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Hmm, do I need to re-evaluate my opinion of Tim Robbins? He's about the only name I recognise that I wouldn't have immediately placed in the "giving free speec

Hmm, do I need to re-evaluate my opinion of Tim Robbins? He's about the only name I recognise that I wouldn't have immediately placed in the "giving free speech a bad name" category.

function_seven 3y ago
How do McWhorter, Pinker, or Haidt give free speech a bad name?
- groby_b 3y ago
  Yes.
- ZeroGravitas 3y ago
  Haidt is the guy who tried to officially ban trigger warnings on campus because apparently that kind of speech was anti-free speech.
sctb 3y ago
It took me a minute to parse this comment! I wonder how many names you recognized; it's a big list. Are you suggesting that all these folks are giving free speech a bad name by uttering the wrong kind of speech?
- digging 3y ago
  > Are you suggesting that all these folks are giving free speech a bad name by uttering the wrong kind of speech? I'm not the GP commenter, but I am. There is actually a so-called "wrong speech" or whatever you want to call it. Repressive speech such as open racism - we don't need that shit. Ever. And without it, we may cultivate actual free speech.
  - argiopetech 3y ago
    So, what do you do with the open racists?
    - digging 3y ago
      Censor their racism. Nothing more needs to be done unless that's not enough to prevent them from poisoning the discourse (ie they start attacking people).
      - t0bia_s 3y ago
        Censorship is sign of lack of arguments and typical tool for totalitarian regimes. Also, you make conclusions based on bias. You can be racist and also violence free and vice versa.
        digging 3y ago
        > Also, you make conclusions based on bias. You can be racist and also violence free and vice versa. Actually, I didn't assume they would be violent.
      - argiopetech 3y ago
        So they're free to discuss their beliefs in their home, car, church, coffee shop, and grocery store; but not in the public square or on the radio or via Twitter? How do you prevent the former from overriding your efforts to restrict the latter (word of mouth is the best advertising, after all)? If this censorship is to be absolute, how do you restrict the former? I'm not trying to be facetious or obtuse, I actually don't see how this could work. Speech is a natural right, i.e., I can speak (or not) *any* thoughts irrespective of the presence or permission of government (albeit not without consequences post-hoc). Any attempt to restrict that right proactively must (at least) border on tyrannical, and that's before we even get into how it would be decided which speech is acceptable and which must be censored. After all, even the example subject we're building this conversation around has at least two extant, incompatible definitions.
        3y ago
abtinf 3y ago
> [Tim Robbins] is about the only name I recognise that I wouldn't have immediately placed in the "giving free speech a bad name" category. You think Steven Pinker, Julian Assange, Richard Dawkins, John Cleese, Edward Snowden, Glenn Greenwald, and Ayaan Hirsi Ali “[give] free speech a bad name”?
- digging 3y ago
  By signing this pledge, they may well be. There's no useful discussion of free speech that doesn't acknowledge the need to cultivate free speech by pruning repressive speech. Walled garden and all that.
  - function_seven 3y ago
    Who does the pruning, and what is considered repressive? For purposes of this discussion, let's talk about the origins of Covid-19 and how surgical masks had little effect on the lab-borne virus. Or we can talk about how anti-maskers' rhetoric harmed a vulnerable population, and how discussions of lab-vs-wild distracted us from what should have been our immediate concerns. Should the government talk to Twitter about my statements to that effect? What about forcing vaccinated pupils to share a classroom with unvaccinated peers? Some people will share their (reasonable!) opinion that allowing unvaccinated students presents a hazard to the school population. Others will share their (also reasonable!) opinion that denying education based on vaccination status presents a hazard to the development of our kids. These are examples! I do not want to actually debate Covid 19 shit. Instead, I'm using it as something concrete to get at the larger ideas about speech "cultivation" and "pruning", and who decides what is "repressive". So, who's building the garden walls?
    - hn_acker 3y ago
      > Who does the pruning, and what is considered repressive? Any social media company should be able to prune to whichever degree each company wants to. And the pruning doesn't have to be about whether speech is repressive in X way. It can be as frivolous as "Ban all people who like carrots" to something as serious as "Ban people who think X about Covid". In other words, I personally don't support the Westminster Declaration beyond situations involving government coercion. > For purposes of this discussion, let's talk about the origins of Covid-19 and how surgical masks had little effect on the lab-borne virus. Or we can talk about how anti-maskers' rhetoric harmed a vulnerable population, and how discussions of lab-vs-wild distracted us from what should have been our immediate concerns. > Should the government talk to Twitter about my statements to that effect? "Talk to" is very broad. In my opinion: "Hey, this post might have misinformation" is okay because it's just a heads-up, not a suggestion of an action. By okay, I mean legal under the First Amendment. "We would prefer that you take down the post" is okay because it only suggests an action. "We want you to take down the post, or we will do Y" is not okay because it's coercive. "Take down the post" is not okay because it might have a tone of finality and thus coercion. (I say "might" because determining the tone of a written text is inevitably subjective.) "Should" the government talk to Twitter? Not necessarily, and it depends on the topic. But at the same time, not every kind of moderation-related communication between a social media company and a government should be frowned upon.
AlbertCory 3y ago
If "free speech" doesn't mean "protecting speech I don't like" then it means nothing at all. 60 years ago, it meant "protecting the rights of non-white, non-straight, non-religious people." It could mean that again someday.
- chasing 3y ago
  I believe the people who signed this define "free speech" as "forcing Twitter to promote every dumb thing I say."
  - ertian 3y ago
    What makes you believe that?
    - hotnfresh 3y ago
      That's very nearly the only kind of thing happening that is among their grievances. Most of their issues boil down to "someone else won't promote a thing I want them to" or "someone else said a thing (about a thing another someone said) that I don't like". I'm sensitive to the notion that megacorps have positioned themselves as a replacement for the commons, but to address the issues these folks have without making some really weird speech-policy moves, we'd need to take those same platforms out of the "promoting" game entirely, which would both kill those platforms (no complaints here, let's do it) and make them uninteresting to the people signing declarations like this. Otherwise, we're doing the equivalent of saying "it's not enough that I can hand out home-printed fliers of my op-ed on the street corner—nobody takes them! The NYT must be both compelled to publish them and prohibited from expressing their belief that these are a bunch of nonsense!" I don't think Facebook, Twitter, Google, et c. should be taking on the role of editors, publishers, and promoters without the usual amount of responsibility, but as long as we're allowing that, I don't think it makes sense to force them to promote or publish everything or to editorially frame everything a certain way, which is exactly what these folks want.
      - AlbertCory 3y ago

