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I'm staunchly in favour of freedom of speech and I do not have a problem with Twitter's current position on parody accounts. I'm in favour of freedom of speech

I'm staunchly in favour of freedom of speech and I do not have a problem with Twitter's current position on parody accounts. I'm in favour of freedom of speech because I believe it is important that ideas must be shared and debated freely and that no one should be beyond criticism. Being allowed to impersonate others simply doesn't seem to be an important part of that.

pjc50 4y ago
See upthread the Onion amicus brief on parody and free speech https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33503929 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33503929
- garbagetime 4y ago
  Seems weak. Poorly written and based on plainly false assumptions. I agree with IV that no one should be prosecuted under law for impersonation as long as nothing actually fraudulent has occurred.
piva00 4y ago
> Being allowed to impersonate others simply doesn't seem to be an important part of that. You forgot the "allowed to impersonate others to do parodies" part of it. I don't understand how you can be staunchly in favour of freedom of speech while holding the position that this kind of speech, blatant parody humour using impersonation as a delivery tool, is not protected under freedom of speech. If I somehow managed to register the domain "gooogle.com" and use it for humour, to take jabs at Google by displaying loads of fake ads instead of search results, showing on purpose unrelated results to the search query, etc., should my website be banned? Impersonation for scams and straight up deception are already punishable under other laws, why is that impersonation for parody and humour should be punished? I thought that was... Speech.
- garbagetime 4y ago
  You speak of "blatant parody humour using impersonantion". That seems a confused phrase. If an account is blatantly a parody, then it is not committing impersonation, because if someone knows that an account is a parody of a person, they also know it is not the person itself. If you want to make a blatant parody account, you may do so according to the current Twitter TOS. However, if you want to impersonate someone, you may not do that. Your gooogle.com example doesn't seem to connect to the situation at hand, which is about whether it is against the principles of freedom of speech to place limits on impersonation even in such cases where no fraud is being committed. My goal is that people should be allowed to express all views and criticise all people. If for whatever reason impersonation must be outlawed, so be it - it may in fact further the goals for which I support freedom of speech.
the_only_law 4y ago
“I’m in favor of freedom of speech… but I’m fine with it being limited if I don’t care about it” Amazing how quick they switch up
- garbagetime 4y ago
  I think that people should be free to express any view and to criticise any person. That doesn't mean that I think people should be able to say whatever they want in whatever way they want. I think we should be able to stop people from harassing, impersonating, shouting excessively, etc. Those things seem in opposition of those goals the hope of reaching of which is the reason I support freedom of speech in the first place. No, it would be silly in my view to support both freedom of speech and unlimited speech in all ways in all circumstances.

pjc50 4y ago

See upthread the Onion amicus brief on parody and free speech https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33503929 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33503929

garbagetime 4y ago
Seems weak. Poorly written and based on plainly false assumptions. I agree with IV that no one should be prosecuted under law for impersonation as long as nothing actually fraudulent has occurred.

piva00 4y ago

> Being allowed to impersonate others simply doesn't seem to be an important part of that. You forgot the "allowed to impersonate others to do parodies" part of it. I don't understand how you can be staunchly in favour of freedom of speech while holding the position that this kind of speech, blatant parody humour using impersonation as a delivery tool, is not protected under freedom of speech. If I somehow managed to register the domain "gooogle.com" and use it for humour, to take jabs at Google by displaying loads of fake ads instead of search results, showing on purpose unrelated results to the search query, etc., should my website be banned? Impersonation for scams and straight up deception are already punishable under other laws, why is that impersonation for parody and humour should be punished? I thought that was... Speech.

garbagetime 4y ago
You speak of "blatant parody humour using impersonantion". That seems a confused phrase. If an account is blatantly a parody, then it is not committing impersonation, because if someone knows that an account is a parody of a person, they also know it is not the person itself. If you want to make a blatant parody account, you may do so according to the current Twitter TOS. However, if you want to impersonate someone, you may not do that. Your gooogle.com example doesn't seem to connect to the situation at hand, which is about whether it is against the principles of freedom of speech to place limits on impersonation even in such cases where no fraud is being committed. My goal is that people should be allowed to express all views and criticise all people. If for whatever reason impersonation must be outlawed, so be it - it may in fact further the goals for which I support freedom of speech.

the_only_law 4y ago

“I’m in favor of freedom of speech… but I’m fine with it being limited if I don’t care about it” Amazing how quick they switch up

garbagetime 4y ago
I think that people should be free to express any view and to criticise any person. That doesn't mean that I think people should be able to say whatever they want in whatever way they want. I think we should be able to stop people from harassing, impersonating, shouting excessively, etc. Those things seem in opposition of those goals the hope of reaching of which is the reason I support freedom of speech in the first place. No, it would be silly in my view to support both freedom of speech and unlimited speech in all ways in all circumstances.