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What counts as "obscene" sure feels arbitrary, but fine. Subjective. > Okay, but to ban speech on this is once again to pass judgment on its value to the contr
by jchw 4y ago
What counts as "obscene" sure feels arbitrary, but fine. Subjective.
> Okay, but to ban speech on this is once again to pass judgment on its value to the contribution of the discourse or whatever avenue for communication is at issue. That's why the absolutist position is ridiculous. It isn't navigable from any perspective save for the very perspective they are already criticizing.
The key point that I've been failing to convey effectively is very simple: with SPAM, the expression itself is not the problem. If you post it 10,000 times responding to unrelated people, that is a problem.
(I realize that commercial SPAM is possibly what you are referring to here but... That sort of SPAM is more or less permitted on social media, so it's kind of neither here nor there.)
This generally follows: if you DM someone to yell racial slurs at them, you are harassing them. It's not about the platform banning naughty words, it's about banning disruptive conduct. The conduct is about the behavior, not the ideas or expressions expressed in them.
The "absolutist" position is basically never actually "absolutist". I initially thought people were interpreting it literally as a joke or something, but it seems like it has been taken pretty seriously. Yet, there are exceedingly few people who think that unprotected speech like CSAM should just be allowed. They DO exist, but I have a feeling the speech absolutists you are referring to do not. Doesn't that already make this discussion moot?
- freejazz 4y agoHow is obscenity arbitrary? What's considered obscene is related to what's considered not acceptable in society... you are acting like people arbitrarily decided that ducks are obscene... >The key point that I've been failing to convey effectively is very simple: with SPAM, the expression itself is not the problem. If you post it 10,000 times responding to unrelated people, that is a problem. You have conveyed that but it is not a useful metric by which to filter things from an absolutist standpoint because you have to make a value-judgment on the worth of the speech in regards to the venue... exactly what I said before. >This generally follows: if you DM someone to yell racial slurs at them, you are harassing them. It's not about the platform banning naughty words, it's about banning disruptive conduct. The conduct is about the behavior, not the ideas or expressions expressed in them. It's not that its disruptive... its that its harassment which is already a civil action and likely criminal in your jurisdiction as well. If you are gonna talk about how arbitrary laws are... maybe know a law or two? >The "absolutist" position is basically never actually "absolutist". I initially thought people were interpreting it literally as a joke or something, but it seems like it has been taken pretty seriously. Yet, there are exceedingly few people who think that unprotected speech like CSAM should just be allowed. They DO exist, but I have a feeling the speech absolutists you are referring to do not. Doesn't that already make this discussion moot? I'm not Elon Musk saying Im buying Twitter in order to support free speech... so don't look at me! I don't have problems with content moderation because I'm not naive.
- jchw 4y agoI am disengaging at this point. I do genuinely like discussing these things, but I don't think we're speaking the same language.