Hmm, do I need to re-evaluate my opinion of Tim Robbins? He's about the only name I recognise that I wouldn't have immediately placed in the "giving free speech a bad name" category.

function_seven 3y ago

How do McWhorter, Pinker, or Haidt give free speech a bad name?

groby_b 3y ago
Yes.
ZeroGravitas 3y ago
Haidt is the guy who tried to officially ban trigger warnings on campus because apparently that kind of speech was anti-free speech.

sctb 3y ago

It took me a minute to parse this comment! I wonder how many names you recognized; it's a big list. Are you suggesting that all these folks are giving free speech a bad name by uttering the wrong kind of speech?

digging 3y ago
> Are you suggesting that all these folks are giving free speech a bad name by uttering the wrong kind of speech? I'm not the GP commenter, but I am. There is actually a so-called "wrong speech" or whatever you want to call it. Repressive speech such as open racism - we don't need that shit. Ever. And without it, we may cultivate actual free speech.
- argiopetech 3y ago
  So, what do you do with the open racists?
  - digging 3y ago
    Censor their racism. Nothing more needs to be done unless that's not enough to prevent them from poisoning the discourse (ie they start attacking people).
    - t0bia_s 3y ago
      Censorship is sign of lack of arguments and typical tool for totalitarian regimes. Also, you make conclusions based on bias. You can be racist and also violence free and vice versa.
      - digging 3y ago
        > Also, you make conclusions based on bias. You can be racist and also violence free and vice versa. Actually, I didn't assume they would be violent.
    - argiopetech 3y ago
      So they're free to discuss their beliefs in their home, car, church, coffee shop, and grocery store; but not in the public square or on the radio or via Twitter? How do you prevent the former from overriding your efforts to restrict the latter (word of mouth is the best advertising, after all)? If this censorship is to be absolute, how do you restrict the former? I'm not trying to be facetious or obtuse, I actually don't see how this could work. Speech is a natural right, i.e., I can speak (or not) *any* thoughts irrespective of the presence or permission of government (albeit not without consequences post-hoc). Any attempt to restrict that right proactively must (at least) border on tyrannical, and that's before we even get into how it would be decided which speech is acceptable and which must be censored. After all, even the example subject we're building this conversation around has at least two extant, incompatible definitions.
      - 3y ago

abtinf 3y ago

> [Tim Robbins] is about the only name I recognise that I wouldn't have immediately placed in the "giving free speech a bad name" category. You think Steven Pinker, Julian Assange, Richard Dawkins, John Cleese, Edward Snowden, Glenn Greenwald, and Ayaan Hirsi Ali “[give] free speech a bad name”?

