5 ms·

Censorship from one side or the other is never the answer.

by 4v0v 3y ago

barry-cotter 3y ago
No, censorship can totally be the answer to getting people to stop saying things you don’t want them to say if you don’t have any commitment to free speech. See how Tucker Max or Milo Yiannopolous are no longer culturally relevant. Censorship works.
- throwaway29812 3y ago
  I would argue it's more about eliminating bad faith actors from an otherwise healthy discussion. If you aren't arguing to make a point, just to get a reaction, you have no right to a platform.
- flangola7 3y ago
  If I can find it again there's a really great video explaining how, to have free speech, you must restrict some speech. Because bad actors use speech and claims om they are "defending free speech!" in bad faith as a weapon to further their ends, and once they're in a position of power will shameless drop the pretenses and restrict any speech that doesn't entrench their position.
  - beefpies 3y ago
    Here's a video on the subject: Debate and Deplatforming https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFAYN6oWyIo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFAYN6oWyIo And it's sequel: Why Deplatforming Works (And Why it Doesn't) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6r5C-G0VrjI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6r5C-G0VrjI
  - ceejayoz 3y ago
    Known as the paradox of tolerance. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
    - dsr_ 3y ago
      If you stop treating it as a moral commandment and instead consider it a treaty which allows civilization to exist, it becomes obvious that it doesn't apply to those who won't remain bound by it. It's not a paradox. Tolerance is for all points of view that will allow the discussion to continue.
      - strken 3y ago
        I trace tolerance in general back to the religious tolerance introduced by the Peace of Westphalia, and the centuries of religious war that preceded it. It obviously goes much further back, but that's the archetypical example for me. Seen in this light, tolerance is somewhere between symbiosis and mutually assured destruction, and much less wishy-washy than everyone thinks it is.
  - mcpackieh 3y ago
    > If I can find it again there's a really great video explaining how, to have free speech, you must restrict some speech. It's nonsense. Constitutional governments with checks and balances can and do hold up to criticisms against them, even speech advocating against free speech. The paradox doesn't exist because the premise of the paradox, that tolerance of the intolerant inevitably results in the victory of the intolerant, isn't true.
    - krapp 3y ago
      >The paradox doesn't exist because the premise of the paradox, that tolerance of the intolerant inevitably results in the victory of the intolerant, isn't true. The paradox doesn't apply to actors operating in good faith who simply disagree, but those whose intolerance extends to authoritarianism and violence in oppressing the free speech of their opponents, such as the Nazi regime that insipired it, and its truth seems self-evident. You'll have to explain to me how greater tolerance of the Nazis would have resulted in a better outcome for anyone (besides the Nazis) than intolerance of them in order to disprove the premise.
      - mcpackieh 3y ago
        In America it is legal to advocate for Nazism. This is legal and simultaneously a non-threat because our system of checks and balances prevents them from overthrowing the government. They are not denied their first amendment rights, and yet they're abject losers. The US government is simultaneously tolerant of them and not threatened by them. The supposed paradox of intolerance says that silencing people who would silence you is the only way to prevent yourself from being silenced, but this is demonstrably not true.
        Dan_Sylveste 3y ago
        We can see this so clearly on reddit. They have eliminated 100% of conservative voices from the platform, as a result it's become a haven for leftist extremists who now openly and repeatedly advocate for moving 'beyond electoralism,' the meaning of which is well understood.
- zoklet-enjoyer 3y ago
  I don't know about Milo, but after looking at Wikipedia, it looks like Tucker grew up and so did his former audience.
  - ceejayoz 3y ago
    Jury’s still out for a while, but Carlson’s being kicked out of Fox recently has been a big hit so far. Latest book sold 3k copies: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/aug/15/tucker-carlson-biography-chadwick-moore https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/aug/15/tucker-carlson...
    - astrange 3y ago
      Tucker Max, not Carlson. He was a pick up artist/bro influencer.
- gmerc 3y ago
  You are comparing getting fired for costing your network billions by lying about elections and smearing, without substance, a company with getting silenced for your sexuality Nice.
jacquesm 3y ago
This goes well beyond just censorship.
- ajross 3y ago
  No, this is just censorship. The government showed up and told her to stop saying stuff, so she did. The problem is that the word has been diluted in contemporary usage. Almost everything that people call "censorship" in the discourse mostly amounts to "People disagree with me and I don't liek that", or occasionally "I got banned on <service A> so I'm yelling about it on <service B>". This is what actual censorship looks like.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - jacquesm 3y ago
    "I got my wings clipped and they weren't gentle about it" "I can leave but Kaidi can't" "In fact, one of the latest turns is the Beijing LGBT Center's closure by the Chinese government in May of this year. " And many other useful bits of information in the article. Censorship is when you send a message from jail and someone elides stuff they don't want you to talk about. It doesn't involve goons visiting you, travel restrictions and wholesale restrictions on sizeable chunks of the population in terms of education or association.
    - cwkoss 3y ago
      You are wrong. Having a gun pointed at you isn't nonviolent just because the trigger wasn't pulled. Threatening someone to make them censor themselves is a means of censorship.
      - jacquesm 3y ago
        I said 'it goes beyond censorship', that means that censorship is a part of it but that it goes well beyond that point. Here is the dictionary definition: "the suppression or prohibition of any parts of books, films, news, etc. that are considered obscene, politically unacceptable, or a threat to security." If we follow your logic then killing someone or jailing or intimidating them is just censorship. But the bar for what is censorship is much lower than that. So if the bar for censorship is met by just targeting the media (for instance: youtube, to tell them to pull the account and not to let her back in) then that would be censorship and it wouldn't require threats of harm or restrictions on movement. That's active and possibly violent intimidation. Xi's government gets a free pass from the West because (1) we like the goodies and (2) he's not as bad as some of his predecessors. But meanwhile he's a thug and his government is acting in very thuggish ways to achieve their goals and the casualness with which censorship escalates into other forms of abuse is telling. And that's why we have different names for those other abuses. Those abuses are not there in the service of censorship, censorship is just one of the elements from a palette of abuses that a state can visit on a person. More telling is how apparently a fragment of the HN audience insists they see nothing more than the control of information. Trust me on this: if your internet connection is severed and/or your online writings are officially erased that's bad enough, having goons come to your house, threaten you and threaten your significant other that's another level altogether. Censorship doesn't require guns, does not require goons and in general doesn't have a prerequisite of violence. But threats of harm, or being sent to a 'reeducation camp' (I hate that term) especially in a country where people tend to just disappear aim to influence not just your writings and your media expression but your general behavior and serve to cow an individual completely, apparently successful. So censorship is only a sub-goal, and a minor one at that. This is all about behavior and coercion, hence the travel restrictions and targeting of groups of individuals.

