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You'll notice he has not banned them from X. Free speech does not come without taking legal responsibility for that speech.

vaidhy 3y ago
The same holds true for the other side, right? Everyone's speech has consequences and only some can afford to silence others through the power of money, law, personality or just being an asshole.
- atoav 3y ago
  Jup. If everybody is allowed to say whatever they want, the side with the sticks will use it to threaten those with slightly less sticks into silence. Which ironically means that collectively speech will be more free if you prohibit certain types of it for all. A free society doesn't strictly have to tolerate anti-free-society positions like those of ISIS terrorists or neo-nazis — some (including Karl Popper) would say that a free society that wants to stay free, has a duty to be intolerant towards the intolerant. Free speech, US-style was never about freedom, it was always about who wields the stick.
  - vacuity 3y ago
    Frankly, if the society is so fragmented that the court of public opinion doesn't get genuine neo-Nazis laughed out of town, I don't think the primary issue is whether Xitter (I like that term LOL) or other platforms strictly uphold free speech. I think we'd better fix the people first, either the neo-Nazis or everyone else, so that they don't have a foothold on the Internet or in ways that matter.
    - atoav 3y ago
      The problem with the current state of society is that we don't know whether this is normal or not. We never had a society, ever, that had something like the internet. So I think it is very likely that applying all the old ideas to a new world will not get us far. But yeah, in the end having people that care enough to do something is always a precondition for keeping a society free.
  - pauldenton 3y ago
    [dead]
- somenameforme 3y ago
  I'm not sure there is an other side on this? There are a limited handful of legal exceptions to free speech including for unlawful or criminal acts such as defamation, libel, and fraud. I think relatively few people would oppose strengthening these. Where people diverge is when people want to censor, hurt and ideally destroy people who make unpopular but otherwise completely kosher comments. For instance Martin Kulldorff [1] and Jay Bhattacharya [2] are a couple of people who were censored/shadowbanned on old Twitter for expressing opinions about the best way to approach COVID, that were different than the 'official opinion.' One is a Harvard biostatistician, the other is professor of medicine at Stanford. In general I think anybody should be able to express their opinion, but we live in a society now where even the most qualified cannot freely express themselves when their opinion runs contrary to whatever the official narrative of a time is. That's highly dysfunctional for any society, but words cannot express how stupid this is in a society where freedom of speech has been held as a fundamental value for centuries. And the biggest threat is not even the overt censorship, but the self censorship that's the endgame goal of censorship. You make an example out of a handful of people, to ensure the other millions keep their mouths shut, in an effort to try to make opinions that made be otherwise widely held, look fringe. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Kulldorff https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Kulldorff [2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay_Bhattacharya https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay_Bhattacharya
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - vaidhy 3y ago
    I do not know if you will see this reply.. but you are 100% correct. There is a price to pay to social cohesion and I am not sure if I can draw the line correctly. Let us get a few strawman arguments out - freedom of speech is not a fundamental value for centuries. Like all other things, it is an evolving principle and what was true a few decades ago might no longer be kosher. People who are part of LGBTQ community had to self censor themselves for multiple centuries. Victims of sexual harassment had to self censor themselves. Being a free mason means you cannot talk about it public. As a society, we make rules and norms all the time about what is acceptable and what is not. Unfortunately, we are in midst of a massive cultural change and you can see its effects across all of the society. Eventually, one group will die out and we will have peace of mind again :)

vaidhy 3y ago

The same holds true for the other side, right? Everyone's speech has consequences and only some can afford to silence others through the power of money, law, personality or just being an asshole.

atoav 3y ago
Jup. If everybody is allowed to say whatever they want, the side with the sticks will use it to threaten those with slightly less sticks into silence. Which ironically means that collectively speech will be more free if you prohibit certain types of it for all. A free society doesn't strictly have to tolerate anti-free-society positions like those of ISIS terrorists or neo-nazis — some (including Karl Popper) would say that a free society that wants to stay free, has a duty to be intolerant towards the intolerant. Free speech, US-style was never about freedom, it was always about who wields the stick.
- vacuity 3y ago
  Frankly, if the society is so fragmented that the court of public opinion doesn't get genuine neo-Nazis laughed out of town, I don't think the primary issue is whether Xitter (I like that term LOL) or other platforms strictly uphold free speech. I think we'd better fix the people first, either the neo-Nazis or everyone else, so that they don't have a foothold on the Internet or in ways that matter.
  - atoav 3y ago
    The problem with the current state of society is that we don't know whether this is normal or not. We never had a society, ever, that had something like the internet. So I think it is very likely that applying all the old ideas to a new world will not get us far. But yeah, in the end having people that care enough to do something is always a precondition for keeping a society free.
- pauldenton 3y ago
  [dead]
somenameforme 3y ago
I'm not sure there is an other side on this? There are a limited handful of legal exceptions to free speech including for unlawful or criminal acts such as defamation, libel, and fraud. I think relatively few people would oppose strengthening these. Where people diverge is when people want to censor, hurt and ideally destroy people who make unpopular but otherwise completely kosher comments. For instance Martin Kulldorff [1] and Jay Bhattacharya [2] are a couple of people who were censored/shadowbanned on old Twitter for expressing opinions about the best way to approach COVID, that were different than the 'official opinion.' One is a Harvard biostatistician, the other is professor of medicine at Stanford. In general I think anybody should be able to express their opinion, but we live in a society now where even the most qualified cannot freely express themselves when their opinion runs contrary to whatever the official narrative of a time is. That's highly dysfunctional for any society, but words cannot express how stupid this is in a society where freedom of speech has been held as a fundamental value for centuries. And the biggest threat is not even the overt censorship, but the self censorship that's the endgame goal of censorship. You make an example out of a handful of people, to ensure the other millions keep their mouths shut, in an effort to try to make opinions that made be otherwise widely held, look fringe. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Kulldorff https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Kulldorff [2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay_Bhattacharya https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay_Bhattacharya
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- vaidhy 3y ago
  I do not know if you will see this reply.. but you are 100% correct. There is a price to pay to social cohesion and I am not sure if I can draw the line correctly. Let us get a few strawman arguments out - freedom of speech is not a fundamental value for centuries. Like all other things, it is an evolving principle and what was true a few decades ago might no longer be kosher. People who are part of LGBTQ community had to self censor themselves for multiple centuries. Victims of sexual harassment had to self censor themselves. Being a free mason means you cannot talk about it public. As a society, we make rules and norms all the time about what is acceptable and what is not. Unfortunately, we are in midst of a massive cultural change and you can see its effects across all of the society. Eventually, one group will die out and we will have peace of mind again :)