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This is always how it goes. Free speech absolutists that run web communities basically always stop short the moment they feel like they are under threat (regard

This is always how it goes. Free speech absolutists that run web communities basically always stop short the moment they feel like they are under threat (regardless of any actual threat). Even the most infamous of free speech platforms will just ban users who hurt the admins feelings. Back when Gab switched over to using a hostile fork of Mastodon for a backend[0], Torba banned the users of FreeSpeechExtremist (a Pleroma instance with well... the exact kinda ruleset the name would imply) from being able to interact with users on the Gab test instance (they hadn't figured out how to disable federation at the time). The crime of FSE in this particular case? Ridiculing Gab users for paying money to access basic features that any other Mastodon/Pleroma instance could give them for free. I can list off quite a few other examples of notable "free speech zones" doing this sorta thing, but really it's not worth shining a light on most of them. It's always "free speech for me, not for thee" with these people. And the dumbest part is that if they were just open about it instead of bloviating about how supposedly important they think free speech absolutism is, I don't think most people would pay them any mind. You don't get this anger when the rules include in a clearly written way: "if I don't like what you're doing, for any reason, you're out" (also known as the escape hatch clause). It's when you write the rules in abstract ways that are supposed to be "fair" that you get this problem, and especially if you're bloviating about how the only rule you supposedly believe in is the right to free speech and "US law" (the only concession usually put in writing by these absolutists). Because then people will start beholding you to that level of enforcement and they will ridicule you for being a hypocrite on that ideal. [0]: Curious aside - Gab is not on the banned social media list. Wonder if Musk seeks that audience.

richbell 4y ago
> This is always how it goes. Free speech absolutists that run web communities basically always stop short the moment they feel like they are under threat (regardless of any actual threat). Years ago, I was banned from a "free speech" / skeptic subreddit because I corrected someone who turned out to be the head mod.
SahAssar 4y ago
> Even the most infamous of free speech platforms will just ban users who hurt the admins feelings. Out of curiosity: did 4chan ever try to ban anyone for talking about moot?
- noirscape 4y ago
  4chan surprisingly is not a free speech platform, nor did it ever pretend to be. It has fairly bog-standard rules about not being a hateful jerk, it's just that enforcement of those rules is pretty spotty so the sites users consist mostly of hateful jerks. For a more specific example; 4chan remains the only site to actually ban discussion of gamergate (and then discussion of the subsequent user blowback towards moot) due to it being a harassment campaign.
  - SahAssar 4y ago
    Was the ban specifically around criticism of moot or gamergate in general?
- admax88qqq 4y ago
  4chan bans are notoriously ineffective. Since you don't have an account or identity worth banning, most bans are up blocks which are pretty easy to circumvent undetected.
  - SahAssar 4y ago
    That's why I said try. They could ban IPs or at the very least block tripcodes. I'm not aware of them trying to do so in response to criticism of moot or other owners.
    - admax88qqq 4y ago
      There's screenshots floating around of people's bans for completely arbitrary reasons. Don't know if they're legit.
- LarryMullins 4y ago
wstuartcl 4y ago
That's the thing, free speech is not something that exists in society -- there are always ramifications/costs for speech. Free speech does exist as a protection from government oversight of ideas -- but even in this case there are limits (yelling fire in a theater). Anyone claiming they are all about unlimited free speech on any platform is either delusional or lying -- the market costs (and laws) will always impact speech in the best case, and the people running the site will always hit their limits. It always devolves into "free speech (for some definition of free that I define as free)". In twitters case, free speech is limited by the whims of musk's thin skin on one hand while open for concepts he agrees with like hate, antisemitic and racist alt right junk.
haberman 4y ago
> It's always "free speech for me, not for thee" with these people. That's what pretty much everybody is doing at this point. Elon's critics rightly point out the problems with his arbitrary rule by fiat, but who among his critics are proposing anything more principled than his behavior? By and large, people are calling him a hypocrite without articulating any more principled vision for how social media platforms should be run. > You don't get this anger when the rules include in a clearly written way: "if I don't like what you're doing, for any reason, you're out" (also known as the escape hatch clause). This sounds like basically codifying the current Elon Musk mode of governance. Are you really suggesting that the Internet would be better if every social media site was operated in this way, as long as it is explicit in the rules?
- noirscape 4y ago
  > Elon's critics rightly point out the problems with his arbitrary rule by fiat, but who among his critics are proposing anything more principled than his behavior? By and large, people are calling him a hypocrite without articulating any more principled vision for how social media platforms should be run. Most people aren't supplying anything more principled. The reality of it is that it's REALLY DIFFICULT to run a generic-purpose social media platform. Twitter, pre-Musk takeover, had a whole bunch of teams, working groups, councils and employees whose task was to basically try to reduce the effects of Masnick's Impossibility Theorem[0] as much as possible. It is an established fact that Musk threw out the majority of these groups shortly after he took over the site. The main reason people call Musk a hypocrite is because he was also very vocal about what he wanted to replace those policies with: unbridled free speech, with the only limitation being the law. He has not publicly abandoned this principle yet and to the contrary, still occasionally barks up the accounts of some far right users about how he's going to "restore free speech" on Twitter. By all public accounts, he's still believing in that idea, whilst also transparently setting policies on stuff that very much doesn't align with that belief (see this policy change, the recent banning of ElonJet and so on and so forth). > This sounds like basically codifying the current Elon Musk mode of governance. Are you really suggesting that the Internet would be better if every social media site was operated in this way, as long as it is explicit in the rules? It probably would be. I think it would actually improve the general state of the internet if people were aware more that the sites they use are effectively ran on the whimsy of other people. A lot of people live under the illusion that one singular website is supposed to be their free room to dump whatever thoughts they want. This idea both goes against the original goal of the internet and does not line up with reality. Codifying this sort of thing matters more than you think. It means people know where they stand. Nowadays this stuff still largely exists in the Terms of Services of most sites (not to mention that a big part of free speech is not a requirement to host anyone else), but being more open about that would be a much better move for transparency reasons. So uh... yes? I am explicitly advocating for the implosion of generic purpose social media, I think what it has done on a broader scale is extremely damaging to society. [0]: https://www.techdirt.com/2019/11/20/masnicks-impossibility-theorem-content-moderation-scale-is-impossible-to-do-well/ https://www.techdirt.com/2019/11/20/masnicks-impossibility-t...

