3 ms·

So... who then gets to have a megaphone?

by xeckr 3y ago

rezmason 3y ago
Generally, the people who get one are: - the ones who buy one - the ones who borrow one - the ones who find one - the ones who make one And if you hurt someone with a megaphone, you should expect to lose it. In other words, a megaphone is just like every other thing on the planet.
sanderjd 3y ago
There are many ways to acquire a megaphone in 2023. Far more than ever before. But it is not one size fits all. The thing that remains the most common thing to do is to petition an established platform with an established reputation to lend you one of theirs, eg. by applying for a job at a media network of some kind, or creating an account under the terms of service of a platform. Another way is to build your own megaphone that only requires abiding by the much looser terms of service of an ISP or the email providers of subscribers or even just the mail system, but these require building your own audience from scratch. And yes, the uber-wealthy can just buy a megaphone outright, which is definitely lame. Most people will fail to acquire a megaphone in any of these ways, which is not surprising. It would be (is...) way too noisy with everyone having a megaphone screaming at one another, trying to be heard above the cacophony.
diob 3y ago
Reminds me of my history teacher in 2008 telling me about the free speech zones that already existed to squash meaningful speech / protest. And regardless, the feds would bus you up and force you to leave cause what are rights. Just literally drop you hundreds of miles away cause what are you gonna do about it.
jasonlotito 3y ago
Everyone has a megaphone already. The better question is: why do you feel it's okay for me to force you to listen to my megaphone?
- xeckr 3y ago
  I will plug my ears if you're just generating noise with it. But if we're in public, especially at a place which ostensibly exists for the purpose of exchanging ideas, then I will begin by assuming that you are trying to make some kind of point, and that you judged that this point is important enough to overcome the embarrassment of shouting through a megaphone to an audience that on average preferred you didn't.
atoav 3y ago
You can give yours to whom you like, I can give mine to whom I like. If you seem reasonable and can talk about your idea of how the world should be without making up things and putting down people, I might just do it. Karl Popper coind the term »paradox of intolerance«. A free society has (in order to remain free) to be intolerant towards intolerant people, otherwise those intolerant people will use the tolerance you give them to abolish the free society and therefore all tolerance. So e.g. I would not give my megaphone to any faction that issues death threats to all their political enemies, especially not if their political enemies are chosen by culture, gender, race, political stance alone. This in my eyes is not only a reasonable stance to take, but one that anybody who knows about the history of democracy around the world will find reasonable as well. No I can assure you that the enemies of the free society also wouldn't give their megaphone to anybody. They just won't be honest about why. They will make up reasons why it is always the person of color, the women, the kid, the gay person, etc. whose books they need to burn. So maybe as a liberal European I don't understand the whole US freedom of speech thing, but if one side decidesnot to give the megaphone to a screaming hateful holocaust denier and the other side literally sweeps school libraries to BURN BOOKS I don't have a hard time deciding which side is worse.
smsm42 3y ago
Good people, obviously. Or, whoever the mob on the closest college campus prefers to.
tootie 3y ago
Whoever grabs it? Nobody has a right to a megaphone.

So... who then gets to have a megaphone?

by xeckr 3y ago

So... who then gets to have a megaphone?

Generally, the people who get one are: - the ones who buy one - the ones who borrow one - the ones who find one - the ones who make one And if you hurt someone with a megaphone, you should expect to lose it. In other words, a megaphone is just like every other thing on the planet.

sanderjd 3y ago

There are many ways to acquire a megaphone in 2023. Far more than ever before. But it is not one size fits all. The thing that remains the most common thing to do is to petition an established platform with an established reputation to lend you one of theirs, eg. by applying for a job at a media network of some kind, or creating an account under the terms of service of a platform. Another way is to build your own megaphone that only requires abiding by the much looser terms of service of an ISP or the email providers of subscribers or even just the mail system, but these require building your own audience from scratch. And yes, the uber-wealthy can just buy a megaphone outright, which is definitely lame. Most people will fail to acquire a megaphone in any of these ways, which is not surprising. It would be (is...) way too noisy with everyone having a megaphone screaming at one another, trying to be heard above the cacophony.

diob 3y ago

Reminds me of my history teacher in 2008 telling me about the free speech zones that already existed to squash meaningful speech / protest. And regardless, the feds would bus you up and force you to leave cause what are rights. Just literally drop you hundreds of miles away cause what are you gonna do about it.

jasonlotito 3y ago

Everyone has a megaphone already. The better question is: why do you feel it's okay for me to force you to listen to my megaphone?

xeckr 3y ago
I will plug my ears if you're just generating noise with it. But if we're in public, especially at a place which ostensibly exists for the purpose of exchanging ideas, then I will begin by assuming that you are trying to make some kind of point, and that you judged that this point is important enough to overcome the embarrassment of shouting through a megaphone to an audience that on average preferred you didn't.

atoav 3y ago

You can give yours to whom you like, I can give mine to whom I like. If you seem reasonable and can talk about your idea of how the world should be without making up things and putting down people, I might just do it. Karl Popper coind the term »paradox of intolerance«. A free society has (in order to remain free) to be intolerant towards intolerant people, otherwise those intolerant people will use the tolerance you give them to abolish the free society and therefore all tolerance. So e.g. I would not give my megaphone to any faction that issues death threats to all their political enemies, especially not if their political enemies are chosen by culture, gender, race, political stance alone. This in my eyes is not only a reasonable stance to take, but one that anybody who knows about the history of democracy around the world will find reasonable as well. No I can assure you that the enemies of the free society also wouldn't give their megaphone to anybody. They just won't be honest about why. They will make up reasons why it is always the person of color, the women, the kid, the gay person, etc. whose books they need to burn. So maybe as a liberal European I don't understand the whole US freedom of speech thing, but if one side decidesnot to give the megaphone to a screaming hateful holocaust denier and the other side literally sweeps school libraries to BURN BOOKS I don't have a hard time deciding which side is worse.

smsm42 3y ago

Good people, obviously. Or, whoever the mob on the closest college campus prefers to.

tootie 3y ago

Whoever grabs it? Nobody has a right to a megaphone.