Censorship from one side or the other is never the answer.

by 4v0v 3y ago

Censorship from one side or the other is never the answer.

No, censorship can totally be the answer to getting people to stop saying things you don’t want them to say if you don’t have any commitment to free speech. See how Tucker Max or Milo Yiannopolous are no longer culturally relevant. Censorship works.

throwaway29812 3y ago
I would argue it's more about eliminating bad faith actors from an otherwise healthy discussion. If you aren't arguing to make a point, just to get a reaction, you have no right to a platform.
flangola7 3y ago
If I can find it again there's a really great video explaining how, to have free speech, you must restrict some speech. Because bad actors use speech and claims om they are "defending free speech!" in bad faith as a weapon to further their ends, and once they're in a position of power will shameless drop the pretenses and restrict any speech that doesn't entrench their position.
- beefpies 3y ago
  Here's a video on the subject: Debate and Deplatforming https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFAYN6oWyIo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFAYN6oWyIo And it's sequel: Why Deplatforming Works (And Why it Doesn't) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6r5C-G0VrjI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6r5C-G0VrjI
- ceejayoz 3y ago
  Known as the paradox of tolerance. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
  - dsr_ 3y ago
    If you stop treating it as a moral commandment and instead consider it a treaty which allows civilization to exist, it becomes obvious that it doesn't apply to those who won't remain bound by it. It's not a paradox. Tolerance is for all points of view that will allow the discussion to continue.
    - strken 3y ago
      I trace tolerance in general back to the religious tolerance introduced by the Peace of Westphalia, and the centuries of religious war that preceded it. It obviously goes much further back, but that's the archetypical example for me. Seen in this light, tolerance is somewhere between symbiosis and mutually assured destruction, and much less wishy-washy than everyone thinks it is.
- mcpackieh 3y ago
  > If I can find it again there's a really great video explaining how, to have free speech, you must restrict some speech. It's nonsense. Constitutional governments with checks and balances can and do hold up to criticisms against them, even speech advocating against free speech. The paradox doesn't exist because the premise of the paradox, that tolerance of the intolerant inevitably results in the victory of the intolerant, isn't true.
  - krapp 3y ago
    >The paradox doesn't exist because the premise of the paradox, that tolerance of the intolerant inevitably results in the victory of the intolerant, isn't true. The paradox doesn't apply to actors operating in good faith who simply disagree, but those whose intolerance extends to authoritarianism and violence in oppressing the free speech of their opponents, such as the Nazi regime that insipired it, and its truth seems self-evident. You'll have to explain to me how greater tolerance of the Nazis would have resulted in a better outcome for anyone (besides the Nazis) than intolerance of them in order to disprove the premise.
    - mcpackieh 3y ago
      In America it is legal to advocate for Nazism. This is legal and simultaneously a non-threat because our system of checks and balances prevents them from overthrowing the government. They are not denied their first amendment rights, and yet they're abject losers. The US government is simultaneously tolerant of them and not threatened by them. The supposed paradox of intolerance says that silencing people who would silence you is the only way to prevent yourself from being silenced, but this is demonstrably not true.
      - Dan_Sylveste 3y ago
        We can see this so clearly on reddit. They have eliminated 100% of conservative voices from the platform, as a result it's become a haven for leftist extremists who now openly and repeatedly advocate for moving 'beyond electoralism,' the meaning of which is well understood.
zoklet-enjoyer 3y ago
I don't know about Milo, but after looking at Wikipedia, it looks like Tucker grew up and so did his former audience.
- ceejayoz 3y ago
  Jury’s still out for a while, but Carlson’s being kicked out of Fox recently has been a big hit so far. Latest book sold 3k copies: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/aug/15/tucker-carlson-biography-chadwick-moore https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/aug/15/tucker-carlson...
  - astrange 3y ago
    Tucker Max, not Carlson. He was a pick up artist/bro influencer.
gmerc 3y ago
You are comparing getting fired for costing your network billions by lying about elections and smearing, without substance, a company with getting silenced for your sexuality Nice.