richbell 4y ago

> This is always how it goes. Free speech absolutists that run web communities basically always stop short the moment they feel like they are under threat (regardless of any actual threat). Years ago, I was banned from a "free speech" / skeptic subreddit because I corrected someone who turned out to be the head mod.

SahAssar 4y ago

> Even the most infamous of free speech platforms will just ban users who hurt the admins feelings. Out of curiosity: did 4chan ever try to ban anyone for talking about moot?

noirscape 4y ago
4chan surprisingly is not a free speech platform, nor did it ever pretend to be. It has fairly bog-standard rules about not being a hateful jerk, it's just that enforcement of those rules is pretty spotty so the sites users consist mostly of hateful jerks. For a more specific example; 4chan remains the only site to actually ban discussion of gamergate (and then discussion of the subsequent user blowback towards moot) due to it being a harassment campaign.
- SahAssar 4y ago
  Was the ban specifically around criticism of moot or gamergate in general?
admax88qqq 4y ago
4chan bans are notoriously ineffective. Since you don't have an account or identity worth banning, most bans are up blocks which are pretty easy to circumvent undetected.
- SahAssar 4y ago
  That's why I said try. They could ban IPs or at the very least block tripcodes. I'm not aware of them trying to do so in response to criticism of moot or other owners.
  - admax88qqq 4y ago
    There's screenshots floating around of people's bans for completely arbitrary reasons. Don't know if they're legit.
LarryMullins 4y ago

wstuartcl 4y ago

That's the thing, free speech is not something that exists in society -- there are always ramifications/costs for speech. Free speech does exist as a protection from government oversight of ideas -- but even in this case there are limits (yelling fire in a theater). Anyone claiming they are all about unlimited free speech on any platform is either delusional or lying -- the market costs (and laws) will always impact speech in the best case, and the people running the site will always hit their limits. It always devolves into "free speech (for some definition of free that I define as free)". In twitters case, free speech is limited by the whims of musk's thin skin on one hand while open for concepts he agrees with like hate, antisemitic and racist alt right junk.

haberman 4y ago

> It's always "free speech for me, not for thee" with these people. That's what pretty much everybody is doing at this point. Elon's critics rightly point out the problems with his arbitrary rule by fiat, but who among his critics are proposing anything more principled than his behavior? By and large, people are calling him a hypocrite without articulating any more principled vision for how social media platforms should be run. > You don't get this anger when the rules include in a clearly written way: "if I don't like what you're doing, for any reason, you're out" (also known as the escape hatch clause). This sounds like basically codifying the current Elon Musk mode of governance. Are you really suggesting that the Internet would be better if every social media site was operated in this way, as long as it is explicit in the rules?

noirscape 4y ago
> Elon's critics rightly point out the problems with his arbitrary rule by fiat, but who among his critics are proposing anything more principled than his behavior? By and large, people are calling him a hypocrite without articulating any more principled vision for how social media platforms should be run. Most people aren't supplying anything more principled. The reality of it is that it's REALLY DIFFICULT to run a generic-purpose social media platform. Twitter, pre-Musk takeover, had a whole bunch of teams, working groups, councils and employees whose task was to basically try to reduce the effects of Masnick's Impossibility Theorem[0] as much as possible. It is an established fact that Musk threw out the majority of these groups shortly after he took over the site. The main reason people call Musk a hypocrite is because he was also very vocal about what he wanted to replace those policies with: unbridled free speech, with the only limitation being the law. He has not publicly abandoned this principle yet and to the contrary, still occasionally barks up the accounts of some far right users about how he's going to "restore free speech" on Twitter. By all public accounts, he's still believing in that idea, whilst also transparently setting policies on stuff that very much doesn't align with that belief (see this policy change, the recent banning of ElonJet and so on and so forth). > This sounds like basically codifying the current Elon Musk mode of governance. Are you really suggesting that the Internet would be better if every social media site was operated in this way, as long as it is explicit in the rules? It probably would be. I think it would actually improve the general state of the internet if people were aware more that the sites they use are effectively ran on the whimsy of other people. A lot of people live under the illusion that one singular website is supposed to be their free room to dump whatever thoughts they want. This idea both goes against the original goal of the internet and does not line up with reality. Codifying this sort of thing matters more than you think. It means people know where they stand. Nowadays this stuff still largely exists in the Terms of Services of most sites (not to mention that a big part of free speech is not a requirement to host anyone else), but being more open about that would be a much better move for transparency reasons. So uh... yes? I am explicitly advocating for the implosion of generic purpose social media, I think what it has done on a broader scale is extremely damaging to society. [0]: https://www.techdirt.com/2019/11/20/masnicks-impossibility-theorem-content-moderation-scale-is-impossible-to-do-well/ https://www.techdirt.com/2019/11/20/masnicks-impossibility-t...