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Yea, it almost always works this way. Some entity in power thinks it's for the greater "good" to censor content from people and the slippery slope of censorship
by rooshdi 15y ago
Yea, it almost always works this way. Some entity in power thinks it's for the greater "good" to censor content from people and the slippery slope of censorship begins. Why can't Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook, or any of these other social media outlets have enough faith in humanity to allow people to make their own informed decisions? Boggles my mind how these sites preach freedom of expression yet censor anything they don't agree with.
- jfoutz 15y ago"Slippery slope" is not a rhetorically valid argument. (just sayn') I agree with you, it's awfully two faced of the popular organizations. Historically, if you really wanted freedom of speech, you pretty much had to own the printing press. I think the same thing is largely true now. You gotta own the server that hosts the blog. no one out there will protect you.
- pjscott 15y agoAre you arguing that setting a precedent of censoring some views Tumblr considers harmful does not make them more likely to extend that to other controversial opinions? Or did you just see the phrase "slippery slope" and assume that any argument containing them must be fallacious?
- jfoutz 15y agoAny argument following the slippery slope form - if you choose to do X then you must choose to do Y is fallacious. You have the choice both before X and before Y. Tumbler may choose to censor other stuff, they will not choose to censor other stuff simply because they chose to censor this. They will censor other stuff because the other stuff is offensive (or not, they still have choices to make). Also, i saw the phrase slippery slope and dismissed that part of the argument. It's meme-ridden fuzzy thinking at best. the "for the greater good" is imho suspect because of the Orwellian emotional ties to big brother. So, i'll say both clauses of your or are true.
- pjscott 15y ago> Any argument following the slippery slope form - if you choose to do X then you must choose to do Y is fallacious. You have the choice both before X and before Y. Well obviously. That's not the form of the argument here, though. The argument is that, once Tumblr gets used to censoring one view they consider harmful, they're more likely to censor others. The claim being made is not one of logical implication, but of conditional probability.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- jfoutz 15y agoI agree with the argument you've laid out here, but i don't see that in the original post.