digging 3y ago
By signing this pledge, they may well be. There's no useful discussion of free speech that doesn't acknowledge the need to cultivate free speech by pruning repressive speech. Walled garden and all that.
- function_seven 3y ago
  Who does the pruning, and what is considered repressive? For purposes of this discussion, let's talk about the origins of Covid-19 and how surgical masks had little effect on the lab-borne virus. Or we can talk about how anti-maskers' rhetoric harmed a vulnerable population, and how discussions of lab-vs-wild distracted us from what should have been our immediate concerns. Should the government talk to Twitter about my statements to that effect? What about forcing vaccinated pupils to share a classroom with unvaccinated peers? Some people will share their (reasonable!) opinion that allowing unvaccinated students presents a hazard to the school population. Others will share their (also reasonable!) opinion that denying education based on vaccination status presents a hazard to the development of our kids. These are examples! I do not want to actually debate Covid 19 shit. Instead, I'm using it as something concrete to get at the larger ideas about speech "cultivation" and "pruning", and who decides what is "repressive". So, who's building the garden walls?
  - hn_acker 3y ago
    > Who does the pruning, and what is considered repressive? Any social media company should be able to prune to whichever degree each company wants to. And the pruning doesn't have to be about whether speech is repressive in X way. It can be as frivolous as "Ban all people who like carrots" to something as serious as "Ban people who think X about Covid". In other words, I personally don't support the Westminster Declaration beyond situations involving government coercion. > For purposes of this discussion, let's talk about the origins of Covid-19 and how surgical masks had little effect on the lab-borne virus. Or we can talk about how anti-maskers' rhetoric harmed a vulnerable population, and how discussions of lab-vs-wild distracted us from what should have been our immediate concerns. > Should the government talk to Twitter about my statements to that effect? "Talk to" is very broad. In my opinion: "Hey, this post might have misinformation" is okay because it's just a heads-up, not a suggestion of an action. By okay, I mean legal under the First Amendment. "We would prefer that you take down the post" is okay because it only suggests an action. "We want you to take down the post, or we will do Y" is not okay because it's coercive. "Take down the post" is not okay because it might have a tone of finality and thus coercion. (I say "might" because determining the tone of a written text is inevitably subjective.) "Should" the government talk to Twitter? Not necessarily, and it depends on the topic. But at the same time, not every kind of moderation-related communication between a social media company and a government should be frowned upon.

AlbertCory 3y ago

If "free speech" doesn't mean "protecting speech I don't like" then it means nothing at all. 60 years ago, it meant "protecting the rights of non-white, non-straight, non-religious people." It could mean that again someday.

chasing 3y ago
I believe the people who signed this define "free speech" as "forcing Twitter to promote every dumb thing I say."
- ertian 3y ago
  What makes you believe that?
  - hotnfresh 3y ago
    That's very nearly the only kind of thing happening that is among their grievances. Most of their issues boil down to "someone else won't promote a thing I want them to" or "someone else said a thing (about a thing another someone said) that I don't like". I'm sensitive to the notion that megacorps have positioned themselves as a replacement for the commons, but to address the issues these folks have without making some really weird speech-policy moves, we'd need to take those same platforms out of the "promoting" game entirely, which would both kill those platforms (no complaints here, let's do it) and make them uninteresting to the people signing declarations like this. Otherwise, we're doing the equivalent of saying "it's not enough that I can hand out home-printed fliers of my op-ed on the street corner—nobody takes them! The NYT must be both compelled to publish them and prohibited from expressing their belief that these are a bunch of nonsense!" I don't think Facebook, Twitter, Google, et c. should be taking on the role of editors, publishers, and promoters without the usual amount of responsibility, but as long as we're allowing that, I don't think it makes sense to force them to promote or publish everything or to editorially frame everything a certain way, which is exactly what these folks want.
    - AlbertCory 3y ago