who to follow and block. How should Elon Musk deal with irrate Tesla customers on twitter? If necessary, by blocking them, but not by banning them from twitter. (Death threats of course are an extreme case, in which even banning someone from a platform can be justified.)

fragmede 4y ago

Who's gonna do that debunking though? You? For every young man that manages to receive the message that the Holocaust didn't happen and it's all lies, and decides to hear that garbage as gospel; you're volunteering to deprogram each and every one of them? Because that's the issue, the lack of debunking. We couldn't even get people to hear there aren't microchips in the vaccine, or that we've been to the moon. More stupid ideas, some of which lead kids to shoot up schools, are out there. Given the mass-media effect, Twitter and YouTube bans are the answer. I wish there was a better one, but we've yet to come up with it, so here we are.

vinyl7 4y ago
People hold views, so what? Why can't we just accept that people have differing views, and just agree to disagree? Why do we have to force everyone to have the same belief system? People get angry when religious people proselytize, but other topics are okay to force on people? I have differing political/social/economic opinions than other people, but I have no desire to force my opinion on other people are make them see things from my point of view, because it's stupid and pointless. Just point and laugh at the tin-foil-hatter and move on. By seeing them as a legitimate problem, you give them value and authority. But just forgetting it, whatever they say loses all power and value.
- boston_clone 4y ago
  "People hold views that other beings should be enslaved or exterminated, so what?" The kind of sentiment you're expressing often comes from people who are either ignorant of fascism / authoritarianism and how it affects societies, or are apathetic towards those outcomes. You must understand that there are people out there primarily driven by fear and hatred, that, once given positions of power, will use that power to denigrate or otherwise erode the humanity of people they simply don't like. It's not enough to just not be racist, you must be anti-racist. It's not enough to just not be fascist, you must be anti-fascist.
  - qull 4y ago
    Thats a grade school level strawman. You may not be wrong but your argument is.

brnt 4y ago

Advertisers force us to eat shite, that's the business model. Microtargetting means (relatively) micro budgets are all that's needed to reach particular audiences. In practice, it's all about finding the cheapest way to amplify, that's the business model of particular strains of politics. Memes meant something before the internet, and rapid distribution on so called social media means well engineered strains will spread fast and far on small budgets; mostly others' energy. There is nothing good about this. There are no upsides to some free speech being able to drown out other free speech. I wish people would read a tiny bit of literature on the subject and stop spreading that incorrect and harmful meme.

errantmind 4y ago
Advertisers force us to do nothing at all. Memes similarly force nothing. This is a bastardization of the word 'force'. Either people have rights or they don't. We don't need the government to pick and choose how individuals express themselves in order to protect others, not because it doesn't make sense, but because there is no way to do it without a Ministry of Truth, which is arguably even worse. Remember, freedom of speech is freedom from governmental oppression first and foremost, the kind that arises when authoritarians get to tell people what and how to think.
- brnt 4y ago
  Nothing is black and white. People being rational is fiction. Advertisers force us to eat shit: the very existence of mass media depends on it. In functioning democracies, the government represents the people and thus anything it enforces is by order of its people. Only in crypto dictatorships does your argument hold. My solution then is to either evacuate or improve the quality of your representation.
  - errantmind 4y ago
    Many people being gullible and herd-oriented doesn't equate to them being forced to consume products. I'm not forced to eat shit. Neither are you. If you disagree please reference the shit I'm being forced to eat, or products I'm being forced to buy. I'll then point out whether or not your statements have any standing.

mola 4y ago

Ever heard of Hitler? They let him talk, and talk and talk, it ended up with most of my ancestors dead. Some speech calls for violence and dehumanization against minorities, it should be banned.

cbeach 4y ago
Indeed, and Musk wants to ensure that such illegal speech is banned on Twitter. He has made a clear distinction that the limits of free speech should be governed by law as opposed to by opaque private interests.
- mola 4y ago
  He should tell that to his good friend Kanye. Or Trump with his lovely dance with antisemites. Musk doesn't want to ensure anything but his ego and his ability to influence. He cares naught for consequences on anything else.