jacquesm 3y ago

This goes well beyond just censorship.

ajross 3y ago
No, this is just censorship. The government showed up and told her to stop saying stuff, so she did. The problem is that the word has been diluted in contemporary usage. Almost everything that people call "censorship" in the discourse mostly amounts to "People disagree with me and I don't liek that", or occasionally "I got banned on <service A> so I'm yelling about it on <service B>". This is what actual censorship looks like.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- jacquesm 3y ago
  "I got my wings clipped and they weren't gentle about it" "I can leave but Kaidi can't" "In fact, one of the latest turns is the Beijing LGBT Center's closure by the Chinese government in May of this year. " And many other useful bits of information in the article. Censorship is when you send a message from jail and someone elides stuff they don't want you to talk about. It doesn't involve goons visiting you, travel restrictions and wholesale restrictions on sizeable chunks of the population in terms of education or association.
  - cwkoss 3y ago
    You are wrong. Having a gun pointed at you isn't nonviolent just because the trigger wasn't pulled. Threatening someone to make them censor themselves is a means of censorship.
    - jacquesm 3y ago
      I said 'it goes beyond censorship', that means that censorship is a part of it but that it goes well beyond that point. Here is the dictionary definition: "the suppression or prohibition of any parts of books, films, news, etc. that are considered obscene, politically unacceptable, or a threat to security." If we follow your logic then killing someone or jailing or intimidating them is just censorship. But the bar for what is censorship is much lower than that. So if the bar for censorship is met by just targeting the media (for instance: youtube, to tell them to pull the account and not to let her back in) then that would be censorship and it wouldn't require threats of harm or restrictions on movement. That's active and possibly violent intimidation. Xi's government gets a free pass from the West because (1) we like the goodies and (2) he's not as bad as some of his predecessors. But meanwhile he's a thug and his government is acting in very thuggish ways to achieve their goals and the casualness with which censorship escalates into other forms of abuse is telling. And that's why we have different names for those other abuses. Those abuses are not there in the service of censorship, censorship is just one of the elements from a palette of abuses that a state can visit on a person. More telling is how apparently a fragment of the HN audience insists they see nothing more than the control of information. Trust me on this: if your internet connection is severed and/or your online writings are officially erased that's bad enough, having goons come to your house, threaten you and threaten your significant other that's another level altogether. Censorship doesn't require guns, does not require goons and in general doesn't have a prerequisite of violence. But threats of harm, or being sent to a 'reeducation camp' (I hate that term) especially in a country where people tend to just disappear aim to influence not just your writings and your media expression but your general behavior and serve to cow an individual completely, apparently successful. So censorship is only a sub-goal, and a minor one at that. This is all about behavior and coercion, hence the travel restrictions and targeting of groups of individuals.